Iran: Obama’s options
Nov 10th, 2008 by MESH
From Michael Rubin
The Islamic Republic has been pursuing a nuclear program for the better part of two decades. Concerns over Iranian intentions were among the reasons cited by Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel, for example, when he inaugurated Germany’s “critical dialogue” in 1992. Subsequent years have been littered with failed diplomatic initiatives, most notably: Reagan’s controversial outreach in 1983; critical dialogue; a broader European critical engagement; Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s apology; and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s offer to sit down with Iran if it suspended enrichment for the duration of talks, and her subsequent decision to reverse course and sign onto a generous incentive package. The constant throughout all of these initiatives has been continuation of Tehran’s nuclear program. Whether under ‘pragmatist’ president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ‘reformist’ president Mohammad Khatami, or ‘principalist’ (Persian: usulgarayan) president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, there have been differences of rhetoric, but remarkable continuity of Iran’s nuclear investments.
The clock is running down, though. President Obama will need to make decisions which Presidents Bush, Clinton, and Bush deferred. After all, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has confirmed that the Islamic Republic has now installed 4,000 centrifuges in its overt enrichment plant. According to Senators Dan Coats and Chuck Robb’s task force on U.S. Policy toward Iranian Nuclear Development (for which I served as drafter), with just 6,000 P-1 centrifuges, fuel-grade 4.8 percent enriched uranium feed, and tails enrichment of 2.26 percent, the Islamic Republic could produce 20 kilograms of weapons-grade uranium in 16 days; i.e., in the period between IAEA inspections. That is not to say that Iran can produce a bomb in less than three weeks, but producing a crude-bomb’s worth of 93.1 percent highly enriched uranium is the most difficult process in an indigenous bomb program.
Early in his administration, Obama will have to determine whether the United States can live with a nuclear weapons-capable Islamic Republic. If he decides the answer is no and if diplomatic and economic coercion fails to persuade Iran’s leaders to back away from their program, this would then mean commitment to a 1998 Operation Desert Fox-type operation. Any kinetic action against Iran would bring short-term gain at tremendous long-term cost: Iranians are nationalistic and would rally around the flag. While the Islamic Republic does not need nuclear arms for its defense, any military action against the Iran’s nuclear program would justify Tehran’s arguments in world opinion as the regime rebuilt.
Regardless, Obama’s policy positions and voting record suggest that he would never order any strike. This leaves both containment and deterrence as U.S. strategies. The problem here, though, is that across the political spectrum, U.S. officials speak of both strategies in rhetorical terms without acknowledging what they require. In this essay for the American Enterprise Institute’s Middle Eastern Outlook series, I explore what would be necessary to deter or contain a nuclear-armed Islamic Republic of Iran, and the consequences of speaking of either strategy without laying the groundwork for them.
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Michael Rubin argues persuasively that President-elect Obama will have to consider serious strategic options against Iran to preclude it from obtaining nuclear weapons should he decide that a nuclear Iran is unacceptable. Obama has called for an international effort to halt Iran’s drive for nuclear weapons, but Rubin shows that the recent history of diplomacy to that end shows it to have been fruitless. He then argues for strategies of containment and deterrence, which he develops more fully here.
In an important footnote to his study, however, he shows that during the primaries, Obama criticized Hillary Clinton for threatening to “obliterate” Iran should it ever use nuclear weapons. Obama thus cuts the legs out from under any deterrence posture the United States may have with its own nuclear arsenal. Rubin also analyzes a number of problems with trying to contain Iran, particularly in light of Obama’s intention to draw down U.S. forces in the region, particularly in Iraq, and the associated problems with positioning other U.S. forces in the region. So containment may be difficult at best and impossible at worst.
Where to go from here? One recent development may help pave the way. In a recent item in the news (here), the Bush administration has just deployed X-Band radars to Israel along with about 120 technicians and a security force. This powerful system will help Israel gain time in detecting a missile launch up to 1,500 miles away. This positive security guarantee of the United States may subtly shift the debate away from trying to deter a nuclear Iran, to providing the kind of defense that could defeat its initially deployed nuclear arsenal.
