WORLD POLICY JOURNAL

ARTICLE: Volume XX, No 2, Summer 2003	Print
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Iran’s Nuclear Calculations
Ray Takeyh*

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As the Bush administration energetically addresses the issue of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, Iran has suddenly emerged as one of Washington’s foremost concerns. Over the years, many Western analysts have assumed that Iran’s nuclear program was largely limited to the Bushehr installation near the Persian Gulf that operates under the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The ostensible purpose of this installation is to provide Iran with an alternative source of energy to gas and oil. Western concerns were not so much that Bushehr would produce a nuclear bomb, but that under the cover of a civilian research program Iran was gathering sufficient knowledge and expertise to achieve a nuclear weapons capacity.

Over the past year, a series of revelations has shocked the Washington establishment and forced a revision of previous intelligence assessments. The first shock came last August when U.S. intelligence reported that Iran had built extensive facilities for the enrichment of uranium in Natanz, approximately 200 miles south of Tehran. The Natanz installation currently contains 160 centrifuges, needed for this purpose, with another 1,000 under construction. The plan is to have 5,000 operational centrifuges within two years. This would give Iran the capacity to produce several nuclear bombs a year.

In addition, it appeared that Tehran was completing another facility at Arak in central Iran for the production of heavy water, needed for the production of plutonium. Although initial CIA assessments were that Iran could achieve a nuclear arms capacity within five to eight years, the sophisticated nature of these installations indicates that it may be able to do so within three years. The more alarming aspect of the recent discoveries is that, increasingly, much of the technology for assembling a nuclear device is being indigenously produced.

But despite these seemingly dire developments, it is not inevitable that Iran will be the next member of the exclusive nuclear club. In Tehran’s corridors of clerical power, there is in fact a subtle debate going on regarding the wisdom of crossing the nuclear threshold. What the Islamic Republic decides to do in this respect will depend to a great extent on the nature of its evolving relationship with the United States and the security architecture of the Persian Gulf. An imaginative U.S. policy can still influence the outcome of Iran’s deliberations, stacking the scales in favor of those within Iran who seek to remain within the confines of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory.

Contrary to Western assumptions, Iran’s nuclear calculations are not derived from an irrational ideology, but rather from a judicious attempt to craft a viable deterrent capability against an evolving range of threats. Despite its dogmatic rhetoric, continuing support of international terrorism, and defiant opposition to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, Iran has evolved during the past decade into a largely circumspect and cautious regional power whose strategic doctrine is predicated on preserving its independence and safeguarding its vital interests. This transformation reached its apex with the election of the moderate cleric Muhammad Khatami to the presidency in 1997. The new president set the tone early on by noting that "making enemies is not a skill; real skill lies in the capacity to neutralize enemies." ¹ Under Khatami’s stewardship, Iran has sought to advance its interests through a pragmatic diplomacy emphasizing trade, reconciliation with erstwhile foes such as Saudi Arabia, and mutual security compacts. The crude tactic of brandishing nuclear threats is inconsistent with Iran’s current international orientation and should not be presumed to be the motivation behind its nuclear policy.

On the surface, Iran has ample incentives to acquire nuclear weapons, given its dangerous and unstable neighborhood. However, despite persistent chaos on its frontiers, Iran’s nuclear program has always been conditioned by a narrower but more existential set of threats. Instability in Afghanistan and Central Asia may be an important concern for Iran’s defense planners, but it is hard to see how nuclear weapons can ameliorate the handling of these crises. Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, negating the Iraqi and American challenges has been the most significant task for Iran’s national security establishment. These two states have dominated Iran’s threat perceptions and determined its defense priorities.

