Tag: Iran
No no-brainer
Eric Edelman, Andrew Krepinevich, and Evan Braden Montgomery argue that President Obama should “take out” Iran’s nuclear program:
The closer Iran gets to acquiring nuclear weapons, the fewer options will be available to stop its progress. At the same time, Iran’s incentives to back down will only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold.
This is an argument to be taken seriously, as it is surely also being made inside the United States government. Dismissing it summarily, as commenters on the Foreign Affairs website have done so far, is foolish.
There are two propositions here: 1) fewer options in the future to stop Iran’s progress; 2) Iran’s incentives to back down only decrease as it approaches the nuclear threshold. There are problems with both.
Even after Iran develops and deploys nuclear weapons, we would have the option of striking their key nuclear facilities and as many of their nuclear weapons as we could find. The difficulty with doing this is that it invites a nuclear counter-strike with any surviving weapons, at Israel if not at the U.S. But even if we strike now, we are unlikely to be 100% successful, and we would be giving Iran an enormous incentive to accelerate their nuclear program as best they could with whatever facilities they had remaining. The danger of an Iranian counter-strike might not be immediate, but it would be just as real. This takes us down the road of repeated strikes on Iran. I’d like to discuss the regional consequences of that before assuming it is preferable to strike now.
As for Iran’s incentives, I think it likely they can achieve as much or more of what they want by approaching the nuclear threshold but not going over it, which in effect is what they say they are doing. Having the material and technology to produce nuclear weapons will give Iran regional prestige and clout without necessarily setting off the regional arms race that Edelman, Krepinevich and Montgomery fear. Going over the threshold will not only precipitate nuclear programs by far richer countries, it will also cause the U.S. to target Iran with nuclear weapons (let’s assume Israel already does), vastly increasing Tehran’s uncertainty about what might happen.
Edelman et. al. put the bottom line this way:
Given these trends, the United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or living with a nuclear Iran and the regional fallout.
Even in this formulation, the answer is by no means self-evident. But to imply that there will not be regional fallout from using military force is clearly wrong. I might reformulate it this way:
The United States faces the difficult decision of using military force soon and repeatedly to prevent Iran from going nuclear, or continuing to ratchet up sanctions, cyberattacks and other efforts in convince the Iranians that crossing the nuclear threshold will be injurious and not beneficial to their national security.
We are going to have to live with regional fallout, which will be different but substantial whichever choice we make. This is not a no brainer.
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Best freebie next week
Game Changer: Policy and Politics
For a New Middle East
The Grand Hyatt Hotel
1000 H Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
Thursday, November 17, 2011
8:45am-5:30pm
Conference Schedule
8:45am-9:00am – Opening remarks
Ambassador (ret.) Wendy Chamberlin, Middle East Institute President
9:00am-10:30am – After the Arab Spring: Assessing US Policy in the Middle East
Steve Clemons, New America Foundation, The Atlantic
Ambassador (ret.) Daniel Kurtzer, Princeton University
Ambassador (ret.) Ron Schlicher, Former US Department of State
Tamara Cofman Wittes, Deputy Assist. Secretary of State-NEA
10:45am-12:15pm – The Road Ahead for Emerging Arab Democracies
Esraa Abdel Fattah, Egyptian Democratic Academy
Michele Dunne, Atlantic Council
Larry Diamond, Stanford University
Radwan Masmoudi, Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy
2:15pm-3:45 pm – Shifting Regional Power Dynamics in an Era of Change
Abdelkhaleq Abdalla, UAE University
Jamal Khashoggi, Al-Arab TV
Haim Malka, Center for Strategic and International Studies
Mohsen Milani, South Florida University
Paul Salem, Carnegie Middle East Center
4:00pm-5:30pm- Economic and Development Strategies for a Middle East in Transition
Adel Abdellatif, UN Development Programme
Odeh Aburdene, OAI Advisors
Iman Bibars, Ashoka/MENA
Ambassador William B. Taylor, US Department of State
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IAEA suggests Iran going nuclear
This IAEA report sounds pretty tame in bureaucratese, but it in effect says the UN agency can’t confirm that Iran has no nuclear weapons program and suggests Iran is violating its Non-proliferation Treaty obligations and developing nuclear weapons. The Annex on “Possible Military Dimensions to Iran’s Nuclear Programme” is particularly eye opening. I still think this is all in preparation for ratcheting up sanctions rather than a military attack, but if the sanctions don’t get ratcheted up or don’t slow Iranian progress…
Here is what the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded (bolding is mine):
52. While the Agency continues to verify the non-diversion of declared nuclear material at the nuclear facilities and LOFs [locations outside facilities where nuclear material is customarily used] declared by Iran under its Safeguards Agreement, as Iran is not providing the necessary cooperation, including by not implementing its Additional Protocol, the Agency is unable to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran, and therefore to conclude that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.
