The Iranian quagmire: How to move forward

Abstract

As the writers in this symposium illustrate, dealing with Iran's nuclear program is one of the most important foreign policy issues of the day. Years of stalled talks, diplomatic dead-ends, and sanctions have made it difficult to see exactly where progress has been made and what efforts are worth pursuing. In this Global Forum, leading foreign policy experts weigh in from around the world on the options for how to move forward with Iran—from diplomacy to fuel swaps to military strikes. Whatever their proposed solutions, the writers express one common theme: We ignore Iran at our own peril. From the US, Thomas R. Pickering (2010), Lawrence J. Korb, and Bennett Ramberg (2010); from Turkey, Mustafa Kibaroglu (2010); from Iran, Kayhan Barzegar (2010); and from Israel, Emily B. Landau (2010). Over the months of November and December, this forum will continue at www.thebulletin.org.

As Iran continues to fail to provide international inspectors information about and access to its nuclear facilities, the issue of Iran possibly becoming the world’s tenth nuclear power has become one of the most serious foreign policy challenges facing the US and its allies. Moreover, there is little doubt that the Iranians are enriching uranium in violation of UN resolutions. The manner in which this situation is handled will have a significant impact on the greater Middle East, including the peace process; overall US security; and the security of our allies and partners. While nearly everyone agrees that a negotiated solution can provide the best outcome, the real issue is what we should do if a negotiated solution cannot be achieved.

In deciding how to resolve this situation, the United States’ policy should be guided by a number of factors. These include an awareness of our own policies toward Iran, the impact of our invasion of Iraq on Iran and the region, the character of the Iranian regime, the actual state of Iran’s nuclear program, and the costs and benefits of any option we choose.

When it comes to understanding and dealing with Iran’s nuclear program, it is important to consider the Iranian perspective, which is that, for the past half century, several US actions have undermined a healthy and stable relationship between the two countries. Five events stand out:

Iranian coup d’etat

In the early days of the Eisenhower administration, at the urging of the British government, the US led a coup that overthrew the elected government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh who, according to Andrew Westwood in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science in 1965, was “the only politician in modern time to cut through the miasma of distrust to gain the confidence and support of his countrymen” (Westwood, 1965). And, in 1953, the US installed the brutal regime of the Shah, which lasted a quarter of a century. Although the stated rationale for this action was to prevent “socialist” Iran from falling into the Soviet orbit, its real purpose was to prevent Iran from nationalizing its oil industry and thus preventing companies like British Petroleum from drilling for and selling Iranian oil.

Atoms for Peace

The Iranian nuclear program was originally started by the Shah, with the support and encouragement of the US government. According to Greg Bruno of the Council on Foreign Relations, in 1957 under President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace program, the US and Iran signed an agreement paving the way for the US to invest in civilian nuclear industries in Iran and allowing Iran to lease low enriched uranium from the US Atomic Energy Commission (Bruno, 2010). In fact, when the Shah was overthrown and the Islamic Republic founded, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stopped the nuclear program in its tracks.

Iran-Iraq War

When Iraq invaded Iran in the 1980s, the US did not condemn the invasion—not only that, but the US actually supported Iraq, including furnishing the regime of Saddam Hussein with intelligence on Iranian troop positions that he used for his chemical attacks. And, when Saddam used his chemical weapons against Iran, the US did not publicly criticize those actions or break off diplomatic relations with his regime.

Afghanistan support

Despite this troubled history, after the 9/11 attacks on the US, the Iranian government not only publicly denounced the attacks, but also supported the US invasion of Afghanistan. Moreover, the Iranians persuaded important warlords in northern and western Afghanistan to work with the US to oust the Taliban and once that was done to establish the Afghan interim authority under Hamid Karzai, to whom they provided economic assistance. The Iranian role was so crucial that Ambassador James Dobbins, the Bush administration’s representative at the Bonn Conference in December 2001, which set up the Karzai regime, contends that it would not have succeeded without Iranian support (Dobbins, 2007). Despite this, President George W. Bush placed the country on the “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea as threats to US security that would have to be eliminated if the US were to win the war on terror. He did this in his first state of the union address, six weeks after the conference adjourned.

