After months of seemingly fruitless effort, the Obama administration suddenly appears to have made progress both on improving Russian-American relations and on resolving the Iranian nuclear issue. After the Obama administration announced that it would not implement the Bush administration’s plan to deploy ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at protecting Europe from Iranian missiles—a plan strenuously opposed by Moscow—Russian President Medvedev recently suggested that Moscow might go along with tougher sanctions on Iran for not cooperating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the UN Security Council on its nuclear program.

Further, at the P-5+1 talks with Iran in Geneva, Tehran has agreed to send “most” of the uranium that it has enriched to Russia in order to be converted into “desperately needed material for a medical research reactor in Tehran” (so reported the Washington Post). There have even been reports that Washington and Moscow are pushing Israel to cooperate with the IAEA, sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and give up its nuclear arsenal in order to create a Middle East nuclear-free zone that Iran would agree to be part of.

There may be far less here, though, than meets the eye. Instead of the advent of Russian and Iranian cooperation with the United States, what we may be witnessing instead is a limited convergence of Russian-American interests along with Iran making a show of cooperating with both Washington and Moscow in order to divide them.

Some in the West see Moscow’s willingness to consider increased sanctions against Iran now as a concession to Washington in return for canceling the BMD deployment plan for Poland and the Czech Republic. The Russian press, though, has claimed that Moscow’s agreement to allow the United States to transport lethal materiel to Afghanistan via Russian airspace was the Kremlin’s reward to Obama for canceling the East European BMD deployments, and that Russia is not altering its policy toward Iran at America’s behest.

Moscow would prefer that Tehran not acquire nuclear weapons, and could hardly ignore the American announcement that Iran has another enrichment facility in the vicinity of Qom that it had not declared to the IAEA (as it is bound to do). Moscow’s willingness to convert Iran’s enriched uranium, though, is not a break with past Russian policy. Indeed, Vladimir Putin has for several years offered to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through Russia providing all the uranium enrichment services that Iran needs for an atomic energy program (performing the enrichment through a “joint venture” either in Russia, Iran, or possibly somewhere else). If both America and Iran accepted this proposal, Russia’s importance to both would be greatly enhanced: America would be reliant upon Russia to make sure Iran did not acquire weapons-grade uranium, and Iran would be dependent on Russia for restraining America vis-a-vis Tehran.

But while the Bush administration appeared willing to accept such a solution in the past, Tehran always responded that while it was willing to acquire some enriched uranium from Russia, it also insisted on enriching some of its own—which is exactly what is unacceptable to Washington and others. It was partly Putin’s frustration with Tehran for not fully adopting his solution to the nuclear issue that appears to have triggered Russian support for previous UN Security Council sanctions against Iran.

Of course, when Moscow did vote in favor of sanctions, the Iranian press denounced Russia in the bitterest terms for—once again—being willing to betray Iran in order to curry favor with America. Russian officials and commentators would then attempt to appease Tehran by claiming that Moscow had actually helped Iran by watering down the much harsher penalties that America and Britain had wanted to impose on it.

Something similar could occur this time as well. Tehran’s uncertainty about whether Moscow really might seriously cooperate with America in imposing harsher Security Council sanctions against it this time may well have motivated Iran to let Russia convert “most” (but not all) of its enriched uranium, in the expectation that Moscow will point to this “increased” Iranian cooperation as reason to delay imposing new sanctions against Tehran as well as watering down those already in place. Unlike the United States, which does not do much business with Iran, Russia has important economic stakes there, which it hopes to increase. While Moscow doesn’t want Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons, it doesn’t want to impose sanctions that would damage Russian economic interests in Iran either. What Russia wants, then, is to cooperate just enough with the United States to convince Washington that it is working with it responsibly (and perhaps obtain some concession for doing so) while at the same time preserving its important relationship with Iran.

And as for Russia encouraging Israel to cooperate with the IAEA, sign the NPT, and give up its nuclear weapons: Moscow could hardly do otherwise at a time when the Obama administration has intensified the longstanding U.S. call for Israel to do all these things. But perhaps unlike some in the Obama administration, Moscow knows full well that Israel is highly unlikely to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Israel’s position, then, allows Moscow to argue that Iran cannot be expected to make progress on nuclear disarmament unless Israel does. Israel’s likely refusal to do so, then, is a convenient excuse for Moscow not to seriously join with the United States to push Iran on this.

The Obama administration is trying to get Iran, Russia, and Israel to all change their policies. But while Iran, Russia, and Israel do not like one another’s policies, none of them is willing to change its own. Because of the way that these three governments interact with one another as well as with the United States, it is highly likely that Iran, Russia, and Israel will each continue to pursue its preferred policies and thus frustrate the Obama administration’s efforts to get them to change them. Despite press reports to the contrary, then, Russian-American relations—insofar as the Iranian nuclear issue is concerned—are not likely to improve, and the Iranian nuclear issue is not likely to be resolved as a result of the Obama administration’s current diplomatic initiatives.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

The New York Times has produced this interactive graphic about the no-longer-secret uranium enrichment facility at Qom in Iran. Click here if you cannot see it below.

As the Obama administration prepares for October 1 negotiations with Iran, Tehran steals a page from Pyongyang’s playbook: escalate confrontation in advance of engagement. Why not? Escalation to win concessions and backtracking on promises have worked for North Korea.

On September 27, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps conducted war games that included test launches of multiple short range Shahab-1 and Shahab-2 missiles, and on September 28, the Iranian regime tested a Shahab-3 missile with a range of 2,000 kilometers, capable of reaching Israel and U.S. military assets in the Persian Gulf.

Iran’s war games come on the heels of the revelation of a second, previously “unknown” uranium enrichment facility in Qom (shown above)—except the facility was not unknown to Western intelligence and wasn’t unknown to those who paid attention to the main Iranian opposition groups, the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK) and the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI). In December 2005, the NCRI revealed that tunneling activity in the mountains outside of Qom was initiated in 2000 by an IRGC engineering unit, with the goal of constructing an underground nuclear facility.

On September 24, 2009, the NCRI revealed two additional sites in and near Tehran where the Iranian regime is working on detonators for nuclear weapons. The sites are part of METFAZ, a Farsi acronym for Research Center for Explosion and Impact; they undermine both the Iranian regime argument that its uranium enrichment is for peaceful purposes and the U.S. intelligence community judgment that Iran halted weaponization work in fall 2003, as reported in a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate.

In accord with the Iranian opposition group’s estimates (and undercutting that NIE) are the Israeli and German assessments of Iran’s clandestine efforts to design a nuclear warhead, as reported in the New York Times: “The Israelis, who have delivered veiled threats of a military strike, say they believe that Iran has restarted these ‘weaponization’ efforts, which would mark a final step in building a nuclear weapon. The Germans say they believe that the weapons work was never halted.”

Thanks to the Qom revelation, the Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council + Germany (P5+1) should have the upper hand during the October 1 meeting. Through the war games, Tehran likely hoped to regain some lost leverage. Now the issue is what Iran hopes to achieve through meeting with the P5+1.

Based on past behavior, it is unlikely that Tehran genuinely intends to cut a deal with the international community. Instead, the regime uses negotiations as ploys to buy time to continue with uranium enrichment until nuclear weapons status becomes a fait accompli. At the top of Iran’s priorities for the October 1 meeting will be the avoidance of harsher sanctions without meaningfully curtailing its nuclear activities. To this end, the regime can be expected to make vague pronouncements about continuing to work with the international community and the desire for more follow-on negotiations. Such a posture makes rallying Russia and China around stronger sanctions more difficult.

In the past, Tehran has hid its serial deception with promises of additional talks. As far back as June 14, 2008, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said he would offer to European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana a “comprehensive” negotiation package of security, terrorism, narcotics, organized crime, and illegal migrants. In the subsequent Geneva meeting between Iran and the P5+1, talks deteriorated over the suspension of uranium enrichment; the P5+1 insisted on cessation, but Iran refused. In over a year’s time since this hint of a “comprehensive” offer, the Iranian regime has succeeded in expanding its stocks of enriched uranium and consolidating Revolutionary Guards control of the Iranian political system.

Former Revolutionary Guards General and now Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also got in on the game of using arms control rhetoric as a ploy. On April 15, 2009, during the presidential election campaign, the Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported him to have stated that Iran would offer a new proposal package for nuclear talks. And Bloomberg reported on April 26 that his government was preparing to offer the United States and European nations an updated version of a one-year-old proposal for talks about its nuclear program. “We are reconsidering our proposed package,” Ahmadinejad said in an interview on American ABC television.

Such “reconsideration” came as Ahmadinejad was facing pressure from election rival Mousavi, who criticized Ahmadinejad’s hard line stance on the nuclear program. Claiming that an Iranian proposal to the United States was in the offing was a gambit to give the appearance of moderation, both domestically and abroad, while continuing apace with uranium enrichment.

Foreign Minister Mottaki said on May 13 of this year that Iran was preparing a package of proposals for the P5+1 on the regime’s nuclear activities and promised to deliver it as soon as it was finalized. Leading up to Mottaki’s May 13 statement, the Iranian regime had begun testing more advanced uranium enrichment centrifuges at a pilot plant within the Natanz enrichment complex, according to IAEA reports.

The ploy was repeated over the summer. The July 2009 G8 Summit called on Tehran to assist IAEA investigators to understand the complete nature of the nation’s nuclear history and future plans. The Iranian regime announced what it called a new proposal after the summit. On July 11, the Wall Street Journal reported, “Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran had begun work on new proposals that will be put forward as a basis of discussion with the West, according to state media. He didn’t detail the proposals, nor did he say whether any part of the package would deal specifically with Iran’s nuclear program.” The reporter interpreted Mottaki’s statement as “a tentative signal that Tehran may be willing to start rebuilding relations after weeks of drubbing the U.S., Britain and other Western power [sic] for alleged complicity in election unrest.” Rather, such empty offers are an effective distraction from unrest and are designed to give the regime an air of legitimacy through negotiation with the international community.

The Iranian regime likely judges that the most effective method of buying time to enrich uranium is to enter a vague and drawn out proposal-counterproposal cycle with the P5+1. As long as Tehran appears somewhat engaged on the Obama initiative, the regime seeks to delay Western military action against its nuclear infrastructure.

The P5+1 should be prepared for Tehran to use both threats and proposals to buy time, distract from unrest, and give the appearance of moderation, and as such should give engagement without sanctions a short leash. As British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during the G20 meeting,

Confronted by the serial deception of many years, the international community has no choice today but to draw a line in the sand… On October the 1st, Iran must now engage with the international community and join the international community as a partner. If it does not do so, it will be further isolated.

Toward this end, the P5+1 should continue to demand progress from Tehran on halting its nuclear weapons program, while pursuing crippling international sanctions, political recognition of Iran’s opposition groups, and/or threat of military strikes.

While Tehran steals a page from Pyongyang’s playbook of escalation in advance of engagement, Tehran’s militant and expansive ideology makes it impossible for its neighbors to live with a nuclear-armed Iran.

In some respects, Ari Shavit’s widely-noted interview of Israel’s national security adviser, Uzi Arad, contained no great surprises. Arad’s insistence on “deep” acceptance of Israel (not just de facto acknowledgement of Israel’s existence) by Palestinians; leaving the door open, just by a crack, to a Palestinian state, while dismissing the possibility of any Palestinian leader rising to the occasion; closing the door entirely to a peace treaty with Syria by insisting that Israel remain on the Golan; the preference for the Road Map rather than disengagement and Annapolis—all of this has been in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s hymnal since he took office, and it is clear who is composing the libretto.

Two elements are more striking. First, Arad’s proposal of eventual Israeli membership in NATO adds an oddly chimerical note to what could otherwise be described as an essay in cold-blooded and cynical realism. Arad doubts that the Palestinians will get their act together, or that the international community will act effectively on the Iranian nuclear issue, or that Arabs will ever “internalize” their acceptance of Israel. And he may be right on all counts; pessimists are often mistaken for prophets because they get it right all too often. But to imagine that risk-averse European states, which can barely be persuaded to allow their troops in Afghanistan to go near danger, will commit to meaningful defense of Israel—even in the context of a peace settlement—is fantasy.