Here, it is important to set the Israeli question in its proper context with respect to Iran’s unconventional weapons aspirations. To be sure, even a cursory survey of the clerical regime’s declarations would lead one to conclude that the Islamic Republic perceives nuclear-armed Israel as an existential threat not just to itself but to the entire Islamic world. However, the invocation of the Israeli military threat is largely rhetorical, employed by the clerical regime as a means of mobilizing regional and domestic opinion behind a range of policy initiatives. In the clerical cosmology, Israel is seen less as an imminent military threat than as an ideological threat, with Zionism transgressing onto sacred Muslim land. However disturbing the Zionist threat may be to Iranian clerics, it does not drive Tehran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Despite its rhetorical fulminations and aggressive posturing, Iran has opted for a low-intensity challenge to Israel by fueling terrorist actions against the Jewish state while avoiding direct military confrontation.

While the Israeli-Palestinian arena may be peripheral to Iran’s core interests, the critical Persian Gulf area constitutes Tehran’s most serious strategic concern. The Gulf is Iran’s most important outlet to international petroleum markets and essential to the country’s economic stability. During the past two decades, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq has presented a formidable threat to Tehran, as the Iraqi dictator sought supremacy in the Gulf and waged a merciless eight-year war against his neighbor in which he employed chemical weapons against Iranian troops. The war ended in 1988 with an uneasy cease-fire, which led neither to genuine peace nor greatly improved relations. The border between the two states remained unsettled, and both sides continued to sponsor proxy wars against each other. The fear of a revived Iraq, free of the straitjacket into which it had been forced in 1991 after its defeat in the Gulf War, shaped Iran’s defense posture. With Saddam’s downfall and the impending dismantling of the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction infrastructure, however, the existential threat posed by Iraq has been eliminated. Any successor regime in Baghdad is likely to adhere to Iraq’s non-proliferation commitments (it is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) and may even cultivate favorable ties with the Islamic Republic.

With Saddam gone, America has emerged as the foremost strategic problem for Iran and the primary driver of its nuclear weapons policy. The Bush Doctrine, which pledges the preemptive use of force as a tool of counter-proliferation, combined with the substantial augmentation of American military power on Iran’s periphery, has intensified Tehran’s fears of "encirclement" by the United States—or even worse, of being its next target. President Bush’s characterization of Iran as a member of the "axis of evil," and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld’s more recent rhetorical support for regime change, has aggravated an already strained relationship. Iran’s leadership clearly sees itself as being in Washington’s cross hairs, and it is precisely this perception that is driving its accelerated nuclear program. As Khatami confessed in early April, "They tell us that Syria is the next target, but according to our reports, Iran could well follow." ²

Drawing by Curtiss Calleo

In the menacing shadow of the American colossus, Iran’s strategic planners have drawn sobering lessons from Operation Iraqi Freedom. The clerical oligarchs certainly noticed that Saddam’s much bruited repositories of chemical weapons did not prove a deterrent against an American president determined to effect regime change. As an Iranian official confessed, "The fact that Saddam was toppled in twenty-one days is something that should concern all countries in the region." ³ In the meantime, developments on the Korean peninsula offered their own lessons. The North Korean model suggests that a presumed nuclear capability may not only avert a pre-emptive American strike but generate its own set of economic rewards and future security guarantees. The paradox of the post–September 11 Middle East is that although Iran’s security has improved through the removal of Saddam and of the Taliban in Afghanistan, its feelings of insecurity have intensified. The massive projection of American power in the region and the enduring antagonism between Washington and Tehran constitute Iran’s foremost strategic dilemma and its primary motivation for the acquisition of the "strategic weapon." However, as with nearly every other important issue currently being debated in the Islamic Republic, the notion of crossing the nuclear threshold is hardly a settled topic. A more adroit American diplomacy can have an impact on the parameters of this debate.

To Go Nuclear or Not?
It is often assumed that the Islamic Republic has already made its decision and is relentlessly pursuing a determined nuclear strategy. Ascribing such cohesion and efficacy to a fractious, polarized polity is too simple. While much of the political debate in Iran is conducted in public, nuclear discussions are largely held in secret. Nonetheless, at times of intense international crisis, such as the recent American war in Iraq, the veil of secrecy lifts and the contours of the debate seep into the pages of newspapers and specialized journals that often act as surrogates for the various clerical factions.

