The Iranian Nuclear
Threat
Shalom Freedman
I. Strategic Doctrine of a Terror State
For the past 25 years, Iran has
been ruled by a revolutionary Islamic regime. A partial list of its
accomplishments was given by Gabriel Schoenfeld in a November 2003 Commentary
article. “Iran is,” according to the US State Department, “the most active state
sponsor of terrorism.” Iran has carried out a series of kidnappings and
assassinations in Europe. It has funded and provided training and arms to a
variety of Palestinian terrorist organizations, including
Hizbullah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and factions within
Yasser Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. It was almost certainly
behind the bombings in Argentina of the Israeli Embassy in March 1992, killing
29, and the Jewish community center in July 1994, killing 86. Iran is thought to
have had a hand in the June 1996 bombing of the al-Khobar barracks in Saudi
Arabia, which took the lives of 19 US soldiers. It has ties with al Qai`dah
and, in the wake of Sept. 11, may have given shelter to some of its leading
operatives. The list goes on and on.”1
Iran has a varied group of
internal security agencies which control its people from within, and attempt to
export the Islamic Revolution without. The most prominent Iranian security agent
is the Pasdaran (The Iranian Revolutionary Guard). The group (founded on
May 5, 1979 to protect the Revolution), engages in a wide variety of terror
operations. One prominent unit connects with the Hizbullah in Lebanon and Islamic Jihad. It trains 12,000 Arabic speaking terrorists in the
work of exporting the revolution through terror.2
The particular objects of the
Iranian regime’s hatred are Israel (“The Little Satan”) and the United States (“The Big Satan”). The world’s senior Middle East affairs expert, Bernard
Lewis, has probed the regime’s fanatic demonization of the United States and
found its roots not only in the political and religious but in the psychological
and cultural realms. However while the Iranians speak of “crushing” The Big
Satan, their hatred for Israel is even more fanatic; in street parades, the
placards contain demands for annihilating “The Little Satan”. In this, their
propaganda has the character of a good proportion of the Islamic and almost all
the Arab world.
But the xenophobia of Iran and
its dream of total Islamic world domination have not prevented it from making
practical military and commercial business deals with regimes such as those in
Pyongyang, Paris, Beijing, Moscow, Rome and Berlin where it can forward its
revolutionary goals through its dealings. This combination of ideological
fanaticism and practical wiliness makes the prospect of a nuclear Iran
particularly dangerous to the world.
II. The Iranian Path
to Nuclear Weapons Through Lies, Deceptions and Broken Promises
The Iranian regime has been lying
to the world about its nuclear intentions from the first day of the program’s
re-inception. The Iranian nuclear program initiated by the Shah, interrupted in
the 1980s by the war between Iran and Iraq, which was resumed by Iran in 1990. The losses they had
suffered from Iraq by non-conventional weapons were certainly one factor which
made the building of nuclear weapons urgent for them. The understanding that
these weapons would be an important element in enabling them to threaten their
neighbors and export the revolution was another. A third element was their
desire to “counter-balance” the nuclear weapons of their ideological enemies,
the United States and Israel.
At first, the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) was denied entrance to Iran. Iran, perhaps learning from the Iraqi
example and the error of concentrating all efforts in one major facility,
initially began work at a number of different facilities. In this they echoed
the Pakistani model.
From 1992, IAEA teams were allowed into
Iran and year after year gave Iran a “clean bill of health”. Here the
concealment tactics of the Iranians found easy prey in the all-too-gullible
IAEA. The policy of Iranian deception met a somewhat embarassed and slightly
more determined IAEA under Muhammad el-Baradei in March 2003. His newfound
determination was belatedly inspired by a report in the world media disseminated
by Iranian dissidents about secret Iranian nuclear facilities. This report
stated that Iran had been engaging in efforts to enrich uranium to bomb-size
levels.3 In March 2003, IAEA inspectors then revealed the evidence to
the Iranians, who had no choice but to admit to having both a uranium enrichment
and a plutonium program. The Iranians were also forced to admit that they had
received illegally a 2,000 ton uranium shipment from China. But the exposure of
the “big lie” of not having a program at all, did not lead to the end of the
lying and deception, but rather to a new pattern for it.
Iran had been lying all along and
continues to lie about the ultimate purpose of its nuclear program. Its
president, Muhammad Khatemi, reassured IAEA chairman Muhammad el-Baradei more
than once about the peaceful intention of the program. But this is contradicted
by many public statements of Iranian leaders. The most notorious and oft-quoted
statement of this type was made by former Iranian President Akbar
Hashemi-Rafsanjani on July 14, 2001:
If a day comes when the world of
Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in [its] possession, the
strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic
bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce
damage in the Islamic world.4
Rafsanjani suggested that Iran
should be willing to suffer a counter-strike involving a massive loss of life.
In his perhaps somewhat naïve conception, the Iran with a population 14 times
the size of Israel’s population and a territory many more times its size could
absorb a second strike from Israel and still survive. What is not important here
is Rafsanjani’s mistaken conception of the proportionate power between Iran and
Israel’s nuclear capacity, but his definite assertion that Iran must make a
first priority acquisition of nuclear weapons.
The public pronouncements of the
Iranian leaders have been complemented according to the same Iranian dissident
source that reliably exposed the hidden facilities at Natanz and Araq, by secret
deliberations affirming an intensification of the push for nuclear weapons. What
is also interesting is that this intention to achieve nuclear weapons is an
“open secret” in Tehran, and may be the single policy for which the regime is
popular. The Iranian masses and their leaders believe that weapons of mass
destruction are their “national right”. This attitude is just one more
indication that those who foretold an early and easy end of the Revolutionary
Islamic regime have seriously miscalculated.
The big lie about the ultimate
intention of the program is supported by a whole tissue of detailed lies. The
Iranians denied that there was any nuclear program at Natanz where they have a
major uranium enrichment facility.5 Then, when confronted with the
evidence, – as is usually the case – they did not come clean but engaged in
another whole set of lies about the nature of the enrichment program, and the
kinds of centrifuges they used. When confronted with the evidence of nuclear
material enriched well beyond that needed for civilian fuel and at weapons-grade
level, the Iranians claimed that it was because they had imported the
centrifuges from outside Iran and some remnants of previous material remained.
But then they were confronted with the evidence that the centrifuges were not
the older P-1 model supplied by Libya, but rather a homemade version of the more
advanced P-2 design that Pakistan had transmitted to Iran. The Iranians also
claimed that the Natanz facility was used only to build components of
centrifuges. This lie too was confounded by photos showing the pilot plant built
at Natanz. The Iranians also tried to conceal a much larger plant they have been
building underground in Natanz, as well as the plutonium (heavy-water) factory
they have been building at Arak. Such a plant would not only provide an
alternative weapons fuel, it would also be able to produce “tritium” to boost a
weapon’s destructive power.
The lies, deception and
concealment took another form in June 2004. The IAEA had strong evidence of
uranium enrichment done at the Kalaye plant in suburban Tehran. But upon their
most recent inspection, they discovered that the plant was no longer there. And
the Iranians have most recently adopted a new policy of removing plants which
were open to IAEA inspection, and placing them in unknown sites, most likely in
reinforced concrete under military bases the IAEA has no knowledge about, and
therefore cannot request to visit.6
As for the rebuke by the IAEA of
Iran for its most recent violations, the Iranians have adopted their usual
strategy of denial, deception and counter-threat. They claim they have fulfilled
all the
promises made to the IAEA even though this is patently untrue. They threaten to
resume uranium enrichment, or to follow the North Korean example and withdraw
completely from the NPT. At the same time they claim to have halted their
nuclear programs, there are reports that they are intensifying them. The Iranians
have confidence that even if the IAEA does take the improbable step and
recommend sanctions to the Security Council, their Chinese and Russian friends
will supply the veto that will thwart any US or Western effort at punishing
them. In all this deception and lying, the Iranians seem to have studied most
carefully their Pakistani neighbors whose aid to them in building a bomb was
revealed only this year.
III.
The Iranian Quest for Nuclear Weapons – Lessons from the Pakistani Precedent
The United States, the Western
World and the International Atomic Energy Agency are all involved now in trying
to prevent Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. Yet the steps taken by the IAEA,
the European powers and the US government seem very unlikely to deter Iran. To
understand truly the ineffectiveness of such steps, one should look at the
Pakistani precedent. For a period of close to 30 years, Pakistan, another
self-defined Islamic republic, brought its nuclear development program – from
its point of view – to a successful conclusion, despite all the threats, the UN
warnings and the US sanctions against it. Pakistan showed the world the way
defiance of the international community works. And here, it must be remembered,
that Pakistan is a much weaker country than Iran. It’s an overpopulated,
extremely poor country without real natural resources – certainly nothing like
Iran’s oil wealth. Pakistan too, had and has, no civilian nuclear structure, and
moved ahead despite lacking at times all kinds of equipment and expertise.
This is one major lesson of the
Pakistani experience. No matter how weak and dependent on others – even for food
and fuel – a state, if it has the will to do so, can even push through its own
nuclear program. It can spite those far more powerful, so long as those opposed
are only ready to use “peaceful means of persuasion”. Pakistan has been cut off
more than once by the US. The Symington Amendment at one point, and the Solarz
Amendment at another, denied Pakistan aid. But it did not stop them from going
ahead with their program.
And this leads to a second
important lesson of the Pakistani development. It is always possible to get by
with a little help from one’s friends. When in 1983, the Pakistani program
seemed stuck after years of development, the Chinese supplied them with the
centrifuges and separation technology they could not make themselves.7
Pakistan’s rocket program would not have gotten very far without the aid of
fellow nuclear bandit, North Korea. Now, while it might seem that the noose of
control is tightening around Iran, there are still powers who seem willing to
come to its aid. The Russian technicians at Bushehr continue to build this vast
facility despite all US pressures. The Chinese, too, may have stopped supplying
physical equipment to Iran for now, but they are ready to aid Iran politically,
and will impose a veto on any sanctions the UN Security Council may raise. In an
energy- hungry world, Iran’s vast oil resources mean that along with its radical
Islamic allies, it will find many friends, who, for a price, will be willing to
supply the goods and services vital to the Iranian program.
For years the Pakistanis have
lied, deceived, delayed inspections and hidden various facilities. To this day,
the world does not really know the extent and location of Pakistan’s nuclear
facilities. The Iranians have already shown that they are masters in the art of
deception. After having lied about their nuclear program for 19 years, they
immediately found a way out by making new promises which were broken within a
few months. Here, it often seems that international inspecting teams aid those
they supervise more than they impede them, for time and again they replace one
set of broken commitments with another, one set of promises with another. And
this is also because the technical experts themselves have no enforcement
mechanisms, but are reliant on the political will of the individual nations that
constitute the agency’s governing bodies. Iran can learn the great advantage of
belonging to the large Islamic bloc, and the larger third world bloc, from
Pakistan. Again, the Pakistanis have demonstrated that it is possible to “get
away with it”; and the Iranians have been exemplifying this by themselves but
can draw additional strength from the Pakistani precedent.
The Pakistanis did however have
an advantage that Iran lacks, at least vis-á-vis the United States. It
was because the Americans needed Pakistan in the war against the Soviet Union in
Afghanistan that they chose to look the other way in the early 1980s. And it is
because they need the Pakistanis now in their fight against Al Qai`dah
and Islamic terror that the Americans are now about to raise the status of
Pakistan to “preferred ally”. Despite the fact that President Perez Mushareff
must have known about large-scale Pakistani transfers of nuclear technology to
North Korea, Libya and Iran, he continues to win the praises of the Bush
administration.8
The Iranians might be worried
that they are not of value to the US in the same way as the Pakistanis. But then
for the Iranians there are the Russians, the Chinese, and in another way, the
Europeans. There are those who can find considerable advantage in trading and
doing business with Iran, and whose business interests are far more important to
them than the question of Iran’s nuclear power.
The great lesson then, is that
one can always find a way to rely on the cynical self-interest of some faction
in world politics to push one’s way forward. In this, one can expect that Iran’s
Machiavellian artfulness will not be any less than Pakistan’s.
The sorry
conclusion of all this is that there is no peaceful means in the world,
no art of persuasion, sanction, economic or political which is going to halt the
Iranian nuclear program. As Pakistan defied the world, so will Iran. As Pakistan
lied and broke promises and got away with it, so will Iran.
This leads to another lesson.
Whether true or not, there were many rumors and reports through the years that
the Pakistani program was about to be stopped. Once the rumor had to do with US
political and economic sanctions, and another time with the Indian threat of
war. Still another time – and most critically – it had to do with proposed
military action against the Iranian reactor. At one point it was even speculated
that Israel and India had colluded, and that Israeli jets stationed on the
Iranian-Pakistani border were waiting to receive the order to take out the
Pakistani facilities in the way they took out those in Iraq. But this military
action, for whatever reason, never took place. There were reports that India was
reluctant because it felt there might be great danger to its own people from
radiation.9 India may also have feared Chinese interference on the
side of Pakistan; this too enabled the Pakistani program to continue.
Iran has already made genocidal
threats against Israel, and at times these have been threats of retaliation if
Israel dares to attack its nuclear facilities. Iran has warned the United States
that it is capable of reaching US Army servicemen throughout the Middle East.
And, in fact, Iran already is involved in action against the US in Iraq. But the
point is that Iran, like Pakistan, has many ways of threatening and maneuvering
so as to delay, and ultimately escape from the military option. Pakistan
reportedly had a cold bomb in 1987 but did not test it until 1998, and this, in
response to the Indian nuclear tests a year earlier. The Pakistani lesson of
continuing with the work despite the world’s talk is clearly also the operative
method of Iran. Iran is working to reach the point that Pakistan has reached,
where it attains so much power that a military option is simply too dangerous
for the other side to try.
