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Protests in Paris against the raid of the Gaza Flotilla in May 2010 (BBC)

See my post on the Mideast Matrix: Commentary and analysis on Middle East politics, a blog about the Middle East run by Jeremy Pressman, and Brent Sasley. My article “The Worrying Trend: Europeans and Israel” looks at the European reactions and understanding of the difficult domestic situation within Israel and how that situation influences the peace process:

Related Articles:

IDF soldiers should have shot rioting Jewish extremists, MK says (Haaretz)

Commander to Soldiers: Never Fire at Jews (Ynet News)

Right-wing extremists attack IDF Base in West Bank (Jerusalem Post)

Israeli Leaders Sets New Curbs on Settlers for Violence (New York Times)

Barak: Israel Must treat Jewish Extremists like a Terror Group (Haaretz)

Netanyahu and Abbas meet at the White House in September 2010 (Credits: AP)

The academic literature is full of suggestions why resolving violent conflict is difficult and why negotiations fail. Although a clear classification of the various explanations into neat categories would be almost impossible, it is helpful to look at some of the overarching themes that can fit most explanations under their umbrellas. This is especially helpful when we try to apply negotiation theory to practice, particularly when attempting to understand why some negotiation processes succeed while others fail. Why are some conflicts seemingly more intractable than others, and why do negotiations over such conflicts often fail? The conflict management and negotiation literature attribute conflict intractability and negotiation failure to a number of different variables that for the purpose of this analysis can be summarized as having to do with the process, the timing, and the nature of the issues under negotiation.

Those explanations that argue that conflict intractability can be attributed to the negotiation process itself often focus on the failure to move the adversaries from a zero-sum or distributive process to one that is more “win-win” or integrative in character. The failure to change the negotiation dynamics is said to be the consequence of various factors that have to do with the behavioral patterns of the adversaries, including entrapment, posturing, unwillingness to compromise, and the lack of credibility or trust. According to this perspective, indivisibility and intractability arise from how contentious issues are represented by the parties rather than being inherent in the issues themselves.

Explanations that look at the timing as being the major explanation for negotiation failure often stress the conflict dynamics itself as being the key for making negotiation more or less fruitful at various points in a conflict cycle. While this perspective does not discount either the behavioral aspect of the parties, or the nature of the contentious issues as contributing to intractability, it argues that negotiation will have a higher chance to succeed if it is done at the “Ripe Moment,” when the cost of continued stalemate is higher than the price that has to be paid from compromise. The timing approach combines both strategy and tactics, and is particularly useful for third parties and mediators in determining when to apply pressure on the parties in order to raise the cost of an escalation in violence.

The third approach, is the argument that the nature of issues plays an important role in explaining why some conflicts are more difficult to negotiation than others. One of the stronger findings within this research perspective is the growing evidence that territoriality may be one of the most important factors for understanding both conflict incidence and intractability. Various findings show that territorial issues are more conflictual than other types of issues, and that they tend to reach higher levels of violence. Territorial conflicts are also more likely to recur and tend to prompt more frequent crises in rivalries between states. However, territory by itself is not necessarily intractable; logically, if conflicts were simply over where to draw a border on a map, or even over the division of natural resources, even territorial conflicts would be quite simple to resolve. However, in the contemporary world, most territorial conflicts tend to be remnants of larger power struggles, where some national and ethnic groups have lost out and as a consequence suffered humiliation and exile from the territory that they consider their homeland. The most intractable conflicts in the world today—and the ones that tend to be the most long-standing—are the ones that involves disputes over territory that has taken on sacred and symbolic characteristics for the parties involved and where it is impossible to separate territorial attachments from ethnic and national identity.

In such conflicts ethno-territorial attachments are strengthened through a historic process of suffering and strife that feed into the conflict cycle to make stakes indivisible and even absolute. A territorial absolute can be defined as a disputed space that, through myths, symbols and/or spiritual practices or beliefs, has become so intrinsic to the identity of a group that it can only be treated as an indivisible “whole.”

The reasons why negotiations almost always fail to bring an agreement in such conflicts, is because the absolute character of the stake prevents the parties from exercising the flexibility needed in order to produce a formula that can provide even the minimum conditions that would be acceptable for both sides. Traditional negotiation theory that focuses on integrative solutions treats indivisibility more as a challenge than a hurdle, with the idea that divisibility can be added to most conflicts using substitution, exchange, or compensation. For territorial absolutes however, such measures are not possible, because for groups with absolute perceptions about territory often choose to defend the territory with their lives. Absolutes do not have a price that can be negotiated.

