Apparently a lot of famous names have gamed out US diplomatic options over the next year and failed, in the game, to prevent Iran from continuing its enrichment program. Several things strike me about the article.
The two key players [Dore Gold as Israel and Nick Burns as US Pres. Obama]agreed later that the simulation highlighted real tensions that the two countries need to understand better. "The most difficult problem we have is how to restrain Israel," said Burns. "My own view is that we need to play for a long-term solution, avoid a third war in the Greater Middle East and wear down the Iranians over time."I obviously underestimate the difficulty of restraining Israel. Failing to give the US friend-or-foe codes makes Israeli transit across US-controlled airspace impossible. Yet in the game, somehow it seems that Burns was able to accomplish this supposedly difficult feat. Burns likes the idea of Israel having a regional nuclear monopoly. It seems to me that most of the difficulty of "restraining Israel" is the difficulty of accepting Israel losing that monopoly. I'm sure a game has been played either here of elsewhere that involved an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities and I'm sure that did not preserve Israel's nuclear monopoly.
More importantly, Burns' strategy, which I suspect is similar to his preference coming in and likely matches much of the thinking in the White House, is to "wear down the Iranians over time". I don't see much hope of the strategy working, but the US is free to attempt it. If 2010 to 2018 are as difficult for Iran as 1980 to 1988, I expect Iran to come out intact, having successfully broken Israel's nuclear monopoly and having Israel, the rest of the region and the rest of the world come to terms with an Iranian unpreventable nuclear weapons capability.
Gary Sick played Iran.
"We started out thinking we were playing a weak hand, but by the end, everyone was negotiating for us," said the leader of the Iranian team, Columbia University professor Gary Sick. By the December 2010 hypothetical endpoint, Iran had doubled its supply of low-enriched uranium and was pushing ahead with weaponization.That's basically the point that I expect to reach. Iran may be more aggressive than Sick was playing, meaning increasing its LEU production earlier and by a larger extent if sanctions come, even unilateral sanctions from the US. Iran is not, in real life, starting out thinking it is playing a weak hand.
I don't know if there is a better alternative available to the United States, something like a preventable weapons capacity - meaning Iran's centrifuges and stock of LEU are not dispersed and moved to hardened locations but Iran continues to enrich at a lower rate and exports LEU under some pretext to keep its uranium stock beneath some negotiated level in exchange for lifting some sanctions and pulling back support for anti-Iranian organizations.
Long term Iran is going to want a weapons capability that it is confident would survive a US attack, but possibly that outcome could be postponed beyond Obama's terms in office in some agreement. I'm not sure either side would go for something like that though.
I think the result of this game is about what we're going to see. Possibly a little more LEU in Iran than Gary Sick's Iran produced.
