Iran and Nuclear Weapons

Saira Khan

• Editorial: Routledge
• Año: 2009
• ISBN:
  9781135261818
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Politique et relations internationales
• Categoría: Relations internationales

Thisbook investigates what is driving Iran's nuclear weapons programme in a less-hostile regional environment, using a theory of protracted conflicts to explicate proliferation.

Iran's nuclear weapons program has alarmed the international community since the 1990s, but has come to the forefront of international security concerns since 2000. This book argues that Iran's hostility with the United States remains the major causal factor for its proliferation activities. With the US administration pursuing aggressive foreign policies towards Iran since 2000, the latter's security threat intensified. A society that is split on many important domestic issues remained united on the issue of nuclear weapons acquisition after the US war in Iraq. Consequently, Iran became determined in its drive to acquire nuclear weapons and boldly announced its decision to enrich uranium, leaving the US in no doubt about its nuclear status.

This book underscores the importance of protracted conflicts in proliferation decisions, and underpinning this is the assumption that non-proliferation may be achieved through the termination of intractable conflicts. The aims of this work are to demonstrate that a state's decision to acquire nuclear weapons depends largely on its engagement in protracted conflicts, which shows not only that the presence of nuclear rivals intensifies the nuclear ambition, but also that non-nuclear status of rival states can promote non-proliferation incentives in conflicting states inclined to proliferate.

This study will be of great interest to students of Iran, Middle Eastern politics, nuclear proliferation and international relations theory.

Saira Khan is a Research Associate in the McGill-University of Montreal Joint Research Group in International Security (REGIS).

Part I
Causes of proliferation

1 Factors utilized to comprehend Iran’s nuclear weapons aspiration

Like any other research topic, Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons was probed by scholars and policy-makers for decades and many causal factors or variables were analyzed to address the research puzzle. The factors were extracted from the three levels of analysis – systemic, domestic, and individual. While all of them seemed to have some significance in comprehending Iran’s nuclear drive, the security motivation was highlighted as the most important variable in this regard.¹ Although scholars generally agree that security threats may have driven Iran towards a non-conventional weapons program, they failed to explore specifically why security threats are so important to Iran and not to other states such as Syria or Egypt or, to put it more bluntly, what makes Iran different from other states in the realm of proliferation. This chapter will critically analyze some of the factors that scholars have examined to obtain a sense of why Iran may need a bomb so desperately. The purpose is to highlight the need for a better understanding of Tehran’s quest for nuclear weapons by analyzing the security aspect in a more detailed manner.

At the individual level, focus was on Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the Shah of Iran, in the domain of proliferation. His role was mostly studied because Iran initiated its nuclear program during his rule. The Shah purchased a 5 Mega Watt research reactor from the US in the 1960s; by 1972 he announced Iran’s intention to develop a massive nuclear energy program and to that end he established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) in 1974, which was under his direct control. Given this, when in the late 1970s Iran showed signs of clandestinely developing a nuclear program,² proliferation scholars pointed fingers at the Shah with the argument that he wanted Iran to be advanced in nuclear technology and that desire was primarily instrumental in making Iran a proliferator. History provides examples of countries that have large-scale nuclear programs yet never had the intentions to acquire nuclear weapons – such as Canada and Japan. Therefore, it is pertinent to make a clear distinction between technology-driven and intention-driven nuclear weapons programs. Technological advancement in the nuclear realm may create a strong platform to opt for the weapons path, but specific decisions have to be made to build the bomb. This begs the central question: Did the Shah seek to acquire nuclear weapons? The Shah stated in 1975 that if other countries in the region acquired nuclear weapons at some point, Iran would be compelled to follow suit.³ This proposition indicates two salient points: that the Shah had no intention of developing nuclear weapons when he started the research program or developed a large-scale nuclear infrastructure, but also that he was fully aware of the option to take the weapons path easily if technological advancement was achieved by Tehran. Which of these two points should be considered to assess the Shah’s contribution to Iran’s nuclear weapons aspiration? The first one seems more compelling. It was the Shah that signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in 1968, the year it was actually opened for signature, and ratified in 1970, the year it came into force. If he had the inclination to develop nuclear weapons, like other regional leaders such as India’s Jawaharlal Nehru, he could have stayed away from joining the NPT, which prohibits states from acquiring nuclear weapons once they sign and ratify it. He also proposed for a Nuclear Weapons-Free Zone (NWFZ) in the Middle East in 1974. Additionally, it was the Shah who declared the prospect of Iranian nuclear weapons “ridiculous” given the size of the superpowers’ arsenals.⁴ While it is hard to assess what the Shah had wanted during the initial stage of the development of the program, it is not difficult to argue that even if the Shah had such intentions from the start, other leaders had to follow in his footsteps for the nuclear infrastructure to develop and mature. The fact remains that when the Shah was overthrown with the Islamic Revolution of 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini had little desire to develop a program that was built by the West. He also found it against the interest of Iran’s religious orientation – Islam. In the early post-revolutionary period, all kinds of non-conventional weapons were proclaimed contrary to Islam. Consequently, nuclear programs identified with the Shah were initially abandoned, particularly after nearly 3,700 of 4,500 AEOI scientists left Iran.⁵ This automatically helps to understand that new leaders do not necessarily continue to pursue the policies undertaken by their predecessors and when they do pursue similar policies then it means that serious determining factors shape policies which cannot be overlooked even if the policies go against the personal inclinations of leaders.

During Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani’s presidency, from 1989 to 1997, Iran once again made serious efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Thus, it was believed that it was his personal inclination to see Iran go nuclear. By the time the eight-year-old Iran–Iraq War was coming to a close in 1987, Iran’s President Rafsanjani ordered a nuclear weapons and delivery systems feasibility study.⁶ It was also during his presidency that Pakistan’s controversial nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan visited Bushehr nuclear facility, which was damaged heavily by Iraq during its war with Iran.⁷ These facts associate Rafsanjani with the Iranian nuclear weapons aspiration. Rafsanjani’s remarks about chemical weapons as “poor man’s deterrents”⁸ added more suspicion to his already tainted nuclear weapons-prone personality. When Iraq used chemical weapons in the Gulf War, which had tremendous negative impact on the morale of the Iranian military and civilian, Rafsanjani stated,

. . . the moral teachings of the world are not very effective when war reaches a serious stage and the world does not respect its own resolutions and closes its eyes to the violations and all the aggressions which are committed in the battle field.⁹

But was Rafsanjani able to march Iran towards a nuclear path or the war with Iraq and its negative consequences were instrumental in driving Tehran to consider proliferation seriously? Should one not seek to understand the context within which such a statement was made? These are important questions to ask because the answers are likely to offer plausible solutions to this crucial problem. If Rafsanjani’s attitude had important bearing on the nuclear decision, why did it come so late into the game? He was the founding member of the Islamic Republic Party which was formed right after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and had strong relations with Khomeini who was the Supreme Leader of the country for the next 10 years. He could have influenced Khomeini to reverse his decision in putting a lid on the nuclear program when that decision was made. Within the context of the Iran–Iraq War, that lid was gradually removed even during Khomeini’s period, which indicates the necessity of moving beyond individual-level variables and focusing more on structural variables such as the security environment to understand the change in the dynamics of the program.

Iran’s moderate leader, Mohammad Khatami, was the President of Iran from 1997 to 2005. He came to power on the platform of liberalization and reform policy. His theory of Dialogue among Civilizations, a response to Samuel P. Huntington’s Clash among Civilizations, received attention not only from many countries of the world, but also from the United Nations, which named 2001 as the year of “Dialogue among Civilizations” – the purpose of which was to understand diversity comprehensively and to improve dialogues between the diverse groups of the world to prevent conflicts. After eight years of Islamic fundamentalist rule, he was a breath of fresh air for the Iranians who believed in open society and democracy. In 2005, Khatami urged all religious leaders to abolish chemical and atomic weapons,¹⁰ but did he discontinue the program during his presidency? Unfortunately, he did not. On the contrary, Iran’s clandestine nuclear program developed with some degree of direction, momentum, and speed during the presidency of Khatami. It was in February 2003 that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director Mohammad El Baradei confirmed the presence of a large-scale gas-centrifuge enrichment facility, Natanz, and a heavy water production site, Arak. Some contend that while Iran has purportedly made efforts to enrich uranium with lasers since 1991, it has also established a pilot enrichment plant in 2000 and conducted research on a rare element – named polonium – suitable for nuclear weapons.¹¹ In June 2003, an IAEA report stated that Iran did not fulfill some of the obligations and within a month IAEA visits discovered traces of highly enriched uranium in Natanz.¹² Although supportive of the EU3 (European Union 3) plan, Khatami declared that Iran would resume enrichment if necessary and that the nuclear program would continue even if it meant an end to UN oversight, asserting that Iran abhorred nuclear weapons.¹³ That was not all. Throughout the first half of 2005, when he was still the president of the country, Tehran refused to provide information on P-2 or the source of nuclear contamination and disallowed IAEA access to suspected facilities at Kalaye, Parchin, and Lavizan II, threatened to unfreeze the enrichment program and withdraw from the NTP if the IAEA referred Iran to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC).¹⁴ While Khatami was by far the most moderate leader Iran has had in its life, he did not stop the development of Iran’s nuclear program during his rule. On the contrary, arguing that Iran had the right to peaceful nuclear energy he stated:

If there is concern over nuclear bomb, why we, who have not yet achieved the peaceful nuclear technology, i.e. production of uranium with 3.5 percent enrichment – that serves as fuel for nuclear plants – are not trusted and put under pressure, while the powers that have hundreds of nuclear warheads in the region and are capable of producing tens of nuclear bombs a year, are not only put under pressure but are also supported? What is observed in the world is this double-standard logic; and we should in fact move into the world wherein we will be able to meet our needs by relying on our own power and on God.¹⁵

This statement points to the fact that nuclear logics must be comprehended comprehensively instead of narrowly focusing on a leader’s role or attitude. While the role of the leadership can in no way be undermined, the strategic offing the country is in is the most crucial variable that determines whether or not to opt for non-conventional weapons, especially nuclear weapons.

Since 2005, Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has been associated with the country’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons. Like many others,¹⁶ the book by the Emirates Center which describes a denial and deception strategy of the radical Islamic state, Iran, also focuses on the radical views of Iran’s controversial leader Ahmadinejad and his inclination to make Iran a nuclear state.¹⁷ In September 2005, Iran was declared to be “unequivocally in violation of its obligations in a Board of Governors resolution which cites article 12 of the IAEA statues, making it compulsory for a report to be submitted to the Security Council.”¹⁸ Before that year, even the IAEA seemed reluctant to recognize Iran to be in violation of agreements. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s arrival in power, his inflammatory speeches, his determination to plough on at all costs and the feebleness of the international response to these developments all reinforce the skepticism and even the fear of some future catastrophe,” states Therese Delpech.¹⁹ Additionally, “The day Ahmadinejad took office in August 2005, Iran rejected yet another EU3 proposal; that week he restarted uranium conversion in Isfahan, unleashing a dramatic deterioration in negotiations with the EU3 and IAEA.”²⁰ In April 2006, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran “has joined the club of nuclear countries” by successfully enriching uranium for the first time.²¹ Because Iran defied the August 2006 UNSC Resolution, in December 2006 the UNSC agreed unanimously to ban international trade in nuclear and missile technologies with Iran and to freeze foreign assets of 12 individuals and 10 Iranian organizations. Ahmadinejad responded that the “UN resolution against Iran’s atomic work has no validity for Iranians,” describing the resolution as “a rusty instrument” that has “no effect.” He further argued that “even if they issue 10 more such resolutions it will not affect Iran’s economy and politics.”²² His aggressive statements obviously sent alarming signals to the international community.

Of all the leaders in Iran, Ahmadinejad’s personal inclination to not step back from the program seems to be most important to study for the simple fact that by the time he became the President of the country, he inherited quite a developed nuclear program with enrichment facilities well in place and functioning to take Iran one step forward in making the ultimate weapon. The point is that perhaps when he came to power it was a matter of taking the decision that would be required to reach and cross the threshold and not a matter of technology so much. It is often stated that “the gradual advancement of a state’s technical nuclear capacities inexorably leads to the eventual production of nuclear weapons.”²³ So under the circumstances it was possible for him to have the greatest influence on the program compared to the others discussed in the preceding paragraphs. What the international community has acquired so far from the academic community is that Ahmadinejad spoke strongly about Iranians having the right to build the nuclear program or that Tehran would do anything or go to any length to ensure that the Iranians are not deprived of that right. The history of India and Pakistan, the two important proliferators, encompasses enough statements like this by leaders who were staunch supporters of the nuclear programs – Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto in Pakistan or A.B. Vajpayee in India. What proliferation scholars do not offer are two things: a systematic study of the cognitive variables of the leaders that trigger proliferation and how such leaders shape such an important policy. No study so far has offered this. Additionally, studies have not differentiated between determining and influencing factors. It is not only pertinent to distinguish them, but extremely important to show which one has triggered proliferation and whether or not one would work effectively in the absence of the other. For example, the security environment may be an influencing factor and the individual leader a determining factor in making a nuclear choice. A leader’s personal inclination to go nuclear is not enough to make a country a nuclear state. Additionally, one of the most salient criticisms of this motivation is that it cannot be generalized across leaders. Each individual is different and his or her life, psychological makeup, cognitive perceptions are all unique and as such it is hard to use this factor from a theoretical standpoint.

Proliferation scholars inclined to develop individual level theories of proliferation contend that “to go nuclear is an ideal-typical ‘big decision.’”²⁴ Security, prestige, or domestic political motivations is insufficient for such a serious policy choice. “Various voices in society may sound strong pro-or anti-bomb notes; but the responsibility for choosing wisely is much heavier for the top leader into whose hands the ultimate choice actually falls,” argues Jacques Hymans.²⁵ Nuclear decisions are functions of the decision-maker’s “national identity conception (NIC),” which is the leader’s understanding of the nation’s identity – his/her sense of what the nation ...