The first sustained exposure of Iranian nuclear deliberations came when Pakistan test-fired its first nuclear weapon in 1998. The debate in Tehran focused not so much on whether Iran should pursue a robust nuclear research program but on the wisdom of crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. The respected journal Payam-e-Emrouz set the parameters of the debate in stark terms by suggesting that "the dangerous regional situation in which our country exists reminds us that more than any other time we have to be thinking of our national interests." 4 The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction on Iran’s frontiers, it was argued, mandated development of a more effective deterrent power. However, the notion that this necessitated the possession of nuclear weapons did not go unchallenged. The journal Farda, with connections to the Foreign Ministry, argued against the proposition: "Does deployment of nuclear weapons—if possible and of the weak kind such as those of Pakistan— bring us security or insecurity against large countries such as the U.S.? Certainly the answer is insecurity since Iran does not have the superior military technology of the U.S. and these weapons cannot play a deterrent and security role against the U.S. On the other hand, Iran has befriended the small countries of the region and at least for now has no critical problems. Deploying such weapons not only cannot solve any problems for Iran; it will further add to its problems." 5 In essence, the opponents of a nuclear breakout suggest that such a move may accentuate Iran’s strategic vulnerabilities by undermining its carefully cultivated ties with the Gulf states and the international community. The argument that Iran’s existing international relationships and long-standing commitment to the nonproliferation treaty act as a constraint on its nuclear activities should not be easily dismissed. The Islamic Republic has invested considerable effort in recent years in fostering favorable ties with most of its neighbors, as well as with Europe and Asia. To be sure, given the recent projection of U.S. power in Afghanistan and Iraq, the case for achieving a nuclear deterrent has become measurably more compelling. As one of Iran’s leading reformist politicians, Mostafa Tajazadeh, said on the eve of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, "It is basically a matter of equilibrium. If I don’t have a nuclear bomb, I don’t have security." 6 Others within the Iranian leadership are frustrated by what they view as an American double standard that would maintain U.S. strategic supremacy but deny nuclear capability to regional powers. In the words of the prominent conservative columnist Amir Mohebian, "The Americans say in order to preserve the peace for [their] children, [they] should have nuclear weapons and [we] should not." 7 However, all is not lost, as those calling for restraint continue to press their case. The opponents of a nuclear breakout, including reformist politicians and officials in the Foreign Ministry, maintain the necessity of adhering to the broad confines of the international nonproliferation regimes as the best means of ensuring Iran’s fundamental interests. As Ali Reza Aghazadeh, an important Khatami advisor on nuclear issues, affirmed recently, "Peace and stability cannot be achieved by means of nuclear weapons." 8 While the events in Iraq have caused considerable consternation among the clerical oligarchs, the developments on the Korean peninsula offer a window of opportunity for an Iranian officialdom that is still prone to come to an arrangement over its nuclear weapons program. Iran’s planners may be opting for a variation of the North Korean strategy, namely threatening to cross the nuclear threshold as a means of fostering better relations with the United States, including a resumption of economic ties. The economic dimension is particularly important as, in the last decade, Tehran has grudgingly come to realize that Iran’s tense relations with the United States preclude its effective integration into the global economy and access to needed technology. Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Raza Asefi first unveiled this strategy in March, claiming, "We are ready for discussions and negotiations, but we need to know what benefits the Islamic Republic would get from them." ⁹ Assadollah Saburi, the deputy head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, dangled the prospect of Iran’s acceptance of additional IAEA inspection protocols, but said, "We do not want to increase our commitment in the face of [trade] sanctions that are currently imposed." ¹⁰ Given the economic and diplomatic cost of financing a clandestine nuclear weapons infrastructure, Iran’s officialdom may be prepared for a grand deal, which would involve agreeing to limits on Iran’s nuclear activities in exchange for the United States allowing Iran access to such international lending institutions as the International Monetary Fund and permitting American investments in Iran, particularly in the petroleum sector. At any rate, the real significance of these declarations is that there still exists in Iranian official circles a propensity to negotiate and bargain.

