by Ray Takeyh
Having stipulated the importance of paying attention to Iran’s scientific progress, an excessive focus on technological dimensions of the nuclear program can offer a distorted time line. Historically, as a state develops its nuclear program, it creates political and bureaucratic constituencies and nationalistic pressures that generate their own proliferation momentum. As India and Pakistan demonstrated, once a nuclear program matures, it attracts political patrons invoking national prestige, military officers attracted to the weapons of awesome power, and a scientific establishment seeking to perpetuate a program that generates profits and jobs. As such alliances and constituencies develop, a state can cross the point of no return years before it can actually assemble a single bomb. Although Iranian nationalistic pressure has not yet reached the same level of India and Pakistan when they embarked on their crash programs, indications that this phenomenon is becoming all too evident appear in the case of Iran. Thus, time is not necessarily on the side of the United States and the international community.
Although it is customary to suggest that Iran is determined to manufacture the bomb, there is a subtle debate taking place within the theocratic state on the direction of the program. The critical question thus becomes: What are the security factors driving Iran’s proliferation tendencies? As constituencies and alliances shift, and policies and positions alter, the United States still has an opportunity to influence Iran’s internal deliberations.
WHY DOES IRAN WANT THE BOMB?
Contrary to many Western assumptions, Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons does not stem from irrational ideological postulations, but from a judicious attempt to craft a viable deterrent posture against a range of threats. It is often argued that Iran’s dangerous and unpredictable neighborhood grants it ample incentive for acquiring nuclear weapons. But it is hard to see how the possession of such weapons would ameliorate the persistent volatility on Iran’s frontiers. Instabilities in Afghanistan and Central Asia may be sources of significant concern for Iran’s defense planners, but nuclear weapons can scarcely defuse such crises. A more careful examination reveals that Iran’s nuclear program has been conditioned by a narrower but more pronounced set of threats. Historically, the need to negate the American and Iraqi threats has been the primary motivation for Iran’s policymakers. In more recent times, the simmering concerns regarding the stability of a nuclear-armed Pakistan have similarly enhanced the value of such weapons to Iran’s planners.
From the outset, it is important to place the question of Israel in its proper context. It is often assumed that the hostile relations between Iran and Israel, which possesses nuclear weapons but will not acknowledge that capability publicly, inexorably propel Tehran toward the nuclear option. Indeed, Iran’s animus toward the Jewish state has led it to support terrorist organizations and Palestinian rejectionist forces plotting against Israel. However, both Iran and Israel have been careful to regulate their low-intensity conflict and have assiduously avoided direct military confrontation. Ayatollah Khamenei has characterized Iran’s controlled rage by stressing that “the Palestine issue is not Iran’s Jihad.”7 The alarmist Iranian rhetoric regarding the immediacy of the Israeli threat is more an attempt to mobilize domestic and regional constituencies behind an anti-Israel policy than a genuine reflection of concern. For the Islamic Republic, Israel may be an ideological affront and a civilizational challenge, but it is not an existential threat mandating the provision of nuclear weapons.
To the extent that Israel’s nuclear arsenal figures in the Iranian debate, it is to condemn the hypocrisy of the international community—and the United States in particular—for being perennially critical of Iran’s nuclear efforts yet retaining a strange silence when it comes to Israel’s formidable depository of atomic bombs. Rafsanjani captured the frustration of the clerical class: “When they talk about nuclear weapons, they don’t even mention the Zionist state.”8 And yet Iran’s antagonism toward Israel is not truly part of a motivation for the bomb. Iranian officials and military officers routinely stress that they do not need nuclear arms to wage their current low-intensity campaign against Israel. Terrorism and reliance on militant Islamic forces have always been Iran’s preferred method of conducting its conflict with Israel. All this may change should Israel embark on a precipitous action such as military strikes against Iran’s facilities. In essence, such an action would finally lead the Iranian-Israeli confrontation to move beyond its existing limits, transforming Israel into a military challenge that Iran needs to safeguard against.