The Zone of Agreement (ZOA) between two negotiation parties falls in the intersection of the circles (©Norlen)

The second aspect that adds to the intractability of most conflicts over territorial absolutes comes from the way absolutes were created. Because they were developed over long periods of time and as a response to conflict and strife, conquest and exile, the same exact piece of territory is often regarded as absolute by competing groups. If we take the Palestinians and the Israelis as an example, the conflict is deeply tied to territoriality and both parties claim the same land exclusively, and that land is tied to their national and religious identity. Their interests are in this respect identical and negatively defined based on the exclusion of the ‘other’ from that space. The same rocks and buildings are considered sacred to both sides and are imperative to each side’s national narrative. While the conflict literature shows that the redrawing of borders between warring parties is not difficult in and of itself, it is the inherent value of the territory within those borders that adds to the intractability. Once a disputed territory becomes imbued with ethno-religious attachments, it can no longer be divided through a simple measuring exercise on a map.

When the minimum conditions of the parties do not intersect: No Agreement (© Norlen)

Third parties have a lot to learn in order to become more effective in dealing with conflicts over territorial absolutes. While the timing, the attitude and behavior of the parties, as well as the structure of the conflict, are all essential dimensions for improving the chances of successful negotiation outcomes, absolutes may be essentially immune to most of the already tried and tested methods. It is therefore time that we broaden the horizon and look at how we can accommodate the absolute rather than the absolute accommodating to us. When it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict we have reached a low point when the formula that has traditionally been the basis for talks no longer occupies the space between the minimum conditions acceptable by each party. In other words, the zone of agreement (ZOA) is non-existent. The old formula was based on the idea that two states would be created and that the territory would be divided in order to accommodate the sovereignty of each state. It is becoming increasingly clear that that such a division of territory (at least on a permanent basis) may no longer be achievable. Whether the new formula needs to be a one-state, two-state, or no-state solution is not yet clear. What is clear however, is that the international community and the two parties themselves are going to have to come up with a new creative framework that does a better job at taking the territorial complexities of the conflict into full account.

My Op-Ed, published in the Jerusalem Post today, talks about the need for a new formula to replace the two-state solution. Israel, in its position as the more powerful of the two parties, has a unique opportunity to shape that formula, or to present the Palestinians and the rest of the world with their prefered scenario.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=252884

Related articles

• ‘Status quo unsustainable, Israel, PA must use opportunity’ – Jerusalem Post (jpost.com)

Photo by: REUTERS/Mohamed Abd El-Ghany

A slightly shortened version of of my opinion piece that was published on the EUISS website was published by the Jerusalem Post on December 13th, 2011:
http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?ID=249165&R=R1

Photo: DoD Photo: Newt learning how to drive a STRYKER tank

This is the most worrying, outlandish, absurd, and threatening thing I have read yet about the republican campaign: Newt Gingrich warning against what in nuclear terms is called EMP, short for an electromagnetic pulse, meaning essentially the electromagnetic shock waves that would follow a nuclear detonation high up in the atmosphere somewhere over the American heartland. In Newt Gingrich’s mind this potential doomsday scenario presents Americans with one of the biggest national security threats in its history, as such a blast would possibly disrupt the nation’s electricity grid for weeks or even months. It is, he says, like going aboard the Titanic knowing it’s going to sink and not putting on the lifeboats.

Would such a blast wreak havoc? Sure, it would, although scientists disagree over its secondary effects. Is such a blast likely to happen? Not very likely say the scientists but if it does, the effects can not be predicted. Besides, they add, it really is the concern of yesterday; its threats are “theoretical” and defending against it would be as straight-forward as against any other type of missile attack. However, the threat itself is all that Newt Gingrich needs in order to argue for the pre-emptive destruction of both Iran’s and North Korea’s missile supplies, something that he would prioritize were he the commander in chief.

While the idea and its consequences sound only a bit more plausible than the threat of enemy scientists cloning the dinosaurs to be used to trample lower Manhattan, it leaves us with three observations (or rather, one observation and two questions). First of all, the guy is stuck in the Cold War, enjoying every fear-mongering minute of it. Second, who are those powerful enemies that would be able to carry off such a technologically complicated blast in the outer atmosphere? Third, can someone please trace which high-tech military hardware companies or which power companies are paying for his campaign? Because I suspect that this “threat” may be a prime example of the military industrial complex at work. Beyond attacking North Korea and Iran, Gingrich’s main arguments in preparing for such an attack is indeed to strengthen the country’s electrical grid and its defenses. While such an investment in the electrical infrastructure is indeed badly needed on its own merits, to safeguard it against EMT would require billions of dollars in protective steps. Meanwhile, millions of Americans are homeless, jobless and without healthcare… (you fill in the rest). But no, those things don’t threaten our national security and they are not paying for Newt’s campaign, so they don’t deserve our attention.

One of the best documentaries on the subject (featuring Gingrich himself): http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/missile/

Related articles

• Gingrich’s Electromagnetic Pulse Warning Has Skeptics (nytimes.com)
• Newt Gingrich Struggling For Women’s Vote (huffingtonpost.com)
• Far-Fetched EMP Doomsday Part Of Cain And Gingrich Foreign Policy Platforms (thinkprogress.org)

More than coffee needed for a successful peace process

Many erroneous assumptions are made about the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Process. Only by letting go of these assumptions can Europe and America make any real headway in laying the ground for peace. Tova Norlén examines three of the most frequently misused assumptions.

To read the analysis, click here:

http://www.iss.europa.eu/publications/detail/article/three-things-the-west-continues-to-get-wrong-in-the-peace-process/

Keep Dreaming: Taking religion seri… JPost – Magazine – Opinion.

"Transjordan" was separated from the British of Mandate of Palestine in 1920, preventing further Jewish immigration to the area.

In 2005, when doing research among Israeli national religious settlers most of my interviewees could not come up with a coherent answer when asked what they considered the best practical solution between the Israelis and Palestinians. The problem however, was not because they had never thought about it, but because they considered the question utterly irrelevant. By asking the question, I revealed a leftist secular “bias” which made them suspicious about my intentions and thus unwilling to share with me their real perspective, which was based on ultimate and absolute religious “truth.” When one person finally took some time off from preaching (as a result of my entirely naïve and secular question), he explained that he did not believe that Hashem would allow a continuation of the current outrageous situation for too much longer. It is clear, he said, that redemption is on its way, Jews are flocking to the Biblical territories, a major war seems to be brewing, and the Arabs will be driven out “naturally” as they were in 1967.

Because I was surprised that they had not at least tried to make up a preferable political scenario in order to wage the war against the seculars, I still pressed on, and insisted that he come up with an alternative, should the dreams for the “miraculous” docility and/or disappearance of the Palestinian population by either force or redemption, not pan out within the foreseeable future. A bit sheepishly, he mechanically shared an unconvincing plan of Jordanian nationalism for those Palestinians who would accept to remain inside of Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel promised in the Bible). However, he added, most Palestinians when presented with the option, would chose to leave which would reduce the Palestinian problem to an insignificant minimum. Those who did opt to remain, he explained, would be given “guest status” as foreigners in the Jewish state according to the Biblical tradition. This is nothing new, he noted, as the Jewish people always had aliens among them who respected that only Jews could be the owners of this land. The reason why this option has not worked out yet he said is because of the hostility of the Arab states that have refused to accept the Palestinians as citizens. After all, he added, Palestinians never existed as a separate Arab people before the birth of Israel.

When Israeli politicians and analysts raise the Jordanian option as an alternative to the two-state solution we need to be aware that there are (at least) two different “Jordanian options” and although both are currently un-feasible, it is important to recognize how they differ. Recently, as the Jerusalem Post reported, retired Israeli general Uzi Dayan suggested that because the Oslo Process has essentially failed, Israel should be negotiating with Jordan to accept the West Bank and Gaza as Jordanian provinces. While such an idea is indeed not novel and was long considered the “preferred alternative” for Israelis, it completely ignores the fact that Jordan officially renounced its claims on the West Bank territory in 1987 in response to the PLO acceptance of Israel and the two-state solution (the Gaza Strip was never part of Jordan’s claim). Should that not be enough of a reminder, King Abdullah II promptly warned the Israelis against getting to excited about the idea, by saying, “Jordan will never be a substitute land for anyone […] We should speak loudly and not allow such an idea to remain in the minds of some of us. Jordan is Jordan, and Palestine is Palestine.” Although they may share the same language, those who consider themselves native Jordanians are not Palestinian, but Hashemite. Just like Israel, taking in large territories of Palestinian nationals would thus threaten the demographic balance in Jordan at a time when the rest of the region is undergoing democratic transition and populist uprisings. Thus, while for Israelis it may seem convenient to have the Jordanians inherit the Palestinian problem, such a solution is most likely to be temporary and may even present a greater security risk to Israel in the long-run. However, given the relative trust that exists between Israel and Jordan, Israeli wishful thinking about the Jordanian option is understandable.

