By Dr. Nayyer Ali

Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions

April 21 , 2006

The government of Iran, with great fanfare, declared itself a member of the “nuclear club” last week. This rather obvious act of overstatement was meant as a message to the Muslim world, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to the people of Iran, and to the United States. Although Iran is not yet actually a nuclear power, the Iranian government is clearly on a collision course with the stated US policy, which is to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
It is rather ironic that of the three members of Bush’s “Axis of Evil”, only Iraq did not actually have a nuclear weapons program in operation. North Korea almost certainly has a few weapons, and Iran, while denying that it is in pursuit of a nuclear capability, is in fact doing just that.
The announcement last week was far short of testing an actual bomb. But it is still significant. Iran claimed that it had achieved “enrichment” of uranium to “fuel-grade”. Uranium comes in two flavors, and only U-235 is actually fissile, meaning it can be used in power plants and bombs. But raw uranium ore is mostly U-238, and the uranium must be enriched such that at least 5% is U-235 for use as nuclear fuel in a reactor. To make a bomb the enrichment must go to 95% U-235. The technology that allows enrichment is the most complicated step in creating an atomic bomb, and obtaining the ability to enrich is the most significant advance needed in bomb program. It turns out that once you have the capacity to enrich to fuel-grade, the same process run longer will take the ore to weapons-grade. That is the significance of Iran’s announcement.
How should Bush respond? Some hawks have been calling for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Such a move would probably work to delay Iran’s program by several years. But the Iranians have been wise enough to disperse and bury deep much of their program. It would take strikes on many targets, perhaps over several days, to achieve the US objective. Such a campaign would be difficult to sustain politically, with the rest of the world in strong opposition against unilateral US attacks. In the wake of the Iraq fiasco and the lack of WMD, Bush would have a real credibility gap if he tried to use the same justification for attacking Iran.
Iran could also respond to an American strike in other ways. The price of oil would skyrocket, and Iran could threaten tanker traffic in the Gulf, a strategy they tried twenty years ago during the Iran-Iraq war.
But even more ominous would be Iran’s response inside Iraq. The strong links between Iran and religious Shia parties in Iraq would be exploited to make life for the US miserable. If the Shia in Iraq ever turned on the US presence, it would be ten times worse a situation that it is now when only the Sunnis are in active insurgency. The main consequence of a strike on Iran would be defeat for the US in Iraq. This places severe constraints on the US.
Bush should instead pursue a policy of patience. While the majority of Iranians are nationalists, and approve of their country’s nuclear policy, they are not big supporters of the clerical regime. An attack on the country will actually increase their backing of the regime. It is best to keep the people of Iran friendly toward the US, rather than pushing them into the arms of the clerics.
The clerics that run Iran themselves are not radicals but rather very conservative. They are risk-averse and are pursuing the nuclear option not for its offensive value, but as the ultimate guarantor of the government’s security from attack by the US. An Iran that has nuclear weapons can be deterred from ever using them. There is no reason to go to war to prevent Iran from getting them.
The best approach is to deter Iran and wait for the clerical regime to fall of its own weight. The vast majority of Iranians are alienated from the government and over time will force the necessary internal reforms. But this will take another ten or twenty years. America should be patient and allow this natural evolution to unfold. To attack Iran now would be as much an error as attacking the Soviet Union in 1945 to prevent them from getting the bomb.

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