[pdf] Our Own Worst Enemy: How Western Pressure Encourages Iran’s Push for a Bomb,” Project on Nuclear Issues: A Collection of Papers from the 2011 Conference Series, August 2012. 

[pdf] “Kicking the Hornets’ Nest: Iran’s Nuclear Ambivalence and the West’s Counterproductive Nonproliferation Policies,” The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, July 2012.

Last week, I had the honor of giving a presentation before the US Air Force Global Strike Command down at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana. It was an amazing opportunity to spend some time with the airmen whose job it is to focus on nuclear threats everyday, and an experience I won’t soon forget.

The talk I gave was based on my thesis (due May 4 — yikes), and had the working title of “Deterring Iran’s Latent Nuclear Weapons Capability.” Rather than post the whole text — which is mostly scratched in the margins of the copy I printed the night before anyway — I’ll give the dime store version here. (I’m supposed to say that these views are my own and do not reflect the opinion of Global Strike or the US Air Force).

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1) Iran’s Nuclear Capabilities

To start, Iran today can build nuclear weapons. Believe it or not, that’s actually good news.

Everyone remembers the NIE from 2007 because it said Iran halted its nuclear weapons program years before. What nobody seems to notice is that same NIE declared that Iran “has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.”  So Iran has been able to build nuclear weapons for more than four years, and yet it does not have the bomb today. What can we conclude from this? Actually, that’s why it’s good news that Iran has a nuclear capability. The longer Iran goes without building nukes while it remains capable of doing so, the more confident we can be that Iran’s leaders themselves are restraining their country’s nuclear progress.  The only other interpretation is that the global sanctions regime is so effective that Iran has been simply unable to get what it needs for a bomb [good luck finding someone willing to argue that].

If Iran really wanted nukes, it would already have them by now. So why haven’t they built them? Easy: they don’t have to, and it’d be too risky.

Iran’s leaders aren’t stupid. They know that if they kicked out IAEA inspectors like Saddam did it would be handing the West a causus belli. And any attempt to make nukes under the nose of those inspectors would almost certainly be caught ahead of time. Add to that recent revelations that US officials don’t believe Iran currently possesses any secret nuclear facilities, and there just isn’t a credible pathway for Iran to break out as a nuclear-armed country.

Nor would they need to. They’re doing okay gaining most of the benefits of nuclear weapons (prestige, self-sufficiency, even a little existential deterrence) without turning the last screw on a bomb. I described Iran’s strategy by borrowing a term from math class (with a h/t to @shashj who first used the term this way) as “asymptotic” — that is, Iran’s progress always approaches (but never arrives at) the nuclear weapons threshold.

2) Nuclear Intentions

We can then make a clear, definitive observation about Iran’s nuclear intentions up to this point: Iran is not actively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons. We know this because Western intelligence agencies and the IAEA say so. We know this because, given Iran’s scientific and technological know-how, it is almost certain that, if they wanted to acquire the bomb, they would already have it by now. We know this because the best experts in the US government assessed four years ago that Iran could build a bomb if it wanted to, and it still has not. We know this because Pakistan, which lacked Iran’s scientific and technological base, was able to obtain the bomb in less than ten years, while Iran’s program has been ongoing since the 1980s. And we know this because Iran’s political and religious leaders are unanimous in their view, which they repeat time and time again, that nuclear weapons are contrary to both Islamic principles and Iran’s national interests.

Based on all the available evidence, then, it appears Iran is seeking what is known as nuclear “latency” — having the capability and capacity to build nuclear weapons in the future if it feels threatened.

3) Nuclear Timelines

So what sort of timelines are we talking about here? If Iran felt the need to build nukes, how long would it take?

Most likely, any breakout scenario would take place at Fordow (unless of course that facility gets shuttered as part of a diplomatic deal). If Iran were to fill Fordow to capacity with IR-1 centrifuges, it could use its existing stockpile of 3.5% LEU as feedstock for enriching up to weapons-grade uranium and within about 8 months could have enough material for one bomb. Starting with 20% LEU, that timeline shrinks down to 8 weeks.  At Natanz, where Iran already has over 9000 centrifuges at work, the breakout calendars for 3.5% LEU and 20% LEU are 9 weeks and about 2.5 weeks, respectively.

Once again, however, it would be next to impossible for Iran to carry out this type of activity without being discovered.

4) US Considerations

The big question US defense planners must face now and into the next couple of years will be: how to deal with Iran’s latent nuclear weapons capability.

I suggest that the US should approach this challenge from an extended deterrence perspective, albeit with some modifications.

Classic extended deterrence involves deterring acts of aggression against its allies by threatening to retaliate on their behalf, even if US interests are not directly endangered.  An extended deterrent strategy for countering an Iran with a latent nuclear weapons capability could serve US strategic interests in a number of ways.

First, conveying credible security guarantees throughout the region will help counter any sense of emboldenment that Iran might derive from a latent nuclear capability.  Defense planners fear the “stability-instability paradox,” in which Iran’s nuclear deterrent could allow it to pursue an aggressive foreign policy with impunity. Traditional extended deterrence seeks to counter this type of aggression.

Secondly, an extended deterrence framework would reassure US allies in the region, both to prevent a cascade of proliferation in the region and to persuade Israel not to strike Iran without American backing.

There is, however, a key difference in an extended deterrence framework when facing a latent — rather than an actual — nuclear adversary. That is the nature of a deterrence failure. When facing a nuclear-armed adversary, failure of extended deterrence is understood to mean an act of aggression is carried out against US allies. When facing a latent-capable adversary, on the other hand, deterrence failure could result in either conventional aggression or a decision to “actualize” its weapons capability.

When facing a latent-capable Iran, the US deterrent is — as the President recently declared — primarily designed to deter Iranian weaponization. The overwhelming superiority of US conventional military power means our check on Iranian aggression is strong. However — and here’s the real challenge — that same conventional superiority, which deters Iranian aggression, makes weaponization more likely. US conventional superiority increases the value of an actual nuclear deterrent in the eyes of Iran’s leaders.

Thus, a key difference in deterring a virtual nuclear state as opposed to an actual one is the security dilemma that grows out of a conventional imbalance of forces. Whereas threats and commitments strengthen the credibility of classical deterrence, overtly threating a latent-capable state can actually be counterproductive by convincing it of the need for nuclear weapons.

The challenge of deterring Iran’s latent nuclear weapons capability requires a finely tailored approach: seeking to give Iran a reason not to weaponize its capability while simultaneously taking pains not to give Iran a reason to weaponize. Unfortunately, this is precisely the type of deterrence we have the least amount of theoretical and historical experience to guide the way.

If you recall, Matthew Kroenig and Colin Kahl, both recently-departed Obama administration officials, noted that if Iran were to install advanced centrifuge designs in the deeply-buried Fordow facility, then Western officials would need to consider taking military action against that site.  Kroenig said such a move by Iran would mean “the United States must strike immediately or forfeit its last opportunity to prevent Iran from joining the nuclear club.”

I viewed this as an unreasonable redline to draw, since Iran is already operating next-generation centrifuges at its other enrichment facility and that moving IR-2m or IR-4 machines into Fordow wouldn’t fundamentally alter the nature of Iran’s nuclear weapons potential in the same way that, say, a decision to start stockpiling weapons-grade uranium would.  But I then got to thinking: wouldn’t more advanced centrifuges at the Qom site mean Iran could breakout quicker — possibly even in the 2-3 months between IAEA inspections?  That would, after all, fundamentally alter the state of play on the nuclear issue, and probably would necessitate some deep thinking in Washington and Tel Aviv.

So let’s figure out what we’re really dealing with here. (Warning: math ahead).

According to the latest IAEA report, Iran intends to use the Fordow facility for two purposes: production of 20% enriched uranium and R&D, which has usually meant research and design on next-generation centrifuge technology.  This is an important starting point, because it makes it clear that Iran plans to install next-generation centrifuges at Fordow already.  So we’re not talking about some unlikely event over which we’re willing to go to war; this is part of the plan as of today — meaning there’s a lot at stake if we get things wrong.

At present, no advanced centrifuge designs are installed or are being installed at Fordow, though that could happen anytime.  There are two cascades of IR-2m and IR-4 machines installed at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz.  (If you recall, the PFEP served as the testing grounds for 20% enrichment before that process was moved to Fordow in 2011.  So again, it’s likely those machines will someday be moved to Fordow.)

According to most estimates, the IR-2m and IR-4 machines are nearly 4 times as efficient as Iran’s IR-1 centrifuges, meaning their separative work capacity has been estimated at about 3-4 SWU/year.  Assuming standard feed, tails, and 25kg of 90%U235 for a bomb, a conservative estimate of 4SWU/year/centrifuge would mean Iran would need roughly 815 centrifuges to produce one bomb’s worth of material in a year.  Shrink that timeline down to a fast breakout of 3 months, and Iran would need 3261 machines — or about the entire capacity of the Fordow facility packed to the gills.

But all that assumes Iran feeds natural uranium into the machines.  IF Iran wanted to breakout using next-gen machines at Fordow, and IF it tried to do so between IAEA visits, it would likely use its stockpile of 3.5% or, more likely, 20% material.

So using a feed of 3.5%U235, one bomb’s worth of material requires 4821SWUs for a 3-month breakout, or about 1205 centrifuges.  Using a feed of 20%U235, that number shrinks drastically to 312 centrifuges — well within Iran’s current capability.

From there, it is easy to see why some Obama administration officials would be concerned about the presence of advanced centrifuges at Fordow: without round-the-clock inspections, Iran could theoretically produce enough fissile material for one bomb using 2 cascades of advanced centrifuges with a relatively high likelihood of escaping detection until it is too late.  Obviously, this would cut it pretty close, and IAEA inspectors would undoubtedly discover the diversion on their next visit, so Iran would need to weaponize the material and potentially even perform a test detonation in a matter of days in order to truly catch the world by surprise.  That’s unlikely, but not something we can easily ignore.

Thus, it becomes clear from this examination just how important it is for the next round of nuclear negotiations to convince Iran to relinquish its stockpile of 20% enriched material.  Without this stockpile, the fast 3-month breakout scenario would require feeding 3.5%uranium into nearly 7 cascades of advanced centrifuges — far too many for Iran to manufacture at present, given the Western campaign of sanctions and sabotage that have choked off Iran’s supply line.  This would also create space for the West to declare a very clear redline after Iran establishes the reality of next-generation machines at Fordow: 2 cascades won’t keep us up at night, but any more than that and we start getting itchy trigger fingers.

For my money, all this is an argument for a real concerted push at the next P5+1 meeting to take the deal offered by Ahmadinejad last September, so long as it can be expanded a bit to cover the existing stockpile of 20% uranium.  It’s a bit of a stretch to say that it should be a redline for the West when Iran starts installing next-generation machines at Fordow, though I know you can’t just wait until everything’s installed since the facility is nearly invulnerable to airstrikes.  Kroenig and Colin Kahl left off some nuance here, for which they can largely be forgiven.  But there are few things which require more absolute crystal clarity than Western redlines for Iran’s nuclear activities — this is one which might deserve a more detailed explanation from US policymakers.

Update: Josh Pollack informs me that the Fordow enrichment facility is under a much stricter IAEA safeguards regime than I initially thought.  Rather than having a window of 2-3 months between site inspections, the IAEA averages one Design Information Verification (DIV) visit per month, in addition to various other types of near-continuous monitoring, both remote and on-site.  Thus, a breakout scenario that depends on the rapid enrichment of weapons-usable material under the nose of IAEA inspectors strains even further the limits of Iran’s technical capability.

Ronen Bergman’s New York Times Magazine article about the possibility of an Israeli attack on Iran includes a few interesting nuggets — that there were 2 confirmed cyber-attacks, that Israel was the source of the NCRI’s information in 2002 about the existence of the Natanz facility — but what I think is most noteworthy is what it doesn’t include and instead merely hints at. Bergman concludes that an Israeli strike is likely in 2012, but provides very little detail about what precisely are the redlines that would trigger such a strike. Here is an excerpt (emphasis mine):

He warned that no more than one year remains to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weaponry. This is because it is close to entering its “immunity zone” — a term coined by Barak that refers to the point when Iran’s accumulated know-how, raw materials, experience and equipment (as well as the distribution of materials among its underground facilities) — will be such that an attack could not derail the nuclear project. Israel estimates that Iran’s nuclear program is about nine months away from being able to withstand an Israeli attack; America, with its superior firepower, has a time frame of 15 months. In either case, they are presented with a very narrow window of opportunity. One very senior Israeli security source told me: “The Americans tell us there is time, and we tell them that they only have about six to nine months more than we do and that therefore the sanctions have to be brought to a culmination now, in order to exhaust that track.”

I personally have no idea what is meant by “an attack could not derail the nuclear project.” Presumably it has something to do with the dispersal of enrichment between both Natanz and Fordow, with the latter being nearly invulnerable to airstrikes. But that is the situation today, not months from today. Similarly, Iran’s accumulated know-how, materials, and experience are not things that can be wiped away by an airstrike in the next 11 months but not after; those are things that persist no matter when or how Iran falls under attack.

Matthew Kroenig laid out American redlines much more explicitly in his Foreign Affairs article. According to him, they are: expelling IAEA inspectors, beginning enrichment up to 90%, or installing advanced centrifuges at Fordow. Colin Kahl echoed these and added another in his rebuttal: the discovery of new covert enrichment sites. Both Kahl and Kroenig are in a good position to indicate the conventional wisdom about these redlines within the administration, so their lists seem plausible to me. But I was struck by the reference to installing advanced centrifuges at Fordow as a redline that must precipitate an attack. To me, this seemed to be a far lower standard (and a far likelier event) than the others. We know Iran is developing advanced centrifuges; it has declared an interest in using advanced centrifuges for its 20% enrichment program; and it has now moved its 20% enrichment program to the Fordow facility. These three facts point to a pretty good likelihood that Iran is on its way to crossing this redline; far more than any of the others, this one seems to be almost imminent.

