Thomas P.M. Barnett: Iranian Nukes, Drone Warfare and China, and Lots More
http://www.wikistrat.com/geopolitical-analysis/ask-wikistrats-chief-analyst-dr-thomas-p-m-barnett/
Always a stimulating read, and he's a Democrat!
Q: Timothy Kelly- Dr. Barnett, how do you think nuclear proliferation will play out in the Middle East?
A: I think the Obama Administrations oil-focused sanctions will put immense pressure on the Iranian regime to cave in on the nuke question, possibly to the point of striking out in some manner that Israel and perhaps the U.S. can use as a pretext for launching substantial strikes against Irans nuclear facilities. But if I had to bet, I would lay money on Israel striking first for its own reasons versus Tehran providing the excuse. Iran has always struck me as incredibly aware of which line-crossing activities will elicit direct military responses, and, much in the vein of WSs recent simulation on this subject, I think Tehran knows well that it needs to avoid any genuine threat to global oil markets lest it trigger an all-in military response from the United States.
So I think Irans really stuck, as it were, and will likely have to suffer a beat-down from Israel sometime in the next 24 months. I think it can take that licking and keep on ticking in terms of its nuclear weaponization goals, which I think are real and in structural terms completely justified by the regions current correlation of forces. So Im still betting on Iran having the Bomb before Obama leaves office in 2017 (yes, I see him winning again in November), and when that happens, I do expect the Saudis to cash in their long-held promise from Pakistan to supply them with their own devices.
(snip)
As for Iran in particular, once that revolutionary regime gets its piece of paper that says, in so many words, the U.S. wont launch a regime-changing military invasion (thanks to its nukes), then I think well see Iran quickly fade as a regional power, much as we saw the USSR rot from within once its great enemy was denied to its leadership as a justification for its internal repression. Accepting the inevitability of Irans achievement of nuclear weaponization will allow us to engineer the same soft kill we managed with the Soviet empire just on a far smaller scale. Iran is doomed as a tilting-at-windmills disruptive player within globalization. The regime has lost the majority of the people already, something that can be measured in myriad ways. Were just talking pathways at this point, and getting nukes wont stop that any more than Moscow having lots of nukes kept the Soviet Union together.
Lots more at the link.