Middle East Strategy at Harvard

From Matthew Levitt

Conventional wisdom, if one reads the daily papers and the unnamed European officials quoted therein, is that a third UN Security Resolution targeting Iran is now highly unlikely in wake of the release of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear intentions and capabilities. The assessment opened with the zinger that Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program in the fall of 2003. This was indeed startling, especially since it came just two days after officials announced in Paris that China signed on to a third UN resolution and that a text was being negotiated targeting Iranian banks.

But don’t be confused by the ruminations of the fourth estate. In fact, the NIE has not undermined the newfound international consensus that another UN resolution targeting Iran is needed. Indeed, it was also this week that news broke of Chinese banks refusing Iranian clients lines of credit, in line with the recent finding of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) that Iran’s lack of a comprehensive regime to prevent money laundering and terrorism financing “represents a significant vulnerability within the international financial system.” (FATF is an intergovernmental body that works by consensus and includes China and Russia).

To be sure, there is much to discuss and debate about the NIE. But on the issue that serves as the threshold of the UN sanctions quesiton the report is clear: even if it was suspended in 2003, Iran did have a clandestine nuclear weapons program that it has yet to fully disclose. For the parties involved in shaping the next package of political and economic sanctions, that is the key. These diplomats must also be pleased with the estimate’s other—though less publicized—major finding: that the tool most likely to alter Iran’s nuclear calculus is targeted political and economic pressure, not military action.

(Editor: More from Matthew Levitt on Iran sanctions here, here, and here.)