Even if it is assumed that proliferating nuclear countries make the same calculus of survival as the established ones with respect to initiating hostilities against each other—an extremely dubious judgment—new nuclear weapons states may undermine international order in several ways. The complexity of protecting nuclear arsenals and installations (and building the sophisticated warning systems possessed by the advanced nuclear states) may increase the risk of preemption by tilting incentives toward a surprise attack. They can also be used as a shield to deter retaliation against the militant actions of non-state groups. Nor could nuclear powers ignore nuclear war on their doorsteps. Finally, the experience with the “private” proliferation network of technically friendly Pakistan with North Korea, Libya, and Iran demonstrates the vast consequences to international order of the spread of nuclear weapons, even when the proliferating country does not meet the formal criteria of a rogue state.
Three hurdles have to be overcome in acquiring a deployable nuclear weapons capability: the acquisition of delivery systems, the production of fissile material, and the building of warheads. For delivery systems, there exists a substantially open market in France, Russia, and to some extent China; it requires primarily financial resources. Iran has already acquired the nucleus of a delivery system and can add to it at its discretion. The knowledge of how to build warheads is not esoteric or difficult to discover, and their construction is relatively easy to hide. The best—perhaps the only—way to prevent the emergence of a nuclear weapons capability is to inhibit the development of a uranium-enrichment process. The indispensable component for this process is the device of centrifuges—the machines that produce enriched uranium. (Plutonium enrichment must also be prevented and is part of the same negotiation.)
The United States and the other permanent members of the UN Security Council have been negotiating for over ten years through two administrations of both parties to prevent the emergence of such a capability in Iran. Six UN Security Council resolutions since 2006 have insisted that Iran suspend its nuclear-enrichment program. Three American presidents of both parties, every permanent member of the UN Security Council (including China and Russia) plus Germany, and multiple International Atomic Energy Agency reports and resolutions have all declared an Iranian nuclear weapon unacceptable and demanded an unconditional halt to Iranian nuclear enrichment. No option was to be “off the table”—in the words of at least two American presidents—in pursuit of that goal.
The record shows steadily advancing Iranian nuclear capabilities taking place while the Western position has been progressively softened. As Iran has ignored UN resolutions and built centrifuges, the West has put forward a series of proposals of increasing permissiveness—from insisting that Iran terminate its uranium enrichment permanently (2004); to allowing that Iran might continue some enrichment at low-enriched uranium (LEU) levels, less than 20 percent (2005); to proposing that Iran ship the majority of its LEU out of the country so that France and Russia could turn it into fuel rods with 20 percent enriched uranium (2009); to a proposal allowing Iran to keep enough of its own 20 percent enriched uranium to run a research reactor while suspending operations at its Fordow facility of centrifuges capable of making more (2013). Fordow itself was once a secret site; when discovered, it became the subject of Western demands that it close entirely. Now Western proposals suggest that activity at it be suspended, with safeguards making it difficult to restart. When the P5+1 first formed in 2006 to coordinate the positions of the international community, its negotiators insisted that Iran halt fuel-cycle activities before negotiations could proceed; in 2009, this condition was dropped. Faced with this record, Iran has had little incentive to treat any proposal as final. With subtlety and no little daring, it has at each stage cast itself as less interested in a solution than the world’s combined major powers and invited them to make new concessions.
When the negotiations started in 2003, Iran had 130 centrifuges. At this writing, it has deployed approximately 19,000 (though only half are in use). At the beginning of the negotiations, Iran was not able to produce any fissile material; in the November 2013 interim agreement, Iran acknowledged that it possessed seven tons of low-grade enriched uranium that, with the numbers of centrifuges Iran possesses, can be transformed into weapons-grade material in a number of months (enough for seven to ten Hiroshima-type bombs). In the interim agreement, Iran promised to give up about half of its 20 percent enriched uranium but through a circuitous route; it pledged to convert it into a form from which it can easily be reconverted to its original status, and it has retained the means to do so. In any event, with the number of centrifuges now in Iran’s possession, the 20 percent stage is less significant because uranium enriched to 5 percent (the threshold claimed to be a negotiations achievement) can be enriched to weapons grade in a matter of months.
The attitude of the negotiators of the two sides reflected different perceptions of world order. The Iranian negotiators conveyed to their opposite numbers that they would not be deterred from pursuing their course even at the risk of an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. The Western negotiators were convinced (and, underscoring their commitment to peace and diplomacy, periodically referred to this conviction) that the consequences of a military attack on Iran dwarfed the risks of a growth in the Iranian nuclear capability. They were reinforced in their calculations by the mantra of professionals: that every deadlock needs to be broken by a new proposal, the responsibility for which they assumed. For the West, the central question was whether a diplomatic solution could be found or whether military measures would be necessary. In Iran, the nuclear issue was treated as one aspect of a general struggle over regional order and ideological supremacy, fought in a range of arenas and territories with methods spanning the spectrum of war and peace—military and paramilitary operations, diplomacy, formal negotiation, propaganda, political subversion—in fluid and mutually reinforcing combination. In this context, the quest for an agreement must contend with the prospect that Tehran will be at least exploring a strategy of relaxing tensions just enough to break the sanctions regime but retaining a substantial nuclear infrastructure and a maximum freedom of action to turn it into a weapons program later.