A year later, in the spring of 2003, after the US invasion of Iraq, the Iranian Foreign Ministry offered to open negotiations on all outstanding issues dividing the two countries, including the nuclear issue. Their offer was transmitted to the US State Department and the National Security Council via Swiss diplomatic channels by the Swiss ambassador to Iran, who handles US affairs in that country. The Bush administration’s response was to complain that the ambassador had exceeded his brief by sending such a paper.

Nuclear-free Middle East

Looking at the situation through Iranian eyes, the US has undermined its position on the nuclear issue by its attitude toward the Israeli and Indian nuclear programs. While the US talks about a nuclear-free Middle East, it never calls on Israel to acknowledge, let alone give up its arsenal, or sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Similarly, in 2008, the US agreed to give India, which has acquired nuclear weapons but has not signed the NPT, all the benefits of the NPT, while denying those same privileges to the Muslim nation of Pakistan.

In addition to the problems in US-Iranian relations, the United States must recognize that by invading Iraq under false pretenses and facilitating the establishment of a Shiite regime there, it has increased the influence of Iran in the region, thereby raising the price of any potential settlement of the nuclear issue and undermining US military and moral authority. Moreover, by arguing that even though the regime of Saddam Hussein did not pose an imminent threat, an invasion was vital before he developed nuclear weapons, the US strengthened the case for those in Iran pushing for the development of these weapons. Indeed, it was after Saddam invaded Iran that the regime reenergized its nuclear program.

When it comes to understanding the character of the regime, it is also important to keep in mind that, despite the rants of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is not, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has stated, a crazy, suicidal state. Rather, the Iranians have proven themselves to be a rational people. For example, even though Saddam Hussein waged war against them for nearly eight years, used WMD, i.e. chemical weapons, and fired missiles against Iranian cities, the regime ended the Iran-Iraq war by settling for the pre-war status quo antebellum. Moreover, during the first Gulf War, they refused to aid Saddam against the US-led coalition, and even refused to return the Iraqi aircraft Saddam flew to Iran to protect them from the bombing by coalition forces. In addition, the Iranians did not retaliate against us when the USS Vincennes mistakenly shot down an Iranian civilian airliner in the waning days of the Reagan administration. Finally, they initially supported our efforts to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan because they perceived them to be a threat to their regime. By their actions, the Iranians have repeatedly demonstrated that they are more rational than the North Koreans who, among other things, have shot down an American aircraft and captured an American ship in international waters.

Steps, costs, and gains

When it comes to the actual state of Iran’s nuclear program, there are contrasting views. Many who wish the US to take military action against the regime have been arguing for five years that Iran is on the brink of going nuclear. But their case was undermined by a 2007 National Intelligence Council estimate during the Bush administration that concluded that Iran stopped its efforts to develop a nuclear weapon in 2003. Obama administration national security officials have taken differing views. Defense Secretary Robert Gates told a NATO meeting in June 2010 that Iran is one to three years from building a nuclear weapon ( Reuters, 2010). In the same month, CIA Director Leon Panetta estimated it would take Iran approximately two years to develop a bomb once it made the decision to do so ( ABC News, 2010).

But as authors Joseph Cirincione and Elise Connor point out in a recent article for Foreign Policy, a more realistic time frame is about three to five years. In their view, it would take Iran that long because developing a weapon that would threaten its neighbors involves several steps that are harder and more time consuming than most pundits recognize (Cirincione and Connor, 2010).

The Iranians must decide whether their enrichment efforts will, like those of the Japanese, stop at the acquisition of the technical capability to produce a weapon or advance to actual bomb construction.

If Iran decides to go nuclear, it must accumulate a sufficient quantity of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and then convert it from its gaseous form into metal for a bomb. Assuming there are no technological problems with its centrifuges, the machines that enrich uranium, it would take Iran at least six months to convert the HEU from its current gaseous form after it made the decision.

Once it has done this, Iran would have to produce or develop sophisticated warhead and delivery systems with sufficient range to threaten our allies in the Middle East and Europe, a process that would most likely take several years given the state of Iranian technological expertise.

