Iran, Red Lines and Other Threats

Michael Singh is Managing Director of The Washington Institute and a former senior director for Middle East Affairs at the National Security Council. Singh has written extensively on Iran, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, international economics, and US national security strategy broadly. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, New York Times, Foreign Affairs, International Security, and other publications. On a visit to Sydney sponsored by the Australian Israel Jewish Affairs Council, Michael Singh addressed The Sydney Institute on Monday 19 August 2013. The paper which follows is an edited transcript of Michael Singh’s address.

IRAN, RED LINES AND OTHER THREATS

MICHAEL SINGH

 Thank you, Gerard and thank you for having me and to everyone for coming. I am going to speak about Iran. I shall be speaking both from my personal experience as well as sometimes from my studies of the issue.

Obviously, Iran is possibly one of the most important foreign policy issues facing the United States and all of our allies, because of the threat that the Iran relationship could culminate in conflict or in the further spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East.

What everyone is interested in talking about, that is the people who are following Iran, is what the next steps in the diplomatic process might be now that there is a new president of Iran. This is a new president who seems more pragmatic and who has talked about having a more constructive relationship with the West.

As an introduction, it would be useful to talk about where we have come from over the past 10 years in nuclear talks with Iran. In the nuclear negotiations between Iran and the West, there have been various groupings on the other side. These talks began in earnest after 2002.

In 2002, Iran’s covert nuclear facilities in Natanz and Arak were exposed. A uranium nuclear facility on the one hand and a plutonium related facility on the other. This resulted in nuclear negotiations between the EU3 (France, Germany and the UK) and Iran. In itself, this is somewhat remarkable when you think about the context of the times.

In 2003, the US invaded Iraq over concerns about Iraqi nuclear activity, which later proved to be unfounded. The world then lived in the shadow of 9/11 and concerns about terrorism. And Iran had been caught, red-handed, engaged in nuclear work. And, instead of penalties for Iran, the West began negotiations and offered of a long-term deal to the Iranians. So, it is important to bear in mind where the starting point is.

In 2003, there was an agreement between the EU3 and Iran, that Iran would suspend its nuclear related activities and engage in talks over a longer term deal. That quickly fell apart because Iran reneged on its half of the bargain. Essentially, the Iranian interpretation of the bargain was that they could do many things that we would consider enrichment-related, such as converting uranium or conducting research into uranium enrichment. The deal fell apart. The second agreement came in 2004 – the Paris Accord. This was, essentially, just a re-statement of the 2003 agreement with talks towards a longer term deal.

In August 2005, the EU3 put forward a comprehensive long-term proposal to the Iranians. Essentially, this asked the Iranians not to engage in nuclear fuel cycle activities, or make enriched uranium, or reprocess plutonium. I realise these are technical matters and technical terms so I am not going to bother going into long-winded definitions.

So Iran was asked not to do those things and was offered, in exchange, a guaranteed supply of nuclear fuel as well as many other incentives and forms of cooperation. The Iranians said no, saying that the offer did not recognise Iran’s claimed right to enrich uranium. Now the EU3 in its proposal said it was prepared to acknowledge Iran’s explicit rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). This says that a state or signatory has the right to develop research production in the use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, in conformity with their NPT obligations.  Offering this narrow right to enrich was simply a non-story for the EU3. It would have divorced the right from the obligation, and been a narrow, more specific right that would have set a dangerous precedent to the EU3’s eyes at that time.

Iran’s refusal led it to recommence its nuclear enrichment work, and set off an escalatory spiral with Iran expanding its nuclear restructure. This provoked the EU3, then P5+1(the EU3, USA and Russia, plus China), to expand the sanctions on Iran. In addition, individual countries like the United States and Australia expanded their sanctions on Iran.

Throughout this period, it is important to bear in mind that the core of the agreement with Iran did not change. The position of the P5+1 was that Iran needed to suspend its uranium enrichment in all processing related work. If Iran did that, there would be negotiations towards a long term accord. Iran’s position was that the P5+1 needed to remove the sanctions and recognise Iran’s claim of a right to enrich.

This began to change in October 2009. The change did not come from Iran, but from the P5+1. In October 2009, the sub-set of the USA, France and Russia put forward a so-called “fuel-swap deal”. This was the TRR (Tehran Research Reactor) deal, which offered Iran the highly enriched uranium fuel plates it needed to operate its Tehran nuclear reactor which makes medical isotopes, in exchange for Iran shipping out most of its low enriched uranium, or uranium enriched up to 5 per cent. But it didn’t call upon Iran to stop that uranium enrichment.

