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4 December, 2007
Wrong about IranLet’s get comfortable. Please, have a seat. Would you like some coffee? Tea? I just want you to be as cozy as possible, because I must tell you something you may not want to hear. I was wrong about Iran’s nuclear program Yesterday, the United States government declassified a summary of it’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) concerning Iran’s nuclear ambitions. It says, in part:
“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program”(1) In short, the assumptions that Iran was trying to build nuclear weapons were wrong. Iran apparently halted its development programs in 2003, and has not restarted them. Iran is still trying to enrich uranium for civilian energy purposes. Although Iran may want to develop nuclear weapons in the future, they are not trying to do it now. Both President Bush and I believed that Iran was working as quickly as humanly possible to build the bomb, but we were both wrong. To be fair, there were good reasons to think that Iran was lying about this subject. In 2006, Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), reported that “Iran has failed in a number of instances over an extended period of time to meet its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement.”(2) Iran had apparently obtained technical information from Pakistan in 1987 that could only be used to build nuclear weapons.(3) Experts suspect that the information may have been provided by Pakistan’s infamous nuclear scientist A. Q. Khan. Iran had the means, but did they have the motive? I saw a clear impetus for Iran to develop nuclear weapons in their uncomfortable proximity to two U.S.-occupied countries. Nestled between Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran has seen what the United States can do to its enemies. Don’t forget that President Bush included Iran in his “axis of evil”, and he invaded Iraq even though weapons inspectors had been allowed into the country and had found no WMD. Iran, one could guess, would view IAEA inspectors as a prelude to war, the token effort for a peaceful resolution before the Marines hit the beaches. A foreign policy advisor who placed himself in Iran’s shoes would easily conclude that the Persian giant would seek any possible means to secure itself. With American military resources tied up in Iraq, they had a window in which they could work to create a nuclear arsenal without worrying about a U.S. invasion. As a rational actor, caught in a security dilemma against a sworn enemy that has invaded countries to the east and the west, nuclear weapons look like an attractive option. It all makes sense. Yet it was totally wrong. There were signs that pointed in the other direction. In today’s reality, you cannot talk about any oil-rich country possessing nuclear weapons without talking about the intelligence failures in Iraq. That was another situation in which the intelligence services were completely wrong. The warning signs in Iraq, I think, were more obvious than those concerning Iran. Nonetheless, our nations spy agencies told us one thing, while reality was the opposite. This is no excuse for the decision makers to make costly mistakes. Both in Iraq and Iran there were hints that the conventional wisdom was wrong. Iran cooperated with inspectors to a large degree. Their cooperation was not enough to entirely satisfy the IAEA, but it was much more open than one would expect from a country secretly trying to build nukes. In 2003, Iran agreed to additional inspection measures that gave the IAEA broad access to their facilities.(4) This year, Iran committed to a plan that would “clear up key questions about its past nuclear activities.”(5) Of course, the United States was suspicious and immediately condemned the plan. To the objective observer, though, these measures were hard to square with the bellicose language surrounding Iran’s supposed weapons program. President Bush and I had a common viewpoint about this one subject, but we differed in our ideas for a solution. I never advocated invading Iran, but I felt that negotiations would be more fruitful if we had the resources available to do so. As long as Iran knew we couldn’t touch them, we would have little leverage. It also gave Iran a motive to keep American troops tied down in Iraq. It could even inspire Iran to assist Iraqi insurrection groups. It was another reason to end the occupation if Iraq. It wasn’t the only reason to get out of that quagmire, but it was a big one. Bush, on the other hand, continued with the tough talk. In October he said: “... if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon,”(6) Even today, he sees Iran as a possible nuclear threat. The NIE, he believes, is more significant for its warnings that Iran could restart its programs. Stephen Hadley, the president’s national security adviser, said the administration’s approach to Iran would not change because of the new assessment.(7) It fits with the Bush administration’s track record. If their assumptions don’t fit the facts, throw out the facts and keep the assumptions. New data must always be factored into the decision making process, of course. Sticking stubbornly to a wrong assumption is neither wise nor prudent. In Iran’s case, if the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, their inclusion in the “axis of evil”, the tough talk by the United States, and the availability of nuclear material and technology on the black market did not motivate them to produce nukes, it is unlikely that they will suddenly change their minds now. Instead, you can expect Iran to use this latest American embarrassment to their full advantage. I’m not a pessimist. I’m a glass-half-full kind of guy. We made a mistake, but this could be seen as an opportunity. The reputation of the United States has been on crutches since the invasion of Iraq. By embracing the new estimate and bringing our policies more in line with our allies, we may regain some of the favor we once enjoyed. We may find our friends more willing to help us in our other, less popular efforts. We may even start building a bridge between ourselves and Iran. This is all too much to hope for, though, but it’s always good to have a target to shoot for. I will always advocate actions that improve the security and prestige of the United States. That is why, dear reader, I believe you should forgive me for this one little error.
(1) http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/12/03/iran.nie.pdf
© 2007 Bryan Lower
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