While Israel may be peripheral to Iran’s aspirations for unconventional weapons, developments in the Persian Gulf are of immense importance. From the Islamic Republic’s perspective, the Gulf is its most important strategic arena, and its most reliable route of access to the international petroleum market. For a long time, it was Iraq that spurred the theocratic elite toward the nuclear option. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq not only sought hegemony over the Gulf, and indeed the larger Middle East, but also waged a merciless eight-year war against Iran. It is the developments in the Gulf that will likely condition Iran’s defense posture and nuclear ambitions for the foreseeable future.
The impact of the Iran-Iraq war on Tehran’s nuclear calculations cannot be underestimated. Iraq’s employment of chemical weapons against Iranian civilians and combatants has permanently scarred Iran’s national psyche. The Iranian government estimates that the country suffered 34,000 casualities as a result of Iraq’s chemical weapon attacks. Whatever their tactical military utility, in Saddam’s hands chemical weapons were tools of terror, since he hoped that through their indiscriminate use he could frighten and demoralize the Iranian populace. To an extent this strategy proved effective. Iraq’s determination to target Iranian cities during the latter stages of the war did much to undermine the national support for the continuation of the conflict. Two decades later, the war and its legacy are still debated daily in the pages of Iranian newspapers, in the halls of Iranian universities, and on the floor of the Iranian parliament. As the newspaper Ya Lesarat observed, “One can still see the wounds of our war veterans that were inflicted by poison gas as used by Saddam Hussein that were made in Germany and France.”9 The dramatic memories of the war have led to cries of “Never Again,” uniting a fractious public behind the desire to achieve not just a credible deterrent but also a convincing retaliatory capability.
Beyond the human toll, the war also changed Iran’s strategic doctrine. During the war, Iran persisted with the notion that technological superiority cannot overcome revolutionary zeal and a willingness to offer martyrs. To compensate for its lack of weaponry, Iran launched human wave assaults and used its young population as a tool of an offensive military strategy. The devastation of the war and the loss of an appetite for “martyrdom” among Iran’s youth has invalidated that theory. As Rafsanjani acknowledged, “With regard to chemical, bacteriological, and radiological weapons, it was made clear during the war that these weapons are very decisive. We should fully equip ourselves in both offensive and defensive use of these weapons.”10 Moreover, the indifference of the international community to Saddam’s crimes also left its mark, leading Iran to reject the notion that international treaties and compacts can ensure its security. As Mohsen Rezai, the former commander of the Revolutionary Guards, said in 2004, “We cannot, generally speaking, argue that our country will derive any benefit from accepting international treaties.”11 Deterrence could no longer be predicated on revolutionary commitment and international opinion, as Iran required a more credible military response.
The overthrow of Saddam’s regime has diminished but has by no means eliminated the Iraqi challenge. The unpredictable nature of developments in Iraq has intensified Iran’s anxieties and further enhanced the utility of the nuclear option. Should Iraq emerge as a close U.S. ally policing the Gulf at the behest of its superpower benefactor, Iran will stand marginalized and isolated. Indeed, the long-standing ambition of successive Iraqi governments to assert predominance in t
he Gulf may finally be nurtured by a superpower seeking local allies to contain recalcitrant states such as Iran. A revival of the Nixon Doctrine, whereby the United States sought to ensure the stability of the Persian Gulf by arming its pliant Iranian ally, with Iraq now assuming the role once played by the Shah, would seriously constrain Tehran’s options. A presumptive nuclear capability would grant Iran a greater ability to assert its interests and press its claims. Although today Iraq appears far from such a position, the theocratic regime still must formulate a range of contingencies, and one such option is to sustain a robust nuclear research program.