This was essentially the first acquiescence by the first P5+1 to Iran’s uranium enrichment activities. Then, explicit acquiescence in subsequent deals offered from 2011-13 failed to force Iran to suspend all of its uranium enrichment. The P5+1 only asked Iran to suspend its higher level of enrichment – its 20 per cent level enrichment – as well as a few other things in exchange for sanction relief.

After this October 2009 offer, what did the Iranians do? They refused the offer and, in fact, increased their level of enrichment even before the sanctions were opposed. So when they were offered what they were looking for in 2004 and 2005 (in fact they specifically requested it at that time) they rejected the offer and responded by doing even more. As the P5+1 has offered concessions, Iran has simply expanded its nuclear work. It has rejected concessions, all the while demanding a right to enrich uranium.

That brings us to where we are now. It is important to note, before we consider what should we do next, what we could learn about Iran’s interests and objectives from the way Iran has negotiated over this past decade. It is remarkable over this time that we have kept talking of Iran’s nuclear development as an urgent issue. This talk comes in six month time frames and has gone on for ten years since Iran’s nuclear work was exposed.

Iran has prioritised its claim of a right to enrich above all else. It has rejected agreements that have actually permitted it to enrich, without recognising that right. It has rejected sanctions relief. It has, in fact, demonstrated indifference to the idea of sanctions. Iran rejected sanctions relief before the oil sanctions were in place. It rejected sanction relief after the oil sanctions were in place. And it has engaged in a series of activities that have led to more sanctions. This does not suggest that Iran places a high priority on sanctions relief.

Iran’s economic situation is quite dire as a result. Inflation and unemployment in Iran, and economic stagnation, are all quite severe. Iran’s oil exports have diminished significantly, although Iran still exports a fair amount of oil and perhaps enough for the regime’s needs. We could say that Iran has rejected what it clearly needs – sanctions relief. And this is simply because of its claim to a right to enrich.  So why does Iran say it needs a right to enrich uranium, a right which is not afforded to any other NPT signatory country?

Iran says it wants peaceful, nuclear energy. Yet, it also says that it rejects nuclear weapons. It’s hard then to imagine what the need for a right to enrich is. Iran’s nuclear structure is sufficient to satisfy any potential need for nuclear energy. Iran’s actual stockpile of uranium far exceeds what it can possibly use at its civil nuclear power reactor. And the West does not oppose this nuclear use in Iran. Iran’s stock of fuel plates, through the Tehran Research Reactor, would last at least five years. So Iran is rejecting something it desperately needs, by any kind of objective analysis of its situation, for something that it really has no purported use for – its right to enrich uranium to whatever level it prefers.

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, has talked about prioritising sanctions relief. He talked about that in his presidential campaign.  He has talked about a constructive relationship with the West. He said that what Iran does depends on what the P5+1 is prepared to do. And that the ball is in the P5+1’s court. But he hasn’t talked about what might Iran do, or Iran’s interests might be. So why is Iran jeopardising these negotiations?  I say there are four conceivable possibilities.

The first is one that we hear a lot about is that Iran is in need of a face-saving way out. By not accepting a deal, Iran is saving face.  Many Iranians have talked about this as important to the regime. But if one studies the ten year history of the nuclear negotiations with Iran, what becomes clear is that the shift in position and the concessions have been made by the P5+1. The response from Iran does not look like it is trying to save face. The Russians made the offer, the Chinese did, but the Iranians simply hardened their position. This does not suggest a situation where a regime is looking for a face-saving way out of a conflict. In fact, it suggests quite the opposite.

We tend to over-emphasise this need for the Iranian regime to save face. The regime has engaged in a series of actions which are unpopular in Iran. It doesn’t seem to feel any need to justify its actions on the basis of popularity. Popular opinion in Iran is quite anti-regime from what we can see. The election of Hussan Rouhani is a good example of this.

The second possibility is that Iran is looking for a better deal. This is certainly possible, in part because every time the P5+1 has come to the table, we’ve offered something better. Logically speaking, Iran feels that by extending the negotiations for another round, the West might well offer something even better. However, to the frustration of Western negotiators, Iran has not come to these negotiations with specific requests or specific responses. If there is something Iran is looking for, they have not spelt that out in the negotiations except in the vaguest terms and except, again, for this purported right to enrich.

Third, you could also point to internal rivalries, or court politics, which may prevent the regime from reaching a decision or accepting an offer from the P5+1. The problem here is that Iran has in fact suspended its enrichment before – from 2003 to 2005. This at a time when rivalries inside the regime were even more apparent. There was a reformist president in charge of Iran who was very deeply opposed by the hardliners, who subsequently came to dominate the regime shortly afterwards. Iran has also made some very bold foreign policy decisions in the interim. Iran has intervened aggressively, for example, in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan. All of these would be controversial decisions within Iran. Nonetheless, the regime has gone ahead. This undercuts the idea that its approach to nuclear enrichment is a matter of court politics.

The fourth possibility is the most logical, given Iran’s behaviour. This is that Iran is seeking to preserve a pathway for a nuclear weapon. Why is that? Not only is it because Iran’s negotiating position seems to suggest it, but Iran has rejected all that it says it wants except its right to enrich. This does not make sense in the context of a civil nuclear power program. So, Iran is engaged in activities leading to the development of nuclear weapons.

In a nuclear weapons program, nuclear fuel production is one of three elements. The other two are what is called weaponisation, which means you have to take the fuel and make it into something which will generate a nuclear explosion, a nuclear reaction. Iran has done that research according to the IEA (International Energy Agency) and Iran is not offering an explanation for why it might have done that research. The third leg that you need for a nuclear weapons program is a missile that can be used as a delivery vehicle for a nuclear weapon. Iran is also engaged in a very sophisticated missile program. Our missile agency in the United States estimates that Iran could have intercontinental ballistic missiles by 2015. Now it wouldn’t make sense strategically for Iran to fire off a conventional intercontinental ballistic missile. This could only bring it a devastating response. This points again to a nuclear warhead as opposed to a conventional warhead.

If in fact this is the explanation, it would fit with Iran’s security strategy. It is important to understand how the Iranian regime looks at this issue. The Iranian regime faces some very powerful, potential adversaries both inside and outside the region. It’s not just Israel and United States, although those are two very powerful adversaries. It’s also countries like Turkey, with which Iran has an historic and ancient rivalry. It is the Gulf States, which are very well armed and very rich.

Having a weak and conventional military, Iran has dealt with this through the development of asymmetric capabilities, including proxies like Hezbollah which is the terrorist militia in Lebanon and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Iran has cultivated proxies in Iraq – Shia militias – as well as Afghanistan. They have sponsored, as we’ve seen, terrorist attacks relatively far afield from Iraq. They have developed small boats in the Persian Gulf, which can be used in swarming attacks against larger vessels. This compensates for the fact that Iran does not have capable larger vessels to take on, say, the US Navy.

Iran has developed policies to deter attack. When you see Iran engaging and deploying these tools far afield from its borders to keep potential adversaries occupied and dissuade them from attacking Iran, I would agree that a nuclear weapon for Iran would complement such a strategy. It’s a strategic deterrent against powerful countries.

In the context of the Middle East, the Arab Spring or the Arab Uprising, whatever term you wish to apply there, has been touted by Iran as something which is in their favour. In fact, if you look at what has transpired, it has exacerbated Iran’s security fears. Iran faces a potential loss of its strongest ally in Bashar al-Assad in Syria, who is a conduit for Iran proxies Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamist Jihad. Iran also faces a situation where sectarianism is on the rise, and where Sunni/Shia conflict is on the rise. In countries which Iran hoped would be more favourably inclined towards it – an Islamist dominated Egypt under the Muslim Brotherhood for example – power shifts have not evolved Iran’s way.

So where do we go from here, given this analysis?  It’s important to start by acknowledging the realities of the situation. Often with Iran, we go back to first principles and we say this is really a matter of mistrust, or this is really a matter of diplomatic tactics, or that we haven’t actioned the deal in the right way.  The evidence suggests this is not so. Instead, what facts you have suggest a simple gap between what Iran wants and what the P5+1 is prepared to accept. Somehow, that gap needs to be bridged. And it can’t be bridged simply by a creative deal or establishing trusting relationships between negotiators. It’s a matter of interest from both sides.

You could say that time is on Iran’s side, and not on P5+1’s side. This may be intuitive, given the sanctions issue. We insist that the issue is urgent. We have been saying that for quite a long time. But you will find that our red-lines are based on Iran’s nuclear progress. This means that the timing of the conflict, and whether the conflict comes to a head, is really in Iran’s hands.

Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, in September 2012, stated his red-line was based on Iran’s accumulation of 20 per cent rich uranium. Well, Iran has steered clear of that red-line while expanding in other ways. This avoids triggering what could be an Israeli attack. The Obama administration’s red-line was set by previous US administrations  and deals with Iran’s weaponisation or Iran creating a nuclear weapon. This also puts the timing very much in Iran’s hands. Iran has been able to cultivate a sense of urgency while never actually crossing those red-lines and bringing the issue to a head. That same sense of urgency is what often causes the P5+1 to make concessions and to soften its position. All this benefits Iran.

