This brilliant article in today's Guardian by Jenni Russell brings home how New Labour have enormously empowered petty dictatorial bureaucratic authority and poisoned the relationship between adults and children in the public space with suspicion and fear.
'It was never in any election manifesto, and yet it will be one of this government's most disastrous legacies. The transformation of the relationship between adults and children into one of caution, suspicion, confusion and fear will outlast many other Labour reforms. Stealthily, and without open political debate, we have moved from the assumption that all adults have a role in socialising children, towards a new and uncertain world in which contact with children is increasingly regulated by officials and the state. It is a kind of collective madness, in which the boundaries of what we are allowed to do shift too fast and too secretly for us to keep up.
This week a dinner lady at a village primary school was sacked for telling a child's parents that she was sorry their daughter had been attacked in the playground at school. Carol Hill had found seven-year-old Chloe David tied up by her wrists and ankles, surrounded by four boys, having been whipped with a skipping rope across her legs. Hill had rescued the child and taken the boys to the headteacher.
That night she bumped into the parents, who were friends of hers, and offered her sympathy. It instantly became clear that the parents had not been told the story by the school. Their daughter had arrived home traumatised and refusing to talk about what happened, with a note saying only that she had been "hurt in a skipping-rope incident". As soon as the school discovered that Hill had told the parents the truth, she was first suspended for several months, and then sacked by the governors for "breaching pupil confidentiality".
This is a new world, in which schools may effectively lie to parents about traumatic events affecting their children, and yet where the only offence committed is by a person who unwittingly breaks that official secrecy. It is no longer the proper role of adults, even those in a tiny village, where everyone knows everyone else, to discuss the behaviour of children. It is for the state to define who may speak and who must be silent.
To officialdom, this is perfectly acceptable. What happened in Essex isn't an aberration, but evidence of a new philosophy in action. It's one that expects people to act not as concerned adults, but as automatons. Yesterday morning the chief executive of the National Association of Headteachers was asked what he thought Hill should have done in the instant that she realised Chloe's parents were in the dark. His response? That she should have refused to comment, and then followed "proper procedures and processes" within the school if she was unhappy with what the family had been told.'
Read the full article here.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
The media’s MMR hoax
An extract from the excellent Bad Science.
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The media’s MMR hoax
August 30th, 2008
Ben Goldacre
Dr Andrew Wakefield is in front of the General Medical Council on charges of serious professional misconduct, his paper on 12 children with autism and bowel problems is described as “debunked” – although it never supported the conclusions ascribed to it – and journalists have convinced themselves that his £435,643 fee from legal aid proves that his research was flawed. I will now defend the heretic Dr Andrew Wakefield.
The media are fingering the wrong man, and they know who should really take the blame: in MMR, journalists and editors have constructed their greatest hoax to date, and finally demonstrated that they can pose a serious risk to public health. But there are also many unexpected twists to learn from: the health journalists themselves were not at fault, the scale of the bias in the coverage was greater than anybody realised at the time, Leo Blair was a bigger player than Wakefield, and it all happened much later than you think.
...
2002 was in fact the peak of the media coverage, by a very long margin. In 1998 there were only 122 articles on MMR. In 2002 there were 1,257. MMR was the biggest science story that year, the most likely science topic to be written about in opinion or editorial pieces, it produced the longest stories of any science subject, and was also by far the most likely to generate letters to the press, so people were clearly engaging with the issue. MMR was the biggest and most heavily covered science story for years.
It was also covered extremely badly, and largely by amateurs. Less than a third of broadsheet reports in 2002 referred to the overwhelming evidence that MMR is safe, and only 11% mentioned that it is regarded as safe in the 90 other countries in which it is used.
While stories on GM food, or cloning, stood a good chance of being written by specialist science reporters, with stories on MMR their knowledge was deliberately sidelined, and 80% of the coverage was by generalist reporters. Suddenly we were getting comment and advice on complex matters of immunology and epidemiology from Nigella Lawson, Libby Purves, Suzanne Moore and Carol Vorderman, to name only a few. The anti-MMR lobby, meanwhile, developed a reputation for targeting generalist journalists, feeding them stories, and actively avoiding health or science correspondents.