The process resulted in the November 2013 interim agreement, in which Iran agreed to a qualified, temporary suspension of enrichment in return for a lifting of some of the international sanctions imposed on it for its defiance of UN Security Council demands. But because Iranian enrichment was permitted to continue for the six months of the interim agreement, its continuation as well as the implementation of more comprehensive restrictions will merge with the deadline to complete the overall agreement. The practical consequence has been the de facto acceptance of an Iranian enrichment program, leaving unresolved (but only on the Western side) its scale.
Negotiations for a permanent agreement are in process at this writing. While the terms—or whether any are achievable—are not yet known, it is clear that they will be, like so many issues in the Middle East, about “red lines.” Will the Western negotiators (operating via the P5+1) insist that the red line be at the enrichment capability, as the UN resolutions have insisted? This would be a formidable task. Iran would need to reduce its centrifuges to a level consistent with the plausible requirements of a civilian nuclear program, as well as destroy or mothball the remainder. Such an outcome, whose practical effect is the abandonment of a military nuclear program by Iran, would open the prospect of a fundamental change in the West’s relationship with Iran, particularly if it was linked to a consensus that the two sides would work to curtail both the Sunni and Shia waves of militant extremism now threatening the region.
In view of the Iranian Supreme Leader’s repeated declarations that Iran would give up no capability it already possesses—statements reiterated by a panoply of senior Iranian officials—the Iranian emphasis seems to have shifted to moving the red line to the production of warheads, or to curtailing its centrifuges to a level that still leave
s a substantial margin for a military nuclear program. Under such a scheme Iran would enshrine in an international agreement its Supreme Leader’s alleged fatwa against building nuclear weapons (a ruling that has never been published or seen by anyone outside the Iranian power structure); it would pledge to the P5+1 not to build nuclear weapons, and grant inspection rights to observe compliance. The practical effect of such undertakings would depend on the amount of time it would take Iran to build a weapon after it abrogated or broke such an agreement. In view of the fact that Iran managed to build two secret enrichment plants while under international inspection, this breakout estimate would have to consider the possibility of undisclosed violations. An agreement must not leave Iran as a “virtual” nuclear power—a country that can become a military nuclear power in a time frame shorter than any non-nuclear neighbor could match or any nuclear power could reliably prevent.
Iran has brought exceptional skill and consistency to bear on its proclaimed goal of undermining the Middle East state system and ejecting Western influence from the region. Whether Iran were to build and test a nuclear weapon in the near term or “merely” retain the capability to do so within months of choosing to do so, the implications on regional and global order will be comparable. Even if Iran were to stop at a virtual nuclear weapons capability, it will be seen to have achieved this level in defiance of the most comprehensive international sanctions ever imposed on any country. The temptations of Iran’s geostrategic rivals—such as Turkey, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—to develop or purchase their own nuclear programs to match the Iranian capability will become irresistible. The risk of an Israeli preemptive attack would rise significantly. As for Iran, having withstood sanctions in developing a nuclear weapons capability, it will gain prestige, new powers of intimidation, and enhanced capacity to act with conventional weapons or non-nuclear forms of unconventional war.
It has been argued that a new approach to U.S.-Iranian relations will develop out of the nuclear negotiations, which will compensate for the abandonment of historic Western positions. The example of America’s relationship with China is often cited to this effect, because it moved from hostility to mutual acceptance and even cooperation in a relatively short period of time in the 1970s. Iran may be prepared, it is sometimes said, to constrain the diplomatic use of its virtual nuclear military program in exchange for the goodwill and strategic cooperation of the United States.
The comparison is not apt. China was facing forty-two Soviet divisions on its northern border after a decade of escalating mutual hostility and Chinese internal turmoil. It had every reason to explore an alternative international system in which to anchor itself. No such incentive is self-evident in Iranian-Western relations. In the past decade, Iran has witnessed the removal of two of its most significant adversaries, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq—ironically by American action—and it has deepened its influence and its military role in Lebanon, Syria, and Iraq. Two of its principal competitors for regional influence, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have been preoccupied by internal challenges even as Iran has moved swiftly and apparently successfully to crush its internal opposition following a 2009 pro-democracy uprising. Its leaders have largely been welcomed into international respectability without committing to any major substantive change in policy and courted by Western companies for investment opportunities even while sanctions are still in place. Ironically, the rise of Sunni jihadism along Iran’s frontiers may produce second thoughts in Iran. But it is equally plausible that Tehran regards the strategic landscape as shifting in its favor and its revolutionary course as being vindicated. Which option Iran chooses will be determined by its own calculations, not American preconceptions.