Jordanian King Abdullah II

However, while the discussion about the Jordanian option may still be legitimate despite the King’s objections, it needs to be pointed out that this is not what my national religious settler had in mind when he explained “his” Jordanian option. Rather, simply put, his argument is that if Jordan is “declared” the Palestinian homeland, the West Bank population will have no choice but to go there. On Monday, in response to King Abdullah’s warning Isreali MK Aryeh Eldad (National Union) advised the King that he should “declare Jordan the home of the Palestinian nation today, or seek refuge in London, while he is still in control of his own fate.” “Jordan is Palestine” he declared, and “Abdullah knows very well that there is no other justification for Jordan’s existence.” It is this perspective that Eldad recently touted to US Congressional members during a visit to Washington DC. The response among American lawmakers was overwhelmingly positive, he claimed. According to Arutz Sheva, American representatives had “showed great interest in the idea of Jordan providing a homeland for those who identify as Palestinian.” Although the degree to which US members of congress seem to receive advice from Israeli political right-wingers who tout radical racist political ideologies is quite worrying, this is outside the scope of today’s topic. What is more of a concern here is the degree to which sections of the Israeli national religious right are entirely detached from the reality of the political and human situation on the ground. If it is indeed true that a large majority of the Israeli electorate (as my interviewees claimed) accept and support their assertion that redemption is near and that it is legitimate (according to Jewish law) to exile (or transfer) a non-Jewish population from the land they have been living on for generations, we have a huge problem not just for the peace process, but for Israel’s very legitimacy and survival. The frequency at which these options are presented as valid and “lawful” solutions to the conflict by members of the political establishment is increasing and, as a result, for ordinary Israelis who are sick and tired of the ongoing conflict they are beginning to sound like plausible alternatives.

What the settlers are refusing to acknowledge is that the Palestinian problem is not only a “national” problem, but also a territorial problem. The Palestinians do not just want a “home,” they happen to want it in the same place that the settlers envision for themselves. Just as the Jewish people were reluctant to accept the Uganda offer made to them at the sixth Zionist Congress in 1906s, Palestinians are not going to agree to abandon the land of their ancestors and move to a neighboring state, at least not without a fight. Efforts to promote better living conditions among Palestinians so that their birth-rates will fall will not change the fact that Palestinians claim the exact same territory as Israelis as their homeland. Neither will the opposite policies of trying to curtail or reduce Palestinian economic incentives and opportunities so that they leave. The latter would only serve to create a Palestinian brain drain, where all that is left of the population are the uneducated masses who are more susceptible to radical politics. Instead, all those policies will continue to keep Palestinians in political and territorial limbo, increasingly convincing outsiders that the situation resembles the discrimination that took place under South African apartheid.

The fact is that unless the Palestinians are given a tangible territorial arrangement within the territory that they claim as their homeland, they will continue to fight for it. Does that mean that Israel has to give them all the territory they claim, or that they have to allow all the refugees to return? Clearly, at this point, even Palestinians have begun to realize that such demands are not feasible. Does that mean that those who are not allowed back will continue to long back to the cities in Israel from which their ancestors were made refugees? Of course! Just like Jews longing back to their promised land, you cannot take away the desire of Palestinian refugees to go back to those roots, especially since many people were exiled from their homes through violence through no personal fault of their own. Just as Jews have always longed back to the Promised Land so will Palestinians dream of their historic Palestine. Ironically, this fact is a side effect of Israel’s very success. If Israel insists on first “declaring victory” by pushing the Palestinians to recognize Israel’s Jewishness, or by demanding of the Palestinians that they “declare an end to the historic conflict and renounce all claims to the land,” they may find that the Palestinians have won the demographic race before a territorial agreement can be reached.

The national-religious settlers are thus living in a dreamland between biblical delusion and the harsh reality. The Gaza evacuations woke them up to the fact that their biggest enemies may not be the Palestinians, but those within Israel who are willing to challenge and change the status quo and to stop redemption in its track.

