Iran's Nuclear Programme

Strategic Implications

Joachim Krause

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780415688567
• eBook ISBN: 9781136585463
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book examines the strategic implications of Iran's nuclear programme, providing an inventory of the negotiations and a discussion of possible solutions to this pressing international security issue.

The Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear programme has been the cause of one of the most extended international crises of the past decade. Multilateral institutions have been unable to resolve the issue, which has the potential to derail the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. Recent failures of diplomatic offers for an extended Iran-EU cooperation and projected US arms sales to Iran's neighbours suggest an imminent escalation of the issue, which has been simmering since first reports about Iranian nuclear fuel-enrichment activities emerged in 2002.

Since then, the topic has been the subject of intense media coverage as well as academic and diplomatic debate. This volume brings together analysts and authors with diverse backgrounds, including international diplomats formerly involved in negotiations with Iranian officials. The various chapters bring together different perspectives and empirical analyses, and include detailed assessments of both US and European efforts in diplomatic relations with Iran, as well as of the domestic politics in Iran itself.

This book will be of interest to students of Iranian politics, Middle Eastern politics, strategic studies, nuclear proliferation, international security, foreign policy and IR in general.

1 Strategic Implications of the Iranian Nuclear Programme

Joachim Krause and Charles King Mallory, IV

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) nuclear programme has been the cause of one of the most extended international crises of the past decade. It has the combined potential of derailing the global nuclear non-proliferation regime and of upsetting the already feeble regional security balance in the Middle East. The international community has been unable to find a solution to the problem posed by Iran’s nuclear programme so far. The problem continues to drag on without resolution. Multilateral institutions have been unable to solve the issue to date. The problem has become an extremely divisive issue for the international community itself. The most promising efforts in engaging Iran so far have been undertaken by the EU3+3 or P5+1.¹ At least until 2005, Iran seemed to show some kind of responsiveness. Since that time, all efforts to resolve the issue have failed in view of the defiant attitude of the Iranian leadership, namely its President Ahmadinejad.

For the time being, both sides are trying to buy time – for different reasons and with different expectations. While the P5+1 as well as the broader international community hopes to buy time in order to convince the Iranian leadership to give up its fissile material enrichment programmes and other programmes involving sensitive technologies, the Iranian side is trying to buy time in order to make more progress on exactly these sensitive programmes and to create as many faits accomplis as possible. Time is running out for an amicable diplomatic solution, yet no one really is able to state how much time is left to achieve this. In dealing with the Iranian nuclear programme, the international community is faced with six different but interrelated issues:

1. How to assess the strategic relevance of the Iranian nuclear programme? What are Iran’s intentions? Which capabilities have already been acquired and which are in the making?
2. How far from a nuclear weapons capability is Iran? And how much time is left for diplomatic measures?
3. How should we assess the success of the diplomatic approaches to the problem undertaken so far? Which strategies executed to date have turned out to be promising, which need to be forsaken? Can differing approaches be identified?
4. How to assess the role of sanctions? What are Iran’s strengths and weaknesses? Which available levers promise the strongest potential effects on Iran?
5. How to assess the role military options might have in dealing with the problem? Should military options generally be discarded or would it be better to have them available in order to exert some pressure and to be prepared for the worst?
6. What to do if Iran becomes a nuclear weapons state? What kinds of dynamics will be triggered, if the programme continues unabated and what are the strategic consequences we will have to face in the coming years?

These issues have to be addressed in a differentiated manner. Only then can options for dealing with Iran become visible.

1 How to Assess the Strategic Relevance of the Iranian Nuclear Programme?

The dispute over the Iranian nuclear programme has been with us since 2002. However, the roots of the programme go back to the early 1990s and even earlier. Iran has the right to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, and this includes the use of enrichment technology, if it is for peaceful purposes only. However, since the 1990s, and in particular after the discovery of secret nuclear facilities in Iran, there have been growing concerns about the political and strategic intentions that drive the Iranian nuclear programme. These concerns can be summarized as follows:

1. Iran has a sizeable enrichment programme which is out of proportion to the legitimate peaceful needs of the existing or the projected Iranian civilian nuclear programme.²
2. Iran is pursuing the option of a heavy water moderated natural uranium reactor which, if readied, might be used for the production of plutonium.
3. Iran has shown an interest in technology which might be useable for the separation of plutonium from spent fuel.
4. Iran has been involved in acquiring nuclear weapons technology.
5. Most of Iran’s R&D, construction and enrichment efforts have in the past been carried out under conditions of secrecy, in violation of the IRI’s existing IAEA safeguards’ agreement, and they are to an increasing degree being carried out in underground facilities that are better protected against possible external military action.
6. No one can state with certainty that Iran’s declared nuclear activities encompass everything that is actually going on in the nuclear field in Iran; from the 1990s onwards there have been reports about Iranian nationals of unknown institutional affiliation seeking access to nuclear weapons material in Kazakhstan and other places on the territory of the former Soviet Union.
7. Iran is pursuing ballistic missile technology for military purposes (short range, medium range, intermediate range); given their poor accuracy, the acquisition of such weapons systems only makes sense if their purpose is to be used as delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons;³
8. Leading Iranian politicians (not just President Ahmadinejad) have made repeated statements according to which wiping out Israel is a legitimate strategic option.
9. Leading Iranian politicians (in particular President Ahmadinejad) have touted their state as the main source of resistance and defiance of the United States and the international community in general; without nuclear weapons, such defiance cannot be maintained for long.
10. In dealing with the international community and with multilateral institutions, Iran, in particular since the beginning of the Ahmadinejad presidency, has employed strategies that are familiar from the times of Iraq under Saddam Hussein or Serbia under Slobodan Milosevic. Resolutions by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) (Chapter VII) are being disregarded, the main players and institutions of the international community are played off against each other, and the lengthy procedures and complicated policy processes are exploited in order to gain time.

While most observers agree on these concerns, there are marked differences as to the assessment of the strategic relevance of the Iranian nuclear programme. In coping with these concerns, two different schools of thought have emerged in the international community:

1. A strategic perspective: Seen from this perspective, Iran is striving to become a regional hegemon and is, hence, pursuing a nuclear weapons programme (Berman 2005; Delpech 2006; Timmerman 2006; Russell 2007; Gold 2009). So long as it has not finalized its nuclear weapons project, the leadership in Tehran is anxious to deceive the international community about the real intentions behind its nuclear programme by pointing to its allegedly peaceful character. Iran is either striving for an established nuclear weapons capability or wants at least to obtain a breakout capacity (or the status of a virtual nuclear state), which would give the IRI the capability to become a full-fledged nuclear weapons state within weeks. Iran’s nuclear programme has to be seen against the backdrop of her already well-known attempts at regional dominance. For many years Iran has been trying to destabilize and intimidate her neighbours, has been building up and supporting radical militias in Lebanon, in the Gaza Strip and within Iraq. Iran has been trying to use asymmetric means (such as terrorist attacks) in order to pursue its strategic goals. Iran has openly defied the international community, in particular the US, in the region and has depicted itself as the core of a broader anti-Western coalition. In essence, Iran’s strategy is to undo the existing international order, which has been shaped to a large degree by the United States. Iran is what Henry Kissinger (1957: 1–3) once called a “revolutionary power”.
2. A regionalist perspective: Seen from this perspective, Iran’s activities are the result of a complex internal dynamic that reflects the regime’s weaknesses and fears more than its strengths (Perthes 2010). Many regional experts argue that the main key to understanding often contradictory Iranian behaviour is the domestic power struggle in Tehran which has been marked by various factions competing for power and constantly producing contradictory messages and policies. Inciting and belligerent rhetoric notwithstanding, the regime is conceived of as being unable to effectively control the region or really to challenge the West, in particular the US. It is viewed as being principally in a disadvantaged and more or less defensive position. The US invasion of Iraq is viewed as the event that has had the strongest effect in further radicalizing the Iranian position (Khan 2011). Proponents of this point of view admit that the Iranian position has hardened since Ahmadinejad assumed power. However, this would not materially alter Iran’s basic situation of weakness and inferiority.

These two schools of thought have so far quite fundamentally shaped the international debate about the Iranian nuclear programme and have contributed to the high degree of uncertainty and indecisiveness that has become the characteristic feature of the international community’s reaction to Iran’s nuclear programme.⁴ There are groups of states that definitely adhere to the strategic school – such as the US administration and Israel, but also the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom – while others lean more toward the regionalist perspective – such as Russia or China, and to a certain degree also Germany. Discussions within the United Nations (UN) or at other fora have shown that it is hard to overcome these differences.

It is difficult to establish which of the two positions is wrong and which is right. Both have good arguments in their favour. Hence, it seems to be useful to find out whether the strong arguments of both positions can be combined. Such a middle-of-the-road assessment could start with the crisis of the Iranian polity. Actually, the model of Iran as a revolutionary Islamic republic based on a Shi’ite understanding of the Sharia has turned out to be incapable of creating a domestic political order that provides for internal stability and enjoys broad support from the population. As many examples of the past seem to prove (such as France after the French Revolution, Russia after the Communist takeover of power, Germany after the National Socialist gaining of power), revolutionary regimes that have been unable to create a stable domestic political order often redirect their revolutionary impulses to the outside world – irrespective of whether or not they are capable of really influencing it. But they are often able to mobilize unconventional resources that allow them to proceed further than expected, or at least to create considerably more damage than prudent assessments would have thought to be feasible. From such a viewpoint the strategic relevance of Iran’s nuclear programme might be described as follows:

• The Islamic Republic of Iran has come to a point where the attractiveness of her revolutionary model has become so low that external conflicts are a welcome instrument to secure leadership and control (Chubin 2010). The internal logic of the system makes it necessary to have external enemies, in particular since the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC or Pasdaran) has been increasingly taking control of the country, its institutions and its economy (Hen-Tov and Gonzalez 2011). Since the inception of the Islamic Republic, external enemies have been clearly identified (Israel and the US) and hostility against them has become an often-quoted raison d’être for the state itself.
• Iran is actually too weak to challenge the US and the current leadership in Tehran is well aware of this fact. But their actions indicate the presence of a well-thought-through asymmetric strategy to overcome Iran’s weaknesses. The support Iran gives to Hezbollah, Hamas and the Mahdi militia in Iraq as well as her maritime strategy all point to the existence of such a strategic approach (Shay 2010). Nuclear weapons would be another building block, since they would guarantee regime survival and would provide for some kind of umbrella under which Iran’s regional ambitions could be pursued with greater vigour.
• Both of these ingredients, however, constitute a dangerous mixture that might unleash a deadly dynamic. The Iranian nuclear programme, hence, would be less of a traditional threat scenario, but rather the beginning of something resembling a Greek tragedy. Driven by the power logic of a feeble and radical regime, the nuclear programme might spell existential threats to the security of other states and might set off a chain of events that could lead to a nuclear war or at least could upset the whole regional security order (Allen and Simon 2010/2011).
• The logic of the domestic power play between radicals (mainly the Pasdaran), moderate and conservative mullahs and the Green Movement opposition in Iran as well as that of the ongoing regional and international crisis over Iran’s nuclear programme seems to be moving events in a direction where the Iranian leadership is actually challenging the USA and the West in a fundamental way despite the IRI’s fundamental weaknesses (one might call this a “petty Stalinism”).
• Iran might seek ways and means to overcome or at least mitigate its structural inequality with the USA. The strategy of Iran has three elements: (a) an asymmetric warfare strategy (naval, missiles, nuclear strategic, terrorism); (b) creating, deepening and exploiting differences between the US on the one side and Europeans, Turks, Russians, Chinese, other Muslim states and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) on the other side; (c) building revolutionary alliances with some states but mainly with non-state actors within the Muslim world, in particular in Arab states with Shi’ite populations (in Lebanon, the Gulf States,) or minorities (in Saudi Arabia) or with Sunni organizations such as Hamas. There are very few governments which openly cooperate with Iran; however, the Tehran leadership may place high hopes on the fact that the generally stronger role religion is now playing in the Muslim world as a political factor might work against the US in the region over the longer term (Noyes 2006).

2 How Far Away from a Nuclear Weapons Capability is Iran?

If Iran is aiming for a nuclear breakout capacity, how much time is left before it reaches this goal? How much strategic warning time do concerned states have? The first question relates to the timeframe available for negotiations, the second relates to the timeframe available to states that see themselves as threatened by Iran’s nuclear programme. For a couple of years differing estimates have been in circulation according to which Iran needs a relatively limited number of months (12 to 24) to produce nuclear weapons material and even produce a nuclear device that could be actually employed against an enemy. Most deadlines quoted in the past have passed without Iran openly declaring that it possesses a nuclear weapons capability.

The great variance in estimates of the time required for Iran to produce nuclear weapons results from the fact that most of these calculations do not provide for enough transparency with regard to their basic assumptions. There are at least two different approaches Iran could take if it was determined to acquire a nuclear weapons capability: either it could look to build a nuclear device based on highly enriched uranium (U-235) or it could go for a plutonium bomb, which might be produced in a reactor based on natural uranium. Obviously, Iran has decided to take the first avenue, although – as the continuing work at the Arak natural uranium experimental reactor indicates – the IRI seems to be continuing to explore the alternative plutonium route as well but with less emphasis, to date.

A programme that strives for a uranium bomb requires that a number of key intermediate goals be achieved:

• Sufficient supplies of natural uranium have to be secured, which obviously has been the case with regard to Iran.
• Natural uranium has to be transformed into hexafluoride in order to make it eligible for enrichment.
• Enrichment means that uranium hexafluoride is put through thousands of small centrifuges that slowly enrich the share of the U-235 isotope. In natural uranium, the share of U-235 lies at 0.7 per cent. For weapons purposes one needs a concentration of more than 90 per cent U-235. Iran possesses the required enrichment technologies despite international efforts to prevent them from proliferating. The technology became available to Iran through the Abd al-Qadeer Khan network. In order to demonstrate the civilian character of the enrichment programme, Iran so far has claimed that it has enriched uranium only to a concentration of 3.5 per cent U-235 (low enriched uranium, LEU), which corresponds to the degree used in civilian light water reactors (LWRs). However, this degree of enrichment already represents half of the enrichment work needed in order to upgrade to the 90 per cent level of enrichment needed for military purposes.
• Once Iran had produced uranium hexafluoride with a degree of U-235 enrichment of m...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures and table
• List of contributors
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Strategic implications of the Iranian nuclear programme
• 2. Negotiating with Iran: lessons to be drawn
• 3. Negotiating with Iran: testing alternative approaches
• 4. Ten regrets: America’s non-proliferation efforts against Iran
• 5. The domestic politics of the nuclear question in Iran
• 6. Iran and international sanctions: elements of weakness and resilience
• 7. Serious damage or temporary irritation? Sanctions and their impact on Iran’s energy sector
• 8. Military options for preventing a nuclear-armed Iran
• 9. What if? Learning to live with a nuclear Iran
• 10. Thinking about Iran’s nuclear future
• Index