Tikkun Magazine, January/February 2007 

The Iranian Nuclear Threat

Myth and Reality

By Stephen Zunes

There is a freightening sense of déjà vu: Talk of the United States using military force against a Middle Eastern state with a nuclear program that allegedly poses a threat to the U.S. and the global community, and which also happens to sit on one of the world's largest reserves of oil.

Unlike Iraq in 2003, however, Iran really does have a nuclear program. While there is no evidence to suggest that Iran intends to use nuclear technology for purposes other than peaceful applications, concerns that the current civilian program could be a cover for a nuclear weapons development are not unfounded. Underlying these apprehensions is the fact that nuclear power is an unnecessarily expensive and dangerous means of electrical generation for any country, particularly one that is well endowed with other energy resources.

However, developing nuclear power for civilian purposes is legal under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which has been signed and ratified by Iran, the United States, and all but a handful of the world's nations. Iran is currently not doing anything that goes beyond what dozens of other signatories of the NPT are doing legally. Nevertheless, the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has determined that Iran, by failing to report nuclear research activities back in the 1990s, had forfeited many of the rights afforded to other nations in regard to its nuclear development, such as enriching uranium—a restriction that Iran has rejected and has been violating for the past year.

More than likely, Iran has not yet mastered the technique for turning uranium into uranium gas, which is necessary to reproduce highly enriched uranium. In addition, Iran does not have nearly enough centrifuges to enrich the uranium, either for fuel rods or for weapons, nor has Iran demonstrated the ability to operate cascades of centrifuges on a large scale. Finally, there is no evidence that Iran has developed a design of a missile re-entry vehicle that could carry a nuclear warhead. Indeed, Iran is unlikely to have a single deployable nuclear warhead until at least the year 2015.

In other words, there is plenty of time for a diplomatic solution.

Despite the alleged urgency of this so-called crisis, it is important to note that Iran has had a nuclear program since 1957, when President Dwight Eisenhower signed the first of a series of nuclear cooperation agreement with the Shah, a brutal dictator installed by the CIA following its overthrow of the democratic government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh four years earlier. Over the next two decades, the United States not only provided Iran with technical assistance, but also supplied the country with its first experimental nuclear reactor, complete with enriched uranium and plutonium with fissile isotopes. Despite the refusal of the Shah to rule out the possibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons, the Ford administration in 1975 approved the sale of up to eight nuclear reactors with fuel, and in 1976, approved the sale of lasers believed to be capable of enriching uranium.

The Washington Post reported that an initially hesitant President Ford was assured by his advisors that Iran was only interested in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Ironically, these advisors were none other than his secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld, his chief of staff Dick Cheney, and the director of nonproliferation at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, Paul Wolfowitz—the very advisors of the current administration who have been so alarmist about Iran's nuclear program.

Even if Iran aspires to build nuclear weapons, it would be a mistake to assume that the Islamic Republic would use them for aggressive designs. Indeed, the Iranians may have good reasons to desire a nuclear deterrent.

Origins of the Crisis

In early 2002, Iran was among three countries (the others being Iraq and North Korea) labeled by President George W. Bush as part of "the axis of evil." Iraq, which had given up its nuclear program over a decade earlier and subsequently allowed IAEA inspectors back in the country to verify the absence such a program, was invaded and occupied by the United States. By contrast, North Korea—which reneged on its agreement and has apparently resumed production of nuclear weapons—has not been invaded. The Iranians may see a lesson in that.

Soon after coming to office, the Bush administration decided to unfreeze America's nuclear weapons production and launch a program to develop smaller tactical nuclear weapons for battlefield use. This fact was noted by many foreign states, including potential adversaries such as Iran. In this light, it is important to remember that the only country to actually use nuclear weapons in combat is the United States, in the 1945 bombings of two Japanese cities, a decision that most American political leaders still defend to this day.

Furthermore, the U.S. government is allied with Pakistan, which borders Iran to the east, and possesses nuclear weapons and sophisticated delivery systems. The U.S. is also a strong ally of Israel, located just 600 miles to Iran's west, which has the capability of launching, with long-range missiles, a nuclear strike against the Gulf state in a matter of minutes.

Potential Scenarios

Given the disastrous results of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a full-scale ground invasion of Iran is out of the question: Iran is three times the size and population of Iraq, the terrain is far more mountainous, the people are more united against foreign attack, and—unlike Iraq in 2003—no sanctions have been in place preventing the country from maintaining and strengthening its military arsenal.

Instead, a broad consensus of military analysts and those familiar with Pentagon planning envision a massive air attack, likely in conjunction with the Israelis, targeting research, development support, and training centers for Iran's nuclear and missile programs, with the aim of killing as many technically competent Iranians as possible. To enhance the likelihood of such a successful aerial assault, there would also be attacks aimed at the comprehensive destruction of Iranian air defense capabilities and command and control centers.

Iran would immediately retaliate in a number of possible ways. For example, U.S. Navy ships in the Persian Gulf could become easy targets for Iranian missiles and torpedoes. To counter the possibility of an Iranian attack, the U.S. assault would presumably include pre-emptive attacks against Iranian naval facilities, though this would unlikely be enough to prevent damage to American vessels.

Perhaps a more dire concern would be the situation in Iraq, where American troops are currently operating against the Sunni-led insurgency alongside Iranian-backed pro-government militias. If these militias decided to turn their guns on American forces, the United States would be caught in a vise between both sides in the country's simmering civil war. It can be anticipated that the U.S. would strike Iranian Revolutionary Guards near the Iraqi border, but given how thoroughly infiltrated various Iraqi police and military units are with pro-Iranian elements, there is little the U.S. could do to protect American forces.

The initial phase of a potential air war would continue for days if not weeks, and, assuming some sort of Iranian retaliation, would almost certainly turn into a protracted military confrontation. In other words, this would not be a single series of strikes against a single facility—like the 1981 Israeli attack against the Osirak nuclear facility in Iraq—which would be over in a matter of hours; this would be a massive and lengthy military operation.

A U.S./Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities would not only be contrary to international law—further enflaming international public opinion against the United States and Israel—it would be very unlikely to succeed in ending Iran's nuclear ambitions. Many of the facilities are deep underground and dispersed over a wide area, making them difficult to eliminate through conventional weapons. Prior to the midterm elections in November 2006, the Bush administration was seriously considering a first-strike nuclear attack, particularly at the nuclear facilities in Natanz and Isfahan.

In any case, there is almost certainly some redundancy in the current Iranian nuclear program that would enable Iran to reconstruct its program in case of an attack. In addition, if Iran's nuclear facilities were raided, the Iranians would presumably formally announce its withdrawal from the NPT and begin a crash program for nuclear weapons development in a more irrepressible manner.

Such an attack would also be a major setback for the growing pro-democracy movement in Iran. The vast majority of Iranians opposed to the Ahmadinejad regime are also united in opposition to U.S. policy and the threat of a U.S.-led attack, a fact that would allow the regime to mobilize the population and crack down even harder on progressive movements.

There are alternatives, however, between going to war and doing nothing.

Possible Solutions

It is unlikely that U.S. demands on the United Nations to impose tough sanctions against Iran will be successful. This comes in part because the United States has blocked enforcement of previous UN Security Council resolutions dealing with nuclear nonproliferation when the violators have been allies, such as UNSC resolution 1172, which calls on India and Pakistan to eliminate their nuclear weapons and nuclear-capable missiles, and UNSC resolution 487, which calls on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the trusteeship of the IAEA. In fact, the United States not only maintains its close strategic relationship with Israel, but the Bush administration has recently agreed to provide Pakistan with sophisticated nuclear-capable jet fighter-bombers and has signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with India.

Given that Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions are likely focused on deterrence, a negotiated settlement is still possible. This could eliminate threats of a U.S. attack against Iran and efforts to overthrow its government. Such a diplomatic solution led to an end to Libya's nuclear program in December 2003.

A related initiative could call for the United States to end its opposition to the establishment of a nuclear-weapons-free-zone for the entire Middle East and South Asia, where all nations of the region would be required to give up their nuclear weapons and weapons programs, and open up to strict international inspections. Iran has endorsed the idea, along with Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, and other countries in the region. Such nuclear-weapons-free-zones already exist for Africa, Central Asia, Southeast Asia, the South Pacific, Antarctica, and Latin America.

Thus far, however, the Bush administration has rejected such a call, insisting that the United States has the right to decide which countries get to have such weapons and which ones do not, effectively demanding a kind of nuclear apartheid.

Not only are such double standards unethical, they are simply unworkable: any effort by America to impose a hierarchy of haves and have-nots in the region would simply fuel rebellion from the have-nots.

The only realistic means of curbing the threat of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East is to establish a law-based, region-wide program for disarmament, by which all countries—regardless of their relations with the United States—must abide.

And, ultimately, the only way to make the world completely safe from the threat of nuclear weapons is for the establishment of a nuclear-free planet, in which the United States—as the largest nuclear power—must take the lead.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and a member of the advisory board of the Tikkun Community. He is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism.

Source Citation

Zunes, Stephen. 2007. The Iranian Nuclear Threat: Myth and Reality. Tikkun 22(1): 29.