The second note of importance is the continued building of infrastructure to prepare the ground for action to prevent Iranian acquisition of the bomb. Arad does not believe that the non-military options will work, and that a maritime blockade might escalate in any event. At the same time, he defines preventing an Iranian bomb as an existential imperative: we cannot live with a nuclear Iran because a nuclear Middle East would not be the same as the Cold War nuclear stalemate. A nuclear Middle East would become a multi-nuclear Middle East, with all that entails.

There is an ironic contradiction here. Arad puts great weight on preventing nuclearization of the region, but at the same time declares himself an acolyte of the late Herman Kahn, the nuclear strategist who rejected the idea of mutual deterrence and insisted on “thinking about the unthinkable,” that is, the actual waging of war with nuclear weapons. Arad even mentions that he once wrote a paper on possible limited nuclear war in Central Europe. If it is so critical to prevent Iran emerging as the first declared nuclear-weapons state in the region, then why is Kahn, of all people, put forward as an icon for the new era?

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

There has been an ongoing debate here at MESH and elsewhere about whether Israel can, will, or should launch an attack against Iran to prevent Tehran from obtaining nuclear weapons. One possible method by which such an attack might be degraded or even deterred is if Russia sells the advanced version of its S-300 missile defense system to Iran. But while Tehran has actively sought this weapons system from Moscow and press reports pop up from time about how Russia has agreed to provide it to Iran (or even that Moscow is doing so), the Kremlin has not yet done so. Further, there is reason to believe that it will not do so in future either.

Moscow now has good relations with Israel, which the Kremlin values for several reasons: the growing Russian-Israeli trade relationship, Israeli security assistance in dealing with Muslim opposition forces inside Russia, and the addition of Israeli technology which greatly enhances Moscow’s ability to sell arms to India in particular. In addition, with over a million Russian-speakers now living in Israel, there are close cultural contacts between Russia and Israel—which the Israeli government sought to increase in 2008 when it ended visa requirements for Russian tourists.

One of Israel’s highest priorities in terms of what it wants from Russia is for Moscow not to assist Iran in ways that could help it to harm Israel. The suspicion that Iran is attempting to acquire nuclear weapons, combined with Iranian President Ahmadinejad’s repeated statements expressing the desire to wipe Israel “off the map,” have had an especially powerful impact on the Jewish state. Many conservative Israeli political leaders—including the current prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu—have expressed the belief that Iran will attack Israel with nuclear weapons if Tehran develops them, and have indicated that Israel will use force in order to prevent Iran from doing so.

Israel has long wanted Russia to halt all actions helping Iran acquire nuclear weapons or missiles that could deliver them. But while any such move on Moscow’s part would be welcome, Israeli intelligence has basically concluded (as noted by Romen Bergman in The Wall Street Journal on May 16) that it is now too late to dissuade Iran from acquiring the bomb. What Israel wants most urgently from Moscow, then, is not to provide Tehran with the S-300 missile defense system which might thwart or minimize the effectiveness of an Israeli attack against Iranian nuclear facilities.

For many years, Russia has hemmed and hawed about its willingness to sell S-300s to Iran. At times, the indications that Moscow would sell them have been so strong that Tehran has announced that an agreement had been reached and even that Moscow had begun to deliver the weapons. Whenever this has occurred, Moscow has stated that it has not sold or delivered S-300s to Tehran, but insisted that it has the right to sell defensive weapons not prohibited to Iran by the Security Council.

On December 17, 2008, for example, RIA Novosti reported not only that Moscow and Tehran were negotiating over the sale of medium-range SAMs, but that Russia was “fulfilling the contract” to supply S-300s to Tehran. The deputy head of the Iranian Majles’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee also claimed that Moscow and Tehran had finally reached an agreement over the delivery of S-300s. On December 22, however, Russia’s Federal Military-Technical Cooperation Service (the agency overseeing Russian arms sales) stated that reports about Russia selling S-300s to Iran “are wrong.”

Just how much Moscow’s desire for good relations with Israel has in the past affected its reluctance to sell the S-300 to Tehran is unclear. There is reason to believe, though, that maintaining good relations with Israel has recently become a very important consideration for Moscow. In April 2009, Israel reportedly agreed to sell $50 million worth of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to Russia. At about this time, Russian sources made clear once again that Moscow was not selling S-300s to Iran. While Moscow did not give Israel a firm promise not to sell these weapons to Iran, an informed Israeli source indicated that Russian officials did give “a vague assurance that the deal is not going ahead” (according to Reuters).

Why would the Russian military’s purchase of a mere $50 million worth of UAVs from Israel influence Moscow not to sell S-300s to Iran? An unattributed commentary published April 20, 2009, in Nezavisimoye voyennoye obozreniye pointed toward a powerful incentive. After noting that the $50 million deal was for 10 Israeli UAVs, the article indicated that Moscow might buy as many as 50 to 100 UAVs from Israel, plus other weapons systems from it. The reason for importing these Israeli products, the article made clear, is because the Russian “military cannot wait indefinitely until our highbrow designers condescend to the army and cease to pull money from it, supplying the field with, instead of modern combat-support systems, merely promises and unsubstantiated advertising arguments.”

The Russian Defense Ministry, then, appears to be purchasing weapons and other materiel from Israel because the Russian defense industry either cannot produce them as well, or cannot produce them at all. To the extent that this $50 million deal represents the beginning of Russian acquisition of—and dependence on—Israeli military technology, Israel is very likely to be in a stronger position than before to discourage Moscow from providing Tehran with S-300s or similar goods that could deter or degrade an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities.

Whatever other obstacles there may be to Israel launching an attack against Iran, it does not appear that the Russian S-300 missile defense system will be one of them.

The prospect of being hanged, we are told, wonderfully concentrates the mind, but on what? The prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon now concentrates our attention on the possibility of Israeli preventive military action or on American sanctions, both of which might prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. These are important policy options, but concentrating on them diverts us from what may be the moment of maximum danger, which will take place one or two years after Iran tests a nuclear weapon.

I am assuming that Iran will openly test its weapon, for the psychological impact the test will have, both in Iran and abroad. Given the uncertainties that other nations have about the ability of Iran successfully to construct a workable weapon on the Chinese/Pakistani model, only a successful test will yield the political benefits for which Iran has paid so heavily. Iran may test the weapon above ground, to minimize the chances that preparations for the test are detected, and to achieve the maximum visual impact, something the regime has sought and exaggerated in its ballistic missile test program. On current projections, this test could come in 2010 or 2011.

After the test, what will Iran do? It is noteworthy that many new nuclear powers (but not India) have offered nuclear weapons technology, not the bomb itself, to allies and clients. The technology is valuable, and easily transmitted covertly, for money or for diplomatic influence. Iran may not make explicit nuclear threats. It is hard to find any new nuclear power that has done so. But Iran is likely to feel more secure against American and Israeli military action on Iran in retaliation for Iranian actions short of nuclear weapons use, because it will in fact be riskier to proceed with such retaliation once Iran has the bomb.

Iran’s friends will also be emboldened. Hezbollah and Hamas may feel that Iran is better able to protect them against Israeli or American military action once Iran has a nuclear arsenal. The hard core of the Revolutionary Guards and their counterparts in Hezbollah will feel free to pursue a more aggressive agenda against Israel by military but non-nuclear means, once Iran has nuclear weapons. Iran may warn Israel that attacks by her on Lebanon or Gaza would be “dangerous.” Another Lebanon war or more attacks from Gaza are hardly unlikely under such circumstances. If so challenged, Israel will call Iran’s bluff, and use all the non-nuclear force at its disposal against targets in Lebanon or Gaza.

