by Ray Takeyh
Was it Iran’s shipment of arms that derailed a prospective U.S.–Iranian rapprochement that began in the rugged mountains of Afghanistan? Indeed, questions still linger about the Karine-A episode. Was the dispatch of arms a national decision or a freelance activity undertaken by hard-liners to undercut Iran’s nascent cooperation with America? Were the arms actually intended for the Palestinians or for Iran’s longtime Lebanese ally, Hezbollah? All these questions are relevant if one believes that an emerging reconciliation between America and Iran was fatally wounded by the shipment of arms. The more complex reality is that September 11 had generated such a dramatic shift in America’s international orientation that an antagonistic approach to Iran was nearly inevitable. The Bush administration could not deal with a regime whose complicated foreign policy defied the simple characterization of “with us or against us.”
The four months between September 2001 and January 2002 stand as a watershed in U.S.–Iranian relations. In a sense, this period reflects the tragedy of this relationship; the Iranian theocracy and the United States could not transcend their mutual animosities. During this brief period, the clerical regime had moved far in its readiness to embrace a different relationship with the United States, should America have been willing to reciprocate. However, the Iranian overture came at a time when a besieged America was recovering from a devastating attack on its homeland and contemplating the uses of its awesome power. After hopeful signs of rapprochement, U.S.–Iranian relations had returned to the typical realm of antagonism and emotion.
OLD THINKING
The American invasion of Iraq in 2003 once more confronted the Islamic Republic with a daunting set of challenges. The intricacies of Iran’s approach to Iraq will be examined in chapter 7, but it is important to stress that unlike September 11, the latest American military intervention was not viewed by Iranian officials as an opportunity to forge new ties with the United States. Washington’s harsh rhetoric and its aversion to diplomacy had already closed off the opening that had appeared in the aftermath of September 11. To be sure, there was a degree of tactical Iranian cooperation in that Tehran appreciated that the American displacement of Saddam was in its interests. Nonetheless, the early success of the invasion deeply concerned the clerical elite—an emboldened America might decide to turn its sights on Iran next. That sense of unease soon evaporated as the United States became entangled in a bloody quagmire, and the task of pacifying and stabilizing Iraq began to drain American power. The theocracy rebounded and regained its sense of confidence. The clerical oligarchs assured themselves that an America preoccupied with its strained alliances, drained treasury, and discredited intelligence services would have a limited appetite for further military incursions. Given the tense U.S.–Iranian relations and persistence of calls for regime change in Washington, Iran had no incentive to press for an opening to America.
In the meantime, important changes were taking place within the theocratic state that further diminished prospects of a rapprochement. The reformers and pragmatic conservatives who had called for cooperation with the United States in Afghanistan seemed increasingly under pressure within the corridors of power. The United States had not only failed to reward Iran’s constructive behavior but was once more beating the drums of regime change and pressing the international community to embrace its sanctions policy. Washington’s new reliance on democratization as a means of dealing with security challenges like proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and terrorism did not bode well for an Iranian regime whose politics were distinctly reactionary. The hard-liners, who had always claimed that America’s hostility toward Iran was immutable and that the core American objective remained the overthrow of the theocracy, seemed validated by the course of events.
After twenty-six years in power, the face of the Iranian regime was also changing, as a new generation of conservatives came to the surface with their own distinct views and ideologies. For the aging mullahs such as Khamenei and Rafsanjani who had been present at the creation of the Islamic Republic, America remained the dominant actor in Iran’s melodrama. For the hard-liners, the United States was the source of all of Iran’s problems, and for the pragmatists it was the solution to the theocracy’s mounting dilemmas. In either depiction, America was central to Iran’s affairs. Given that this generation came to political maturity during the reign of the Shah and his close alliance with United States, engaged in a revolutionary struggle defined by its opposition to America, and then led a state often in conflict with Washington, it was perhaps natural that they were obsessed with the United States.
For the new generation of conservatives it was the war with Iraq in the 1980s—not the revolution—that defined their political experience. Their isolation from the United States, their suspicion of the international community (which had tolerated Iraq’s use of chemical weapons against Iran), and their continued attachment to Khomeini’s dogmatic vision defined their ideology. In the meantime, the corruption of many of the founding leaders of the republic and their lack of revolutionary resolution affronted the austere war veterans. It is to Khamenei, another stern, uncorruptible ideologue, that they pay tribute. The younger conservatives are unyielding in their ideological commitments, earnest in their belief that the Government of God has relevance, and persistent in their simplistic claim that all problems would be resolved if Iran were to return to the roots of the revolution.