All this raises some questions: 1) Are Kroenig and Kahl correct in stating that this is a US redline that would trigger an attack? 2) If so, why has the administration chosen to include this particular redline which (in my view) doesn’t give Iran a fundamentally different capability than it already has today? and 3) What precisely does Israel view as comprising the “immunity zone” and when will it begin?

It is a little bit telling that Bergman didn’t include any explicit references to US or Israeli redlines in his article, so I am inclined to believe that his prediction of an attack is no different than the dozens of incorrect predictions in recent years that preceded it. But I worry that the US or Israel or both might suffer from a lack of clarity about truly meaningful redlines, and the resulting ambiguity could make the risk of confrontation needlessly greater.

This post originally appeared in Nuclear Intelligence Weekly (pdf)

Instant gratification is a rarity in international relations, yet that has not stopped Western policymakers from celebrating the swift impact of tough sanctions on Iran’s central bank. Iran’s currency, the rial, has lost around 33 percent of its value the last four months, reaching record lows against the dollar. Iranian officials have called for emergency measures to contain the damage, but the evidence is clear that the latest rounds of pressure have had a profound effect. So is it safe to say that Western policies are finally working? Unfortunately, no.

While it is true that sanctions have inflicted real damage, the nuclear program continues apace. Just this month, Iran reached two new milestones when it declared that it had produced its first domestically-engineered fuel rods for a nuclear reactor and has begun enriching uranium at a heavily fortified facility outside of Qom. Political and military leaders remain defiant in the face of Western pressure, having concluded a provocative ten-day war game in the Persian Gulf. And although another round of talks seems to be in the works, Tehran has shown no willingness to take a softer line at the negotiating table.

All this begs the question: can sanctions really be said to be working when Tehran’s leaders are as defiant as ever?

Proponents of sanctions argue that Iran must be made to pay a price for its intransigence, but not all sanctions share the same objective. Some are intended to raise the costs to Iran of continuing its nuclear program, the ultimate goal being to compel Tehran to give up its nuclear aspirations. Progress toward this objective can be measured by the amount of pain being felt by Iran’s leaders. Thus, the recent currency crisis in Iran can be seen as evidence of the success of the West’s punitive approach.

But there is a limit to how much the US can actually do. Washington is not merely interested in punishment for punishment’s sake; its goal is to get Iran’s leaders to shut down their nuclear program. The success of US policy, then, hinges entirely on a political decision that must be made by Iran’s leaders. Unless the highest authorities within the Islamic Republic decide to change course, no amount of pain or suffering will end the Iranian nuclear program. That means punitive sanctions are a means to an end. Measured against the goal of stopping Iran’s nuclear program — which is the only one that matters — the sanctions cannot be said to be working at all.

Another facet to the West’s pressure strategy, alluded to by US and Israeli officials in recent months, relies on covert efforts to disrupt Iran’s technological progress. This track seeks to disrupt and degrade Iran’s nuclear capabilities, and its ultimate goal is to slow Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons.

Based on available evidence, this approach also seems to have scored some important intermediate victories: the Stuxnet virus is believed to have caused around 1,000 centrifuges to go off line in the Natanz enrichment facility, revealing Iran to be highly vulnerable to sophisticated cyber-attacks. Clamping down on illicit nuclear trafficking by export control bodies and Western intelligence agencies also seems to have made it more difficult for Iran to obtain vital parts and infrastructure. Perhaps most ominously, a campaign of assassinations and mysterious explosions have targeted the facilities and personnel most central to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs, leading many observers to conclude that a covert war is already under way between Iran and the West.

These two types of pressure — punitive measures to change Iran’s calculation and efforts at sabotage aimed at delaying an Iranian bomb — make up the heart and soul of the West’s strategy toward Iran. Unfortunately, these two approaches are in direct conflict with each other.

The latter approach, which emphasizes clandestine activity and sabotage, is a treacherous road to follow. Inherent in any strategy that relies on assassinations and explosions carries a significant risk that Iran might retaliate violently. Indeed, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has declared a defense doctrine of responding to threats with threats, signaling that Western aggression will likely cause Iran to become more intransigent, not less. Worse still, Iran’s leaders might seize upon the state of war with the West as a pretext for withdrawing from the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and pursuing a nuclear deterrent.

These are worst-case scenarios, to be sure. But the fact remains that Washington’s goal of convincing Iran’s leaders to give up on the bomb is in no way helped along by murdering scientists and blowing up missile bases. US policy, then, is tactically clever but strategically stupid.

If Washington wants to convince Iran to see things its way, it should stop pushing all the buttons that make Iran more likely to lash out. The brief delay gained by these covert efforts could come at the cost of cementing Iran’s determination to obtain nuclear weapons. Conversely, if the US is content to simply buy time in the hopes that the regime will collapse, then there is less reason to escalate the conflict and risk a confrontation.