Journalists are used to listening with a critical ear to briefings from press officers, politicians, PR executives, salespeople, lobbyists, celebrities and gossip-mongers, and they generally display a healthy natural scepticism: but in the case of science, generalists don’t have the skills to critically appraise a piece of scientific evidence on its merits. At best, the evidence of these “experts” will only be examined in terms of who they are as people, or perhaps who they have worked for. In the case of MMR, this meant researchers were simply subjected to elaborate smear campaigns.
The actual scientific content of stories was brushed over and replaced with didactic statements from authority figures on either side of the debate, which contributed to a pervasive sense that scientific advice is somehow arbitrary, and predicated upon a social role – the “expert” – rather than on empirical evidence.
Any member of the public would have had very good reason to believe that MMR caused autism, because the media distorted the scientific evidence, reporting selectively on the evidence suggesting that MMR was risky, and repeatedly ignoring the evidence to the contrary. In the case of the PCR data, the genetic fingerprinting information on whether vaccine-strain measles virus could be found in tissue samples of children with autism and bowel problems, this bias was, until a few months ago, quite simply absolute. You will remember from earlier that Wakefield co-authored two scientific papers – known as the “Kawashima paper” and the “O’Leary paper” – claiming to have found such evidence, and received blanket media coverage for them. But you may never even have heard of the papers showing these to be probable false positives.
...
[...]British journalists have done their job extremely well. People make health decisions based on what they read in the newspapers, and MMR uptake has plummeted from 92% to 73%: there can be no doubt that the appalling state of health reporting is now a serious public health issue. We have already seen a mumps epidemic in 2005, and measles cases are at their highest levels for a decade. But these are not the most chilling consequences of their hoax, because the media are now queueing up to blame one man, Wakefield, for their own crimes.
It is madness to imagine that one single man can create a 10-year scare story. It is also dangerous to imply – even in passing – that academics should be policed not to speak their minds, no matter how poorly evidenced their claims. Individuals like Wakefield must be free to have bad ideas. The media created the MMR hoax, and they maintained it diligently for 10 years. Their failure to recognise that fact demonstrates that they have learned nothing, and until they do, journalists and editors will continue to perpetrate the very same crimes, repeatedly, with increasingly grave consequences.
--------
The media’s MMR hoax
August 30th, 2008
Ben Goldacre
Dr Andrew Wakefield is in front of the General Medical Council on charges of serious professional misconduct, his paper on 12 children with autism and bowel problems is described as “debunked” – although it never supported the conclusions ascribed to it – and journalists have convinced themselves that his £435,643 fee from legal aid proves that his research was flawed. I will now defend the heretic Dr Andrew Wakefield.
The media are fingering the wrong man, and they know who should really take the blame: in MMR, journalists and editors have constructed their greatest hoax to date, and finally demonstrated that they can pose a serious risk to public health. But there are also many unexpected twists to learn from: the health journalists themselves were not at fault, the scale of the bias in the coverage was greater than anybody realised at the time, Leo Blair was a bigger player than Wakefield, and it all happened much later than you think.
...
2002 was in fact the peak of the media coverage, by a very long margin. In 1998 there were only 122 articles on MMR. In 2002 there were 1,257. MMR was the biggest science story that year, the most likely science topic to be written about in opinion or editorial pieces, it produced the longest stories of any science subject, and was also by far the most likely to generate letters to the press, so people were clearly engaging with the issue. MMR was the biggest and most heavily covered science story for years.
It was also covered extremely badly, and largely by amateurs. Less than a third of broadsheet reports in 2002 referred to the overwhelming evidence that MMR is safe, and only 11% mentioned that it is regarded as safe in the 90 other countries in which it is used.
While stories on GM food, or cloning, stood a good chance of being written by specialist science reporters, with stories on MMR their knowledge was deliberately sidelined, and 80% of the coverage was by generalist reporters. Suddenly we were getting comment and advice on complex matters of immunology and epidemiology from Nigella Lawson, Libby Purves, Suzanne Moore and Carol Vorderman, to name only a few. The anti-MMR lobby, meanwhile, developed a reputation for targeting generalist journalists, feeding them stories, and actively avoiding health or science correspondents.
