Thoughts on the Israel-Iran war

It looks like the Israel-Iran war may be over. I hope that is the case. War is hell for the people, expensive for countries, and tend to create a ripple of unintended consequences that can be hard to unwind. If Trump has managed to bring that war to a permanent end, then he deserves credit… and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize. 

The war hawks and most political leaders have celebrated this mini-war, and some have mocked the anti-war side as being naïve appeasers, disloyal traitors, alarmist fearmongers, or antisemitic grifters. As one of those “naïve peaceniks”, please allow me to respond.  

I was against the Israel-Iran war from the beginning, and was opposed to the US getting involved. Not because I feared World War. That was always unlikely, since China had no incentive to get actively involved. My position was based on the boring calculation that the expected costs would exceed the expected benefits, and that the government shouldn’t do things that are likely (on balance) to create a worse outcome.

Let’s start from first principles. The history of war and the track record of government does not fill me with confidence that they will quickly and efficiently achieve most of their goals. Military intervention, like most government intervention, may look good in theory but often ends up being costly, ineffective, and counter-productive. 

In this instance, the war party insists that my fears were misguided. They are claiming that the Israeli and US attacks on Iran have been vindicated because they have degraded the Iranian nuclear sites while avoiding an extended war. I agree that we have avoided immediate disaster in this instance, but I think they have drawn the wrong conclusion.

The antiwar argument does not claim that every military attack will end in disaster. Our point is that each military attack has the potential to end in disaster, and the unthinkable costs of that disaster are so large that we should avoid the risk, unless the likely benefits are at least as high. The fact that a specific military campaign may end quickly does not contradict that argument.

If a person playing Russian roulette manages to survive the first pull of the trigger, that does not prove that they were wise to play that game. 

If your young child runs into the middle of traffic and avoids getting hit, that does not prove that your child has used good judgement. 

Likewise, flirting with disaster in the Middle East and avoiding the worst consequences this time does not prove the case for war.  

In each of these cases – the Russian roulette player, the foolhardy child, or the war apologist – just because they avoid disaster on any one occasion, that does not mean they made a good decision. It means they got lucky, but blind luck is not a coherent strategy.  

Having said this, a war apologist who understands probability may argue that the benefits of this war were so high that they justified the risk. This is the right way to think about the situation, but to assess this claim we need to carefully unpack the potential benefits and potential costs.

POTENTIAL BENEFITS OF WAR

The supposed benefit is that Iran is prevented from having a nuclear weapon. This benefit is only relevant if Iran actually was going to get a nuke. Despite a well-oiled media fear campaign, it is a statement of fact that Iran didn’t currently have a nuke, and nor did they have an active nuclear weapons program since they shut down their old weapons program back in 2003. 

Critics have correctly noted that Iran had enriched uranium up to 60%, which is above what they need for nuclear power, and that there was an ongoing risk that Iran might increase their enrichment at any time. Once fully enriched, they could attempt to build a nuclear weapon, which could theoretically be done in only 6-12 months.

These claims are true and worrying, but they lack some important context. To understand how we got here, it’s helpful to run through the recent timeline of events:

1. Under the JCPOA deal in effect from 2015-18, Iran had kept to 3.7% enrichment (needed for nuclear energy), had no enrichment at Fordow, and kept <300kg stockpile, as confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
2. In 2018 the US withdrew from JCPOA and imposed sanctions. In response, Iran enriched to 4.5%, started enriching at Fordow, and exceeded the stockpile limits. This was a symbolic response, since that’s still civilian-use levels of enrichment. Iran said they would reverse these symbolic changes if the US returned to the JCPOA agreement.
3. In 2020 the US assassinated IGRC commander Soleimani. In response, Iran enriched to 20%, which is still well below weapons grade, but a step in that direction. They repeated their willingness to go back to the JCPOA deal.
4. In 2021 the Israelis sabotaged the Iranian Natanz enrichment facility. In response, Iran enriched to 60%, which is still below weapons grade, but getting ever closer. Again, they repeated their willingness to return to the JCPOA deal. 
5. For at least the last four years, Iran has had the capacity to quickly and easily enrich to 90%, which is weapons grade uranium. Thankfully they chose not to do that, but they did get annoyingly repetitive with their constant request for a return to the JCPOA deal.
6. In 2025 the Israelis and the US bombed the Iranian nuclear facilities. In response… well, we don’t really know what comes next, though the Iranians have now banned IAEA inspectors.  

The most honest interpretation of these events is that the Iranians decided to enrich to 60% as a bargaining chip that they could later trade away in order to strike a deal. This tactic clearly didn’t work, and Iran shouldn’t have done it, but it does put the nuclear risk into perspective and shows that Iran was not a clear and present danger. 

If the 60% enrichment was the real concern, it could have been quickly and easily resolved at any time by returning to the JCPOA deal. Self-evidently, the Israelis and the US had some other goal… though the 60% enrichment certainly did help the war hawks justify their desire to attack.

