Report: Obstacles to Containing a Nuclear-Armed Iran

            The United States may be pressed to adopt a containment strategy if efforts to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran fail, according to a new report by the Center for a New American Security. U.S. intelligence officials have testified that Tehran has not yet decided whether or not to pursue nuclear weapons. But Iran “may be able to achieve an unstoppable breakout capability or develop nuclear weapons in secret before preventative measures have been exhausted,” the report warns. The authors, including Colin Kahl, former deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from 2009 to 2010, outline a strategy for the potential “day after” Iran gets a bomb. The following are excerpts, followed by a link to the full text.

            Although the United States is not likely to acquiesce to the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran, Tehran may be able to achieve an unstoppable breakout capability or develop nuclear weapons in secret before preventive measures have been exhausted. Alternatively, an ineffective military strike could produce minimal damage to Iran’s nuclear program while strengthening Tehran’s motivation to acquire the bomb. Under any of these scenarios, Washington would likely be forced to shift toward containment regardless of current preferences…
 
The strategy would seek to advance 11 core objectives:
• Prevent direct Iranian use of nuclear weapons;
• Prevent Iranian transfer of nuclear weapons to terrorists;
• Limit and mitigate the consequences of Iranian sponsorship of conventional terrorism, support for militant groups and conventional aggression;
• Discourage Iranian use of nuclear threats to coerce other states or provoke crises;
• Dissuade Iranian escalation during crises;
• Discourage Iran from adopting a destabilizing nuclear posture that emphasizes early use of nuclear weapons or pre-delegates launch authority;
• Persuade Israel to eschew a destabilizing nuclear posture that emphasizes early use of nuclear weapons or hair-trigger launch procedures;
• Convince other regional states not to pursue nuclear weapons capabilities;
• Limit damage to the credibility of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and U.S. nonproliferation leadership;
• Prevent Iran from becoming a supplier of sensitive nuclear materials; and
• Ensure the free flow of energy resources from the Persian Gulf.
To achieve these objectives, containment would integrate five key components: deterrence, defense, disruption, de-escalation and denuclearization. Each of these “five Ds,” in turn, would entail a number of specific policies, activities and resource commitments.
 
Deterrence would attempt to prevent Iranian nuclear use and aggression through credible threats of retaliation by:
 
• Strengthening U.S. declaratory policy to explicitly threaten nuclear retaliation in response to Iranian nuclear use and strengthening commitments to defend U.S. allies and partners;
• Engaging in high-level dialogue with regional partners to extend the U.S. nuclear umbrella in exchange for commitments not to pursue independent nuclear capabilities;
• Evaluating options for the forward deployment of U.S. nuclear forces;
• Providing Israel with a U.S. nuclear guarantee and
engaging Israeli leaders on steps to enhance the
credibility of their nuclear deterrent; and
• Improving nuclear forensics and attribution capabilities
to deter nuclear terrorism.
 
Defense would aim to deny Iran the ability to benefit from its nuclear weapons and to protect U.S. partners and allies from aggression by:
 
• Bolstering U.S. national missile defense capabilities;
• Improving the ability to detect and neutralize nuclear weapons that might be delivered by terrorists;
• Improving network resilience to reduce the threat posed by Iranian cyber attacks;
• Maintaining a robust U.S. conventional presence in the Persian Gulf and considering additional missile defense and naval deployments;
• Increasing security cooperation and operational integration activities with Gulf countries, especially
in the areas of shared early warning, air and missile defense, maritime security and critical infrastructure protection; and
• Increasing security cooperation with Israel, especially assistance and collaboration to improve Israel’s rocket and missile defenses.
 
Disruption activities would seek to shape a regional environment resistant to Iranian influence and to thwart and diminish Iran’s destabilizing activities by:
 
• Building Egyptian and Iraqi counterweights to Iranian influence through strategic ties with Cairo and Baghdad, leveraging assistance to consolidate democratic institutions and encourage related reform;
• Promoting evolutionary political reform in the Gulf;
• Increasing assistance to non-jihadist elements of the Syrian opposition and aiding future political transition efforts;
• Increasing aid to the Lebanese Armed Forces as a long-term check on Hezbollah;
• Continuing to assist Palestinian security forces and institution building while promoting an
Israeli-Palestinian accord;
• Enhancing counterterrorism cooperation and activities against the Iranian threat network, including expanded U.S. authorities for direct action;
• Expanding collaboration with partners to interdict Iranian materials destined for proxies such as Hezbollah; and
• Aggressively employing financial and law enforcement instruments to target key individuals within the Iranian threat network.
 
De-escalation would attempt to prevent Iran-related crises from spiraling to nuclear war by:
 
• Shaping Iran’s nuclear posture through a U.S. “nofirst-use” pledge;
• Persuading Israel to eschew a preemptive nuclear doctrine and other destabilizing nuclear postures;
• Establishing crisis communication mechanisms with Iran and exploring confidence-building measures;
• Limiting U.S. military objectives in crises and conflicts with Iran to signal that regime change is not the goal of U.S. actions; and
• Providing the Iranian regime with “face-saving” exit ramps during crisis situations.
 
Denuclearization activities would seek to constrain Iran’s nuclear weapons program and limit broader damage to the nonproliferation regime by:
 
• Maintaining and tightening sanctions against Iran; and
• Strengthening interdiction efforts, including the Proliferation Security Initiative, to limit Iran’s access to nuclear and missile technology and stop Iran from horizontally proliferating sensitive technologies to other states and non-state actors.
 
            If these steps are carried out, effective containment is possible. But it would be highly complex and far from foolproof. The residual dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran would be meaningful, and the consequences of a failure of containment would be profound. The success of the strategy would also depend on numerous factors that Washington can influence but not control, including the preferences of the Iranian regime, the decisions of key allies and partners and the degree of international cooperation in support of containment…
 
 
More resources by Colin Kahl: