Bitterlemons International Middle East Roundable: Iran's nuclear porgram after the NIE

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Middle East Roundtable


Edition 4 Volume 6 - January 24, 2008

Iran's nuclear program after the NIE

• NIE opens new windows of opportunity - Mark Fitzpatrick
With the military option gone, the US and additional western countries must make a concerted effort to strengthen other tools.

• A view from Tehran - Ali Asghar Kazemi
Nothing substantial has taken place in order to change the course of Iran's nuclear crisis.

• Washington--still in search of a coherent Iran policy - Ellen Laipson
What is needed is not the endless dissection of intelligence analysis, but a braver policy approach toward Iran.

• A topsy-turvy scenario - Waleed Sadi
The NIE offered the kind of justification that would allow the US to escape its hawkish stance.

NIE opens new windows of opportunity
Mark Fitzpatrick

International efforts to increase pressure on Iran are undeniably made more difficult by the judgment of the December US National Intelligence Estimate that Iran halted work on nuclear weapons in 2003. It is unfortunate that the NIE was cast in a way that gave headline-grabbing attention to this element rather than to the other parts of the estimate that confirmed why the world should be concerned about Iran's efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability.

Despite the damage the report did to US diplomatic strategy, however, there are reasons to be optimistic about the NIE's longer-term impact. There is now a greater window of opportunity for moving ahead on a path that does include war among its more probable outcomes. The NIE assessment that Iranian decision-makers are rational is one sign of hope. Although there is no hint in sight that Iranian leaders will ever give up the nuclear weapons option, important elements of the leadership have demonstrated a willingness to pause in pursuit of some aspects of it. They need to be persuaded to make a rational cost/benefit analysis that will give them reason to put the whole enrichment program on ice.

With the military option gone, the US and additional western countries must make a concerted effort to strengthen other tools. This means, first of all, increasing the economic pressure, best of all through the United Nations, where sanctions can be applied comprehensively, but also through the EU and other means of applying western financial, political and technological leverage. At the same time, the US should take the suggestion of an increasing number of policy thinkers, including conservative commentator Robert Kagan, and seize the initiative by opening direct talks with Tehran. Iran will not bend to pressure alone, and only through US engagement will Iran be persuaded that proffered incentives are real.

Increasing pressure will be harder without the threat of US military action that was the strongest motivator for some countries to go along with sanctions on Iran. While not supportive of sanctions in principle, they believed that by imposing economic penalties they could hold off an American inclination to bring military power to bear on the problem. Joining sanctions because they are a preferable alternative to war was never a very sound justification, however. The more durable and genuine rationale for economic pressure is in order to dissuade Iran from acquiring a capability that is useful mainly for weapons and that could prompt a cascade of nuclear proliferation throughout the region.

By taking US-led war off the table, the NIE assessment conceivably could make it easier for countries such as China to accept sanctions, given that one of Beijing's strongest arguments against such Security Council action was that it would be a slippery slope to war. Now China can make a more clear-minded calculation about the benefits to its national interests of joining collective pressure that can offer the best means of keeping Iran from joining the nuclear club.

Inside Iran, the NIE has played out in unpredicted and potentially promising ways. On one hand, the report gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinezhad a new reason for boastfulness. On the other hand, it is hard for him to propagandize the NIE without also drawing attention to the confirmation that Iran did in fact have a weaponization program to which it has never admitted. This is further reason for the International Atomic Energy Agency not to declare the Iranian file closed.

Removing the threat of war weakened Ahmadinezhad's ability to continue to rally popular support behind his hard-line policies. Without the unifying power of an external military threat, fissures within the regime are deepening. In the lead-up to the March parliamentary elections, Ahmadinezhad's economic policies are coming under increasingly strident criticism. Most importantly, a public rift between Ahmadinezhad and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has taken on new dimensions. On January 21, Khamenei unceremoniously overruled the president and ordered his government to carry out a parliamentary law to supply cheap gas to villages suffering power cuts this winter. Seen as a humiliation for the president, the order followed Khamenei's blunt talk earlier in January of government "mistakes and shortcomings" and his recent re-appointment to key positions of two senior officials Ahmadinezhad had dismissed.

Promoting such internal divisions has long been an American policy objective. However, ill-conceived programs to promote reform by passing around American money serve only to stigmatize the recipients of American aid. It is far better to allow Iran's internal contradictions to play out on their own. In the end, this could be one of the most important contributions of the December NIE.- Published 24/1/2008 © bitterlemons- international.org

Mark Fitzpatrick is senior fellow for non- proliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London.

A view from Tehran
Ali Asghar Kazemi

Amid heated debate about American President George W. Bush's claim that Iran's nuclear ambitions could start World War III, the official US National Intelligence Estimate on the matter came as a shock to all. Whatever the true intention behind this NIE on Iran's nuclear project, it had the following immediate consequences:

* it prompted the Islamic regime to construe the report as proof of the innocent and peaceful nature of Iran's nuclear activities;
* it gave Iranian hardliners a degree of self-confidence and reassurance about their defiant stance;
* it encouraged the "revolutionary coast guard" to challenge US warships' "transit passage" through the Straits of Hormuz during Bush's recent trip to the region;
* it prompted Russia to deliver its first shipment of enriched uranium for Iran's nuclear power plant at Bushehr as a deterrent safeguard against any eventual preemptive strike;
* it induced Russia and China to stiffen their position regarding sanctions in the United Nations Security Council;
* it relieved Bush of the mounting psychological pressure exerted by neo- conservatives in Washington to adopt a military option against Iran, and finally;
* it assured pacifists in America and elsewhere that the United States will not venture into another war in the Middle East.

This whole conjuncture is rather optimistic as far as the actual course of events with respect to Iran's nuclear crisis. Indeed, we should not loose sight of the pessimistic interpretation of the NIE. With a bit of imagination and skepticism, we may visualize the gloomy side of the report as follows. First, based on a common sense approach we may conclude that the American intelligence community is not so naive as to divulge even declassified materials and documents that could jeopardize US strategic interests. Second, the entire affair could involve disinformation issued to mislead Iranian decision-makers and a trap laid with the objective of evaluating Iranian hardliners' reaction. And third, the report could have been intended to convince Americans and the international community that the United States was right in its rigid strategy vis-a-vis Iran insofar as that country abandoned its evil nuclear intentions in 2003 following mounting pressure, but by the same token could restart its nuclear program anytime in the future.

In fact, the declassified summary of the report, which draws together information from 16 American intelligence agencies, says with "high confidence" that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003 "in response to international pressure". The assessment also says with "moderate confidence" that the program has not been restarted. However, the report claims that Iran is keeping its options open regarding the development of nuclear weapons.

High officials and advisers close to the US president, while considering the report "positive", also believe that the risk of a nuclear Iran remains "serious". In their view, the report's findings confirm that the US was "right to be worried" about Iran's nuclear ambitions and had "the right strategy". This clearly conveys the message that the White House is in no way prepared to back down from its earlier position on Iran.

In Bush's words, the NIE was a "warning signal"; his view that a nuclear Iran would be a danger "hasn't changed" since Iran is still trying to enrich uranium and could restart its weapons program at any time: "they had the program, they halted it and they could restart it." In his opinion, the report was "an opportunity for the US to rally the international community" to further pressure the Iranian regime to suspend its efforts to enrich uranium.

Despite the fact that the US president has been more cautious in his public statements after earlier having argued that Iran's nuclear threat could ignite a third world war, he still seems to reflect the view of military- minded neo-conservatives in Washington. True, the intelligence report will make it harder for proponents of military action against Iran to argue their case. Nonetheless, when asked if military action was a possibility, Bush said, "The best diplomacy--effective diplomacy--is one in which all options are on the table." In his view, Iran remains a threat to the world despite new intelligence saying the country may not be building nuclear weapons.

Seen in this context, Bush's recent trip to the Middle East could be in part an attempt to dispel any misapprehension regarding the NIE on the part of America's allies in the region and to assure them of the US commitment against Iran's nuclear challenge. Still, there can be little doubt that the NIE has had the effect of cooling down Iran's nuclear hot spot as a high priority foreign policy issue for the five-plus-one states and the US in particular. For example, French President Nicholas Sarkozy and his foreign minister, who had warned Iran regarding a preemptive strike, now themselves became the target of harsh domestic criticism and suddenly adopted a more compromising stance on the issue. This was the first major foreign policy setback for Sarkozy, who started his tenure as the most vocal critic of Iran and had sought to use it as a common cause in order to align himself with the United States.

Similarly, the United Kingdom and Germany have started to take their distance from the perplexing American position. Bearing in mind Russia's and China's earlier positions, it now appears increasingly difficult to reach a consensus among the five-plus-one states for the adoption of a harsh UN Security Council resolution against Iran. This is indeed good news for hardliners in Tehran, who had claimed victory over the United States after the NIE was issued.

Yet all in all, the NIE provoked only momentary confusion. Nothing substantial has taken place in order to change the course of Iran's nuclear crisis. Notwithstanding certain disagreements among the permanent members of the Security Council on the issue, there seems to be little difference among them in terms of securing the credibility and reputation of this major world body. Because Iran is still defying UN Security Council demands regarding its enrichment of uranium, the question of sanctions remains active. The debate among Council members concerning the harshness of a third sanctions resolution will reach a decisive point in the coming weeks.- Published 24/1/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Ali Asghar Kazemi is professor of law and international relations in Tehran.

Washington--still in search of a coherent Iran policy
Ellen Laipson

During his January visit to the Middle East, President George W. Bush tried to put any doubts to rest about a dramatic shift in US policy toward Iran as a result of the December unclassified version of a National Intelligence Estimate that stated that Iran "halted its nuclear weapons program" in fall 2003. In Abu Dhabi, the president excoriated Iran for a litany of sins related to terrorism and fomenting instability throughout the region. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates made a similar tough speech about Iran in December to the International Institute of Strategic Studies' Manama Dialogue, where he insisted that Iran is a grave threat to regional stability, whether or not it has nuclear weapons.

It is clear that the administration has been scrambling to clarify its Iran stance, since much of the world assumes the policy did indeed change, with a vital rationale for military action against Iran's nuclear program removed or at least weakened by the public revelations on the part of US intelligence. The administration has been most concerned with reassuring Europe, the increasingly tough-minded partner of the US in seeking more punitive sanctions against Iran for its non-compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the Arab Gulf, which fears Iranian hegemonic ambitions and is willing, reluctantly perhaps, to work with the US as a hedge against that strategic threat.

One should not, however, assume that new intelligence means a new policy. The US system really is premised on preserving the independence of the intelligence process and protecting it from political manipulation. The president reportedly was briefed in advance on the dramatic NIE findings, but understood clearly that he could not stand in the way of the release of the judgments. He was correct in terms of process, and the decision to go public with the findings was driven more by the uneasy power relationship between intelligence and Congress than machinations inside the White House. The independence of the judgments has also been construed as a virtual coup by a united intelligence community committed to stopping another war on Bush's watch. This alleged political action belies the careful protocol within intelligence culture; individual analysts may have strong political preferences, but the analytic process and interagency coordination over NIEs are remarkably apolitical interactions.

It is useful to look at the NIE in light of intelligence reforms mandated after the intelligence failures regarding 9/11 and Iraq weapons of mass destruction. The intelligence community leadership believes this new NIE reflects improved internal practices and represents exemplary tradecraft. Both Director of National Intelligence Adm. Mike McConnell and Director of the CIA General Mike Hayden have praised the NIE for the process that contributed to it: new humint (human intelligence) collection that provided the story about Iran's 2003 halt of weapons work, and the analytic methods to corroborate, share and assess the new information. It is notable that the chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Dr. Tom Fingar, and the national intelligence officer responsible for the NIE, Vann Van Diepen, have long experience at the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, which has a strong reputation for independent analysis, often questioning the interpretations of the larger larger, more collection- oriented intelligence agencies.

After an initial period of glee that the new NIE would force a less bellicose US policy, the current thinking in the scholarly and public policy worlds is more sober about the implications of the new NIE judgments. The nonproliferation community is worried that the estimate will complicate efforts to toughen sanctions and give the Iranians a reprieve on compliance, possibly of long duration. Many who have tracked intelligence reform are chagrined at the crafting of the unclassified judgments, and worry that advocates of reform are more focused on internal practices than the quality of intelligence output. It is also clear that the NIE was written by proliferation experts, with only passing reference to deep political trends and prospects inside Iran. A greater integration of knowledge and insight from both proliferation and regional experts would have produced a wiser NIE.

What is really needed is not the endless dissection of intelligence analysis, but a braver policy approach toward Iran. The administration has offered many different initiatives that do not fit together into a coherent strategy. It has opened a political channel in Baghdad; many hope that continued progress in US-Iran relations over Iraq could lead to a wider dialogue about other issues. Yet one sees little willingness from the White House to encourage that process as part of a larger effort to rethink Iran policy. To the contrary, the current administration really cannot get past its deep antipathy for the Iranian regime, and still holds a core belief that "normal" relations between Tehran and Washington will require regime change in Iran.