In that case, will Iran sit by and do nothing? At moments of intense non-nuclear crisis, facing defeat or political reverses, the United States, the Soviet Union, Pakistan, and even Israel have taken actions designed to convince foreign observers that they were getting their nuclear weapons ready to use, in order to persuade foreigners to be more cooperative. It is not necessary to attribute any eccentricity to the leadership of Iran in order to suggest that they, too, may seek to avoid the defeat of their allies in an intense crisis by increasing the readiness of their nuclear weapons. Seeing Iranian preparations for nuclear weapons use, what will Israel do?

In other words, it is not an Iranian nuclear bolt out of the blue that will be the problem, but Iranian-Israeli interaction in an intense crisis in which Israel sees Iranian nuclear forces becoming more ready for action, and in which Iran fears Israeli pre-emption. That will be the moment of maximum danger.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

Israeli public discourse over Iran’s nuclear weapons program is dominated by two analogies: the Holocaust and the 1981 Israeli attack on the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq.

The prominence of the Holocaust—the most horrific genocide in human history—should be no surprise. Jewish history seen through the Zionist lens is a chronicle of powerlessness and tragedy, embodying a “gevalt syndrome”: if things can get worse, they will. Gloomy premonitions are extracted from even the most propitious turn of events—and recent developments in Iran are far from propitious.

This tragic history culminates in the Holocaust, which continues to be ever-present in Israeli public life. It was a central element in Israel’s critical decisions on its own nuclear weapons program, in the 1950s and 1960s. As recounted in Avner Cohen’s authoritative Israel and the Bomb, David Ben-Gurion’s private communications on this issue returned to the Holocaust, then only a few years in the past, again and again. In the current debate, the fact that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a Holocaust denier serves to strengthen the hold of the analogy.

To take a sampling of the most recent statements:

• Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu: “We will not allow Holocaust deniers to carry out another Jewish Holocaust. This is… my supreme commitment as Prime Minister of Israel.”
• Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin: “This time [Hitler] has a beard and speaks Persian…. But the words are the same words and the aspirations are the same aspirations and the determination to find the weapons to achieve those aspirations is the same menacing determination.”
• President Shimon Peres: “As Jews, after being subjected to the Holocaust, we cannot close our eyes in light of the grave danger emerging from Iran…. If Europe had dealt seriously with Hitler at that time, the terrible Holocaust and the loss of millions of people could have been avoided. We can’t help but make the comparison.”

In this light, a nuclearized Iran is regarded by both policymakers and the public as an existential threat to Israel, as an ideologically-driven state capable of irrationality and suicidal behavior—an image strengthened by the incidence of suicide bombings. Poll data show that Israelis believe, by overwhelming majorities ranging from 66 to 82 percent, that Iran would use the bomb to try to destroy Israel. Frequent reference is made to the 2001 statement by former Iranian President Ali Rafsanjani that “if one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now, then the imperialists’ strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. However, it will only harm the Islamic world. It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality.”

The second major analogy in the debate, the 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear plant, seems obvious since it involves a neighboring state, with a similar threat, similar conditions, and (so far) a similar failure of the international community to stop the program. It is also noted that while the 1981 attack was almost universally condemned by other governments, no effective sanctions against Israel resulted, and it was clear that many states privately welcomed the action. The analogy also lowers expectations, in that the Iraqi nuclear weapons program was not ended but only delayed for several years (which turned out to be adequate).

At the same time, some participants in the debate underline differences: an attack on Iranian facilities would be much more difficult militarily, and the Iranians, unlike Iraq, would be ready and able to retaliate on a number of fronts. But some differences, others point out, would work in the other direction: offensive capabilities have also improved considerably over the last three decades, and there is considerably more international attention and support directed toward blocking an Iranian bomb than was the case with Iraq.

It is also important to note some analogies that are not featured in this debate, but are either ignored or downplayed by Israeli policymakers and analysts. For example, little mention is made of the fact that Saddam Hussein did not use the weapons of mass destruction (chemicals) at his disposal in 1991, during the SCUD attacks on Israel, despite his earlier use of such weapons against Iran. Likewise, the Cold War model of the U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance is not a major focus, and when discussed it is often with the focus on the differences that would obtain in a Middle East context: the lack of invulnerable second-strike capability, shortcomings in command and control, and above all the lack of any clear “rules of the game.”