Iraq is not the only potential problem that Iran faces; looking east lies a nuclear-armed Pakistan with its own strain of anti-Shiism. Although General Pervez Musharraf is routinely celebrated in Washington as a reliable ally in the war against terrorism, Pakistan’s past is more checkered and problematic. Throughout the 1990s, Pakistan perceived the demise of the Soviet Union as a unique opportunity to exert its influence in Central Asia and to capture the emerging markets in that critical area. Afghanistan was viewed as an indispensable bridge to Central Asia, and Pakistani intelligence services did much to ensure the triumph of the radical Taliban movement in the ensuing Afghan civil war. The rise of the Taliban and the eventual establishment of the al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan had much to do with Pakistan’s cynical strategy. Throughout the 1990s, such Pakistani machinations caused considerable tensions with Iran, which was uneasy about the emergence of a radical Sunni regime on its northeastern border.
Although Pakistan’s relations with Iran have improved since September 11, with Pakistan’s final abandonment of the Taliban, the specter of instability in Islamabad haunts Iran’s leadership. The possibility of the collapse of the current military government and its displacement by a radical Sunni regime with access to nuclear weapons is something Iran feels it must guard against. Pakistan’s nuclear test in 1998 caused considerable anxiety in Tehran, with Rafsanjani stressing, “This is a major step toward proliferation of nuclear weapons. This is a truly dangerous matter and we must be concerned.”12 Foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi also mused, “This was one genie that was much better to have stayed confined in the bottle.”13 Along with Iraq, Pakistan is a potential threat that Iran must take into consideration as it plots its defense strategy.
Although both Iraq and Pakistan constitute long-term sources of concern, today the United States stands as Iran’s foremost strategic challenge. U.S.–Iranian relations have become even more strained in recent years, with the Bush administration routinely calling for a change of regime in Tehran. The massive projection of American power on all of Iran’s frontiers since September 11 has added credence to the Iranian claim of being encircled by the United States. The conservative newspaper Jomhuri-ye Islami captured Tehran’s dilemma: “In the contemporary world, it is obvious that having access to advanced weapons shall cause deterrence and therefore security, and will neutralize the evil wishes of great powers to attack other nations and countries.”14 In a rare note of agreement, the leading liberal newspaper, Aftab-e Yazd, similarly stressed that, given the regional exigencies, “in the future Iran might be thinking about the military aspects of nuclear energy.”15
The remarkable success of Operation Iraqi Freedom in overthrowing Saddam cannot but have made an impression on Iran’s leadership. The reality remains that Iraq’s anticipated chemical weapons did not deter Washington from military intervention. As an Iranian official confessed, “The fact that Saddam was toppled in twenty-one days is something that should concern all the countries in the region.”16 Conversely, North Korea offers its own lessons and possibilities. Pyongyang’s presumed nuclear capability has not only obviated a preemptive invasion, but actually generated potential security and economic benefits. President Bush may loathe Kim Jong Il, but far from contemplating military action, the United States and its allies are considering an economic relief package and security guarantees to dissuade North Korea from its nuclear path. The contrasting fates of Iraq and North Korea certainly elevate the significance of nuclear weapons in the Iranian clerical cosmology.
Post–September 11 developments in the Middle East have had a paradoxical impact on the Islamic Republic. Two of Iran’s formidable foes, the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, have been overthrown by the United States. In the meantime, Iran’s American nemesis is entangled in an Iraq quagmire, draining its resources and tempering its ambitions. Nevertheless, the Iranian clerical elite expect a turbulent future, which accentuates their sense of insecurity. Iran remains in America’s crosshairs, at a time when the U.S. military presence in the region has never been greater. The influential Iran News emphasized this point in an editorial: “Based on Bush’s record after 9/11, one can only conclude that the U.S. did not invade our two immediate neighbors to the east and the west just to fight al-Qaeda. Consequently, astute political observers warn that Iran is next on the U.S. list of direct targets.”17 Such anxieties enhance the apparent strategic utility of nuclear weapons to Iran and validate the claim that the Islamic Republic requires such a capability to ensure both regime survival and territorial integrity.
Hovering over all these threats is the reality of Iran’s strategic loneliness. Iran does not have true allies; rather it has convenient relationships with states such as Syria that are often based on mutual animosities. True alliances based on shared values and common vision have largely eluded the Islamic Republic. Iran is still surrounded by states with important security ties to the United States and continues to possess conventional arms that cannot deter its more powerful adversaries. Such a precarious strategic environment has led to a search for a deterrent power predicated on indigenous resources. In essence, the inability of Iran to integrate itself into the regional landscape and to craft conventional forces sufficient for dealing with all its potential threats makes nuclear weapons even more compelling. However, this is still the Islamic Republic, a fractious, divided state that can rarely forge a consensus on key issues. Even on an important topic such as nuclear weapons, voices of dissent within the clerical establishment are still sufficiently influential to have an impact on Iran’s nuclear deliberations.
THE DEBATE
More than any other issue, the nuclear question has exposed the divisions within the clerical establishment over Iran’s international orientation. Iran’s contending factions are united on the need to sustain a vibrant nuclear research program that, in due course, will offer Tehran the option of assembling a bomb. However, the prospect of actually crossing the nuclear threshold in defiance of the international community and in violation of Iran’s long-standing treaty commitments has generated a subtle yet robust debate. Effective American diplomacy can still condition this debate in favor of the more pragmatic elements within the theocratic elite.
From the outset it must be emphasized that for all the factions involved in this debate, the core issue is how to safeguard Iran’s national interests. The Islamic Republic is not an irrational rogue state seeking such weaponry as an instrument of an aggressive, revolutionary foreign policy designed to project its power abroad. This is not an “Islamic bomb” to be handed over to terrorist organizations or exploded in the streets of New York or Washington. The fact is that Iran has long possessed chemical weapons, and has yet to transfer such arms to its terrorist allies. Iran’s cautious leaders are most interested in remaining in power and fully appreciate that transferring nuclear weapons to terrorists could lead to the type of retaliation from the United States or Israel that would eliminate their regime altogether. For Iran this is a weapon of deterrence, and the relevant question is whether its possession will serve its practical interests.
The primary supporters of the nuclear breakout option are hard-line elements associated with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Through command of key institutions such as the Revolutionary Guards and the Guardian Council, Iran’s reactionary clerics have enormous influence on national security planning. A fundamental tenet of the hard-liners’ ide
ology is the notion that the Islamic Republic is in constant danger from predatory external forces, necessitating military self-reliance. This perception was initially molded by a revolution that sought not just to defy international norms but to refashion them. The passage of time and the failure of that mission have not necessarily diminished the hard-liners’ suspicions of the international order and its primary guardian, the United States. Jomhuri-ye Islami, the conservative newspaper and the mouthpiece of Khamenei, sounded this theme:
The core problem is the fact that our officials’ outlook on the nuclear dossier of Iran is faulty and they are on the wrong track. It seems they have failed to appreciate that America is after our destruction and the nuclear issue is merely an excuse for them.18
In a similar vein, Resalat, another influential conservative paper, sounded the themes of deterrence and national interest by claiming, “In the present situation of international order whose main characteristics are injustice and the weakening of the rights of others, the Islamic Republic has no alternative but intelligent resistance while paying the least cost.”19 Given its paranoia and suspicions, the Iranian Right does not necessarily object to international isolation and confrontation with the West. Indeed, for many within this camp, such a conflict would be an effective means of rekindling popular support for the revolution’s fading élan.
Iran’s nuclear calculations have been further hardened by the rise of war veterans, such as President Ahmadinejad, to positions of power. Although the Iran-Iraq war ended nearly twenty years ago, for many within the Islamic Republic it was a defining experience that altered their strategic assumptions. Even a cursory examination of Ahmadinejad’s speeches reveals that for him the war is far from a faded memory. In his defiant speech at the UN General Assembly in September 2005, Iran’s president pointedly admonished the assembled dignitaries for their failings: