Iran’s Political/Nuclear Ambitions and U.S. Policy Options

Yesterday (Wednesday) the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee held a hearing on Iran’s Political/Nuclear Ambitions and U.S. Policy Options. (The hearing continues today, and I'll have an update when materials are posted.)

Here is a summary of the hearing, with excerpts from the various written statements.

Senator Lugar's Opening Statement

Retaining all communication tools is also important because they may be necessary to avoid a tragic miscalculation by the Iranians. Analysts in our intelligence agencies and State Department do not regard the Tehran regime as irrational, but the framework for their decision-making is very different from our own. We must understand that they are interpreting our actions in ways that we do not always discern. If one overlays these perceptual differences with demagogic rhetoric, historic suspicion, and high political stakes, the possibility for miscalculation increases exponentially. Our policies and our communications must be clear, precise, and confident, without becoming inflexible. In some situations, this delicate diplomatic balance can best be achieved through direct communications.

Senator Biden's Opening Statement

Unfortunately, the Administration has chosen not to send a senior official to be a part of these hearings. That is a mistake.

If the Administration wants to avoid a repeat of the Iraq fiasco, it must begin to do what it initially failed to do in that arena: level with the American people about what is at stake and what its strategy is. Platitudes like “all options are on the table” and “we’re pursuing diplomacy” aren’t good enough.

Dodging congressional hearings is not a good start to what promises to be one of the most challenging problems facing our country over the next several years.

Let me state what the potential problem is: a nuclear-armed Iran. That would put the bomb in the hands of a radical theocracy, swimming on a sea of high priced oil, whose president has denied the holocaust, threatened to wipe Israel off the map and to attack us.

In my view, Iran probably would not use a weapon against us or Israel or give the technology to terrorists. But it would feel emboldened to make even more mischief in the region. And if Iran gets the bomb, that could well fuel an arms race with Sunni Arab countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, making an already volatile region even more dangerous.

There were two panels. The first panel featured Robert Einhorn, Senior Adviser for the CSIS, and David Albright, President of the Institute for Science and International Security.

Robert Einhorn

As documented by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in its report of April 28, 2006, Iran has indeed passed some important milestones in recent months. Since September 2005, it has produced over 110 tonnes of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) at the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, enough gaseous uranium feedstock for over 20 nuclear weapons. After ending its suspension of enrichment activities in January, it fed UF6 into a single P-1 centrifuge machine, then into 10-machine and 20-machine cascades, and then moved quickly to a 164-machine cascade (a key building block in a centrifuge enrichment facility) where it successfully enriched uranium to around 3.6%.

Meanwhile, Iran has been assembling two additional 164-machine cascades at its Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), one which is about to begin enrichment operations and the other which should be ready by June. In addition, the Iranians announced that they would begin installing the first 3000-machine module of their industrial-scale enrichment facility in the fourth quarter of 2006.

On the basis of these developments, Iran’s leaders are claiming that they have now mastered centrifuge enrichment technology and that it is too late to stop them. They
go so far as to say that, even if existing nuclear facilities were destroyed, they have reached a stage where they could re-generate their program quickly and confidently, with little loss of time. But such claims are premature.

The Iranians have cut corners in their research and development effort in order to register the accomplishments listed in the IAEA’s report. Standard practice would have required them to run the 164-machine cascade with UF6 on an uninterrupted basis for up to six months or more before gaining confidence in its operation. Instead of proceeding in parallel to assemble and operate additional cascades, the efficient operation of the initial cascade would first have been demonstrated. To verify the ability to manufacture centrifuges indigenously, the experimental cascade would have relied on machines made in Iran rather than imported, and it would have been heavily instrumented to measure performance. And before introducing UF6 into the cascades, any impurities in the uranium gas that could damage the centrifuges would have been addressed and eliminated.

But the Iranians deviated from standard practice. Apparently intent mainly on demonstrating publicly the ability to reach a significant enrichment level, they ran the cascade with UF6 for less than two weeks. A significant portion of the experimental cascade may have consisted of centrifuges imported from the A.Q. Khan network rather than produced indigenously. Moreover, little of the equipment normally used to measure performance seems to have been used during the short experimental run. And instead of taking the time to fix the problems in the Isfahan conversion process that have produced impurities in the UF6, the Iranians seem to have chosen to use the impure UF6 and accept the risk of having to replace any centrifuges damaged as a result.

David Albright

To understand the assumptions, key information, calculations, and uncertainties driving estimates of the timelines, I present two “worst-case” estimates of the time Iran would need to build its first nuclear weapon.

In both of these estimates, which involve the production of highly enriched uranium (HEU) and cover the more likely scenarios, Iran appears to need at least three years, or until 2009, before it could have enough HEU to make a nuclear weapon. Given the technical difficulty of the task, it could take Iran longer.

The second panel featured Kenneth Pollack of The Brookings Institution, Karim Sadjadpour of the International Crisis Group, Patrick Clawson of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and Geoffrey Kemp of The Nixon Center.

Kenneth Pollack

Setting aside the question of whether Iran is determinedly seeking actual nuclear weapons or simply the capability to produce fissile material (and thereby be in a position to acquire the weapons themselves rapidly), there is ample reason to believe that Iranians would want nuclear weapons. For deterrence (both defensive and offensive), prestige, and export of the Revolution.
....
Iran’s political leadership is divided over its nuclear program in important ways. While the available evidence suggests that most Iranian leaders would like at least a nuclear weapons capability (if not the weapons themselves), it also indicates that they differ widely in the priority they ascribe to this goal.
....
This discussion suggests that convincing Iran to give up its nuclear program is going to be tough. The Iranians are not going to do so willingly. But it also tells me that doing so should not be impossible, because there are Iranians—both the bulk of the people and important members of the regime—for whom nuclear weapons are desirable, perhaps even important, but neither essential nor even their first priority.

Karim Sadjadpour

Iran’s senior leadership has always attempted to project a unified mindset regarding the nuclear issue, but in reality the country’s ruling elites are divided into three broad categories: those who favor pursuit of the nuclear project at all costs; those who wish to pursue it without sacrificing diplomatic interests; and those who argue for a suspension of activities to build trust and allow for a full fuel cycle down the road. Understanding and exploiting these differences should be a key component of any diplomatic approach.
...
The first group, sympathizers of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, comprises ideologues and confrontationists who romanticize the defiance of the revolution’s early days.
...
Like the confrontationists, the second group is highly cynical of Western (particularly US) intentions, and argues that Iran is “bound by national duty” to pursue its “inalienable” right to enrich uranium. Unlike them, however, they favor working within an international framework.
....
The third, more conciliatory group, arguably most representative of popular sentiment, is currently the least influential. After months of silence, however, they are increasingly beginning to make their voices heard.

Patrick Clawson

Dr. Clawson talked about Iran's economic vulnerabilities.

Having pegged his reputation on his ability to help the ordinary man, Ahmadinezhad faces serious problems: the economy is a mess, his policies are disastrous, and Iranians’ expectations are sky-high. The World Bank’s 2003 report about Iran noted, “Despite the growth in the 1990s, GDP per capita in 2000 is still 30 percent below what it was in the mid 1970s, compared with a near doubling for the rest of the world.” Iranians are galled to find that their country has slipped badly behind the Arabs on the south side of the Persian Gulf, whom they traditionally have regarded as their social inferiors. Thanks to the tens of thousands of Iranians living in Dubai, Iranians know full well that Dubai is booming because it has embraced globalization, while their country falls ever farther behind, trapped by its suspicion of the West.

Ahmadinezhad’s policy is based on producing everything at home and creating barriers to trade – he has no use for globalization. His government has been discouraging foreign investors, for instance, refusing to allow Renault to use the billion-dollar facility it built in Iran to build an inexpensive car for the Asian market. The recent Iranian boom has been based almost entirely on profligate government spending which cannot last forever. Despite the flood of oil money, government policies are such that the IMF warns the budget will fall back into deficit again within two years even if oil prices remain sky-high.

The recent massive government spending has led to several years of solid growth, yet it has barely dented the country’s long-term economic problems. While reported unemployment fell to an eight-year low of 10.3 percent last year, job creation remains insufficient to absorb the 700,000 young people entering the job market each year. The IMF forecasts that even if oil prices remain at their present high level, unemployment will steadily increase in years to come. In its 2003 report, the usually sober and understated World Bank summed up the “daunting unemployment challenge” with strong words: “Unless the country moves quickly to a faster path of growth with employment, discontent and disenchantment could threaten its economic, social, and political system.”

Economic and political frustration is feeding social problems. One is chronic drug problem, with the Iranian government acknowledging that two million people use narcotics, mainly opium; other estimates are higher. Divorce is on the rise; one study found that 30 percent of newlyweds got divorced within three years. Another is increasing prostitution; the official estimate is 300,000 prostitutes. There have been a number of corruption scandals involving judges and government social workers involved in prostituting young girls. Instead of making reforms that would allow entrepreneurs to create jobs, the political elite is more comfortable with the “solution” of rising emigration rates, especially among the well educated. In sum, many of Iran’s best and brightest are leaving the country, and a growing number of those remaining are at risk of becoming an underclass.

Geoffrey Kemp

There is no doubt, in my opinion, that Russia is the key player on this matter and that with adroit diplomacy it would have been possible to obtain the cooperation of the Putin government to put far more pressure on the Iranian regime to put limits on its nuclear program. In the event of Russian cooperation it is unlikely that China would be the lone dissenter to joint pressure against the Islamic Republic.

However we have not handled the Russia portfolio with skill. Russia sees Iran as a cooperative partner in an unstable part of the world straddling the Caucuses and Central Asia. In contrast the U.S. policy towards Russia’s “near abroad” is seen in Moscow to be provocative. The laudatory objective of the Bush administration is to nurture more freedom in Eurasia and to develop multiple pipeline routes in the context of energy security. However in the specific context of persuading Russia that it is in its interests to turn on one of its partners, Iran, it must be asked what it is we are offering the Russians to make this difficult choice worthwhile? Russians privately tell you that if the Americans want to deal on Iran then it would require some quid pro quo, such as not encouraging Ukraine to join NATO or not deliberately making provocative speeches in the region a few weeks before the G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg. I would have to conclude that while there are good arguments for being critical of Russia and being supportive of neighbors such as Ukraine and Georgia, the Baltic states, and Kazakhstan, such pronouncements are counterproductive in the context of Iran policy.

Seen from the Russian point of view, not only are we interfering in their backyard, but if we eventually improve relations with Iran as part of some ultimate “grand bargain” and remove economic sanctions then Russia stands to lose a great deal of economic leverage in that country while witnessing the return of the U.S. and all that entails for the region.

A similar set of trade-offs could be made in the context of China. China is not unhappy to see us struggling in the Middle East, even though it does not want to see a failure in Iraq. Neither does it want to see an Iranian nuclear program. Yet China, too, would need some quid pro quo to put serious pressure on Iran.