Some of the analysts in academia—particularly from the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, including Ephraim Kam and Yair Evron—have, along these lines, examined the consequences of an Iranian bomb in terms of deterrent theory and the requirements of a stable balance. But even in these analyses, the emphasis remains on preventing the Iranian program from coming to fruition. And elsewhere, in the public debate and in the utterances of policymakers, attention is focused almost entirely on prevention.

Israeli policymakers obviously have a strong incentive to make an Israeli attack appear inevitable if sanctions fail to stop Iran, since it strengthens the chance for these sanctions to succeed. But a close reading of policymakers and press in Israel today leads clearly to the conclusion that Israel will in fact act if the sanctions fail.

Alan Dowty delivered these remarks at a symposium on “Iran: Threat, Challenge, or Opportunity?” convened by MESH at Harvard University on April 30.

Comments are limited to MESH members and invitees.

The latest contribution to Middle East Papers is by Robert O. Freedman, who blogs about Israeli affairs at MESH. As Iran’s nuclear drive continues unimpeded, and the Obama administration pursues a policy of “engagement,” Israel approaches a moment of decision. Freedman explains why diplomacy and sanctions are unlikely to succeed, and considers plausible scenarios of an Israeli resort to military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Download here.

Iran is already posing new challenges to the Obama administration. Two recent developments in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs are worth mentioning.

First, The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released a recent report on Iranian nuclear activities. The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), a Washington-based think tank, analyzed the IAEA report. Three important findings emerge:

1. Iran has dramatically increased its installation of centrifuges to some 5,400;
2. Iran is manufacturing fuel rods for the Arak heavy water reactor and continues to refuse IAEA inspection; and
3. Iran has accumulated more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU) in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

Iran maintains some 4,000 centrifuges enriching uranium, but has added another 1,400 centrifuges, totaling some 5,400. Iran has yet to use the new centrifuges to enrich uranium, but could do so quickly. More importantly, Iran has produced about 209 kilograms (30 percent) more low-enriched uranium in the form of uranium hexafluoride (UF6) than would have been expected based on the November 2008 IAEA report. This amount equals approximately 700 kilograms of low-enriched uranium, enough for the production of weapon-grade uranium for a single nuclear weapon. As the ISIS report shows, Iran has achieved “breakout capability,” although it would have to make a decision to further enrich its LEU stockpile.

Second, on February 2, Iran successfully launched a small satellite into low-earth orbit. The satellite is very small, weighing approximately 27 kilograms or 60 pounds. The highly elliptical orbit of the satellite allowed it to pass over the United States a number of times transmitting radio signals. While some analysts downplayed the military significance of this achievement, there remains cause for concern for states outside the range of Iran’s Shahab series rockets. As noted in this report:

An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) accelerates a warhead to velocities of approximately 7km/sec. By comparison, a space launch vehicle must accelerate a satellite to around 8km/sec. For a given payload, it would require more thrust to put an object into orbit than to deliver it over intercontinental distance, but it is slightly easier to put a very small object into low earth orbit than it is to accelerate a larger payload to a slightly lower velocity. The weight of the Iranian satellite (some 27kg) is considerably less than that of a nuclear warhead or other weapon of mass destruction. Iran therefore likely has some improvements to make before demonstrating true ICBM capability.

Iran continues methodically marching towards nuclear-armed missile capabilities that can threaten states in its region with nuclear weapons, and perhaps beyond. These events have occurred just as the Obama administration has made diplomatic overtures to the Iranian leadership. It seems that Iran may not give Obama time for diplomacy to work.

One of the more pressing problems facing the new administration of Barack Obama will be dealing with the incipient Iranian nuclear program. During the primaries and election, Obama only said that we will need a robust international effort to stop the program. Broadly speaking, however, he seems inclined towards nuclear disarmament, opposed to nuclear deterrence, and disinclined to use conventional military force. Given the repeated failure of diplomatic efforts to halt Iran’s program, it is difficult to predict the types of proposals the new administration may consider. However, at least one has been proffered.