Until this writing, Iran and the West have attached different meanings to the concept of negotiation. While American and European negotiators were speaking with cautious optimism about prospects for a nuclear agreement and exercising utmost restraint in their public statements in hopes of fostering a favorable atmosphere, Ayatollah Khamenei described the nuclear talks as part of an eternal religious struggle in which negotiation was a form of combat and compromise was forbidden. As late as May 2014, with six weeks remaining in the interim agreement period, the Iranian Supreme Leader was reported to have described the nuclear talks as follows:
The reason for the emphasis placed on the continuation of combat, is not because of the war-mongering of the Islamic establishment. It is only rational that for crossing a region filled with pirates, one should fully equip themselves and be motivated and capable of defending themselves.
Under such circumstances, we have no option but to continue combat and allow the idea of combat to rule all domestic and foreign affairs of the country. Those who seek to promote concession-making and surrendering to bullies and accuse the Islamic establishment of warmongering are indeed committing treason.
All the officials in the country in the field of economy, science, culture, policy-making, lawmaking and foreign negotiations should be aware that they are fighting and are continuing the combat for the establishment and survival of the Islamic system … Jihad is never-ending because Satan and the satanic front will exist eternally.
For nations, history plays the role that character confers on human beings. In Iran’s proud and rich history, one can distinguish three different approaches to international order. There was the policy of the state preceding the Khomeini revolution: vigilant in protecting its borders, respectful of other nations’ sovereignties, willing to participate in alliances—in effect, pursuing its national interests by Westphalian principles. There is also the tradition of empire, which viewed Iran as the center of the civilized world and which sought to eliminate the autonomy of its surrounding countries as far as its power could reach. Finally, there is the Iran of jihad described in the preceding pages. From which of these traditions does the changed comportment of some high-ranking Iranian officials draw its inspiration? If we assume a fundamental change, what brought it about? Is the conflict psychological or strategic? Will it be resolved by a change in attitude or a modification of policy? And if the latter, what is the modification that should be sought? Can the two countries’ views of world order be reconciled? Or will the world have to wait until jihadist pressures fade, as they disappeared earlier in the Ottoman Empire as a result of a change in power dynamics and domestic priorities? On the answer to these questions depends the future of U.S.-Iranian relations and perhaps the peace of the world.
In principle, the United States should be prepared to reach a geopolitical understanding with Iran on the basis of Westphalian principles of nonintervention and develop a compatible concept of regional order. Until the Khomeini revolution, Iran and the United States had been de facto allies based on a hard-nosed assessment of the national interest by American presidents from both parties. Iranian and American national interests were treated by both sides as parallel. Both opposed the domination of the region by a superpower, which during that period was the Soviet Union. Both were prepared to rely on principles of respect for other sovereignties in their policy toward the region. Both favored the economic development of the region—even when it did not proceed on an adequately broad front. From the American point of view, there is every reason to reestablish such a relationship. The tension in Iranian-American relations has resulted from Tehran’s adoption of jihadist principles and rhetoric together with direct assaults on American interests and views of international order.
How Iran synthesizes its complex legacies will be driven in large part by internal dynamics; in a country of such cultural and political intricacy, these may be unpredictable to outside observers and not subject to direct influence by foreign threats or blandishments. But whatever face Iran presents to the outside world, it does not alter the reality that Iran needs to make a choice. It must decide whether it is a country or a cause. The United States should be open to a cooperative course and encourage it. Yet the ingenuity and determination of Western negotiators, while a n
ecessary component of this evolution, will not be sufficient to secure it. Abandonment by Iran of support for such groups as Hezbollah would be an important and necessary step in reestablishing a constructive pattern of bilateral relations. The test will be whether Iran interprets the chaos along its frontiers as a threat or as an opportunity to fulfill millennial hopes.
The United States needs to develop a strategic view of the process in which it is engaged. Administration spokesmen explaining the reduced American role in the Middle East have described a vision of an equilibrium of Sunni states (and perhaps Israel) balancing Iran. Even were such a constellation to come to pass, it could only be sustained by an active American foreign policy. For the balance of power is never static; its components are in constant flux. The United States would be needed as a balancer for the foreseeable future. The role of balancer is best carried out if America is closer to each of the contending forces than they are to each other, and does not let itself be lured into underwriting either side’s strategy, particularly at the extremes. Pursuing its own strategic objectives, the United States can be a crucial factor—perhaps the crucial factor—in determining whether Iran pursues the path of revolutionary Islam or that of a great nation legitimately and importantly lodged in the Westphalian system of states. But America can fulfill that role only on the basis of involvement, not of withdrawal.
World Order Page 17