Related articles

• Israeli foreign minister: Jordan is not Palestine (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Rising settler violence in West Bank (bbc.co.uk)
• http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?id=237631

Photo/AFP: Ayatollah Ali Khemenei warning Israel and the US against attacking Iran

To try to understand the message coming out of Israel right now with respect to the Iranian nuclear threat is a little bit like trying to interpret the screen of the SETI project: a lot of noise but no clear signal. While battle cries and sable-rattling has been heard from all quarters—including from Israel’s president Shimon Peres—these warning have done little to change the new reality that Israel faces in the Middle East.

ForIsrael, the publication of the IAEA report onIran’s nuclear capabilities changed everything but yet nothing. Israel’s intelligence and defense establishment were quick to point out that the country already possesses much more precise information about the Iranian threat than what was contained in the report. However, one cannot but wonder if Israel’s Iran policy has missed its moment of opportunity. The moment when Israel could stealthily fly a secret mission to knock out a nascent Iranian reactor in one blow without incurring huge costs for itself and its allies, has clearly passed. Even in the best case scenario—using conservative estimates—the risks are likely to far outweigh the temporary benefits. While Israel’s political leadership has gone relatively mum after the report, declaring that the matter is serious and therefore needs to be discussed behind closed doors, the Israeli press and pundits are now feverishly discussing the advantages and disadvantages of the various political and military strategies ahead.

In making these calculations Israel needs to know how far Iran is determined and/or willing to go in carrying out their hostility to the Jewish state. World leaders throughout history who were faced with a similar dilemma customarily chose precaution and always assumed the worst. Thus, mirror imaging has become a useful concept in International Relations, explaining that leaders in wartime often take their own worst thoughts and insecurities and apply them to the other side’s actions. While Western Europeans mostly interpreted Ronald Regan’s Cold War resurgence in the 1970’s as his own personal paranoia, due to the complexity of the US political system (that we will not go into here), American foreign policy is often simplified to the Black/White or “us” vs. “them” perspective. However, while Regan’s paranoia indeed turned out to be partly that, Israel’s situation is a bit different. Israel has first-hand experience of hostility from its neighbor states; in Israel (as one friend explained) if Ahmedi-Nejad says he wants to kill you, you’d better believe him or you may be dead before you have time to change your mind.

It is against this backdrop that it is interesting to consider what Iran will really choose to do and what Israel’s choices are given Iran’s actions. Princeton game theorist and political scientist, Bruce Bueno de Mesquita famously predicted (in a 2009 TED Talk presentation) that Iran’s leaders would make the choice to develop enough weapons-grade plutonium and expertise to build a bomb but would stop once that objective and know-how had been attained. According to the IAEA report Iran has now clearly reached that point, and it seems to me that Professor Bueno de Mesquita should be in for his own personal nail-biter, at the end of which it will be determined whether his most famous and widely publicized prediction of the three last years will hold true. I imagine that he may tell us that predictions may shift when external circumstances change and that Iran’s policies may also be determined by Israel’s actions. What then are Israel’s real choices in confronting Iran?

Out of the policy pundit chatter it seems that Israeli politicians are currently presented with three (although arguably only two are relevant) long-term policy choices. The first option, the creation of a Middle Eastern nuclear-free zone, is for all intents and purposes currently unavailable and, although peaceniks may argue for this vision, most analysts understand that such a regime could only come about after decades of trust and reciprocity or as a result of major regime change in Iran. The second alternative is to use direct force against the Iranian nuclear facilities in order to neutralize the threat and stop the Iranian WMD project in its track. The “use of force” sounds fairly simple and straight forward in reality is not one clear choice but a myriad of smaller difficult decisions that all have a million consequences and costs attached. As we know from recent history, “quick force” usually never succeeds other than in the eyes of the strategists or in glorified historic accounts. The International Relation theorist, Fred Charles Ikle, concluded that the resort to force—or even an escalation of violence—never manages to achieve its desired aims without enormous “unpredicted” costs often neglected by the war hawks. Ironically, Ikle argues, the possible gains from an escalation in violence are always overestimated while the costs are underestimated. The 2003 decision by the US administration to invade Iraq while characteristically refusing to heed those who had more “grounded” opinions seems to prove his point.