The first of presumably many new proposals was made recently by David Albright and Andrea Scheel of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). In their publication, Albright and Scheel fret that countries in the “conflict-prone” region of the Middle East are planning the addition of at least 12-13 new civil nuclear power reactors and that such countries may acquire, through reprocessing, enough plutonium for as many as 1,700 nuclear weapons by 2020. The authors note that many countries could pursue nuclear weapons development “[b]ecause of growing insecurity in the Middle East resulting from Iran’s nuclear progress in defiance of United Nations Security Council demands…”

The authors believe that the next administration must take the lead in getting all the other Nuclear Supplier Group (NSG) countries to condition the sale of nuclear reactors on the requirement that recipient states agree to greater transparency of their nuclear power programs. The NSG countries should “insist on adequate international inspections of these countries, including the adoption of the Additional Protocol, and develop mechanisms to remove spent fuel from the region.” The Additional Protocol to the Safeguards Agreement, monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency, is designed to provide more intrusive inspections of a country’s nuclear program.

The authors note that “[t]raditional safeguards are not adequate to detect countries conducting secret plutonium separation or enrichment efforts.” Several states of the Middle East, including Algeria, Iraq, Iran, Libya and Syria, avoided detection on clandestine nuclear programs while adhering to traditional inspections by the IAEA. So at first blush, their proposals may seem to appear sensible.

Yet while the authors seem to recognize some of the underlying problems, their solution(s) simply ignore them. In this technically competent but politically naïve piece, the authors acknowledge the following: Iran’s nuclear program is the impetus for the other states in the Middle East to pursue nuclear weapons, yet no new effort to enforce existing sanctions or regimes is proposed. Iran suspended its compliance with the Protocol in 1996, and the authors have no answer to Iran’s actions. To top it off, Russia—a principal NSG country—continues to construct the Bushehr reactor despite Iran’s actions. Egypt announced in 2007 that it will not sign the Protocol, but Russia has not attempted to prevent its firms from bidding on a nuclear reactor at El Dabaa. In each case, the political will to build nuclear weapons or support the building of the infrastructure necessary for these weapons is simply ignored. A new “norm” that ignores the failure of more fundamental norms of nonproliferation seems unlikely to work any better.

But the authors go further. The authors exhort the incoming Obama administration to make it a key priority to persuade Israel to join in negotiating a universal treaty that bans the production of plutonium and highly enriched uranium. In the interim, they argue, the Obama administration should press Israel to suspend any production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

If it strikes the reader as odd that the authors do not recommend any actions against the recalcitrant state, Iran, but do against a state, Israel, that is not a member of the Nonproliferation Treaty, there may be a reason. As Stephen Walt argued years ago in his book, The Origins of Alliances (before he flip-flopped on all his work about how states behave under the influence of domestic actors), of all the states in the world, only the United States had some measure of control over Israel’s behavior, some means to influence the course of their actions. The United States had no comparable influence with other states, and neither did the Soviet Union over its erstwhile allies in the Middle East. The authors want success only where it can be had, with Israel, but not where the thornier problem of political will resides, with Iran.

Solutions that push for universal norms, while ignoring political realities, will produce illogical prescriptions. The central problem of Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons remains unaddressed by the authors’ proposals, and ignores the more troubling concern with Russia’s irresponsible actions as a principal NSG country.

Other strategies are available, strategies that do not require force. A strategy of targeting Iranian banking practices has been shown to be an effective “sanction” on Iranian behavior, cited in a recent article. Other “smart sanctions” may be available to the new administration, including targeting Iran’s reliance on importing gasoline.

The ISIS proposal is probably the first of many proposed “solutions” to come that address the problem of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East. It won’t be the last. One can hope, however, that the new administration will heed wiser counsel to address the tougher problem of dealing with Iran’s drive towards nuclear weapons. In this case, wiser counsel may focus on policies that address the source of the problem, and not the symptoms.