Pakistan got the bomb by buying
time, a little at a time. And the international supervising bodies, and now with
Iran and the IAEA, play the game in such a way as to be willing, usually, to give
more time. Here too it is important to note the decision or indecision of the
major players on the other side. Essentially every US President from Nixon (who
dealt with the Pakistani nuclear program) has put off the decision to take out
these facilities by force. Everyone thought that there was always a little more
time. This attitude of delaying and putting it off for the next guy was
exploited by Pakistan and is presently being exploited by Iran. At this very
moment, in many different facilities, the IAEA deliberates while Iran continues
to build its nuclear option.10
IV. When Will Iran Have Nuclear
Weapons?
The prevailing assumption is that
Iran does not yet have nuclear weapons. However there is a report that in the
1980s, Iran purchased three small nuclear devices from Kazakhstan.11
This has not been verified.
However predictions of when Iran
will go nuclear are not scarce. The variety of predictions and the lack of
evidence that comes with them suggest that they are as valuable as the average
lottery ticket. Former Israeli Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer predicted
Iran would have nuclear weapons by 2005. Recently, Israeli Foreign Minister
Silvan Shalom guessed by 2006. The US State Department says between 5 and 10
years from now. In late 2003, the head of the Mossad, Meir Dagan, claimed that
it would be by late 2004. Various disarmament agencies suggest that it is likely
to be some time in the quite near future, somewhere between one year and five.
But no one seems to have enough intelligence to provide a credible appraisal.
Despite US urging, the Russians
have not stopped working on the 1,000 megawatt reactor at Bushehr, though they
have agreed to curtail their uranium shipments. Once, this was considered the
facility most likely to produce the Iranian bomb. But it is now known that the
Iranians have a wide variety of sites, perhaps the most important of which are
concealed deep underground, and are not subject to inspection. The facility at
Natanz – revealed only in 2003 – has a pilot plant of 16 centrifuges. It was at
this plant that the highly-enriched uranium was revealed by the IAEA. At this
location, the Iranians are also building a much more vast underground facility
of 50,000 centrifuges. If the full fuel-cycle is achieved, it is estimated that
the pilot plant alone could produce two weapons a year. The underground
facility, were it to go into full production, would give Iran, in a short time,
a very large nuclear stockpile.
The Arak heavy-water plant for
plutonium production is apparently not yet in full production. The Debka file
has reported that a number of Iranian facilities, not simply the one at Kalaye,
have been completely removed and put beneath army bases. It may well be that the
significant work for producing the bomb is now being done at bases whose
existence is unknown to anyone but the Iranians themselves.
The question of whether the
Iranians now have weapons relates not only to bomb production but to the
delivery systems they have for any bombs produced. Here the role of the Chinese
and especially the North Koreans has been decisive. The Iranians have tested and
transmitted to the Revolutionary Guards a medium-range ballistic missile
(Shihab-3) whose range is 1,500 kilometers, and which is able to reach Israel
and the areas in which United States forces are stationed in Iraq and in the
Gulf. The missile is capable of carrying a warhead estimated at 750 kilos. There
have been mixed reports of the reliability of this missile, following some
fairly recent test failures.12 It is conceivable that Iran has
already put a nuclear warhead on such a missile, although again almost all those
who are involved in researching the subject have failed to substantiate that
this is the case.
As it is, Iran may or may not
have nuclear weapons at the moment. What cannot be doubted is that it is working
all the time to have such weapons and to increase their destructive capacity and
effective delivery.
V.
The Sanctions Option; The Unlikelihood of Stopping the Iran Nuclear Program
by Peaceful Persuasion
It is clear now, following the
Iranian dismissal of the IAEA rebuke of June 14, 2004, that the Iranians are not
likely to halt their nuclear weapons program despite having received a reproach
and sanctions from from the UN.
The Europeans, Great Britain,
France and Germany have for the past few years hoped to use the threat of IAEA
sanctions to stall the Iranian program until the popular dissent with the regime
of the Ayatollahs would lead to its overthrow. Their hope has been that domestic
unrest, a worsening economic situation, isolation from the West and the world
would somehow mysteriously lead to a new order in Iran. This new order would be
one in which pro- Western, peace forces understood the senselessness of nuclear
weapons from an Iranian point of view. The new government would simply sell to
the West the military part of its program, and put an end to the threat forever.
At this point, however, regime
change does not seem imminent in Tehran. A number of outside observers spoke of
a regime change with the February 2004 elections. But they have come and gone
with no sign whatsoever of the regime weakening.
The dissident forces are weak and
could have importance only in the wake of a US-led invasion. So while there is
widespread popular disaffection with the regime in Tehran, there seems at present
no real threat to it from within.
