Good News, Bad News on Iran
(Updated December 2007)
The highly publicized release of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of the United States is largely being portrayed as an indication that the Bush Administration has been falsely and hysterically whipping up opposition against a non-existent Iranian nuclear weapons program to impose draconian sanctions on Iran and possibly justify military intervention. The NIE actually is a mixed bag and is not the only basis for judging Iran’s capabilities or ambitions.
First, the good news.
The major finding of the NIE is that Iran halted
its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and
America’s spy agencies believe the
program remains frozen. The report also
said Iran is
not expected to have the capability to
build a weapon until the middle of the
next decade.
If this information
is correct, the international community,
which has expressed its determination to
prevent Iran from
acquiring a bomb, has more time to pursue
various non-military measures to ensure Iran never
develops a nuclear weapon. It may also
be the case that the sanctions that have
been employed have had some impact on Iranian
policy and raise the possibility they may
succeed in permanently derailing the nuclear
program.
The bad news is that
the NIE may be wrong. Iran continues
to act like a country that is concealing
its activities and publicly declaring at
every opportunity its commitment to develop
a nuclear capability that could have non-peaceful
applications. The NIE reports that Iran is
continuing to produce enriched uranium,
in defiance of UN resolutions,
which would allow Iran to
produce a weapon, albeit later than previously
believed.
The analysts who wrote
the NIE also have no way of judging Iranian
intentions. They cannot predict whether Iran plans
to restart its program at any time in the
future or if it is content to enrich uranium
for the time being and then divert it to
military purposes later.
Before jumping to conclusions
based on a single report, it is also important
to remember that the international community
has a poor record in monitoring covert
nuclear programs and preventing determined
rogue nations from developing weapons.
The United States intelligence agencies’ record,
particularly in light of policies toward Iraq,
is especially suspect.
Furthermore, the report
seems to contradict other evidence that Iran remains committed to aquiring a nuclear
weapon. In particular, the International
Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has documented
that Iran has installed gas
centrifuges that have the potential to
eventually produce enough enriched uranium
to provide fuel for a bomb. If Iran had
no nuclear ambitions, it would have
no need for this capability given
that Russia has agreed to supply the enriched
uranium Iran would need for a peaceful
energy program. Furthermore, Iran is building
a heavy water reactor at its research center
at Arak, which is not needed to produce
energy, but would be useful for producing
plutonium for nuclear weapons.
The NIE should be taken
seriously, but the United States is not
the only country with an intelligence service
monitoring developments in Iran.
Given the experience with Iraq,
it should not be surprising if other nations
were skeptical of American intelligence
reports and make independent judgements.
The fact that the leaders of Great
Britain, France and Germany,
as well as the Gulf Arab States, have also
expressed consistent alarm at the Iranian
program suggests that the U.S. estimate
may be overly sanguine. French Foreign
Minister Herve Morin, for example, stated
on January 31, 2008, “Coordinated
information from a number of intelligence
services leads us to believe that Iran has
not given up its wish to pursue its (nuclear)
program,” and
is “continuing to develop [it].”
Israel, which is the one country that has been directly threatened by Iran, also makes its own intelligence estimates. The latest public statements by Israeli officials indicated they believe Iran could have a weapon by the end of the decade.
If you want to consider Israel pessimistic
and the United States optimistic, the analysts
still foresee Iran having
the capability to build a bomb in anywhere
from 2 to 7 years. That is a big difference,
but allows for some time to acquire
more information and pursue political-diplomatic-economic
strategies to try to ensure Iran never
acquires the means to construct a weapon.
The question for policymakers
is whether they can afford to err on the
side of caution. Before embarking on
more dramatic measures, such as a military
strike, it behooves them to consider the
alternatives and the reality of the danger.
Leaders must also take into account the
ramifications of miscalculating and underestimating
the threat. Once Iran has
the bomb, it is too late and the strategic
map of the Middle East will change overnight.
A leader of a country threatened with annihilation
may not want to take the chance of waiting
too long to act because of overly optimistic
projections or hopeful guesses of Iranian
intentions.
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