Regime change is about to occur in Washington as well, and a less ideological approach to Iran might include a more open discussion about Iranian security requirements, so that the terms of the debate can change. Iran is not going to make it easy for us, but our goal of regional stability does demand some new approaches to coping with the enduring challenge of Iran, which is, and always has been, more than its nuclear ambitions.- Published 24/1/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Ellen Laipson is president and CEO of The Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington. She was vice chair of the National Intelligence Council from 1997 to 2002.

A topsy -turvy scenario
Waleed Sadi

The controversy over Iran's nuclear ambitions has gone through many twists and turns at all levels, the most recent being the US National Intelligence Estimate finding that Iran stopped work on a nuclear weapons development program in 2003.

For a number of years, US President George W. Bush has been orchestrating a campaign to promote the view that Iran's nuclear program, especially the enrichment of uranium, leads inevitably to the conclusion that Tehran is in fact determined to develop a nuclear weapons capacity.

Washington was able to convince other western capitals, including Paris and Berlin, that Iran under its President Mahmoud Ahmedinezhad was a grave threat and was determined to become a nuclear one. The accompanying development by Iran of a missile delivery system capable of reaching many European capitals in addition to Israel only augmented and reinforced the White House's position.

All along, though, Mohammad al-Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the principal UN nuclear watchdog, remained skeptical of western fears. Al-Baradei was adamant that there was no solid proof that Iran's nuclear program was intended for the production of nuclear weapons.

Then came the dramatic disclosure by the US intelligence community at the end of 2007 that contradicted the entrenched view that Iran is engaged in the pursuit of nuclear weapons. This apparent summersault by US intelligence caught many observers by surprise and especially angered Israel, which was banking on US support for any possible military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities. So why did Washington make this U-turn on Iran's nuclear intentions?

It is not farfetched to explain the sudden reversal in the US interpretation of Iran's nuclear intentions as a gambit of sorts to free US hands from its previous hardline position, which seemed to lead down a one-way street to some kind of military engagement before the end of Bush's term in office. The NIE offered exactly the kind of justification that would allow the US to escape its hawkish stance. It would then not be coincidental that the Bush administration had been engaging Iran on several fronts other than on its nuclear program.

Any face-saving US exit from the Iraqi quagmire needs the cooperation of Tehran, and there have been reports that the US has actively sought Iranian support to stabilize Iraq and bring to it a semblance of normalcy. Washington also might want Iran to help it out in Lebanon to end the stalemate over the election of a new president and vis-a-vis Hizballah. Finally, the US may also hope for some cooperation from Iran to reign in Hamas in the Gaza Strip.

No progress has been made on any of these issues since the NIE, however, and the heat is now again on Iran over its nuclear program. Talk has resumed in Washington and other western capitals of the Iranian nuclear threat and the need to deal with it before it is too late. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has become even more bellicose of late on Iran than Bush. Israel continues to send dire warnings of the Iranian threat and did not waste the opportunity when Bush stepped off his plane at Tel Aviv airport during his recent visit.

President Bush still appears a little hesitant to be on exactly the same wavelength as Israel on Iran, perhaps out of fear that Israel will push him to take preemptive military action before his term of office ends. In effect, Israel has only a few months to persuade Bush to attack Iran since any future US president will not be in a hurry to order such an attack.

Episodes like the recent encounter between US destroyers and Iranian speed boats in the Straits of Hormuz in the Arabian Gulf could, however unintentionally, escalate and be exploited by some circles in Washington to railroad the US into undertaking a large military strike against Iran that would include its nuclear facilities. If Bush should make such a decision he will surely have the backing of France, Germany and other western capitals, in addition, of course, to Israel.

IAEA chief Baradei thus remains busy trying to deflect Israeli manipulations by insisting that Iran does not pose any real nuclear threat and that the attention of Washington and its allies should shift to Pakistan instead, a country he describes as having become too unstable to discount the possibility that its nuclear arsenal will fall into the wrong hands.- Published 24/1/2008 © bitterlemons-international.org

Waleed Sadi is a former Jordanian ambassador to Turkey and the UN and other international organizations in Geneva. He is currently a columnist for the Jordan Times and Al Rai newspapers.



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