Journalists are used to listening with a critical ear to briefings from press officers, politicians, PR executives, salespeople, lobbyists, celebrities and gossip-mongers, and they generally display a healthy natural scepticism: but in the case of science, generalists don’t have the skills to critically appraise a piece of scientific evidence on its merits. At best, the evidence of these “experts” will only be examined in terms of who they are as people, or perhaps who they have worked for. In the case of MMR, this meant researchers were simply subjected to elaborate smear campaigns.
The actual scientific content of stories was brushed over and replaced with didactic statements from authority figures on either side of the debate, which contributed to a pervasive sense that scientific advice is somehow arbitrary, and predicated upon a social role – the “expert” – rather than on empirical evidence.
Any member of the public would have had very good reason to believe that MMR caused autism, because the media distorted the scientific evidence, reporting selectively on the evidence suggesting that MMR was risky, and repeatedly ignoring the evidence to the contrary. In the case of the PCR data, the genetic fingerprinting information on whether vaccine-strain measles virus could be found in tissue samples of children with autism and bowel problems, this bias was, until a few months ago, quite simply absolute. You will remember from earlier that Wakefield co-authored two scientific papers – known as the “Kawashima paper” and the “O’Leary paper” – claiming to have found such evidence, and received blanket media coverage for them. But you may never even have heard of the papers showing these to be probable false positives.
...
[...]British journalists have done their job extremely well. People make health decisions based on what they read in the newspapers, and MMR uptake has plummeted from 92% to 73%: there can be no doubt that the appalling state of health reporting is now a serious public health issue. We have already seen a mumps epidemic in 2005, and measles cases are at their highest levels for a decade. But these are not the most chilling consequences of their hoax, because the media are now queueing up to blame one man, Wakefield, for their own crimes.
It is madness to imagine that one single man can create a 10-year scare story. It is also dangerous to imply – even in passing – that academics should be policed not to speak their minds, no matter how poorly evidenced their claims. Individuals like Wakefield must be free to have bad ideas. The media created the MMR hoax, and they maintained it diligently for 10 years. Their failure to recognise that fact demonstrates that they have learned nothing, and until they do, journalists and editors will continue to perpetrate the very same crimes, repeatedly, with increasingly grave consequences.
Friday, September 04, 2009
Bengal tigers face extinction after China rejects trade curbs
Absolutely fucking appalling.
----
Bengal tigers face extinction after China rejects trade curbs
The biggest threat to the 1,300 Bengal tigers left in the wild is a rampant demand from China for tiger skins, penises, teeth, whiskers and bones. Many of the parts are ground up and drunk as a libido-enhancing tonic. Although China has bred around 4,000 tigers in farms across the country, the bodies of wild tigers are more highly prized.
Tiger poaching and the smuggling of skins is now the second most common crime along the Indo-China border after the trade of narcotics. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), 66 tigers were lost in 2009, with one third being shot by poachers. Two decades ago, there were as many as 15,000 tigers roaming wild in India.
----
Tiger economy
The Times
September 3, 2009
The world’s dwindling tiger colonies are facing yet another threat, this time from China’s plan to sanction the use of lawfully sourced tiger pelts. The fear is that, by loosening its ban on the trading of any tiger parts, China will spur poaching in India, which is home to the largest remaining wild tiger population.
China argues that while it may be host to only 30 or 40 tigers living in the wild, it has 5,000 more that have been reared on farms. Such farms were created as tourist attractions, but few doubt that their owners hope to use the cats to produce health tonics. Tiger bone wine is especially prized as a pick-me-up. Though pricey, it grows ever more affordable the richer the Chinese get.
What worries conservationists is that once any trade in tiger parts gains official blessing, policing the traffic will become difficult. India fears that as demand for tiger products grows, it will find itself becoming an even more attractive target for poachers: breeding tigers in captivity in China looks promising, but it will always cost more than slipping a poacher as little as £5 for a carcass that traffickers then transport to China.
India already detects China’s swelling wealth, and a companion rise in its appetite for traditional medicines, as a factor in the decline of its own tiger numbers. Pressured also by a loss of both habitat and prey, India’s tiger population shrank to just 1,411 in February last year from 3,642 in 2002 and 40,000 or so a century ago. India fears that any further incentive for poaching might drive tigers to extinction in the wild.