As for what the Western powers
are willing to do, as is so often the case nowadays, the breakdown is between
the U.S and the rest. The US would like a recommendation of sanctions from the
IAEA to the Security Council now. The Europeans have not shown that they are
ready to go this far. The Germans, Italians, French and British trade with
Tehran to the tune of over one billion dollars a year each, and all are
consumers of Iranian oil. Sanctions against Iran are for them a painful economic
sacrifice that domestic opinion might not readily absorb. As importantly, any
sanctions in the Security Council require that neither Russia nor China impose a
veto. China and Russia through the years have been key suppliers of equipment
vital to the Iranian nuclear program. Despite all his efforts, President Bush has
not been able to persuade Soviet leader Putin to stop building the reactor at
Bushehr.13
Moreover, even were the very
unlikely scenario imposed, of sanctions at the UN on Iran, this would not most
likely halt the Iranian program. For the Iranians, the nuclear option is
tremendously important – a goal to which they are completely dedicated. There is
no doubt that the ruling regime would subject their people to considerable
additional hardship if that were the price of realizing it.
Iran too is very much capable of
continuing the same kind of stringing-along game it has played for years with
the IAEA. It is capable of saying it has suspended its programs while continuing
them in hidden locations. In other words, in the all-important element of the
regime’s ultimate real intention, there is absolutely no indication that any form
of sanctions would deter it.14
VI.
The Meaning of Nuclear Iran for the World Situation; The End of Disarmament;
The Beginning of a Nuclear Arms Race.
While Israelis are naturally
concerned by the dangers presented by a nuclear Iran, it is nonetheless important
to understand that there are grave dangers to others as well.. Iran, as Defense
Minister Ali Shakhmani has stated more than once, is aiming to increase the
range of its missiles first to 4,000 and then to 10,000 kilometers.15
The first would put all of Europe in their range. There are estimates that if it
is not stopped, Iran would be able in ten years to threaten all the continental
United States.16
More immediately, Iran’s
acquisition of nuclear weapons would most likely lead to a nuclear arms race
among its neighbors. Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt also would most likely
review their nuclear weapons’ options. Countries throughout the world once on
their way to nuclear capability who suspended their programs may feel that they
have no alternative but to arm themselves against potential new aggressors.
So even if Iran sits completely
quiet with its new weapons, they would have a negative effect on the world
situation.
But Iran is not likely to sit
quiet. After all, it is a revolutionary regime dedicated to reshaping mankind
into an image of itself. The regime’s ruthlessness in murdering innocents is not
in question. Nor, to this point, are its largely successful efforts to cover its
tracks, and escape punishment.
The whole concept of a “suitcase
nuclear weapon” may be a fiction since we have had no evidence of such a weapon
being operational.17 But if it turns out that such devices are
possible, they certainly will be in the kit of Iran’s army of traveling
terrorists. The detonating of even one such device in a major European or
American city would change the character of our civilization for decades ahead.
Iran’s possession of nuclear
weapons will also increase its blackmail leverage on the world oil market. One
unexpected negative consequence of the Bush administration Iraq operation has
been the skyrocketing of the world’s oil prices. Iran’s considerable capacity to
intimidate its neighbors and influence the global price of oil will most likely
be greatly magnified.
Iran’s having nuclear weapons not
only would increase the degree of conflict in the whole Middle East and Persian
Gulf region, it could well raise the level of that conflict to the disastrous.
Certainly all of Iran’s neighbors would have much to worry about from such
destructive weapons in the hands of one with which they have usually had uneasy
relationships.
The Iranian possession of nuclear
weapons would also have meaning in the civilizational clash between Islam and
the West now taking place. It would further dishearten the already weakened
elites of Western Europe and suggest that submission to blackmail (as the
Spanish people did in voting for withdrawal of their troops in Iraq after the
Madrid bombing) is the way to save one’s own skin.
For radical Islam, a nuclear Iran
would be more fuel for their conviction that they will defeat the West, and
dominate the human future.18
VII. Speculations on Military Options
The party most directly
threatened by Iranian nuclear weapons is Israel. Israel repeatedly has been
singled out for attack by Iranian leaders.
As Israel has already saved the
world from one totalitarian tyrant’s nuclear weapons, it is expected in some
quarters that Israel will make a surgical strike against Iranian facilities
similar to the one made against the Iraqi reactor Osiris in Baghdad in 1981. But
the situations are very different. Iraq had an above-ground facility largely
concentrated at one central site. Iran’s facilities are scattered, and it may
well be that many are deeply underground in heavily reinforced concrete bunkers,
built North Korean style.19 It is also possible that the Iranian
facilities are already online, meaning that any strike against them will cause
much collateral radiation damage. As the worldwide condemnation for any such
raid would be in any case great, a large number of civilian victims would
translate into new levels of global condemnation of the Jewish state. It would
provide justification in the eyes of the world for a radical Islamic effort at
attacking Israel with WMD in order to destroy it.
The Iranians have of course
threatened that any attack on their nuclear facilities would involve “a
retaliation horrible beyond belief”. Aside from its own weapons, Iran has its
ally Syria closer to Israel with biological weapons and Scud missiles. It also
has the Hizbullah with at least 2,000 rocket launchers on the Israeli border. So
the possibility of massive retaliation is not to be dismissed lightly.
As Israel would be placing itself
in great danger by a pre-emptive strike, it might be more sensible for the United
States to make such a strike. Such pre-emptive action was given legal mandate by
the Presidential Strategic Doctrine that came in response to threats that
emerged after Sept. 11, 2001.20 The United States has a wider range
of weapons than Israel, a greater capacity to hit more accurately at a greater
distance. Its political risks are certainly less great. And Iran has no way at
present to really retaliate against the American heartland.
Still there are reasons why the
US is not eager for this task. First, the failure to find considerable WMD in
Iraq raises the whole question of American’s intelligence capability. It has
been suggested that the US simply does not have good enough human intelligence
to make an effective series of strikes. The American involvement in Afghanistan
and especially Iraq have somewhat reduced the enthusiasm for intervention of any
kind among the American populace. Numerous commentators have in any case
suggested that President Bush would not act before the elections on November 4,
2004. And should John Kerry be elected, it is more likely that the US will turn
toward disengagement rather than active pursuit of a worldwide campaign against
terrorism.
It is also possible that the US
launching of a cruise missile attack on the Iranian facilities would result in
Iranian retaliation at Israel.
Another possibility, that of a US
land invasion to overthrow the Tehran regime, seems less likely now than ever
before. The Iraq experience again works against such a possibility. And Iran is
a much bigger and more mountainous, a much tougher terrain than that of Iraq.
It is impossible to predict with
any certainty, but more and more it seems that it is the Pakistani precedent,
and not the Iraqi one, which will prevail in Iran.21
VIII. A Word on Deterrence
and Containment
Should Iran have nuclear weapons
now, or acquire them within the next few years, it still would be very far
behind Israel in this area. Israel’s supply of nuclear weaponry and its delivery
systems are well beyond anything Iran will be able to reach in the immediate
years ahead.
One of the options that has been
considered should Iran publicly declare itself to have nuclear weapons is for
Israel to put an end to what is called its policy of “nuclear ambiguity” or
“opacity”. But it is difficult to understand exactly how that would add to
Israel’s deterrence since the general consensus in the world is that Israel does
have a store of over 100 nuclear weapons and a number of different effective
systems of delivery. It is generally accepted that Israel has neutron weapons,
and there is even speculation as to Israel’s having a thermonuclear device. In
other words, the tremendous disproportion between the strength of Israel and an
emergent nuclear Iran should serve as a deterrent. But again this presumes that
the Iranian regime would be acting wisely and sanely and make a first priority
of the defense of its own citizens, and of the regime itself. However, as we
have seen in the Middle East for some time now, rationality and sanity even in
one’s own self-interest are not always the norm.
In any case, it is clear that for
Israel and for the world as a whole, and even for the citizens of Iran, the far
better situation is the one in which Iran is prevented from acquiring these
weapons.
Yet the larger probability is
that Iran is well on the way way to nuclear weapons that will greatly increase
the existential danger to Israel and greatly increase global unrest.22
As it appears now, it seems that no one will be willing and capable of
preventing this.23
Endnotes
|
1 |
Gabriel Schoenfeld, “The Terror Ahead”, Commentary,
November 2003. This is an extremely lucid survey not only of the Iranian,
but also of the North Korean nuclear threat. |
|
2 |
See <GlobalSecurity.Com>. This organization has as its major
aim the reduction of nuclear weapons threats, and provides up-to-date
information on this subject. |
|
3 |
If it were not for the reports of the Iranian dissidents, the
IAEA would still be giving Iran a clean bill of health. This, of course,
raises the question of its effectiveness in the fight ahead to deter Iran
from continuing with its nuclear weapons program. |
|
4 |
This statement reportedly made in a Friday sermon in Tehran,
and reported in the Iranian official news site in English, is the most
extreme statement ever made by an Iranian official against Israel. The
Tehran report that quoted it balanced it with a statement by an Iranian
journalist who noted that Israel had never threatened Tehran in such a way,
and that it was not wise to provide Israel an excuse and opportunity to
strike at Iran. There was also the suggestion that Rafsanjani was making use
of the “beat Israel” card for his own internal political purposes. Yet the
tone and threat and the underlying attitude that Israel is a “foreign body”
in the area that must be destroyed is a prevailing attitude in Iranian
society at present. Regrettably it would seem that the Islamic centered view
does not at present meet strong enough resistance from one that places
emphasis on an Iranian national tradition prior to and in some way more
important than the Islamic one. |
|
5 |
A comprehensive description of the Iranian building program
at Natanz is given in The Institute for Science and International Security’s
publication of March 2003, co-authored by David Albright and Corey
Hindenstein. |
|
6 |
There are varying reports about the location and number of
facilities that have been removed. The Debka File <www.debka.com>