Looking forward, the nuclear risk of Iran depends on two things – (1) their incentive to build and (2) their ability to build a nuclear weapon. The Israeli and US attacks have set back their ability, though it certainly hasn’t ended it, so the potential benefit can only be measured in months or years and not in absolutes. 

On the other hand, it is not obvious whether these attacks have increased or decreased the Iranian desire to have a nuclear weapons program. The lessons of recent geopolitics have shown that rouge nations with nukes such as Pakistan and North Korea can sleep safely knowing they won’t be invaded… while countries that give up their nukes like Libya and Ukraine are in a more precarious position. There is a very real chance that this war has actually increased the medium-term risk of a nuclear Iran.

The benefit of this war depends on how Iran will react next. There are four options:

1. Iran had no intention of getting a nuclear weapon, and they still have no intention of getting a nuclear weapon – so the benefit is zero, and the war justification fails.
2. Iran had no intention of getting a nuclear weapon, but they may now conclude that it’s the only way to prevent being attacked in the future – so the attack was actually counterproductive, and the war justification fails.
3. Iran had and has an intention of someday getting a nuclear weapon, but their capabilities have been set back by some unknown number of months or years – this is the scenario often claimed by the war apologists, but this “benefit” is relatively minor when compared to the costs and risks of war. 
4. Iran had an intention of someday getting a nuclear weapon, but due to the recent attacks they have decided to fall into line with Israeli/US demands – this is the best-case scenario that Trump is hoping for, and it’s good to be hopeful, but without a regime change this scenario seems somewhat fanciful.   

POTENTIAL COSTS OF WAR

To fully prevent the risk of a nuclear Iran would require regime change, which opens up a whole new pandora’s box of danger. The US is the most powerful military in the history of humanity, but they spent 20 years in Afghanistan losing trillions of dollars and thousands of casualties in order to replace the Taliban with the Taliban. They fared little better in Iraq, losing more money and lives to turn it into an Iranian ally and launch ISIS on the world… meanwhile Libya has been turned into a failed state, and Syria is now ruled by Al-Qaeda. Iran is stronger than all of those combined, so we cannot take the task of regime change lightly. 

War is hell and the potential costs of a regime change war in Iran are massive, including:

1. Deaths and injuries, including both the soldiers who join the fight, and the inevitable hundreds of thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire.
2. The financial cost might sound trite when compared with the human cost, but the US is already facing a debt problem that seems unfixable, and trillions more spending may push public finances to the breaking point.
3. The concentration of US power in the Middle East will leave Russia and China with more freedom to pursue their own agendas.
4. While spillover effects into the surrounding countries are impossible to predict, history suggests they can be disastrous, with the real possibility that hostilities could spill into Iraq, Turkey, Afghanistan, or beyond.
5. On the domestic front war is often associated with declining civil liberties, invasion of privacy, public protests, and unpredictable political realignments.
6. Meanwhile, even with a military victory there would still be at least 400kg of 60% enriched uranium floating around somewhere in the hands of some unknown military faction. 

The US military would probably be able to topple the regime given enough time, manpower and money… but they wouldn’t be able to control what came next.

An alternative strategy might be to continue a low-level bombing and sabotage war against Iran without attempting regime change directly. Putting aside the historical failure of bombing campaigns to change governments, such a situation could easily get out of control. If Iran stubbornly refused to surrender, and continued to escalate, the US would have the choice of admitting defeat (so all the costs were for nothing) or continuing to escalate themselves (falling into an “accidental” regime change war). In this instance the world was lucky that Iran chose to only give a token response against the US, and then Trump was wise enough to take the off-ramp, but if a semi-regular bombing and sabotage strategy were to continue we may not remain lucky forever. The natural inertia of war can easily lead to outcomes that nobody wanted at the start. 

THE ALTERNATIVE

When we balance the potential costs and benefits honestly, it is clear that we should be eager to avoid war. There are other options. Returning to a deal similar to JCPOA would limit Iran to only enrich to 3.7% uranium for nuclear power under strict IAEA inspections, while giving up their 60% uranium. This is not a perfect plan since we can’t perfectly know what Iran will attempt to do in the future, but having an agreement and inspections is better than not having them. Given the risks of war, it was (and is) the least-bad option available. 

If there is a way to avoid war, that should always be our first priority. That does not mean being pacifists. Self-defence is both a natural right and a responsibility for free people and free nations, and that requires being prepared. The correct posture is armed neutrality and non-intervention, as exemplified by Switzerland. 

We should celebrate that the Israel-Iran war seems to have ended quickly, but it is crucial we do not learn the wrong lessons. Taking reckless risks and avoiding the worst consequences does not prove that reckless risks are a good idea. War can be necessary, but only when the expected benefits exceed the expected costs… war with Iran doesn’t pass this test, so we should stick with peace.