New Interviews
How Deeply is Iran Enmeshed in Syria?
May 6, 2013 | 6:35pm
Will Fulton
Israel carried out two airstrikes on Syrian targets in early May that significantly expanded the regional dimensions of Syria’s internal conflict. In the first strike on May 3, Israeli warplanes reportedly hit a convoy of Iranian Fateh-110 missiles destined for Lebanon’s Hezbollah. Israel then reportedly carried out a pre-dawn airstrike on May 5 that targeted the Jamraya military complex north of Damascus. Israel did not formally comment on its role in the strikes, but Western and Middle East officials have not hesitated in linking them to Israel. The two operations—the second and third Israeli strikes in 2013—reflect the growing sense that the Syrian domestic crisis is also evolving into a proxy war between the United States and Iran. (Picture: Syrian President Bashar Assad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei)
The Fateh 110 is a short-range ballistic missile and one of the most accurate in Iran’s arsenal. Iran unveiled an upgraded version last year. Its range is about 185 miles, which makes it particularly useful for Hezbollah against Israel—and, in turn, for Iran’s regional strategy. In response to the Israeli strikes, Iranian Minister of Defense Ahmad Vahidi warned, "The inhumane measures and adventures of the Zionist regime in the region will surge anti-Zionist waves and shorten the life of this fake regime…. [Israel's] attack in Syria, which occurred with a green light from the U.S., pulled the curtain back on the relationship between the mercenary terrorists and their supporters and the Zionist regime."
Vahidi also called for a regional response against Israel. Tehran "condemns the Zionist regime attack and recommends the regional countries to wisely stand against such aggressions," he told Fars news agency. The reaction from Vahidi, who is a senior Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps commander, may also signal a possible Iranian response. The Revolutionary Guards have taken the lead in training Hezbollah and aiding Syria militarily since the 1980s.
In a rare public comment about Iran-Syria military ties, Gen. Ahmad Reza Pourdastan, commander of Iran’s regular Army ground forces, said the Islamic Republic is prepared to provide military training to the Syrian Army. “As a Muslim nation, we back Syria, and if there is need for training we will provide them with the training. But we won’t have any active involvement in the operations,” he said, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency.
Israel's direct action against the Iranian and Hezbollah targets in Syria highlights the role that Iran and its allies increasingly play in the Syrian conflict. A new report entitled "Iranian Strategy in Syria" by the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War outlines Iran’s role and goals in Syria. The following is an interview with Will Fulton, one of the report’s three co-authors.
Two years after Syria’s uprising began, what role is Iran now playing? What specifically is it providing to Syria?
Iran continues to be Syrian President Bashar Assad’s key ally and source of support in this conflict. Iran is conducting an extensive, expensive, and integrated effort to provide the Assad regime with military, intelligence, economic, and diplomatic support. Iran’s security and intelligence services are training and advising Assad’s state military and security organizations, providing essential military supplies to the Assad regime, and directly supporting pro-government Syrian shabiha militias. Iran’s partners and proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah and Iraq-based Shi’a militant groups — such as Kata’ib Hezbollah and Asa’ib Ahl al Haqq — have also taken on a more direct combat role in recent months. These groups have made their presence and activities known on their social media outlets and by holding public events honoring members who have died while fighting in Syria. Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on April 30, 2013, in which he warned that Syria has “real friends in the region and in the world who will not allow Syria to fall into the hands of America or Israel,” was further indication that Iran and its partners are resolved in their support for Assad.
Which of Iran’s security organizations have provided support to Assad?
Iran has committed its most important security organizations to the Syrian conflict. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ Ground Forces (IRGC), its Quds Force, and Intelligence Organization have deployed senior personnel to Syria in support of the Assad regime. So have Iran’s Law Enforcement Forces and Ministry of Intelligence and Security.
The forward deployment of high-ranking IRGC Ground Forces commanders is particularly unusual. The Quds Force is Iran’s traditional foreign military arm, while the IRGC Ground Forces are responsible for internal security and conventional operations inside of Iran. The evolution of an expeditionary training capability relying on the IRGC Ground Forces in addition to the Quds Force is a notable expansion of Iran’s ability to project its influence and military force well beyond its borders and immediate neighbors.
How does Iran move personnel and materiel into Syria?
Aerial resupply is the most critical component of Iranian material support to Syria. Opposition gains in Syria have interdicted many ground resupply routes between Baghdad and Damascus, and the relative scarcity of Iranian port-visits in Syria suggests that Iran’s sea-lanes to Syria are more symbolic than practical. The air line of communication between Iran and Syria is thus a key vulnerability for Iranian strategy in Syria. Iran would not be able to maintain its current level of support to Assad if this air route were interdicted through a no-fly zone or rebel capture of Syrian airfields.
What are Iran’s goals and strategy in Syria?
First and foremost, Iran aims to keep Assad in power for as long as possible. It is training and supporting the Syrian security apparatus to achieve this goal.
But Iran is also hedging against the failure of this strategy by setting conditions to ensure Tehran’s ability to use Syrian territory and assets to pursue its regional interests should Assad fall. To that end, Iran is complementing its support for Syrian state security institutions with assistance to pro-government militias to develop proxies that may survive Assad. This aspect of Iran’s approach is congruent with Tehran’s longstanding efforts in Lebanon and Iraq, where it also built Shiite militias to ensure that its interests were protected even in the absence of effective or pliable host states.
Why has Iran invested so heavily in supporting Assad?
Syria is vital to Iran’s strategic interests in the Middle East. It has long been Iran’s closest state ally. The Assad regime has provided crucial access to Iranian proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah, Hamas, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, which allows Iran to move people, weapons, and money to these groups through Syrian territory.
Iran has invested in Syria as a strategic partner as part of its deterrence strategy on Israel and as an Arab ally in its rivalry with Turkey and the Persian Gulf states. Iranian officials have made the centrality of Syria to Iranian regional interests well known. “Syria is the golden ring of resistance against Israel, and if it weren’t for Syria’s active government the country would become like Qatar or Kuwait. Iran is not prepared to lose this golden counterweight,” Ali Akbar Velayati, senior foreign affairs adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said on March 27, 2013.
The Syrian conflict has already constrained Iran’s influence in the Levant. The fall of the Assad regime would further reduce Tehran’s ability to project power. Iran’s strategy in Syria thus far indicates that it is determined to defend its interests in this conflict.
Will Fulton is an Iran Analyst for the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute.
Click here for the new report, "Iranian Strategy in Syria," by the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute and the Institute for the Study of War.
Photo Credits: Syrian President Bashar Assad and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei via Leader.ir and Khamenei.ir Facebook
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Al Qaeda and Iran: Enemies with Benefits
April 30, 2013 | 3:20pm
Matthew Duss
On April 22, Canadian authorities arrested two men who allegedly planned to derail a U.S.-bound passenger train. Officials said al Qaeda elements in Iran gave “direction and guidance” to Chiheb Esseghaier, 30, and Raed Jaser, 35. But police have not found evidence of Iranian state sponsorship. And Tehran has denied any connection to the plot.
What has been the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda?
Iran and al Qaeda have had a complex and rocky relationship for two decades. The Shiite theocracy and the Sunni terrorist organization are not natural allies. Al Qaeda’s hardline Salafi/Wahhabi interpretation of Islam believes that Shiites are heretics. In 2009, a leader of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula proclaimed that Shiites, particularly Iranians, posed more of a danger to Sunnis than Jews or Christians. Iran has likewise been hostile toward al Qaeda and its former Taliban hosts in Afghanistan.
But countries and movements with seemingly inimical views can work together when circumstances warrant. The 9/11 Commission reported that Iran and al Qaeda contacts go back two decades, beginning when Osama bin Laden was based in Sudan. The report also noted “strong but indirect evidence" that al Qaeda played "some as yet unknown role" in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers, a U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia, by the Iran-supported Saudi Hezbollah. A number of the 9/11 hijackers traveled through Iran to Afghanistan, although there is no evidence that Tehran was aware of the plot.
Some of the best information available on the al Qaeda-Iran relationship was found during the May 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Documents “show that the relationship is not one of alliance, but of indirect and unpleasant negotiations over the release of detained jihadis and their families, including members of Bin Laden’s family,” according to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point. “The detention of prominent al Qa`ida members seems to have sparked a campaign of threats, taking hostages and indirect negotiations between al-Qa`ida and Iran that have been drawn out for years and may still be ongoing.”