In the eyes of many Washington officials, efforts to buy time or squeeze Iran a little tighter might seem like they are making progress, but these are at best pyrrhic victories. The ultimate objective of the West’s Iran strategy is all that matters, and on that question victory is a long way off.

This post originally appeared at Al Jazeera English:

The United States and its Western allies have utilised nearly every tool at their disposal to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, from sanctions and sabotage to cyber attacks and assassinations. In their zeal, however, Western leaders risk hastening the very thing that they seek to prevent: an Iranian bomb.

It has become increasingly obvious that Iran and the West are now at a state of war, albeit a covert one. Mysteriousexplosions have rocked the Iranian countryside, while suspected Western intelligence agents have targeted nuclear scientists for assassination.

For Iran’s part, recent months have seen a plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington, the storming of the British Embassy, the downing of a US stealth drone, and threats to close the Strait of Hormuz. American observers have heard a lot about these events; what they haven’t heard about is the high likelihood that Iran will retaliate for what it views as acts of war.

Experts widely believe that if Iran were hit by an Israeli airstrike it would retaliate by, among other things, expelling international inspectors and committing to obtaining nuclear weapons. While an Israeli attack remains a distant possibility, it is more likely that Western intelligence agencies will expand covert actions like the Stuxnet virus and targeted assassinations.

The question, then, is how will Iran respond to these escalations? Based on its past experience, the Iranian regime might seize upon what it views as Western aggression to use as a pretext for building nuclear weapons.

In the 1980s, the revolutionary leaders of the new Islamic Republic of Iran swore off weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as un-Islamic. During the course of the war, however, Saddam Hussein’s Iraq used chemical weapons against Iranian troops, spurring Ayatollah Khomeini to reverse his position and restart the country’s chemical weapons programme. In the process, Khomeini established the philosophical foundation for a key principle within the Islamic Republic known as “maslahat-e nizam” or “expediency of the system”, by which the needs of the Islamic Republic as a political institution might trump even Islamic law.

This suggests that Iran’s commitments not to develop WMD in the early 1980s carried an implicit understanding that the religious prohibition on such weapons does not necessarily apply in a state of war.

So far, Tehran’s leaders have declared that they have no interest in nuclear weapons, citing the same religious opposition as before. The US intelligence community has repeatedly assessed that if Iran wanted to develop atomic bombs, it has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to do so. Then why hasn’t Iran put its technical know-how to use building up a nuclear arsenal? Experts widely agree that Tehran has yet to form a consensus in favour of actually building the bomb, and in the absence of such a consensus prefers merely to keep the option open for the future.

Whether or not Iran builds a nuclear weapon, then, will be based on Tehran’s cost-benefit calculation. Fundamentally, the future of Iran’s nuclear programme will be decided within the context of Iran’s larger foreign policy strategy, which Iran’s leaders have characterised as a policy of responding to pressure with pressure. Therefore, the easiest way for Iran to arrive at a consensus in favour of building nuclear weapons would be in response to a provocation from the West.

For the US, the current dynamic with Iran contains a real danger of sleepwalking toward disaster. The goal of Western policy toward Iran is to delay Iran’s actual acquisition of a bomb through sabotage, assassinations, cyber attacks and other covert activities. But this is tragically misaligned with the reality of Iranian decision-making.

Trying to dissuade an actor from doing something they don’t actually intend to do can easily backfire. The danger in this case is that current Western strategy will trigger a nationalistic “rally round the flag” effect in Iran. Indeed, it already has.

The result of all this may be to actually provoke a more aggressive Iranian response than would otherwise have been the case. The focus of Western policy has been on imposing pressure in order to give Iran’s leaders a reason not to weaponise.

Equally important, however, and far too often overlooked, is the need to take care not to give Iran a reason to weaponise – which is exactly what current policy runs the risk of doing.

Over at the National Interest, Nader Hashemi puts the call out for a US Iran policy centered on democracy promotion.  I doubt it’ll get much attention, even from among the Iran policy community.  That’s because there’s just too much else to talk about in the here-and-now to focus on very long term structural issues.  (Ask the Saudi Ambassador to the US what he thinks about prospects for democracy in Iran…).  Still, I’m glad it was written, if for no other reason than to provide fodder for conversation that isn’t: “Can we contain Iran?” 

Overall, Hashemi, who co-edited the definitive book on the Green Movement protests, strikes a great balance here. He says the US should support democracy but in the sort of way you’d take care of a baby bird that falls out of its nest: you don’t want to get too hands-on or it’ll be rejected by its friends and family (or something like that. The crappy metaphor is mine, not the author’s). Hashemi boils it down to this much more artful suggestion:

[US democracy promotion] should be designed in a manner that does not violate the preferences of Iran’s courageous democratic opposition.

