Saturday, November 8, 2008

Can a Nuclear Iran Be Contained or Deterred? Part I

 

by Michael Rubin

1st part of 3

 

As Iran's nuclear program has developed, the Bush administration appeared to draw a red line: a nuclear weapons-capable Islamic Republic would be unacceptable. On August 8, 2004, for example, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told NBC News that the United States "cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon" and that President George W. Bush would "look at all the tools that are available to him."[1] In an October 27, 2006, Oval Office meeting with NATO secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, Bush remarked, "the idea of Iran having a nuclear weapon is unacceptable."[2] A year later, Bush declared that "Iran will be dangerous if they have the know-how to make a nuclear weapon."[3] If Bush's statement was a red line then, today it appears to have been more a rhetorical flourish than a policy truth.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said that if the Iranian nuclear program continues apace, the Islamic Republic can become a nuclear weapons-capable state.[4] While Bush remains enigmatic on how far he will go to prevent Iranian acquisition of nuclear weapons if diplomacy and economic sanctions fail, top administration officials hint that the Pentagon is not prepared to use military force, even as a last resort.[5] Though strategic bombing of Iranian nuclear targets is off the table in the waning weeks of the Bush presidency, top U.S. military officials like General John Abizaid, former commander of Central Command, and Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, argue that the United States can contain or deter a nuclear Iran. On July 21, 2008, for example, Abizaid explained, "I don't believe Iran is a suicide state. . . . Deterrence will work with Iran."[6] Whether deterrence and containment against a nuclear Iran deserve the faith Abizaid and Mullen hold in them, the options are unclear.

 

Will Iran Use Nuclear Weapons?

Should the Islamic Republic possess nuclear weapons, the nightmare scenario is that it would use them in a first strike, most likely against Israel. Elimination of Israel remains a cornerstone of Islamic Republic ideology. Despite revisionist questioning about whether Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad really promised to "wipe Israel off the map,"[7] both University of North Dakota law professor Gregory S. Gordon and Joshua Teitelbaum, senior research fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center at the University of Tel Aviv, have chronicled well over a dozen recent Iranian statements promising Israel's destruction. As Teitelbaum notes, "What emerges from a comprehensive analysis of what Ahmadinejad actually said--and how it has been interpreted in Iran--is that the Iranian president was not just calling for 'regime change' in Jerusalem, but rather the actual physical destruction of the state of Israel."[8]

There is reason to take the worst case scenario seriously. While giving the official state sermon at Tehran University on December 14, 2001, for example, former Iranian president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, current chairman of the powerful Expediency Council, argued that it might not be far-fetched to envision use of nuclear weapons against the Jewish state. Amid chants of "Death to Israel," he declared, "The use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything. . . . It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality." Even if Israel responded with its own nuclear arsenal, the Islamic Republic has the strategic depth to absorb and withstand the retaliation, and so the price might be worth it. "It will only harm the Islamic world," he argued.[9] When it comes to Iranian desires to possess nuclear weapons rather than simply a civilian nuclear energy program, Rafsanjani's statements have become the rule rather than the exception.

On February 14, 2005, for example, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer Kharrazi, secretary general of the Iranian Hezbollah, declared, "We are able to produce atomic bombs and we will do that. We shouldn't be afraid of anyone. The United States is not more than a barking dog."[10] And, on May 29, 2005, Hojjat al-Eslam Gholam Reza Hasani, the supreme leader's personal representative to the province of West Azerbaijan, declared possession of nuclear weapons to be one of Iran's top goals. "An atom bomb . . . must be produced," he said. "That is because the Quran has told Muslims to 'get strong and amass all the forces at your disposal.'"[11] The following year, Mohsen Gharavian, a Qom theologian close to Ayatollah Mohammad-Taqi Mesbah-Yazdi, one of the Islamic Republic's staunchest ideologues, said it was "only natural" for Iran to possess nuclear weapons.[12]

Not every Iranian religious figure has been so bellicose. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has said, "We do not need a nuclear bomb. We do not have any objectives or aspirations for which we will need to use a nuclear bomb. We consider using nuclear weapons against Islamic rules."[13] His statements, especially in the context of evidence of Iranian nuclear developments, should not be taken at face value. They may be taqiya, religiously sanctioned dissimulation meant to lull an enemy. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, not only spoke repeatedly of the necessity to engage in taqiya,[14] but he also practiced it, telling the Western audience in the weeks before his return to Iran, for example, "I don't want to be the leader of the Islamic Republic; I don't want to have the government or power in my hands."[15]

Of course, Western policymakers should not take bellicose statements as fact and dismiss automatically more conciliatory approaches. As long as the messages remain mixed and covert nuclear activities unexplained, however, realists must treat Iranian intentions with suspicion. At the very least, Western policymakers should not base their approach to Iran on a single statement by the supreme leader, contradicted as it is by evidence of a sometimes covert and continuing nuclear program.

 

Can Iran Be Deterred?

Should achievement of nuclear weapons capability make such debates moot, then what policy options short of military strikes would the West have? Alongside any diplomatic or economic strategy, the United States and its allies would have to rely on deterrence or containment. Both are military strategies. Successful nuclear deterrence requires two conditions: First, the Iranian leadership must prioritize the lives of its citizenry above certain geopolitical or ideological goals. Second, the deterring power--in this case, the United States--must be willing to kill hundreds of thousands of Iranians should authorities in Tehran or their proxies ever use nuclear weapons. On both questions, there is a disturbing lack of clarity.

At its heart, the Islamic Republic is an ideological regime. Many visitors to the Islamic Republic may be rightly impressed by Tehran's vibrant political culture, but when push comes to shove, the Iranian leadership believes sovereignty derives from God and must be channeled through the supreme leader. The ambitions and values of ordinary people are subordinate to the will of God as interpreted by the supreme leader and the apparatus established to serve him. Hence, the Council of Guardians constrains any outlet for ordinary Iranians by disqualifying any potential political leaders whose governing philosophy does not conform to Khamenei's narrow views. The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), its associated paramilitary Basij, and assorted state-sanctioned vigilante groups exist to enforce ideological discipline and punish those who fail to conform.[16]

Is Abizaid correct when he argues that the Islamic Republic is not suicidal? It is a crucial question. During the Cold War and after the Soviet Union's nuclear breakout, the United States had no choice but to deter. An ideological clash may have driven the Cold War, but neither Moscow nor Washington believed the other side to be suicidal. Each superpower pursued its interests but checked its own ambitions so as not to provoke a nuclear war that would destroy its home country. Despite mutually assured destruction, deterrence almost broke down on several occasions, bringing the United States and the Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war: the Berlin crisis, the Cuban missile crisis, and the downing of Korean Air Lines Flight 007 each nearly escalated beyond control. In retrospect, deterrence brought neither the security nor the stability to which some historians and many current policymakers ascribe it. At the very least, nuclear deterrence is a highly risky strategy.

The Soviet leadership was not suicidal, but how does the Iranian leadership approach questions of mass death? If Western politicians project their own value system onto their foes when calculating opponent decision-making, then they would assume that their Iranian counterparts would not be willing to absorb a nuclear attack. Such reasoning, however, ignores the role of ideology in the Islamic Republic.

Regardless of what most Iranians think, the Islamic Republic ascribes to a set of values far different from our own. Ahmadinejad shocked the West when, soon after taking office, he called for Israel's destruction; dismissed the Holocaust as a fabrication; and hinted that he channeled the Hidden Imam, also known as the Mahdi, Shia Islam's messianic figure.

Mahdism is not new to the Islamic Republic. After the first parliamentary elections in May 1980, Khomeini instructed the victors to offer their "services to the Lord of the Age, May God speed his blessed appearance."[17] Nevertheless, most parliamentarians at the time rooted themselves in the more pragmatic policy debates swirling around construction of the new system. Ahmadinejad, however, heightened emphasis on apocalyptic thought when he argued that Mahdism is "the defining strategy of the Islamic Republic" and that human action could hasten the Mahdi's return.[18] Indeed, it is this aspect of Ahmadinejad's thought that is especially dangerous because it suggests that Ahmadinejad believes that he and his fellow travelers could perhaps hasten the Mahdi's return by precipitating violence, setting the stage for the return as prophesied in some readings of Islamic texts.

Ahmadinejad is not alone in such beliefs. Mesbah-Yazdi, his religious mentor, argues that the "superiority of Islam over other religions is stressed in Qur'an, which calls on believers to wage war against unbelievers and prepare the way for the advent of the Mahdi and conquering the world."[19] In his study of apocalyptic thought in Iran, Mehdi Khalaji, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who trained for fourteen years in the seminaries of Qom, noted, "Ahmadinejad appears to be influenced by a trend in contemporary apocalyptic thought in which the killing of Jews will be one of the most significant accomplishments of the Mahdi's government."[20] Certainly it is plausible that Ahmadinejad might, like Rafsanjani, believe Islamic interests make Iran's weathering a retaliatory nuclear strike worthwhile. If this is true, and the interpretation is certainly plausible, then traditional deterrence becomes impossible.

Within the convoluted power structure of the Islamic Republic, however, the presidency is more about style than substance. Ahmadinejad may embody a heterodox ideology, but would he control nuclear weapons? Herein lies the difficulty with assessing a nuclear Iran's behavior: very little is known about the Islamic Republic's nuclear command and control. Ahmadinejad may not have direct power, but his accession to the high-profile presidency shows the acceptability of his views within the Islamic Republic's power circles. Ahmadinejad derives his power from the IRGC and may reflect significant ideological strains within the force. It is not likely that the Islamic Republic will establish safeguard mechanisms until it has acquired nuclear weapons technology. This can create a very dangerous situation. In 1999, Western officials scrambled to avert a nuclear confrontation between India and Pakistan over the Kargil district in Kashmir. As generals pushed their armies and governments to the brink of all-out hostility, neither Delhi nor Islamabad had established the mechanism of control to prevent accidental or rogue use of their atomic arsenal.

What is known about Tehran's command and control does not inspire confidence. The IRGC has, over the past decade, expanded its dominance over all aspects of Iranian politics, economy, and security.[21] The same hard-line clerics--Mesbah-Yazdi and Ayatollah Kazem al-Haeri, for example--to whom Ahmadinejad and his IRGC compatriots turn for religious guidance promote the most radical exegesis. Mainstream Iranians may not subscribe and, indeed, may even ridicule Ahmadinejad's messianism, but those who control the weapons may feel differently and embrace the idea that nuclear weapons can and should be used in a holy struggle against Israel or other enemies.

For Western advocates of a deterrence strategy, chain of command and control over weaponry should not simply be a theoretical concern. Indeed, there has already been a close call caused by a rogue commander within the Revolutionary Guards. In 1991, as the Pentagon amassed forces in Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield, a mutinous IRGC unit allegedly sought to launch a conventional missile attack against the assembled U.S. troops. Had such an attack occurred, it would have likely initiated a far wider conflict. IRGC loyalists, however, averted the missile launch when they seized control of the rogue base.[22] It is certainly ironic that the same Western commentators and officials who ascribe adversarial Iranian behavior to rogue IRGC elements rather than the central government also appear to place the greatest faith in the efficacy of nuclear deterrence against the Islamic Republic.

 

Michael Rubin
 

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