Iran policy after the NIE: Modest findings, revolutionary effects
WASHINGTON — The findings from the most recent National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran’s nuclear program are not revolutionary, but the ensuing debate could be revolutionary for longer-term U.S. and transatlantic strategy toward Iran.
There is good and bad news here. The good news is that the clock is not ticking as rapidly as some had feared on Iran’s development of a usable nuclear arsenal. A related bit of good news is that the rationale for preemptive military action by the U.S. or Israel to “set back the clock” has also been reduced. The judgment that Iran is perhaps a decade or more away from a nuclear weapons capability is remarkably similar to previous estimates. The bad news is that Iran continues to move ahead with the enrichment capacity that is the cornerstone of any nuclear weapons program, the most difficult and the most time consuming. A related piece of bad news is that the new NIE confirms Iran’s interest in actually building nuclear warheads. The fact that the “weaponization” effort was halted in 2003 is not reassuring in light of Iran’s longstanding claim that it has only pursued a civil nuclear program.
The new NIE has a number of strategic implications. The first is that Iran may well opt for a prolonged near-nuclear or nuclear ready posture, putting aside the weapon design and engineering elements most likely to trigger preemptive action by Israel or the U.S. A degree of ambiguity about Iranian aims will reduce the pressure for new international sanctions. It will also forestall a strong diplomatic backlash from the Gulf states and others concerned about the challenge from a nuclear Iran. Iran has worked hard in recent years to broaden its international engagement. A rapid move toward a deployable nuclear capability would impose real costs and deepen Iranian isolation. There are many good reasons for Tehran to defer the weaponization phase until international conditions are more favorable, or the evolution of Iran’s relations with the West and with neighbors render a nuclear capability less provocative. Recent Iranian history provides many examples of this kind of strategic patience.
Second, the NIE supports the idea that Iran has pursued a nuclear capability largely to gain additional strategic weight, and to be taken seriously on the international scene, rather than for specific operational reasons. Taken together with the slower-ticking clock, this gives the U.S. and its European partners a new opportunity to open a strategic dialogue with Tehran. In the best case, this might allow for strict limitations on Iran’s enrichment activities, and a turnaround in Iranian policy toward Iraq, the Middle East peace process, Lebanon and other areas where Tehran’s behavior cuts against Western interests. In the worst case, Western governments will come away with a clearer understanding of what we are up against. During the Cold War, the West learned a great deal about Soviet strategy and intentions – and perhaps modified some of Moscow’s own behavior – even if dialogue sometimes reached a dead end.
Third, and perhaps most important from a transatlantic perspective, the debate on Iran policy can now move from crisis management to longer-term requirements for dialogue and containment. Europe has been a leading player in negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. But when the central question was whether the U.S. (or Israel) would opt for military strikes, and with what consequences, effective transatlantic and regional discussion of Iran strategy was virtually impossible – the use of force would have changed the calculus overnight.
This scenario now looks more remote. But Washington and its international partners will need to revisit some key questions. How to offer regional allies credible reassurance against a more assertive Iran? Extended deterrence may require much more explicit guarantees from the U.S., and perhaps new commitments from NATO. Over the next decade, European allies, and especially Turkey, will be more exposed than the U.S. to the growing range of Iranian ballistic missiles, and to the retaliatory consequences of Western action. What should be on the agenda for dialogue with Tehran? Iran’s nuclear aspirations and security concerns vis-à-vis the U.S. are core issues. But a good case can be made for an agenda that extends to Iraq, Afghanistan and the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the terms of Iran’s re-integration into the international system. The stakes in this agenda are widely shared. Finally, an uncertain strategic dialogue requires a parallel and necessarily multilateral strategy of containment. What are its contours? Who can contribute? How can Israel be brought into the picture in ways that improve the outlook for regional stability? The new NIE may not be revolutionary in its findings, but it offers policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic the opportunity to reshape Iran strategy in critical ways.