That’s about as good a suggestion for democracy promotion as I’ve seen, and need not be limited to the Iranian case.  On the whole, I think the Obama administration has been pretty good about abiding by this rule throughout most of the Arab Spring.

That said, there are a couple of things in Hashemi’s article that are really troubling. First, there is simply no evidence to support the view that

After a democratic transition Iranian nuclear policy will substantially shift under new leadership.

In order to declare such a statement without supporting evidence, one must have some pretty flawed assumptions about the current regime in Tehran, the likely rulers of a democratic Iran, or both.

Secondly, although Dr. Hashemi is right to characterize Iran in recent months as increasing repression, stifling speech, jailing journalists, empowering the security services, and retrenching conservative hardliners, I could not comprehend how, based on those trends, he arrived at the conclusion that “the prospects for democracy in Iran look good over the long term.” 

Perhaps I am not thinking in sufficiently long terms, but I believe the Islamic Republic since the violent clampdown after the 2009 election has lent considerable support to the thesis that authoritarian regimes are highly durable. It seems to me that coming to that conclusion based on what looks like an exceedingly negative situation for democracy on the ground in Iran skips some pretty important analytical steps. 

Of course, it’s easy to engage in wishful thinking when it comes to a topic like democratization in Iran.  We’ve all done it. But this article — which could have been a really useful catalyst for some fresh thinking in Washington — falls largely into that category.

On Tuesday, I had the privilege of speaking before the PONI Capstone Conference at the headquarters of US Strategic Command at Offutt Air Force Base.  In attendance were members of the Air Force’s Global Strike Command, representatives from the national labs, experts from the think tank community, and a whole herd (gaggle? bevy? ostentation?) of graduate students.  It was a great honor to be there.

My presentation focused on what I believe to be the most likely scenario in which Iran might buck its past declarations and overtly declare its pursuit of nuclear weapons.  Of course, this is not the only path Iran could choose. But I do believe it is one which has not been given nearly enough attention, particularly given the likely unintended consequences of current Western policy, which I believe create significant vulnerabilities for Iran to exploit.

Slides from the talk can be viewed here.  Text follows:

Iran’s Nuclear Strategy: Understanding Tehran’s Acquisition Pathway

Good Afternoon.  In my presentation today, I would like to assert that the current Western nonproliferation strategy for dealing with Iran contains a serious risk of backfiring — of ENCOURAGING rather than discouraging an Iranian push for nuclear weapons.

In recent weeks, it has become increasingly clear that Iran and certain western countries are already at a state of war, albeit covertly.  A mysterious explosion that destroyed an IRGC missile site and killed the leader of Iran’s ballistic missile program; another unexplained explosion followed, reportedly near the Esfahan uranium conversion facility; this came following no fewer than five assassination attempts on Iran’s leading nuclear scientists; to say nothing of the widespread clandestine sabotage effort including the Stuxnet cyber-attack against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure; all these bear the hallmarks of a concerted effort by Western governments to disrupt and degrade Iran’s nuclear development.  We have heard about these activities a lot in recent weeks. What we haven’t heard about is the high likelihood that Iran will retaliate for these acts.

In fact, I argue that Iran’s pattern of behavior suggests it is likely to seize upon what it views as Western aggression to use as a pretext for weaponization.

An important starting point is to acknowledge that Iran already possesses the basic technological capability to build nuclear weapons, and in fact has for a number of years.  The US Intelligence Community asserted as such way back in 2007, declaring that “Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.”

The IAEA followed up as early as September, 2009 with the same declaration.

So Iran has possessed the capability to build nuclear weapons for years, yet it has not done so.   Why? Experts widely agree that Tehran has yet to form a consensus in favor of weaponizing because Iran stands to lose more than it would gain.  For each of three classic rationales for weaponization — security, prestige, and domestic politics — Iran has had compelling reasons not to.

From the security perspective, nothing could be worse for Iran than trying to build a bomb and getting caught before it is completed. Even succeeding covertly, however, provides only marginal additional gain beyond a short breakout capability, which it nearly has already.  That is why Iran’s nuclear envoy says it would be a “strategic mistake” to build a bomb, and why Western intelligence agencies believe the Supreme Leader feels the same way

In the prestige category, Iran also has a lot to lose.  Russia and China have made their tacit approval of Iran’s program contingent on its ostensibly peaceful nature — any hint of militaristic rhetoric would make that support evaporate almost overnight.

On the domestic front, Iran’s clerical leaders have put themselves in a bind if they ever wake up and decide they want to build a bomb.  Having declared time and time again that they are opposed to nuclear weapons for religious reasons makes it difficult to just reverse three decades of religious edicts without some major provocation. To do so arbitrarily would undermine the fabric of religious legitimacy that Tehran’s leaders see as essential.