Iran and al Qaeda are clearly at odds in the Syrian civil war. Bashar Assad’s regime is Iran’s key Arab ally, and Tehran is expending considerable effort to prop up Damascus. Al Qaeda, on the other hand, has joined the anti-Assad insurgency. Ayman al Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s successor, has urged fighters from around the region to join the battle against Assad. The Nusra Front, one of Syria’s strongest rebel groups, recently pledged its allegiance to al Qaeda.
Are there known al Qaeda elements in Iran? Where?
Hundreds of al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan fled west to Iran after the U.S.-led coalition intervention in October 2001, and many were detained by Iranian authorities in eastern Iran, near the Afghanistan and Pakistan border. Iran claims to have extradited more than 500 to their home countries in the Middle East, Africa and Europe.
Some high-profile detainees, including top al Qaeda strategist Saif al Adel and Osama bin Laden’s son-in-law Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, were held with their families under house arrest in Iran, possibly as insurance against al Qaeda attacks on Iranian interests or for use as bargaining chips. Al Adel and Abu Ghaith were given greater freedom to travel in exchange for the 2010 release of an Iranian diplomat who had been held in Pakistan’s tribal areas. Abu Gaith was captured in Jordan by the United States in February 2013.
It’s unclear how close an eye Iranian security services are keeping on al Qaeda elements currently living in eastern Iran. The remote area along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border is sparsely populated and home to the Baloch ― a Sunni ethnic group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Pakistan and Iran. A 2011 U.S. Treasury Department report accused Tehran of having a secret deal with al Qaeda that allows the group to funnel funds and operatives through Iranian territory. But the report did not cite Iranian officials for complicity in terrorism.
Canadian police said there is no evidence of Iranian sponsorship so far. What is known about Iran’s role?
It would mark a shift in strategy if Iran was actively involved in the planning of al Qaeda attacks. Canadian officials have claimed that al Qaeda leaders in Iran gave the two men considerable independence in planning and carrying out the alleged plot. The Iranian government probably would not have allowed them that operational freedom. Based on the evidence released by Canada, Tehran was probably not involved in any significant way.
The costs would not have been worth the benefits to Iran either. Any proven Iranian role in a terrorist attack that derailed a passenger train would have further strengthened international opinion against Tehran. It is already isolated and faced with many layers of economic sanctions. The timing is also awkward. Iranian complicity could jeopardize negotiations over its controversial nuclear program with the United States and five major world powers. At the same time, Iranian strategy has been opaque even to those who have observed Iran for decades.
Matthew Duss is a policy analyst at the Center for American Progress.
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Where Does Nuclear Diplomacy Stand Now?
April 9, 2013 | 2:59pm
Interview with Michael Adler by Garrett Nada
What was the outcome of the talks in Kazakhstan and why?
The talks were basically a failure because the six world powers did not receive an answer to the proposal they made to Iran in February. In those talks, also in Kazakhstan, the United States, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United Kingdom ― the so-called P5+1 ― had presented a compromise formula to move negotiations forward. It included:
•Iran would suspend all 20 percent enrichment of uranium, including enrichment at the Fordo facility near the northern city of Qom. Fordo is a heavily reinforced site that could be impregnable to air attack.
•The international community would lift some punitive restrictions, allowing Tehran to trade gold and other currencies, which would help Iran get around sanctions on its banking sector.
But at the April 5-6 talks, Iran instead countered with an offer based on a proposal it had put forward in Moscow last June. The specific new plan was not released but Tehran’s proposal in June included:
•Stage 1: The P5+1 would recognize Iran’s right to enrich uranium. In return, Iran would
emphasize its commitments under the Non-proliferation Treaty and its opposition to nuclear
weapons.
•Stage 2: The P5+1 would lift unilateral and multilateral sanctions on Iran outside of U.N.
Security Council resolutions. In return, Iran would continue to cooperate with the U.N.
nuclear watchdog and answer questions about possible military dimensions of its program.
•Stage 3: U.N. sanctions would be lifted, and Iran’s nuclear file would be removed from the
Security Council’s agenda. In return, Iran would cooperate with the P5+1 to provide
enriched fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor.
•Stage 4: The parties would cooperate in designing and building nuclear power plants and
light water research reactors in Iran.
•Stage 5: The parties would start cooperating on regional issues that could include Syria,
narcotics and piracy.
How was this new round different from the earlier rounds of diplomacy?