However heady their benefits, tiger bone tonics are hardly worth the risk of a beast of such fearful symmetry vanishing for ever from our jungles.
----
Fears for Indian tiger after Chinese green light for sale of animal products
The Times
September 3, 2009
Only about 30 to 40 tigers survive in the wild in China. But about 5,000 live in tiger farms, where they are bred at great speed. Ostensibly the farms are tourist attractions but it is widely believed that their owners hope to use the animals to produce expensive tiger tonics. The income from visitors to the farms would be dwarfed by the profits from sales of tiger bone wine.
India boasts the world’s largest population of tigers in the wild. Indian conservationists believe that the rapid decline in tiger numbers in the country is a direct result of China’s economic rise and the related increase in demand for traditional medicines. The Indian tiger population stood at 1,411 in February last year, according to an official count, down from 3,642 in 2002 and an estimated 40,000 a century ago.
Ashok Kumar, of the Wildlife Trust of India, a conservation organisation, said that any relaxation of Chinese rules would have a catastrophic effect on the Indian tiger population.
“In all our communications with the Chinese we have been led to believe that the ban is firmly in place,” he said. “We were not aware of this document, [which] could have a huge effect on wild tigers in India by stimulating demand for medicines in China.”
----
Bengal tigers face extinction after China rejects trade curbs
The biggest threat to the 1,300 Bengal tigers left in the wild is a rampant demand from China for tiger skins, penises, teeth, whiskers and bones. Many of the parts are ground up and drunk as a libido-enhancing tonic. Although China has bred around 4,000 tigers in farms across the country, the bodies of wild tigers are more highly prized.
Tiger poaching and the smuggling of skins is now the second most common crime along the Indo-China border after the trade of narcotics. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), 66 tigers were lost in 2009, with one third being shot by poachers. Two decades ago, there were as many as 15,000 tigers roaming wild in India.
----
Tiger economy
The Times
September 3, 2009
The world’s dwindling tiger colonies are facing yet another threat, this time from China’s plan to sanction the use of lawfully sourced tiger pelts. The fear is that, by loosening its ban on the trading of any tiger parts, China will spur poaching in India, which is home to the largest remaining wild tiger population.
China argues that while it may be host to only 30 or 40 tigers living in the wild, it has 5,000 more that have been reared on farms. Such farms were created as tourist attractions, but few doubt that their owners hope to use the cats to produce health tonics. Tiger bone wine is especially prized as a pick-me-up. Though pricey, it grows ever more affordable the richer the Chinese get.
What worries conservationists is that once any trade in tiger parts gains official blessing, policing the traffic will become difficult. India fears that as demand for tiger products grows, it will find itself becoming an even more attractive target for poachers: breeding tigers in captivity in China looks promising, but it will always cost more than slipping a poacher as little as £5 for a carcass that traffickers then transport to China.
India already detects China’s swelling wealth, and a companion rise in its appetite for traditional medicines, as a factor in the decline of its own tiger numbers. Pressured also by a loss of both habitat and prey, India’s tiger population shrank to just 1,411 in February last year from 3,642 in 2002 and 40,000 or so a century ago. India fears that any further incentive for poaching might drive tigers to extinction in the wild.
However heady their benefits, tiger bone tonics are hardly worth the risk of a beast of such fearful symmetry vanishing for ever from our jungles.
----
Fears for Indian tiger after Chinese green light for sale of animal products
The Times
September 3, 2009
Only about 30 to 40 tigers survive in the wild in China. But about 5,000 live in tiger farms, where they are bred at great speed. Ostensibly the farms are tourist attractions but it is widely believed that their owners hope to use the animals to produce expensive tiger tonics. The income from visitors to the farms would be dwarfed by the profits from sales of tiger bone wine.
India boasts the world’s largest population of tigers in the wild. Indian conservationists believe that the rapid decline in tiger numbers in the country is a direct result of China’s economic rise and the related increase in demand for traditional medicines. The Indian tiger population stood at 1,411 in February last year, according to an official count, down from 3,642 in 2002 and an estimated 40,000 a century ago.