In terms of their international perspective, the young conservatives do not share their elders’ preoccupation with the United States. Throughout the 2005 presidential campaign, the striking aspect of the younger hard-liners’ message was the notion of an “Eastern orientation.” As Ali Larijani, a conservative presidential candidate and the current head of the Supreme National Security Council, noted, “There are certain big states in the Eastern Hemisphere such as Russia, China, and India. These states can play a balancing role in today’s world.”25 In a similar vein, another stalwart of the new conservatives, the former Revolutionary Guard commander and the current mayor of Tehran, Muhammad Qalibaf, stressed, “In the current international arena, we see the emergence of South Asia. And if we do not take advantage of that we will lose.”26 In the perspective of the new Right, globalization does not imply capitulating to the United States but rather cultivating relations with emerging power centers on the global landscape. They hope such relations might obviate the need to come to terms with the United States at all.
The war generation also displays a degree of indifference and passivity toward America. Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad emphasized this point, stressing, “Our nation is continuing the path of progress and on this path has no significant need for the United States.”27 The notion that Iran should offer substantial concessions on critical national issues, such as its nuclear program, for the sake of American benevolence or European investments has a limited utility to them. After a quarter-century of hostility, war, and sanctions, Iran’s emerging leadership class is looking east, where its human rights record and proliferation efforts are not particularly disturbing to its prospective commercial partners. All this is not to suggest that the new regime cannot have tactical dealings with America, but a fundamental transformation of U.S.–Iranian relations is unlikely to be achieved by Ahmadenijad and his allies.
The younger conservatives’ perception that expanding trade with China and India can resolve Iran’s economic predicament reflects their lack of understanding of the complexity and interconnections of the global economy. Although it is true that Iran has signed a handful of blockbuster energy deals with China and India, the rosy headlines often obscure a starker economic reality. These deals represent only the most preliminary phases of projects that, particularly in the case of a proposed natural gas pipeline to India, entail enormous political, commercial, and geological risks. In addition, projects of this scale are unlikely to move forward without significant Western capital and technical expertise—precisely the sort of assistance that the West could withhold. It is s
uch a realization that may eventually lead the younger conservatives to appreciate the centrality of America to the global economy and the international investment community. The hard realities of actually governing may in time temper their ideological designs and lead them in the direction of their more pragmatic elders.
Today, a new consolidated conservative government has the national charge to chart Iran’s international course. The melodramatic depictions of the new president ought not to obscure the reality that this is still a coalition government, with many competing centers of power and levers of influence. To be sure, the hard-line faction of the conservative bloc has assumed a preponderance of influence, diminishing the power of pragmatic conservatives whose patron saint Rafsanjani was defeated in the presidential election. Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, has to once more balance these contending voices, determining Iran’s approach to sensitive issues such as nuclear weapons and terrorism. It is to these issues that we now turn.
6
ALONG THE
NUCLEAR PRECIPICE
The Iranian regime is defying the world with its nuclear ambitions, and the nations of the world must not permit the Iranian regime to gain nuclear weapons,” proclaimed President Bush in his 2006 State of the Union address.1 As the debate still lingers regarding the vanished Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, yet another proliferation crisis is looming in the Middle East. Washington and much of the international community fear that under the guise of a civilian research program Iran is gradually accumulating the technology and expertise necessary for the construction of nuclear weapons. The question that has bedeviled successive U.S. administrations is how to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold.2
Why does Iran want the bomb? Has the theocracy settled on its course, or are there contending factions that can still be influenced to temper Iran’s nuclear ambitions? Who are the proponents of the nuclear option within the theocratic regime, and how influential are they in terms of pressing their case? What impact has the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had on Iran’s nuclear deliberations? The answer to these questions requires a better understanding of the interlocking calculations that have propelled Iran toward the nuclear option in the first place.
REVELATIONS
Iran’s nuclear ambitions did not begin with the onset of the Islamic revolution in 1979. The nuclear program actually started in the early 1970s under the Shah, who with the assistance of West Germany, France, and South Africa sought to construct an infrastructure of nuclear power plants. Approximately $40 billion was earmarked for this ambitious project, whose purpose was the construction of at least twenty reactors. Suspicion lingered that behind the Shah’s declared desire for nuclear energy lay a determination to construct a nuclear weapon. Indeed, the Shah’s former foreign minister, Ardeshir Zahedi, has all but confirmed such concerns:
The Iranian strategy at that time was aimed at creating what is known as surge capacity, that is to say to have the know-how, the infrastructure, and the personnel needed to develop a nuclear military capacity within a short time without actually doing so. But the assumption within the policymaking elite was that Iran should be in a position to develop and test a nuclear device within 18 months.3
Akbar Etemad, the director of Iran’s nuclear program at the time of the monarchy, similarly endorses Zahedi’s claim that the Shah’s program was designed to grant him the option of assembling the bomb should his regional competitors move in that direction.4
As the theocratic regime is quick to point out, Washington was not only complicit in the Shah’s program but never asked, as it persistently does today, why an oil-rich state requires nuclear power. Moreover, the European states that currently are calling on Iran to suspend its enrichment activities were busy selling the Shah the needed technology for the construction of an elaborate network of nuclear plants that could have been easily misused for military purposes. The belated Western concerns regarding Iran’s proliferation tendencies adds to Tehran’s arguments regarding the hypocrisy of the great powers and the iniquitous nature of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
During the initial decade of the Islamic Republic, the regime’s preoccupations with consolidating power, the war with Iraq, and its international isolation precluded it from aggressively pursuing the nuclear option. Indeed, for Khomeini and many others within the clerical elite, the indiscriminate nature of such weapons was seen as inconsistent with Islamic canons of war. A more detailed focus on the nuclear infrastructure began during Rafsanjani’s presidency in the early 1990s and was sustained by Khatami’s reformist government.