claims that several facilities have been transferred to unknown locations in
underground areas under military bases. The Kalaye plant removal has been
reported in several different sources. |
|
7 |
The role China has played in proliferating nuclear weapons is
particularly nefarious. China played a key role in Pakistan’s attaining
nuclear weapons and has also helped Iran in various ways including through
shipments of uranium. China’s own technological advancement in these areas
was facilitated by a self-defeating US policy of granting China most-favored
trade status. China used its privilege to undermine a pillar of American
global policy i.e. halting the spread of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately,
China is not the only country that has made use of American largesse to work
fundamentally against American interests. The whole complex relationship
between the United States and Saudi Arabia in which the US is dependent on
Saudi oil and money, and Saudi dependent on US weapons and security has
become, with the Saudi involvement in 9/11 and its support of worldwide
terror, extremely problematic. The US continued sheltering and covering up
for the Saudi regime is one major reason the war on terror, declared by the
Bush administration, is faltering. |
|
8 |
For the story of the Pakistani transfer of nuclear
technology, see, David F. Sanger and William J. Broad, “From Rogue Nuclear
Programs, Web of Trails Leads to Pakistan”, The New York Times,
January 4, 2004. In this remarkable article, the international network
created by the father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Kader Khan, is traced
out. The capture of the ship, China B, on its way to Libya carrying nuclear
equipment, led to the breaking of this international ring. Khan, a great
national hero in Pakistan, was blamed and not punished by the leaders of
Pakistan who must have known about the deal. The Bush administration’s
decision to look the other way, once again signals the halfway half-hearted
character of its war on terror, and why that war is of dubious success. A
parallel situation exists in Israel’s war against Palestinian terror where
Prime Minister Sharon has for close to four years been hesitant to apply a
knockout blow to Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority. No doubt, one
reason for that is the US administration pressure on Israel, a pressure
which in turn comes in great part from the Arab pressure on the
administration to provide protection for the Palestinian Authority – mainly
Egyptian and Saudi Arabian pressure. |
|
9 |
This information is taken from a comprehensive and excellent
survey article on Israel-Pakistan relations by P.R. Kumaraswamy, “Beyond the
Veil: Israel-Pakistan Relations”, The Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies,
March 2000. |
|
10 |
The most comprehensive and authoritative treatment of Iran’s
military development is given in Ephraim Kam’s book, From Terror to
Nuclear Bombs: The Significance of the Iranian Threat, Israeli Ministry
of Defense, September 2003 (Hebrew). A careful reading of Kam’s work gives a
deep appreciation of the considerable and persistent US efforts to stop
Iran’s nuclear program, however limited in their success, those efforts have
been. |
|
11 |
One of the world’s foremost experts on nuclear terror, Yossef
Bodansky reported on this acquisition in his book, The High Cost of
Peace: How Washington’s Middle East Policy Left America Vulnerable
to Terrorism, Crown Publishing Group, 2002. |
|
12 |
The Risk Report, Volume 10,
Number 2, March-April 2004, surveys the Iranian missile inventory. They
report on a series of tests of the Shihab-3 including a large number of
failures, and say the weapon was nonetheless transmitted to the Iranian
Revolutionary Guard in July 2003. It estimates the payload of the weapon at
anywhere from 1,200 to a much more likely 750 kilogram. Its presentation
would seem to suggest that Iran is still very far from having offensive
missiles it can rely on. |
|
13 |
Russia, like China, has proven a very difficult new friend
for the United States. The Russians have not suspended their building
operations at Bushehr despite American urging. As with the Europeans, the
temptation of good business cancels out more global considerations. |
|
14 |
A number of the sections of this article were read in first
draft and helpfully commented on by the Jerusalem- based writer on public
affairs, David Hornik. |
|
15 |
A fascinating and frightening discussion of the imbalance
between offensive and defensive ballistic missiles is provided by Arieh Stav
in the June 2004 issue of Nativ. Stav argues
convincingly that at present the attacker has advantages even the best
anti-missile missile system will not be able to deal with. This conclusion
is extremely worrisome for Israel as is the general picture given of Israel
surrounded by countries possessing WMD. The article suggests that Israel is
already living with tremendous existential dangers of which the Iranian
nuclear option would be yet another, albeit most terrible, one. |
|
16 |
If the global war on terror is as the Potomac Institute’s
Yonah Alexander has said, “a hundred years war”, then 10 years is not
necessarily a long time, and the arming of radical Islamic enemies of the
United States with weapons which are able to devastate it, might well
constitute a turning point in that war. |
|
17 |
Despite all the stories about nuclear material missing from
the Soviet inventory, there has not yet been a single case reported of such
material detonated, not even on a test basis. It is possible that technical
problems have, in fact, rendered much of this material useless. In 1997,
Alexander Lebed, a former Soviet Defense Minister, told the American “Sixty
Minutes” television program that 100 suitcase bombs of the 250 the Soviet
Union had manufactured, had disappeared. After this report, the speculation
about a nuclear terror attack performed by a single individual increased.