All of this is to say that, notwithstanding Iran’s long history of obfuscation and noncompliance with international inspectors, we must not reflexively assume that Iran is on a crash course for nuclear weapons — yet.

In the absence of a policy consensus, by most experts’ best estimate Tehran today is content to simply keep the option open for the indefinite future.  Having learned their lesson perhaps too well from the Iran-Iraq War that they cannot depend on the international community for help, they have now mandated complete nuclear self-sufficiency as a paramount national objective.

What this boils down to, then, is that whether or not Iran builds a nuclear weapon will be based on cost-benefit calculation.

It may seem obvious, but it is important to note that this is a fundamentally political decision. This fact gets lost all too often in discussions of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability.  I’ll reiterate: Iran has the capability to build a bomb; the only thing keeping it from doing so is a political decision.

That political decision will or will not be made within the context of Iran’s larger foreign policy strategy, which Foreign Minister Salehi has characterized as a policy of “soft aggression,” whereby Iran responds to pressure with pressure of its own.

By virtue of this dynamic, it is easiest for Iran to arrive at a consensus for acts of escalation in response to a provocation. For example, when the West renewed its effort to pressure Iran in late 2009, Iran’s Atomic chief Ali-Akbar Salehi responded two days later by announcing the highly provocative decision to construct 10 new enrichment facilities, saying quote:

“We had no plan to build many nuclear sites like Natanz but…the West adopted an attitude toward Iran which made the Iranian government to pass the ratification on construction of ten sites similar to the Natanz enrichment facility.”

For the West, this dynamic contains a real danger of sleepwalking toward disaster.  Western nonproliferation policy is built upon the assumption that Iran’s leaders are irreversibly committed to weaponization. Based on its strategy of sanctions and pressure, the West’s unstated goal has become to delay Iran’s actual acquisition of a bomb, through sabotage, assassinations, cyber-attacks, and other covert activities

But this is tragically misaligned with the reality of Iranian decision making.

As anyone who has ever dealt with an obstinate two year old can attest: trying to dissuade someone from doing that which they don’t actually intend to do can easily backfire.  The danger is that current Western strategy will trigger a nationalistic “rally round the flag” effect in Iran.  Indeed, it already has.

The result of all this may be to actually provoke a more aggressive Iranian response than would otherwise have been the case.

From Iran’s point of view, it is being forced to bear the costs of a weapons program regardless of its “true” intentions, yet reaps none of the benefit.  This has the potential to shift — by our own doing — Iran’s cost-benefit calculation.  And not in the direction we’d like.

So Iran is left with two choices: It can either give in entirely to the West’s demands; or it can “actualize” the West’s suspicions about it and weaponize.

For Iran to choose the former would require at the very least a credible commitment that the West is willing and able to reward good behavior by, among other things, lifting sanctions.  Anyone in Washington knows how difficult that by itself would be.

Regardless, Iran most likely believes that it will be punished with further sanctions and threats no matter what it does.

At some point, it is possible that Tehran will feel it has nothing to lose by going nuclear.  Even if Iran has had no intention of building nuclear weapons up to this point, Tehran’s leaders might seize upon the state of war between it and the West as a justification for doing so, and in the process seek to lay the blame for the policy shift directly on Western aggression.

There is a historical parallel here that provides an illustrative example.  During the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s, Iran swore off the development or use of chemical weapons as un-Islamic — the same declaration it has made regarding nuclear weapons.  However, following Saddam’s use of CW against Iranian troops, Ayatollah Khomeini reversed course, laying the philosophical foundation for a key principle within the Islamic Republic known as “maslahat-e nizam” or “expediency of the system,” by which the needs of the Islamic Republic as a political institution might trump even Islamic law.

This behavior indicates that the regime’s commitments not to develop CW in the early 1980s carried an implicit understanding that the religious prohibition on development or use of WMD does not necessarily apply in a state of war.

Unfortunately, all this means it is far easier to give Iran’s leaders a reason TO weaponize than it is to convince them not to.  For Western policy makers, there is a need to take a broader view of the risks inherent within current policy.

Now, I am by no means arguing that sabotage, sanctions, and pressure should play no role in US nonproliferation policy toward Iran.  Far from it. I merely argue that the potential for unintended consequences MUST be given greater consideration and weighed against the benefits of such actions.

Up until now, the focus of Western policy has been on imposing pressure on Iran in order to give Iran’s leaders a reason not to weaponize.  Equally important, however, and far too often overlooked, is the need to take care NOT to give Iran a reason TO weaponize, which is exactly what current policy runs the risk of doing.

Thank you.

