Tehran's Trespasses

Note

Graham Allison and Brenda Shaffer are quoted at length in this article

In the past few months, complex and often public diplomacy has pushed the issue of Iran's nuclear program into the international spotlight. In June, Iran dealt Europe's engagement strategy a nearly fatal blow when it decided to proceed with plans to build a high-powered gas centrifuge, a necessary tool for uranium enrichment. September brought a second setback when Iranian officials declared their intention to begin converting raw nuclear material into uranium hexafluoride gas, the first step in a process that yields nuclear fissile material. In November, Iran ostensibly agreed to a short-term freeze on uranium enrichment, yet it is unclear how sustainable this development is in the long-term, especially given Iranian hard-liners' dismay that such a deal was even considered.

Indeed, given the current regime's long-standing support for terrorism, its aspirations for regional hegemony, and its virulent hatred of Israel, anti-proliferation advocates are still in need of a viable plan to prevent Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. In particular, American policymakers could develop a new strategy for approaching the situation that combines incentives for forgoing nuclear-weapons development with threats of punishment for noncompliance.

Guns or Butter?
Iran has repeatedly claimed that its nuclear program is intended solely for civilian energy purposes. In response to recent accusations to the contrary, Iran's president Mohammad Khatami vigorously declared that "Iran will never move towards getting access to nuclear weapons." But ironically, Khatami's statement came during a military parade commemorating the development of the Shahab-3 missile, a new weapon that would be able to deliver a nuclear payload against Israel or U.S. forces in the Gulf. At this same event, banners were displayed that carried such messages as "Israel must be wiped off the map," and "we shall crush America under our feet." Similar sentiments have been expressed by other officials at the highest levels of the Iranian government. Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president and current chairman of Iran's top religious authority, the Expediency Council, has publicly stated that Muslim nations should develop nuclear weapons to annihilate the Jewish state.

Basic economic indicators also belie Iran's proclamations of peaceful intent. Brenda Shaffer, head of Harvard's Caspian Studies Program, told the HPR that in the last 25 years, nuclear energy has become the most expensive form of electricity anywhere. Consequently, she concludes that "it makes absolutely no economic sense that [Iran] would be spending so much effort developing nuclear power when it has the second largest natural gas reserves in the world...It's pretty clear that it wants to have nuclear weapons."

Any Iranian nuclear arsenal could bring further instability to an already troubled region. Graham Allison, a Harvard professor and former Clinton-administration assistant secretary of defense, suggested in an HPR interview that "a number of other nuclear dominoes in the region [would] follow," as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Syria scrambled for nuclear capabilities of their own. Iran might also consider giving nuclear technology or weapons to radical anti-Western organizations, or such material might be stolen from insecure and ill-equipped Iranian facilities, raising the ominous specter of nuclear terrorism or more Mideast violence.

Carrots and Sticks
Despite the enormity of the stakes, the United States still does not have a comprehensive strategy for dealing with Iran's prospective nuclear program, leaving engagement to the European Union. Experts have suggested a variety of strategies to fill this gap, such as one that balances incentives and threats to convince the mullahs that forgoing nuclear weapons development is in their best interest.

First, as Allison argues, America could retain military force as a potential option: until Iran renounces its nuclear ambitions, U.S. policy "has to include a credible military threat to destroy [Iran's] factories before they begin enriching uranium or extracting plutonium." Israel, which launched a preemptive attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981 to prevent Saddam Hussein from acquiring nuclear weapons, should also refuse to renounce the possibility of an assault on Iran's facilities if it proceeds with fissile material production. These implicit threats have the potential to bring Iran to the negotiating table.

At the same time, the U.S. and Israel could make it clear to Tehran that if Iran agrees to verifiably eliminate its entire program in the long-term, the U.S. and Israel will reciprocate with ironclad promises not to use force against the regime. Joseph Cirincione, director of the Non-Proliferation Project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is a forceful advocate of such an approach. Iran fears that if it gives up its nuclear weapons program, it will be vulnerable to what it perceives to be American and Israeli aggression. Therefore, according to Cirincione, "you have to address those underlying security concerns if you want any chance of Iran giving up its nuclear weapons option."

Cirincione and others argue that the U.S. should guarantee Iran a cheap supply of nuclear fuel from an international supplier (such as Russia) and storage space for spent nuclear fuel. In exchange, Iran would have to agree to intensive inspections as well as the dismantlement of enrichment and reprocessing plants that could be used to make fissile material. This would cripple Iran's ability to create weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, while still allowing it to pursue civilian nuclear energy. Because Iran is primarily interested in nuclear weapons, not nuclear energy, there is some risk it would reject this agreement outright. But Tehran cannot do so if it hopes to retain any shred of international credibility. A state that wanted nuclear technology solely for peaceful purposes would have significant economic incentives to agree to this "grand bargain," since importing subsidized fuel would cost significantly less than developing domestic production facilities. As a result, Iranian leaders would recognize that if they did not accede to this deal, their nuclear-weapons aspirations would be even more explicitly exposed to the international community, which might respond with significant punitive action.

Allison suggested that the United States also use economic incentives and threats to persuade Iran to forgo weapons development. For example, the United States might pledge to lift economic sanctions and withdraw its opposition to Iran's World Trade Organization entrance bid. Simultaneously, the international community has the ability to make existing sanctions stricter if Iran refuses to dismantle its fissile material production program.

Impact Scenarios
This combination of carrots and sticks may be enough to convince the mullahs that developing nuclear weapons is not in their best interest. At the very least, it would buy the world time to explore viable long-term options for dealing with the crisis.

Yet whatever happens diplomatically, the world must find some other ways to mitigate the danger, since a nuclear-capable Iran presents simply too many riskes to ignore. For instance, Shaffer argued that in the event of Iranian domestic unrest, terrorist groups could take advantage of the confusion to infiltrate poorly guarded nuclear plants and acquire fissile material. Thus, the U.S. should gather intelligence about the locations of Iranian nuclear facilities, and develop a contingency plan to secure them in the event of an internal revolution.

Keeping nuclear weapons out of the hands of terrorists and dangerous regimes like Iran is one of the most urgent problems facing the United States today, a fact that both candidates agreed upon at the first presidential debate this past October. Thus, continued American failure to respond vigorously to the threat of Iran's nuclear program could deal a fatal blow to the worldwide non-proliferation regime and result in a severe setback in the war on terrorism.