But it has been seven years since this report and no such device has been
discovered, much less triggered. As it is likely many of the terror groups
who might have attained such a device would have been eager to show it off,
it seems probable that such weapons either do not exist, or cannot be made
to work given their present condition. |
|
18 |
In the clash of civilizations that is now taking place
between the West and Islam, on the surface the West has all the winning
cards. It is far more powerful economically, militarily and technologically.
Its peoples have a far greater mastery of the world and its skills. Yet
post-Christian Europe and superpower America have great and growing social
weaknesses that might lead to their downfall. The Islamic world is pervaded
by a faith in its own absolute rightness. There is also the demographic
factor with the far younger more energetic Islamic world making inroads into
European societies and the rapidly graying Western world at least in Western
Europe diminishing and unable to replace its own numbers. All this has led
certain observers, among them perhaps most notably Victor David Hanson, to
suggest that we might be on the edge of a new Dark Age, one in which Muslim
restrictiveness shuts down a good share of the creative powers of mankind.
It is also possible too that radical Islam – consciously or
not – has adopted a certain kind of strategy with which it will be extremely
difficult to contend. The historian Joel Fishman, in writing recently about
the Palestinian strategy in the past four years of terror/war against
Israel, revealed that the Palestinians were modeling themselves on the
“People’s War” the North Vietnamese had used so successfully. In this
strategy, one sacrifices all conception of the economic and social
well-being of one’s own people on the altar of absolute destruction of one’s
enemy. The suicide-bomber is the perfect exemplar of such a strategy.
However whether the leaders of the society are eager themselves to live such
a strategy seems unlikely. Leaders like Arafat, the late Hafez al Assad,
Saddam Hussein all have had a wonderful propensity for preserving their own
skin no matter how many others have been killed in the process. In any case,
for Israel, the likely first target of the “civilizational suicide effort”,
it would seem that maximum alertness to the danger at all times is called
for. Recently in the “Daniel Report” (Nativ Online,
Issue 3, April 2004), directed by one of the most important thinkers on the
subject of Jewish and Israel survival, Professor Louis Beres, recommendations were made suggesting how Israel through preventive action
might contend with these kinds of threats. |
|
19 |
Yiftah Shapir writes in the Jaffee Center journal of Jan.
9, 2003, “Israel’s options to counter the threat are limited. A preemptive
strike against Iran’s missile and nuclear assets is problematic because the
targets are too far away, too numerous, and too diffused, and too well
protected. Thus the remaining option against a nuclear-armed Iran would be
deterrence, perhaps by abrogating the policy of ambiguity in favor of a
declared full posture.” Shapir then goes on to make the suggestion that
Israel should look to the US to do this for it, an option that at the moment
does not look very realistic. |
|
20 |
The great freedom of leeway given here to the President to
attack others who might threaten the United States means in effect that the
US would not have a domestic legal problem should they attempt to attack
Iran’s nuclear facilities. It does not however mean that the Bush
administration has any intention of doing this now. |
|
21 |
This extremely pessimistic conclusion may well be
contradicted by the realities on the ground. No one outside Iran seems to
know truly, for certain, how well Iran is doing in all its secret programs.
But the work has been going on for a considerable number of years now, and
the evidence of highly enriched nuclear fuel plus the missile programs are
not good signs. |
|
22 |
One other possible source of deterrence to Iranian nuclear
weapons is the large Palestinian population that would also fall victim to
these attacks. Saddam Hussein fired his scuds at the Gush Dan region and not
at the Jerusalem area with its considerable Arab population. It is tempting
to make the tongue-in-cheek suggestion that Israel should “import” a large
number of Arabs from Judea and Samaria into the Gush Dan region as a way of
preventing a WMD attack against it. Unfortunately, we know, however, that
Arab and Islamic terror in its zest for murdering Jews often disregards
injuries it inflicts to its own people in the process. |
|
23
|
The pessimistic conclusion of this article stands in
contradiction to the public statements of a number of Israeli government
officials. Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz has said that Israel would not sit
idly by and allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Other Israeli military
sources have stated that the Israeli government is very conscious of, and
working to deal with, this problem. It may well be that their closer
knowledge of the problem enables them a greater degree of optimism than this
present article evidences. |