Ashok Kumar, of the Wildlife Trust of India, a conservation organisation, said that any relaxation of Chinese rules would have a catastrophic effect on the Indian tiger population.
“In all our communications with the Chinese we have been led to believe that the ban is firmly in place,” he said. “We were not aware of this document, [which] could have a huge effect on wild tigers in India by stimulating demand for medicines in China.”
Thursday, September 03, 2009
A nuclear-armed Middle East?
Irritating Blogger restrictions mean I couldn't add this as a comment to the existing Iran thread. Come on guys, sign up to Wordpress!
--------------
A Mad Call to Arms
Shmuel Bar
Standpoint Magazine September 2009
...
The prospect of nuclear (Iran-Israel) or a "polynuclear" Middle East has been debated for some time in academic and policy circles, giving rise to a number of theories regarding the relevance of the lessons of the Cold War to such a situation. Some invoke the experience of the Cold War to argue that a "polynuclear" Middle East can still be averted. Others argue that a nuclear Middle East may even provide a more stable regional order based on the Cold War doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD).
...
[T]he Iranian drive for nuclear weapons was originally motivated by Iraq's WMD capabilities under Saddam Hussein, but continued not only as a strategic response to the perceived threat from the US and Israel but also as an umbrella under which it can achieve what it perceives to be its well-deserved hegemonic status in the region. Nuclear weapons are also seen by Iran as compensation for humiliation at the hands of the West and as a "membership card" to an exclusive club of nuclear powers. These goals will not be served by Iran achieving a threshold status. Domestic pressures also would make it difficult to forego the nuclear programme. The cost of the nuclear project, the prestige of key figures in the regime and the affront to national pride if Iran were to be coerced into giving up the programme will all play a role. This last consideration has become even more important since the 12 June elections and the subsequent challenges of the opposition to the very legitimacy of the regime.
...
Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation may not remain restricted to states. Weapons of mass destruction may filter down to non-state entities in such a scenario in two ways: to any of a plethora of quasi-states with differing levels of control (Kurdistan, Palestine), terrorist organisations (al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad) and rival ethnic groups for whom the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a hostile state would be an incentive to acquire at least a limited WMD capability; and to "proxy" or "surrogate" terrorist groups, such as Hizbollah.
...
The bipolar paradigm of the Cold War differed fundamentally from the complexities of multipolar deterrence that will emerge in the Middle East. And the existence of a credible "second-strike" capability on both sides, which characterised the Cold War from an early stage, will be absent from the Middle East for the foreseeable future.
...
The Cold War was in essence a bilateral struggle between American and Soviet blocs, which simplified the signaling of intentions and prevention of misunderstandings. ... A "polynuclear" Middle East will be fundamentally different and less stable.
...
[T]he essence of MAD was the existence of a credible "secondstrike" capability. ... [F]or the foreseeable future, there will be no balance of MAD in the Middle East.
...
It may be argued that the Middle Eastern regimes are no less rational [than the US/USSR], and therefore will not embark on a course that will lead to their utter destruction.
...
This argument suffers from two key flaws. First, rationality of the players is no guarantee of a rational outcome. As the late US Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, pointed out regarding the Cuban missile crisis: "Kennedy was rational, Khrushchev was rational, Castro was rational, rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies." Second, the ability of the US and Soviet leaderships to make decisions on strategic issues with minimal "irrational" input was much greater than that of the regimes in the Middle East. Strategic decision-making was effectively separated from domestic pressures. Leaders in Washington and Moscow did not have to take into account crowds in their respective capitals demonstrating — as they have in Pakistan — with models of nuclear bombs and calling to use them against historic enemies or with apocalyptic or suicidal traditions. The leaders of both countries identified with their constituent populations enough so that they could be deterred by "counter-population" and "counter-value" threats.