The first day of the talks on April 5 was a disaster. Iran presented its own offer instead of a response to the February proposal. It basically reiterated its offer from the Moscow talks in June 2012. But the P5+1 powers had already rejected that 2012 proposal. A senior U.S. diplomat said that Iran was maximizing demands and only proposing minimal action on its part.
The second day of negotiations was not much more productive. Diplomats discussed the same issues, although some said Iran engaged in discussions more seriously than in the past. Instead of repeating rhetoric or prepared speeches, Iranian negotiators reportedly spoke about specific items during question-and-answer sessions. Some diplomats felt this directness was new and even a sign of serious engagement, although they may have been grasping at straws to find a productive outcome.
What does the outcome mean?
The outcome means that the process is likely to continue. Negotiations are by nature slow, tortuous and full of setbacks, a U.S. official said. “There may not have been a breakthrough, but there also was not a breakdown,” the official said.
What happens next? What are the prospects for another round of talks?
No date has been set for another round of talks. But a diplomat close to the negotiations said that another session may happen soon. On the other hand, most analysts do not expect to see progress until after Iran’s June presidential election.
What are the major gaps in the two sides’ positions?
The gap between the two sides is philosophical as well as substantial. The major gap is on the issue of suspension of uranium enrichment, which has always been the key goal of P5+1 countries. The world’s six major powers want Iran to suspend 20 percent enrichment as a confidence-building gesture to clear the way for more substantial negotiations on long-term issues―namely concern about enrichment and possible military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program.
From the beginning, Iran has demanded that the international community recognize its right to enrichment, which already provides fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor and could provide fuel if Iran were to build a bomb. Tehran also does not want to be singled out or placed under any special scrutiny by the U.N. nuclear watchdog or the U.N. Security Council.
The priorities of the international community and Iran have barely changed over the last decade. The important difference is that Iran was originally enriching to 3.5 percent. Since 2010, it has been enriching to 20 percent. This causes added concern since weapon-grade uranium, enriched to more than 90 percent, is easier to produce from 20 percent enriched uranium than from 3.5 percent enriched uranium.
Michael Adler, a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, formerly covered the International Atomic Energy Agency for Agence France-Presse.
Photo credit: Saeed Jalili (Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator) by Parmida76 on Flickr
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Part II: What Would it Take to Build a Bomb?
April 9, 2013 | 9:47am
Interview with Colin Kahl by Garrett Nada
What steps would be necessary for Iran to build a nuclear weapon?
President Obama has estimated that it would take Iran “over a year or so” for Iran to develop a nuclear weapon. But that device would likely be crude and too large to fit on a ballistic missile. Producing a nuclear weapon that could be launched at Israel, Europe, or the United States would take substantially longer. Iran would need to complete three key steps.
Step 1: Produce Fissile Material
Fissile material is the most important component of a nuclear weapon. There are two types of fissile material: weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. Tehran has worked primarily on uranium. There are three levels or enrichment to understand the controversy surrounding Iran’s program:
·90 percent enrichment: The most likely route for Iran to produce fissile material would be to enrich its growing stockpile of low-enriched uranium to 90 percent purity —or weapons-grade level. Western intelligence agencies suggest Iran has not decided to enrich uranium to 90 percent.
·3.5 percent enrichment: As of early 2013, Iran had approximately 18,000 pounds of “low-enriched uranium” enriched to the 3.5 percent level (the level used to fuel civilian nuclear power plants). This stockpile would be sufficient to produce around half-a-dozen nuclear bombs, but only if it were further enriched to weapons-grade level (above the 90 percent purity level). Experts estimate Iran would need at least four months to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb using 3.5 percent enriched uranium as the starting point.
·20 percent enrichment: In early 2013, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the
U.N. watchdog group that inspects Iranian nuclear facilities, said Iran also had a stockpile of
375 pounds of 20 percent low-enriched uranium, ostensibly to provide fuel for a medical
research reactor. This stockpile is about two-thirds of the 551 pounds needed to produce one
bomb’s worth of weapons-grade material if further enriched. If Iran accumulated sufficient
quantities of 20 percent low-enriched uranium, it might be able to enrich enough
weapons-grade uranium for a single bomb in a month or two.
The main issue is the status of the uranium enriched to 20 percent and the two production sites—at the Fordo plant outside the northern city of Qom and the Natanz facility in central Iran. U.N. inspectors visit these sites every week or two, however, so any move to produce weapons-grade uranium in an accelerated timeframe as short as a month would be detected. Knowing this, Iran is unlikely to act.
The speed of enrichment also depends on the centrifuges used, both their number and their quality. For a long time, Iran had used thousands of fairly slow IR-1 centrifuges to spin and then separate uranium isotopes. But since January 2013, it has started to install IR-2M centrifuges, which spin three to five times faster. In early 2013, Tehran claimed to be using about 200 IR-2Ms at the Natanz site.
Tehran might be able to enrich enough uranium for one bomb ― from 20 percent purity to 90 percent ― in as little as two weeks if it installs large numbers of advanced IR-2M centrifuges. Iran has announced its intention to eventually install as many as 3,000.
Step 2: Develop a Warhead
Iran would next have to build a nuclear device. It would need to build a warhead based on an “implosion” design if Iran wanted to deliver a nuclear device on a missile. It would include a core composed of weapons-grade uranium (or plutonium) and a neutron initiator surrounded by conventional high explosives designed to compress the core and set off a self-sustaining nuclear chain reaction.
IAEA documents claim, “Iran has sufficient information to be able to design and produce a workable implosion nuclear device based upon HEU [highly enriched uranium] as the fission fuel.” The IAEA has also expressed concerns that Iran may have conducted conventional high-explosive tests at its military facility at Parchin that could be used to develop a nuclear warhead.
There is no evidence, however, that Iran is currently working to design or construct such a warhead. Even if Iran made the decision, production of a warhead small enough, light enough, and reliable enough to mount on a ballistic missile is complicated. Iran would probably need at least a few years to accomplish this technological achievement.
Step 3: Marry the Warhead to an Effective Delivery System
If Iran built a nuclear warhead, it would need a way to deliver it. Tehran’s medium-range Shahab-3 has a range of up to 1,200 miles, long enough to strike anywhere in the Middle East, including Israel, and possibly southeastern Europe. These missiles are highly inaccurate, but they are theoretically capable of carrying a nuclear warhead if Iran is able to design one.
Iran’s Sajjil-2, another domestically produced medium-range ballistic missile, reportedly has a range of 1,375 miles when carrying a 1,650-pound warhead. Tehran is the only country to develop a missile with that range before a nuclear weapon. But the missile has only been tested once since 2009, which may mean it needs further fine-tuning before deployment. Iran also relies on foreign sources for a number of components for the Sajjil-2.
Iran is probably years away from developing a missile that could hit the United States. A 2012 Department of Defense report said Iran “may be technically capable” of flight testing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015 if it receives foreign assistance. But in December 2012, a congressional report said Iran is unlikely to develop an ICBM in this timeframe, and many analysts estimate that Tehran would need until 2020.
Is the North Korean experience relevant?
The Clinton administration confronted a similar dilemma in 1993 on North Korea’s nuclear program. The intelligence community assessed that Pyongyang had one or two bombs’ worth of weapons-grade plutonium. But the intelligence community could not tell the president with a high degree of certainty if North Korea had actually built operational nuclear weapons.
The mere existence of a few bombs’ worth of weapons-grade plutonium seemed to have a powerful deterrent effect on the United States. Washington could not be sure where the material was stored, or if the North Koreans were close to producing a weapon.
The same concerns could apply to Iran if it developed the capability to produce weapons-grade uranium so quickly that it avoids detection even at declared facilities― or if it was able to enrich bomb-grade material at a secret facility. Then Iran might be able to hide the fissile material, making it more difficult for a military strike to destroy. All the other parts of the program, such as weapons design, preparing the uranium core, and fabrication and assembly of other key weapon components, could potentially be done in places dispersed across the country that are easier to conceal and more difficult to target.
Iran may be years away from being able to place a nuclear warhead on a reliable long-range missile. But many analysts are concerned that the game is up once Iran produces enough fissile material for a bomb.
Colin H. Kahl served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from 2009 to 2011. He is currently an associate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
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Part I: Is Iran Slowing its Nuclear Program?
April 9, 2013 | 9:45am
Interview with Colin Kahl by Garrett Nada
Colin H. Kahl served as the deputy assistant secretary of defense for the Middle East from 2009 to 2011. He is currently an associate professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
Iran has reportedly slowed down work on its nuclear program. What is actually known?
The good news is that Tehran has kept its stockpile of 20 percent low-enriched uranium below the amount needed for a bomb. It may have curtailed uranium enrichment in order not to cross Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s red line. He had predicted in September 2012 that Iran would accumulate enough 20 percent low-enriched uranium for one bomb’s worth of material by the spring or summer of 2013. Netanyahu had implied that Israel would consider military action if Iran approached this point.
Experts estimate that Iran would need about 551 pounds of 20 percent low-enriched uranium to produce a bomb. It reportedly has accumulated about 375 pounds so far, or two-thirds of the quantity needed. Iran could have had more, but it has oxidized part of the stockpile to make fuel plates for the Tehran Research Reactor. (Once oxidized, the uranium is not easily enriched to weapons-grade levels. It is technically reversible but time-consuming.) The bad news is that Iran has been significantly upgrading its ability to enrich uranium. It has installed about 2,000 additional IR-1 centrifuges at its enrichment facility in Natanz, bringing the total number of machines there to around 12,000, according to the U.N. nuclear watchdog in February. The installation of 200 even more advanced IR-2M centrifuges―which would be three to five times more efficient than IR-1 centrifuges―is particularly worrisome. And Iran intends to install about 3,000 of the more advanced models, which could dramatically shorten Iran’s breakout timeline.
The Iranians may have run into some technical issue with storage or something else that requires them to oxidize part of their uranium stockpile. Another possibility is that Iran’s leaders want to avoid a major international crisis before the June 2013 presidential election. Or they could be intentionally skirting Netanyahu’s red line on the uranium stockpile to ensure Israel does not strike.
Has diplomacy with the international community played a role in Iran’s calculations?
Tehran is likely to continue its dialogue with the world’s six major powers until its presidential election in June. But it is unlikely to make a major concession before the election for fear of signaling that the regime is weak.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei ultimately decides on all nuclear issues. So the winner of the presidential election is not all that important per se. Most Iran analysts expect the next president to be handpicked by the supreme leader from the group loyal to him.
After the election, the question will be whether Iran is willing to slow down its production of 20 percent low-enriched uranium and shift some of its stockpile abroad in exchange for some sanctions relief. That kind of deal is unlikely to solve the nuclear standoff. But it would put some time back on the clock.
The United States, Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia, the so-called P5+1, are scheduled to meet with Iran in Kazakhstan again on April 5. During these talks, Tehran may try to weaken consensus among the world’s six major powers, who do not agree on every element of negotiating strategy. But this element of Iran’s diplomatic strategy has only had moderate success so far.
At what point would the United States need to decide whether or not to use force to stop the nuclear program?
The Obama administration has indicated that it does not share Netanyahu’s definition of the red line for using force. Washington does not appear to consider one bomb’s worth of 20 percent low-enriched uranium alone as casus belli for a military strike. Even aggressive estimates claim Iran would need at least a month to convert further enrich this material to weapons-grade level (uranium enriched above the 90 percent level of purity). Iran would also have to do the enrichment at either Natanz or its second enrichment facility at Fordo, both of which are inspected every week or two by the U.N. nuclear watchdog. Inspectors would almost certainly catch Tehran diverting or enriching the material. Iran knows it would get caught, so the supreme leader is not likely to make such a move even with a sufficient stockpile of 20 percent low-enriched uranium.
But President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu agreed in March that Iran would need at least one year to produce a nuclear device, which would begin with production of weapons-grade uranium. Tehran would then need several months to actually assemble a crude nuclear device. U.S. officials have suggested that Iran might need another two to four more years to build a nuclear device sophisticated enough to put on the tip of a ballistic missile.
Obama administration officials, from the president on down, have consistently stated they will not allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon. And the president has made clear that all options, including the use of force, remain on the table to ensure that Iran does not get the bomb. At the same time, Obama clearly prefers a diplomatic solution, believing there is still time to strike a deal. All eyes will be on Almaty to see if the Iranians feel the same way.
Photo Credit: President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad via President.ir
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The Islamists Are Coming
The Islamists Are Coming, edited by Robin Wright, surveys the rise of Islamist groups in the wake of the Arab Spring. Often lumped together, the more than 50 Islamist parties with millions of followers now constitute a whole new spectrum—separate from either militants or secular parties. They will shape the new order in the world’s most volatile region more than any other political bloc. Yet they have diverse goals and different constituencies. Sometimes they are even rivals.
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