Obama opposes missile defense, at least for the United States. Will he be willing to remove the security guarantee, along with the radar, from Israel?
Time is running out for any effort to halt Iran’s nuclear weapons program. A fruitless attempt to restart a diplomatic effort will only give Iran the time it needs to develop a nuclear arsenal. The only task then will be to either resurrect nuclear deterrence, renege on withdrawing forces from Iraq, or support increasing missile defenses for Israel and U.S. expeditionary forces that may deploy to the region.
Thanks to Michael Rubin, we now have a better idea of how tenuous our options are.
Mark T. Clark is a member of MESH.
Between accepting a nuclear-armed Iran or bombing Iran there is a third option—but it is certainly not the misguided notion of giving an international stamp of approval to enrichment inside Iran, under any international guise. That precedent will almost surely lead to an explosion of enrichment initiatives, as every political competitor to Iran (and the competitor’s competitor) will be keen to have everything Iran has, which is one lesson from the rush of Middle East states seeking nuclear power once the United States changed position on Bushehr. In the process, it only postpones the problem by setting the stage for a future confrontation with Iran.
The third option rests in credible international pressure, which includes a progressive process of international isolation of Iran’s financial, insurance, shipping, travel and trade systems, perhaps backed up by ad hoc international maritime efforts. (A key element in this is the need for Saudi Arabia to show whether it is part of the problem or part of the solution, i.e. will the Saudis use their clout to force the Chinese to choose between them or Iranians as energy partners or will we let them persist in their current have-their-cake-and-eat-it-too approach.) At the moment, there simply is not enough pain in the existing sanctions to convince Iran that there is a significant cost for its objectionable behavior. Only by ratcheting up the cost—soon—can we avoid the unpalatable binary choice. Sweetening the carrot is far less important that sharpening the stick; the former will never entice the Iranians to do what the latter won’t compel them to do.
Robert Satloff is a member of MESH.
I believe that there is an additional important option which has not been mentioned by the other writers above: a naval blockade. This, however, should be the outcome of a coordinated and graduated strategy aimed at ratcheting up the pressure and combined with a willingness on the part of the new administration to engage with Iran.
Iran will probably reject any offers the new administration makes to improve relations in exchange for an end to the nuclear program, as it has all others. But we will only know if the attempt is made fully, explicitly, and wholeheartedly. I believe that U.S. hard-liners on Iran in particular should support a policy of engagement. The exigencies of realpolitik are such that the United States will only be able to pursue severe measures, let alone future military action, if it proves to domestic and world opinion that it has exhausted all other options.
In any event, engagement must be conducted from a position of strength. Just as a policy of sticks with no carrots is doomed to failure, the opposite is true as well. Iran must be made to clearly understand the consequences of a failure to reach terms, and the timeline is short.
As I explained in detail in my recent article in the November issue of Arms Control Today, a naval blockade would only be undertaken after concerted international sanctions had failed, either because the United States was unable to gain sufficient international support for this, or because Iran remained intransigent.
Preferably, the naval blockade would be multilateral, but it could be unilateral if necessary. The blockade could be comprehensive from the outset or graduated (e.g., initially limited to Iranian imports of refined petroleum and then expanding over time). A partial air and ground blockade might also be feasible. Only if this, too, failed, would there be a need to consider direct military action.
Some will oppose the option of a unilateral naval blockade on the grounds that it would constitute a violation of international law and even an act of war. So be it. Illegal development of nuclear weapons also constitutes a violation of international law, as does dealing a killer blow to the international nonproliferation regime and repeatedly threatening the annihilation of a fellow member state of the United Nations. The issue is not one of niceties or international norms, but of the cold world of realpolitik. A naval blockade may be the only way of ending the Iranian threat without having to resort to direct military action.
For various economic reasons, Iran would be extremely vulnerable to a blockade, and the prospects of its acquiescence to international demands are high. Its military response can also be expected to be quite limited. Iran talks a very good and scary game, but its behavior is far more cautious; even more importantly, its actual ability to respond significantly would most likely be very limited. Those who truly wish to deal with the problem but are wary of direct military action should give careful consideration to the blockade option.
Chuck Freilich is a member of MESH.