In both these aspects, the Middle East differs. The predominance of religion and honour in Middle Eastern culture sets it apart. The history of the region is replete with chronicles of catastrophes foretold. Leaders have brought their nations to — and beyond — the brink of catastrophe with decisions fuelled by domestic pressures, honour, existential hostility (Arab-Iranian/Sunni-Shia/Arab-Jewish) and religion. Religious and nationalistic fervour have led Arab countries to countless military debacles and regimes in the Middle East have shown a predilection for brinkmanship and for perseverance in conflicts despite rational considerations against such behaviour. A case in point is the continuation of the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s at enormous costs in human lives and material, due to Khomeini's insistence that the elimination of Saddam Hussein was a religious duty and that the war could not end without achieving that goal. Another case in point is the Arab decisions which precipitated the 1967 Israeli-Arab war with the consequences of the loss of Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan. Saddam Hussein continued to brandish weapons he did not have in order not to lose face within the region, even at the price of providing the US and its allies with a casus belli.
There are no grounds to believe that the possession of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change these patterns of behaviour. The level of identification of the regimes and the leaderships with the populations that would bear the brunt of a nuclear exchange also plays a pivotal role in their risk calculus. For many of these leaders, victory or defeat is measured only by their own survival. A sectarian regime is more likely to adopt an après moi le deluge attitude and to engage in nuclear brinkmanship.
The role of religion in this regard certainly defies comparison with either Judaeo-Christian or East Asian culture. Islamic clerics and legal scholars do not refer to the use of WMD as a taboo, as has become the rule in the West. The lack of distinction in Islamic law of war (jihad) between "combatants", who may be killed, and "non-combatants", who may not be harmed, makes utter rejection of the use of such weapons legally untenable. Sunni scholars widely agree that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is at least permissible if not obligatory for Muslim states, on the grounds that they are obliged to maintain parity if not superiority over "the enemy", and to "make the enemies of the ummah tremble". A fatwa by the Saudi Sheikh Nasser bin Hamid al-Fahd in May 2003 concludes that use of such weapons against the US may be seen as "obligatory". The fatwa is based on various verses in the Koran, which allow Muslims to use against their enemies any type of weapons that the enemy possesses, and on the Islamic code of lex talionis.
Shia political-legal thought is not very different. Upon his accession to power in 1979, Khomeini suspended the Shah's nuclear programme, but it was revived while he was still alive on the basis of "expediency" (to counter Iraq's programme). During negotiations with the international community over Tehran's nuclear programme, the Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri released the "news" on 14 September 2005 that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, had issued a verbal fatwa during Friday prayers, declaring the use of nuclear weapons as "haram" — forbidden by Islamic law. However, the wording of Khamanei's purported fatwa was not published by the Office of the Leader and was nowhere to be found in the Iranian media. This raises serious questions over its very existence. This constructive ambiguity leaves the regime the option to justify brandishing and use of nuclear weapons if the occasion arises.
One aspect of the influence of religion is difficult to assess: the role of apocalyptic beliefs and putative direct communication with the deity or his emissary. The claims by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he communicates with the Hidden Imam should be taken seriously. Even if he himself has doubts regarding the real nature of the epiphany that he has experienced, the claim that he has received "extended assurances" from Heaven can seriously constrain his capacity to retreat from potential conflict. The eminent scholar of Middle Eastern culture and politics, Professor Bernard Lewis, has argued that, to a leader or leadership group which fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse, mass destruction would not be a threat but a promise. Muslim belief — both Sunni and Shia — in the appearance of a Mahdi who will fight on the side of Allah's soldiers (if only they show themselves worthy of him by proving that they rely only on divine provenance) heightens the risk. Even without going as far as to impute apocalyptic goals to regional leaders, it may be argued that their domestic posturing in claiming divine protection from any devastating reprisal will feed the potential for escalation.
...
The countries of the Middle East will probably be more predisposed than the Cold War protagonists to brandish their nuclear weapons, not only rhetorically but through nuclear alerts or nuclear tests, leading to escalation. Once one country has taken such measures, the other nuclear countries of the region would probably feel forced to adopt defensive measures, leading to multilateral escalation. However, such multilateral escalation will not be mitigated by Cold War-type hotlines and means of signalling and none of the parties involved will have escalation dominance. This and the absence of a credible second-strike capability may well strengthen the tendency to opt for a first strike.
True, we may safely assume that the leaders and peoples of the Middle East have no desire to be the targets of nuclear blasts. However, the inherent instability of the region and its regimes, the difficulty in managing multilateral nuclear tensions, the weight of religious, emotional and internal pressures and the proclivity of many of the regimes in the region towards military adventurism and brinkmanship do not bode well for the future of this region once it enters the nuclear age.
--------------
A Mad Call to Arms
Shmuel Bar
Standpoint Magazine September 2009
...
The prospect of nuclear (Iran-Israel) or a "polynuclear" Middle East has been debated for some time in academic and policy circles, giving rise to a number of theories regarding the relevance of the lessons of the Cold War to such a situation. Some invoke the experience of the Cold War to argue that a "polynuclear" Middle East can still be averted. Others argue that a nuclear Middle East may even provide a more stable regional order based on the Cold War doctrine of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD).
...
[T]he Iranian drive for nuclear weapons was originally motivated by Iraq's WMD capabilities under Saddam Hussein, but continued not only as a strategic response to the perceived threat from the US and Israel but also as an umbrella under which it can achieve what it perceives to be its well-deserved hegemonic status in the region. Nuclear weapons are also seen by Iran as compensation for humiliation at the hands of the West and as a "membership card" to an exclusive club of nuclear powers. These goals will not be served by Iran achieving a threshold status. Domestic pressures also would make it difficult to forego the nuclear programme. The cost of the nuclear project, the prestige of key figures in the regime and the affront to national pride if Iran were to be coerced into giving up the programme will all play a role. This last consideration has become even more important since the 12 June elections and the subsequent challenges of the opposition to the very legitimacy of the regime.
...
Middle Eastern nuclear proliferation may not remain restricted to states. Weapons of mass destruction may filter down to non-state entities in such a scenario in two ways: to any of a plethora of quasi-states with differing levels of control (Kurdistan, Palestine), terrorist organisations (al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad) and rival ethnic groups for whom the acquisition of nuclear weapons by a hostile state would be an incentive to acquire at least a limited WMD capability; and to "proxy" or "surrogate" terrorist groups, such as Hizbollah.
...
The bipolar paradigm of the Cold War differed fundamentally from the complexities of multipolar deterrence that will emerge in the Middle East. And the existence of a credible "second-strike" capability on both sides, which characterised the Cold War from an early stage, will be absent from the Middle East for the foreseeable future.
...
The Cold War was in essence a bilateral struggle between American and Soviet blocs, which simplified the signaling of intentions and prevention of misunderstandings. ... A "polynuclear" Middle East will be fundamentally different and less stable.
...
[T]he essence of MAD was the existence of a credible "secondstrike" capability. ... [F]or the foreseeable future, there will be no balance of MAD in the Middle East.
...
It may be argued that the Middle Eastern regimes are no less rational [than the US/USSR], and therefore will not embark on a course that will lead to their utter destruction.
...
This argument suffers from two key flaws. First, rationality of the players is no guarantee of a rational outcome. As the late US Secretary of Defence, Robert McNamara, pointed out regarding the Cuban missile crisis: "Kennedy was rational, Khrushchev was rational, Castro was rational, rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies." Second, the ability of the US and Soviet leaderships to make decisions on strategic issues with minimal "irrational" input was much greater than that of the regimes in the Middle East. Strategic decision-making was effectively separated from domestic pressures. Leaders in Washington and Moscow did not have to take into account crowds in their respective capitals demonstrating — as they have in Pakistan — with models of nuclear bombs and calling to use them against historic enemies or with apocalyptic or suicidal traditions. The leaders of both countries identified with their constituent populations enough so that they could be deterred by "counter-population" and "counter-value" threats.
In both these aspects, the Middle East differs. The predominance of religion and honour in Middle Eastern culture sets it apart. The history of the region is replete with chronicles of catastrophes foretold. Leaders have brought their nations to — and beyond — the brink of catastrophe with decisions fuelled by domestic pressures, honour, existential hostility (Arab-Iranian/Sunni-Shia/Arab-Jewish) and religion. Religious and nationalistic fervour have led Arab countries to countless military debacles and regimes in the Middle East have shown a predilection for brinkmanship and for perseverance in conflicts despite rational considerations against such behaviour. A case in point is the continuation of the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980s at enormous costs in human lives and material, due to Khomeini's insistence that the elimination of Saddam Hussein was a religious duty and that the war could not end without achieving that goal. Another case in point is the Arab decisions which precipitated the 1967 Israeli-Arab war with the consequences of the loss of Sinai, the West Bank and the Golan. Saddam Hussein continued to brandish weapons he did not have in order not to lose face within the region, even at the price of providing the US and its allies with a casus belli.
There are no grounds to believe that the possession of nuclear weapons will fundamentally change these patterns of behaviour. The level of identification of the regimes and the leaderships with the populations that would bear the brunt of a nuclear exchange also plays a pivotal role in their risk calculus. For many of these leaders, victory or defeat is measured only by their own survival. A sectarian regime is more likely to adopt an après moi le deluge attitude and to engage in nuclear brinkmanship.
The role of religion in this regard certainly defies comparison with either Judaeo-Christian or East Asian culture. Islamic clerics and legal scholars do not refer to the use of WMD as a taboo, as has become the rule in the West. The lack of distinction in Islamic law of war (jihad) between "combatants", who may be killed, and "non-combatants", who may not be harmed, makes utter rejection of the use of such weapons legally untenable. Sunni scholars widely agree that the acquisition of nuclear weapons is at least permissible if not obligatory for Muslim states, on the grounds that they are obliged to maintain parity if not superiority over "the enemy", and to "make the enemies of the ummah tremble". A fatwa by the Saudi Sheikh Nasser bin Hamid al-Fahd in May 2003 concludes that use of such weapons against the US may be seen as "obligatory". The fatwa is based on various verses in the Koran, which allow Muslims to use against their enemies any type of weapons that the enemy possesses, and on the Islamic code of lex talionis.
Shia political-legal thought is not very different. Upon his accession to power in 1979, Khomeini suspended the Shah's nuclear programme, but it was revived while he was still alive on the basis of "expediency" (to counter Iraq's programme). During negotiations with the international community over Tehran's nuclear programme, the Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri released the "news" on 14 September 2005 that the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, had issued a verbal fatwa during Friday prayers, declaring the use of nuclear weapons as "haram" — forbidden by Islamic law. However, the wording of Khamanei's purported fatwa was not published by the Office of the Leader and was nowhere to be found in the Iranian media. This raises serious questions over its very existence. This constructive ambiguity leaves the regime the option to justify brandishing and use of nuclear weapons if the occasion arises.
One aspect of the influence of religion is difficult to assess: the role of apocalyptic beliefs and putative direct communication with the deity or his emissary. The claims by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that he communicates with the Hidden Imam should be taken seriously. Even if he himself has doubts regarding the real nature of the epiphany that he has experienced, the claim that he has received "extended assurances" from Heaven can seriously constrain his capacity to retreat from potential conflict. The eminent scholar of Middle Eastern culture and politics, Professor Bernard Lewis, has argued that, to a leader or leadership group which fervently believes in the imminence of the apocalypse, mass destruction would not be a threat but a promise. Muslim belief — both Sunni and Shia — in the appearance of a Mahdi who will fight on the side of Allah's soldiers (if only they show themselves worthy of him by proving that they rely only on divine provenance) heightens the risk. Even without going as far as to impute apocalyptic goals to regional leaders, it may be argued that their domestic posturing in claiming divine protection from any devastating reprisal will feed the potential for escalation.
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The countries of the Middle East will probably be more predisposed than the Cold War protagonists to brandish their nuclear weapons, not only rhetorically but through nuclear alerts or nuclear tests, leading to escalation. Once one country has taken such measures, the other nuclear countries of the region would probably feel forced to adopt defensive measures, leading to multilateral escalation. However, such multilateral escalation will not be mitigated by Cold War-type hotlines and means of signalling and none of the parties involved will have escalation dominance. This and the absence of a credible second-strike capability may well strengthen the tendency to opt for a first strike.
True, we may safely assume that the leaders and peoples of the Middle East have no desire to be the targets of nuclear blasts. However, the inherent instability of the region and its regimes, the difficulty in managing multilateral nuclear tensions, the weight of religious, emotional and internal pressures and the proclivity of many of the regimes in the region towards military adventurism and brinkmanship do not bode well for the future of this region once it enters the nuclear age.
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