The ultimate fate of Iran’s nuclear program rests on the outcome of the intense power struggle going on inside the country. While there is currently consensus across the political spectrum with respect to the necessity of sustaining a nuclear research program, no such agreement is evident on the issue of actually crossing the nuclear weapons threshold. It is here that the internal factions matter, as the conservatives would be more prone than the reformers to violate Iran’s treaty commitments and imperil important regional relationships for the sake of acquiring nuclear arms. The hardliners—with their suspicions of the United States and indeed of the entire international order—have always pressed for a revolutionary foreign policy. A prominent figure of the right, Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, represents this worldview: "The enemy [the West] wants to westernize the country, eliminate the Islamic regime, and the Koran with whatever methods [it has at its disposal]." ¹¹ This notion is echoed by another influential hardliner, the former head of the Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, who deprecates the reformers’ approach as "submissive policies, weakness and giving unilateral concessions in the name of détente." ¹² The truth is that given its ideological precepts, its suspicions and paranoia, the Iranian right does not find international isolation and dogmatic confrontation with the West necessarily objectionable.

Moreover, conservatives are wary of international treaties and diplomacy when it comes to preserving the vitality of the Islamic Republic. As Ali-Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s powerful former president, said in the aftermath of Iran’s war with Iraq, "The war taught us that international laws are only scraps of paper." ¹³ Indeed, President Khatami’s declared policy of détente came under intense criticism, with the commander of the Revolutionary Guards, Yahya Rahim Safavi, pointedly asking: "Can we withstand America’s threats and domineering attitude with a policy of détente? Will we be able to protect the Islamic Republic from international Zionism by signing conventions banning the proliferation of chemical and nuclear weapons?" ¹⁴

Since the mid-1990s, when the reform movement began in intellectual and political circles, reformers have endorsed a foreign policy of engagement and integration in the global society. Khatami has led the charge by insisting on a "new paradigm of interaction among nations and cultures in a world that longs for peace and security." This pragmatic reformist diplomacy calls for protecting Iran’s interests through an interlocking set of commercial and strategic ties with critical international actors such as the European Union and the Gulf states. As Khatami has also noted, Iran must respect "the right of other nations to self-determination and access to the necessary means of honorable living." ¹⁵ The Bush administration, which has been dismissive of the reform movement, would be wise to recognize that the contest in today’s Iran is not just about the nature of domestic Islamic rule but also about what type of international orientation the theocracy will pursue in the future. While the reformers may not yet have been successful in liberalizing the Islamic Republic, in the realm of foreign affairs they have been quietly effective in restraining the impetuous impulses of the hardliners.

What Can Washington Do?
Thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions has been the aim of successive U.S. administrations. 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 research program. During the Iran-Iraq War, Iran’s nuclear research program remained largely dormant and was not reactivated until the early 1990s. Given Europe’s continued unwillingness to participate, Iran turned to the Russian Federation, with which it signed a nuclear cooperation agreement in 1995.

The Russian Federation is helping Iran rebuild its two nuclear reactors at the Bushehr installation, which suffered from neglect during the Iran-Iraq War, and has provided the Islamic Republic with fuel fabrication technology and, possibly, even uranium enrichment centrifuge plants. Throughout the late 1990s, both the Bush and Clinton administrations 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 the year 2000, this arrangement had unraveled. The recent meeting between Presidents Bush and Putin at the G-8 summit in Evian, France, has not fully resolved the dispute. President Putin seemingly accepted the need for the international community to check Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but his economic advisor, Andrei Illarionov, emphasized: "Iran is a neighbor. We want to have good relations with it, including in the field of civilian nuclear energy." ¹⁶

Persuading Russia to alter its policy has proven difficult because Moscow has compelling economic and geopolitical reasons for cooperating with Iran. On the economic front, Russia’s own nuclear research and aerospace industries have few domestic customers and must look elsewhere for business if they are to survive. Over 300 Russian firms have participated in the construction of the Bushehr facility, which has provided approximately 20,000 jobs for Russians. 17 But Russia has another incentive for continued cooperation with Iran. As with his predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin appreciates Iran’s influence in the Islamic realm and seeks favorable ties with Tehran as a means of preventing Iranian mischief in the unsettled states of Central Asia. The fact that Tehran has largely stayed out of the Islamist struggle in Chechnya and has been restrained in promoting its ideology in the former Soviet Republics is a testimony to the success of Russia’s diplomacy.