53. The Agency has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. After assessing carefully and critically the extensive information available to it, the Agency finds the information to be, overall, credible. The information indicates that Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device. The information also indicates that prior to the end of 2003, these activities took place under a structured programme, and that some activities may still be ongoing.
54. Given the concerns identified above, Iran is requested to engage substantively with the Agency without delay for the purpose of providing clarifications regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme as identified in the Annex to this report.
55. The Agency is working with Iran with a view to resolving the discrepancy identified during the recent PIV [physical inventory verification] at JHL [Jabr Ibn Hayan Multipurpose Research Laboratory].
56. The Director General urges Iran, as required in the binding resolutions of the Board of Governors and mandatory Security Council resolutions, to take steps towards the full implementation of its Safeguards Agreement and its other obligations, including: implementation of the provisions of its Additional Protocol; implementation of the modified Code 3.1 of the Subsidiary Arrangements General Part to its Safeguards Agreement; suspension of enrichment related activities; suspension of heavy water related activities; and, as referred to above, addressing the Agency’s serious concerns about possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme, in order to establish international confidence in the exclusively peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.
57. The Director General will continue to report as appropriate.
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Nuclear cabal
The big news today is Iran’s progress towards nuclear weapons. The reports are based on information reported to have been given to the UN-affiliated International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which administers the Non-proliferation Treaty (Iran is a “state party”).
It is the people who gave the information to the IAEA who seem to have leaked the information, which includes details of Iranian efforts not only to obtain the necessary highly enriched uranium but also to learn how to detonate a nuclear weapon. Foreign assistance from Russia, Pakistan and North Korea is alleged to be involved.
I have no reason to doubt the assertions, but no confirmation either. The IAEA will not necessarily publish its findings later this week with all the spin that accompanies today’s revelations. It is often more cautious than the Americans like, and presumably today’s leaks are an effort to box the IAEA into taking a hard line.
For what purpose? My best guess is that the Americans are trying to get the Security Council to go along with ratcheting up the sanctions on Tehran. While there has been audible saber-rattling from Israel the last few days, I don’t think we can expect that to happen in the lead-up to a real attack. Israel needs tactical surprise to pull it off. The rumbling from Israel is also preparation for tougher sanctions, I imagine.
The most interesting aspect of the reports today is the part about foreign assistance. Those in charge of nonproliferation policy in my past often assumed that no state with nuclear weapons would consciously help another get them. That assumption has evaporated. We seem to have a kind of nuclear cabal willing to do things thought anathema in the past.