Since coming into office, the Obama administration has negotiated with the Iranians, persuaded the UN to enact a fourth round of sanctions against them, and persuaded our allies in Europe and Asia to use the UN resolution as a basis to dry up Iranian financial assets. However, many argue that the negotiations have not only failed, but will never succeed—nor will any sanction, no matter how harsh, really impact the regime. Further, they say the Iranians will use the time gained to move inexorably toward building a nuclear weapon. Therefore, they urge the US to take military action, which, even if it does not eliminate the Iranian program, will set it back for a significant period.

While the US should never take the military option off the table or publicly play it down, there are several problems with choosing this course of action. It is unlikely to achieve its objective of destroying or even delaying the Iranian program significantly. The Iranians have learned from the Israeli strike against the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak in 1981, and have dispersed and buried their reactors, even in populated areas. Moreover, as Richard Betts, professor at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University, has demonstrated in the National Interest in “The Osirak Fallacy” (Betts 2006), the Israeli attack on Osirak may actually have accelerated the Iraqi program, as Saddam gave priority to a highly advanced secret centrifuge enrichment project.

Even if a military strike should succeed in setting back Iran’s nuclear program, there would be significant costs that far outweigh any possible gains:

It would unite the Iranian people in support of a regime whose legitimacy is being questioned as a result of the fraudulent elections of June 2009. Moreover, such a strike would divert attention from the disastrous economic policies of Ahmadinejad.

It would reinforce the perception among Iranians, caused by US policies over the past 50 years, that the US considers the Islamic Republic illegitimate.

The Iranians could seriously jeopardize our efforts to stabilize Iraq and keep the Taliban from regaining power in Afghanistan.

The Iranians could undermine our efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinians situation by unleashing their Hezbollah and Hamas allies.

Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz, driving oil prices to astronomical levels, and jeopardizing US recovery from the financial crisis.

The US would have to take military action without Security Council backing or the support of its European allies.

What to do?

The US should be willing to resume negotiations without preconditions and continue to enforce the latest round of sanctions. But it must recognize that our past policies toward Iran—as well as our attitude toward the nuclear programs of India and Israel—will make those negotiations difficult, if not impossible. Moreover, the Obama administration should recognize that, despite the claims of some hawks, Iran still has a way to go before developing the capability to launch a nuclear strike.

In the interim, however, the US can—and should—take a number of other steps:

The US should refrain from drawing red lines by making public statements to the effect that it will not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. The Bush administration made similar statements about North Korea and then undermined US credibility when it did not take military action after the North Koreans tested a nuclear weapon.

The US should adopt a policy of containment and deterrence that involves providing a nuclear umbrella, missile defense systems, and sophisticated aircraft to those nations in the greater Middle East who could be targets of an Iranian nuclear strike. The US should make it clear that if Iran should use a nuclear weapon, the US response will be overwhelming. Such a policy has a good chance of succeeding. Not only have the Iranians shown themselves to be rational actors, but they are more rational than the North Koreans are now or the Chinese were in the 1960s. When the regime of Mao Zedong went nuclear, the Chinese leader boasted that in a nuclear exchange with the West, hundreds of millions of people would die, but China would emerge victorious because it would still have close to a billion survivors.

The US should privately make it clear to the Israelis that their 80 to 100 weapons also provide deterrence, and if Israel should undertake a military strike, it will seriously undermine US-Israel relations and lead to consequences including the suspension of military and foreign aid.

The containment solution may not be optimal. However, given our troubled relationship with the Iranian people over the last half century, the security challenges we still face in Iraq and Afghanistan, our hopes for making progress in the Middle East peace talks, our goal of convincing the world’s Muslims we are not at war with them, and the horrendous cost of a military attack, it is the least bad option. Moreover, like containment and deterrence in the Cold War, it will work in the long run if we are patient, which is why it has been supported by three former CENTCOM commanders (De Borchgrave, 2010), the men who are most knowledgeable about the nature of the threat, the character of the regime, and the downsides of a military strike.