This was the situation that the Bush administration inherited and quickly proceeded to make worse. Given that Iran’s nuclear ambitions stem, in large part, from seeing the United States as a threat, Washington’s conduct has a material impact on Tehran’s proliferation tendencies. Thus far, the Bush administration has exacerbated Iran’s strategic anxieties and further fueled its desire for acquiring nuclear arms. President Bush’s earlier denunciation of Iran as a member of the "axis of evil" and more recent statements by administration officials such as Undersecretary of State John Bolton, who called on Tehran to "draw the appropriate lesson from Iraq," ¹⁸ only buttress the position of those within the Islamic Republic’s hierarchy who insist that the only way to negate the American challenge is through the possession of nuclear weapons. In the meantime, the administration’s focus on missile defense, its withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and its relative disdain for European opinion in the run-up to the war with Iraq have limited its capacity to gain Russian cooperation regarding Iran.

Moreover, since Iran is increasingly producing much of its nuclear infrastructure on its own, attempts to derail Tehran’s nuclear activities by pressuring external actors will yield limited results. It is time for the Bush administration to remove its ideological blinders and recognize that America’s central role in Iran’s strategic conception gives it a unique opportunity to diminish Tehran’s zeal for nuclear arms. Washington should take up Iran’s recent offer, made by the Foreign Ministry, that it would adhere to additional IAEA protocols if the United States were to relax its trade sanctions against Iran. Indeed, the United Nations Security Council could be the venue for such a discussion.

A more forthcoming U.S. policy of easing economic restrictions on Iran would be wise for two reasons. It would help induce Tehran to conform to nonproliferation standards, and it would also help the reformers rehabilitate Iran’s economy and thus consolidate their power base. Given the fact that two decades of sanctions and coercion have failed to modify Iran’s objectionable policies— its sponsorship of terrorism, opposition to the Arab-Israeli peace process, and pursuit of an ambitious nuclear weapons research program—a more adroit diplomacy and economic engagement may prove more effective in pushing Iran in the right direction.

While holding out the prospect of dialogue and cooperation, Washington should also begin assembling a new "coalition of the willing" designed to exert pressure on Iran should it prove uncooperative. The European Union and Russia should be induced to make it clear to Tehran that crossing the nuclear threshold will force them to impose rigorous economic sanctions. At a time when Iran is in dire need of foreign investment, such a step would make a significant impression on Tehran. The timing is propitious for Washington to make such a move since the recent revelations of Iran’s nuclear status appear to have led many Europeans to move in the direction long desired by the United States. Dominique de Villepin, the much maligned French foreign minister, has taken the lead on this issue, telling Tehran that "it is essential to continue confidence-building measures, in particular by signing the additional protocols of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." ¹⁹ At the same time, Washington should press the Gulf states (particularly Saudi Arabia), with which the United States has close security and economic ties, to make it clear to Tehran that continued favorable relations will be contingent on Iran’s adherence to its nonproliferation commitments.

Today, Iran stands at a strategic cross-roads and will soon have to make fundamental decisions regarding its nuclear program. Shrill rhetoric of the "axis of evil" variety and imperious presidential doctrines are un-likely to prevent nuclear proliferation. A more clever diplomacy of carrots and sticks, offering to integrate Iran into the global economy while holding out the stark threat of multilateral pressures, can best dissuade it from taking the nuclear road.

*Ray Takeyh teaches at the National Defense University, where he is director of studies of the Near East and South Asia Center. The views expressed here are the author’s own.

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