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Game changer
Politics and Policy in the New Middle East: that’s what they are calling the Middle East Institute 2011 Annual Conference at the Grand Hyatt, 1000 H Street:
Wednesday, Nov. 16th
6:00pm: Kickoff Banquet: Keynote by Bill Burns, DepSecState; awardees Lakhdar Brahimi and Esraa Abdel Fattah
Thursday, Nov. 17th
Conference
8:45 – 9:00am: Opening Remarks: Ambassador Wendy Chamberlin, President MEI
9:00-10:30am: After the Arab Spring: Assessing US Policy In the Middle East
10:45am-12:15pm: The Road Ahead for Emerging Arab Democracies
12:30-2:10pm: Keynote Luncheon: Samih al-Abed and Yossi Beilin
2:15-3:45pm: Shifting Regional Power Dynamics in an Era of Change
4:00-5:30pm: Economic and Development Strategies for a Middle East in Transition
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Tehran’s options
While the world debates the significance of the Hamas/Israel prisoner exchange, let me turn back to something that really counts for the United States: Iran’s nuclear program. In the aftermath of the Iran(Car)Tel plot, friend Rashad Mahmood, formerly of Cairo, asks “What would be reasonable Iranian policy to having their nuclear scientists killed (by admittedly much finer spycraft since they haven’t aired any proof of who has done it)?”
This is a reasonable question with some scary answers. Let’s look at some of the (not mutually exclusive) options:
1. They can respond by killing the nuclear scientists of those countries they think responsible for the attacks on their own (presumably Israel, but as Rashad says there is no proof in the public domain). I assume they’ve tried this and haven’t succeeded, or at least we haven’t heard about it.
2. They can accelerate their nuclear program, hide it better, protect the people who work in it and try to get nuclear weapons as soon as possible. They may be trying, but they appear to be failing.
3. They can begin to wonder whether the nuclear program is worth the trouble it is causing and reach an arrangement that reassures friends and foe alike that Iran will not develop nuclear weapons even if it acquires the “fuel cycle” technology required to do so. President Ahmedinejad has proposed something along these lines, but no one is taking him seriously yet, so far as I can tell.
4. They can kill diplomats or citizens of third countries, say Saudi Arabia, that may have little to do with the killing of the Iranians but are hated enemies anyway.
My impression is that they’ve tried at one time or another Nos. 1-3, so far without success. No. 4 doesn’t make any sense to me, but maybe it does to someone in Tehran (and certainly it does to some in DC). The jury is still out on the extent of official Iranian involvement in the IranTel plot.
Meanwhile, the Obama Administration seems to me to be doing the right thing: keeping the focus on the nuclear program and ratcheting up sanctions implementation. This may not bring immediate results, but at least it provides some incentive for no. 3. The trick is knowing when to take Ahmedinejad’s proposition seriously. It is really difficult for outsiders to judge when the right moment comes–we are going to have to trust the White House to call that shot.
Here is the version of what Ahmedinejad has said about limiting uranium enrichment published by the Washington Post:
Q: I understand that you were in favor of the deal you had reached with the United States in 2009, according to which the U.S. would sell you 20-percent-enriched uranium in exchange for Iran exporting low-enriched uranium. But you were attacked by your critics and came under assault and people here could not reach a consensus and the deal fell apart.
Ahmedinejad: In Iran, people are free to express their views. Every day some people criticize the policies of the government. This doesn’t mean that the government is going to abandon their policies. We felt that they wouldn’t give us the fuel required here for our reactor. There were some political leaders who gave interviews in the United States and Europe and they said they want to keep Iran from having access to such fuel. So we realized that they wouldn’t give us that fuel so we had to do it ourselves. Even if they gave us now uranium grade 20 percent, we would not continue with the production of this fuel.
Q: So if the United States sold you the enriched uranium, would you stop enriching yourselves?
Ahmedinejad: Yes. We don’t want to produce uranium of 20 percent. Because they did not give us that uranium, we had to make our own investments. If they start to give us that uranium today, we will stop production.
Q: You reached a deal in Geneva in 2009, and you came back here and the deal fell apart here, and now people in Washington don’t believe a deal is possible.
Ahmedinejad: If they give us uranium grade 20 percent, we would stop production. Those negotiations took place in Vienna. Apparently they know everything. I repeat: If you give us uranium grade 20 percent now, we will stop production. Because uranium grade 20 percent can only be used for such reactors, nothing else.
This is the proposition some commentators think worth considering. Many think it a mirage, but time is on Tehran’s side: even if their nuclear program has slowed, they will eventually get there if there is no verifiable agreement for them to stop.
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