What then are the possible costs and consequences of an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities? Most likely, explains Douglas Bloomfield in an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post, the costs would be devastating, not only to Israel and the US, but potentially also to the rest of the region and to the entire world. In all likelihood, Iran would make good on its promise to close the Straits of Hormuz, which bears more than a third of the world’s supply of oil and gas. That would put them into position to target theUS fifth fleet and hit a number of US military and commercial facilities in the Gulf. It would also threaten US efforts to stabilize bothIraqandAfghanistan.Iranwould also not hesitate to attack US-friendly Arab states, further endangering the world’s oil supply and putting financial markets in a tail-spin.  In addition, the danger to Israel from a direct attack by one of Iran’s long-range Shahab missiles can not be underestimated; neither can the danger from more energized terror groups closer to home, such as the Hizbullah and Hamas.

There are also larger and more long-term questions: even if Israel would deem it absolutely necessary to use force, what exactly would they strike, and what will they do the day after? Israel is in no position to occupy a country, and it cannot rely on the US to do so. Most importantly, as Bloomfield also points out, an Israeli strike would provide proof to the Iranians that they were right and that there indeed was justification for building the bomb in the first place. At the most, according to US secretary of defense Leon Panetta, Iran’s nuclear plans would be set back by 2-3 years while solidifying their conviction that nuclear warheads are both desired and required. While we may be hopeful that Iranians will be next in rising up against their leadership, a military attack may instead serve to unify the population behind the government at a time when the Iranian opposition needs to be supported and energized.

But then again, what are the costs for the alternative? What if, as Yossi Melman wrote in Haaretz, the smoking gun is an Iranian nuclear missile? In contrast to the stability of the arms race between the US and the USSR, a nuclearized Middle East presents Israel and the rest of the world with an accutely serious threat. Tzahi Hanegbi, former head of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, points out that the dilemma that Israel faces in this respect is real. If Iran goes nuclear, he argues, Arab states in the region have vowed not to stay behind. Thus, rather than a “nuclear free” zone in the Middle East, we may see a regional scrambling for weapons, reducing Israel’s edge against its neighbors and increasing the risk that those weapons fall into the hands of terrorists or unstable Islamic states.

These scenarios leave Israeli decision makers between a rock and a hard place and it is easy to see why there are those who argue passionately for force, overestimating the perceived benefits and underestimating the costs. Israeli s facing a similar—though arguably much more dangerous and precarious—situation to that of the US vis-à-vis Iraq in 2003. By not taking “early action” and attacking the Natanz facilities three years ago, Israel has “opted” to either begin (or provoke) a regional war with Iran or to live with a changed power-balance in the Middle East and the almost certainty of a Middle East nuclear arms race. Thus, while the IAEA report changed nothing forIsrael, it represents a momentous paradigm shift. Rather than a continued reliance on its own nuclear program as a weapon of last resort against its neighboring Middle Eastern states, Israel will have to refocus its program towards the larger goals of nuclear deterrence. Such a shift will necessitate a new diplomatic agendathat focuses on long-term trust-building, rather tha the more short-term reliance on overwhelming military force.  Skills that Israeli policy makers need to perfect are those needed for political manoeuvring, bargaining and negotiation, rather than that of military brinkmanship.

The Israeli Nuclear Plant in Dimona in Southern Israel, believed to contain a nuclear bomb.

The third option, the “status quo,” may sadly be the wisest and perhaps the only choice Israel has. However, while in strategic terms “status quo” means to do nothing, in nuclear terms it requires a little more, namely the active policy of nuclear deterrence. Israel has arguably enjoyed almost 30 years of military (and nuclear) superiority in the Middle East, which most likely helped in deterring conventional aggression from its neighbors. However, with the new reality emanating from Teheran, International Relations students around the world may have gotten themselves a new test-case of a regional power rivalry. If this is indeed the case, Israel’s military will need to refocus its nuclear capabilities from first-strike capability (being able to strike an opponent first) to second strike capability (being able to absorb, or deflect, a nuclear attack and still have the ability to retaliate), terms that IR students often struggle to comprehend because they seem to belong to a by-gone era of ancient Cold War politics. Unless something drastic happens, this is where Israel is likely to be heading. One may only hope that the chance of regime change in Iran is greater than both of the options presented above.

Professor Bruce Bueno de Mesquita talks about his book on the Daily Show with John Stewart in 2009: http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-september-28-2009/bruce-bueno-de-mesquita?xrs=share_copy