This post originally appeared at The Atlantic

The alleged Iranian terror plot exposed last month served as a reminder of just how wide the gulf between the United States and Iran has become. While the ongoing conflict over its nuclear pursuits is generally the top Iranian priority of U.S. policy makers and analysts — as the overwhelming attention on this week’s International Atomic Energy Agency report on the Iranian nuclear program demonstrates — the breadth of issues on which the United States and Iran are fundamentally at odds suggests that, even if the nuclear question were resolved tomorrow, U.S.-Iran ties would be unlikely to change for the better.

When he was campaigning in 2007 and 2008, Barack Obama pledged to extend an unprecedented overture to the Islamic Republic. But events in Iran — namely, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s apparent fraud in the 2009 election and the subsequent violent crackdown on protesters — and the diplomatic logjam over the nuclear issue have so far blocked any progress in improving relations. On three occasions in as many years, U.S. diplomats have sat down with high-level Iranian officials to discuss confidence-building measures as part of the six-party body negotiating the nuclear issue. But each time, the talks produced no progress, leaving the Obama administration little other option but to pursue additional sanctions and pressure. Even on technical matters that garnered wide support among experts (such as the recent proposal floated by Ahmadinejad to give up 20 percent enrichment in return for nuclear fuel purchased on the open market) there has been insufficient political will within Washington to pursue direct talks.

Vali Nasr, a former senior advisor with the State Department, described in a recent interview how the diplomatic push never really got off the ground. “We really didn’t have an engagement effort with Iran,” he said. Western capitals demand that Iran suspends its nuclear program, while Tehran demands as a precondition for any negotiations that the world acknowledge its right to enrich uranium. Getting beyond this seemingly simple impasse has taken up the bulk of Obama’s first term.

When the Justice Department announced it had uncovered the Iranian terror plot, the major international incident that followed was only the latest downturn in the already sour U.S.-Iran relationship.  The points of conflict between the two sides are myriad: Iran’s nuclear activities, support for global terrorism (including refuge to al Qaeda figures), domestic human rights violations, support for the Taliban, working against the U.S. in Iraq, aiding the crackdown in Syria, sponsoring Hezbollah and Hamas; the list goes on. Whenever one side has sought to address an issue, history has intervened to quash any possibility of reconciliation. It’s no wonder analysts are fond of saying the U.S. and Iran never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

Some writers in the U.S. advocate a grand bargain as the only way out of the three-decade deadlock. By recognizing and accommodating Iran’s position as a leader in the region and scaling back U.S. commitments accordingly, they say, the two states can have peace. But precisely because the list of grievances is so long, a grand bargain would be very unlikely to work. Could the U.S. and Iran realistically expect a single deal to address nuclear enrichment, human rights, and their divergent interests in the many Middle Eastern states where both are involved? It’s doubtful. The paradox of a grand bargain is that if you don’t solve everything all at once, you can’t solve anything.

In the absence of cooperation, Iran and the U.S. are locked in strategic conflict. This conflict is asymmetric; it utilizescyber warfare, espionage, and proxy forces.  Western forces should expect more provocative acts from Iranian swift boats in the Persian Gulf, and Iranians should expect more computer viruses and more scientists targeted by assassins.  Iran is extending its navy to expand its global reach, and if the evidence behind the recent terror plot holds up, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps may be seeking to expand its operations into America’s backyard.

If forced to, the U.S. could probably contain even a nuclear-capable Iran without difficulty. The U.S. rightly decided against an airstrike on IRGC bases in retaliation for the terror plot, as it has so far with any plans for a surgical strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. It would be nearly impossible avoid escalation after such a strike, possibly to outright war.

For now, Iran’s political leaders appear too internally divided to radically alter the trajectory of their foreign or nuclear policies. The bad news is that this makes it harder for the U.S. to alter those Iranian policies; the good news is that this makes it easier for the U.S. to anticipate Iran’s future moves. Since neither side wants a head-to-head clash, the conflict will almost certainly continue to be fought on the margins and in the shadows.  This has been acceptable to the U.S. because it’s exactly the kind of conflict we’re so good at keeping up.

The most pressing challenge for the U.S. in its ongoing conflict with Iran is to avoid escalation.

As long as the two sides are unable to cooperate systematically on issues of concern, they should find ways to avoid a major provocation such as a U.S. attack or unintentionally inviting an Iranian decision to openly pursue nuclear weapons.

It may be tempting to call this a new Cold War, but there’s at least one important difference: the U.S. has exceedingly superior capability on nearly every plane or area of potential conflict. Regardless of how unpopular the U.S. is in the region, Iran has a much harder time extending its influence beyond its borders in a way that might shift the regional balance of power in its favor. With the Arab Spring, its soft power in the region is trending downward.

This competition, has its risks for the U.S. too. If Washington overreacts to provocations, overextends its commitments, or overestimates the threat it faces from Iran, then the U.S. can in fact lose. But if we recognize Iran not as an existential threat but rather a strategic competitor whose behavior can be constrained, then there is no reason this conflict cannot be managed effectively.