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.