Successive U.S. administrations have sought to thwart Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Over the years, Washington has scored some impressive gains and managed to delay and frustrate Tehran’s quest for nuclear technology. The Reagan administration succeeded in obtaining Europe’s agreement to rigorous export controls with respect to dual-use technologies and in getting Germany to abandon its cooperation with Iran’s nascent nuclear program. Given Europe’s unwillingness to assist in Iran’s nuclear research activities, Tehran turned to a new source, Russia.
The Russian Federation soon began to fill the void left by the Europeans and assisted Iran in building its two nuclear reactors at Bushehr, which suffered from neglect during the Iran-Iraq war. Over the years Russia has also provided Iran with fuel fabrication technology and, possibly, even uranium enrichment centrifuge plans. Throughout the 1990s, the administrations of George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton attempted to deter Russia from this course by means of warnings, selective sanctions, and promises of expanded economic ties. A number of compacts were negotiated between the United States and Russia, most notably the December 1995 accord hammered out by Vice President Al Gore and Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin, in which Russia agreed to limit its cooperation with Iran to work on one unit of the Bushehr plant. Russia in essence agreed not to provide additional reactors or fuel-cycle assistance to Iran. By 2000, this arrangement had unraveled, as the lure of profits and strategic cooperation between Tehran and Moscow began to dissuade President Vladimir Putin from a more robust cooperation with the United States.
Despite energetic American diplomacy, throughout the 1990s the international community appeared complacent regarding Iran’s nuclear program. The successful efforts by the Clinton administration to prevent substantial international cooperation with Iran’s nascent nuclear industry, coupled with Iranian corruption and mismanagement, led to perceptions that the program had stalled. Issues such as terrorism, Iran’s opposition to the peace process, and its quest for missile technology and chemical weapons tended to overshadow the nuclear issue. The international community’s sporadic expressions of concern did not necessarily trigger diplomatic sanctions or multilateral pressure.
All this changed in August 2002, as a series of revelations forced the Washington establishment to revise its previous intelligence assessments. The first shock came when an opposition group revealed the extensive facilities for uranium enrichment in Natanz, approximately 200 miles south of Tehran. The installations demonstrated Iran’s mastery of the complex process of enriching uranium. The Natanz facilities contained 160 centrifuges needed for enrichment purposes, with another 1,000 under construction. The plan was to reach 50,000 completed centrifuges within two years, which would give Iran the capability to produce several bombs a year.
In addition, it appeared that Tehran had been similarly active in the development of a plutonium route to nuclear capability. The heavy-water facilities in Esfahan and the nearly completed plants in Arak point to the fact that Iran’s plutonium enrichment capabilities were more advanced than initially anticipated. Even more ominous is an indication that Tehran’s program is reaching the point of self-sufficiency. Although Iran’s nuclear industry at various stages has benefited from external assistance, particularly from Russia and even more from the Abdul Qadeer Khan network in Pakistan, the sophisticated nature of these facilities reveals that Iran may have reached the point o
f self-reliance, whereby traditional counterproliferation measures, such as more rigorous export controls and curtailment of external assistance, will not measurably slow down its nuclear time line. Iran’s former president Rafsanjani confirmed, “That we are on the verge of nuclear breakout is true.”5 Ali Akbar Salehi, the former Iranian representative to the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA), similarly stressed, “We have found the way and we do not have any scientific problems.”6
In April 2006, Iran appeared to take another important step toward nuclear self-reliance. Amid much fanfare, President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had succeeded in assembling 164 centrifuges and actually enriching uranium. The latest Iranian announcement made clear that the nuclear program was aggressively moving forward with Iran overcoming many technological hurdles on its path toward creating a sophisticated nuclear network.
Despite such revelations, it is still difficult to predict with any degree of accuracy when Iran will be in a position to construct a deliverable nuclear device. Once Iran completes the necessary infrastructure from mining to enriching uranium at the suitable weapons-grade level and masters the engineering skill required to assemble a bomb, it could cross the threshold in a short period of time. All this would depend on the scope and scale of the program and the level of national resources committed to this task. Iran today has an accelerated program, but not a crash one similar to Pakistan’s in the early 1970s when the entirety of national energies were mobilized behind the task of constructing a nuclear device. In this context, Iran’s persistent determination to complete the fuel cycle—a right it does possess under the NPT—brings it close to a weapon’s capability.