Over the long haul, if the trade-off is simply between economic sanctions and nuclear weapons, the Iranian regime would see economic sanctions as temporary. Sanction regimes tend to crumble over time or are likely to drop away once Iran achieves what they want.  Whatever Iran achieves – a nuclear weapon or simply nuclear weapons capability – it’s permanent, it’s lasting. It can’t be taken away.

How does the election of Hussan Rouhani play into this?  Realism is cautioned here. A nuclear decision in Iran is made by the supreme leader of Iran – Ali Kahmenei. The supreme leader of Iran has been in power since 1989. There has been no change in the nuclear decision-maker in Iran. The President of Iran doesn’t make decisions on the nuclear file, so the extent to which the election of Hussan Rouhani is important to this issue is the extent to which it is a signal of the supreme leader’s intent. It is unrealistic to expect that Rouhani will drive change in Iran on this issue because it is simply not in his power.

The most likely explanation for Rouhani’s election is domestic politics in Iran. Iran is being gripped by economic discontent because of the effects of the sanctions, as well as the effects of economic mismanagement. It is also gripped by political turmoil, which has largely been led by a coalition of reformists and pragmatic conservatives, who are now in the government or Rouhani’s cabinet. Essentially, these people are in charge of fixing the problems of the last Iranian administration.  They act as a safety valve for the political discontent which has been building in Iran. It also puts Rouhani on a collision path with hardliners in Iran who are still quite powerful. I would see this more as a move by the supreme leader to put in place a political and economic safety valve than a harbinger of change in Iran’s foreign policies.

As regards future nuclear negotiations, it’s important that we focus on what I would term undetectable breakout.  Right now, Iran is just a few months, in theory, from having enough fuel for a nuclear weapon. I say “in theory” because it depends on the Iranian position to actually create the fuel for a nuclear weapon. US and Western intelligence analysis are confident that we have enough time right now to detect a breakout. The question is, when does that breakout become undetectable? Is it a matter of weeks? Some might say it is longer than that.

The factors which determine breakout time are not just the 20 per cent stockpile but the number of centrifuges Iran has, and whether those centrifuges are basic or advanced models. There is also the nature of the centrifuge cascades and the number of weapons Iran wants. When the media talks about a breakout time what the person who is mentioning it is talking about is the breakout time for enough fuel for a single nuclear weapon. Not enough fuel for multiple nuclear weapons.

Now a nation would be taking great risks to make a single nuclear weapon because it still leaves it significantly vulnerable to attack. You would want to have multiple nuclear weapons and disperse them around the country to be safe from attack. The size of Iran’s uranium stockpiles is also publicly focused on. But it’s not only through uranium that you can make nuclear weapons; it is also through plutonium reprocessing. Iran has a heavy water reactor in a place called Arak, which may come online next year. Once that comes online, it would be dangerous to destroy it, from what I understand. Once operational, there would be a risk of nuclear fallout. That also has to be considered in any red-line discussion.

Once Iran has enough fuel for a nuclear weapon, to weaponise and put it into a nuclear warhead takes an additional 6 to 12 months.  The key is to focus on that undetectable breakout time. As we approach these negotiations, we need to show less urgency. That’s quite counter-intuitive. But the timing of these steps is in Iran’s hands, and our emphasising urgency actually plays into Iran’s hands. It leads us to continually improve our offer. And we need to stop improving our offers as we go into future negotiations and to make sure that we stick to a sensible bottom line which, if Iran actually accepted our offers, we would be comfortable with. Right now, if Iran accepted our offers, there will be many inside our governments who would feel that the deal that we offered was not one that advanced our interests.

Initially we demanded that Iran suspend all uranium enrichment. Now the West is demanding that only Iran suspend some uranium enrichment. In practice, the difference between these two things is vast. Under a deal where Iran has to suspend all uranium enrichment, Iran has no justification for uranium mining, uranium conversion, or uranium enrichment – all the steps along the way that it takes to make enriched uranium. If you discover Iran doing any of those things, it’s a red-flag and a violation of that any agreement which is reached. Whereas, if you say to Iran you can have those things but you may only enrich your uranium up to 5 per cent, then Iran is able to continue its development of nuclear weapons and nuclear inspectors will not be able to detect whether Iran is violating the agreement you have made.

We have shown conclusively in the past that nuclear inspectors are far from infallible and are unlikely to detect any concerted effort, diversion or deception. Iran has long had secret sites. If Iran didn’t have any secret enrichment sites it would be the first time in quite a few years.

If we are going to show less urgency, we have to have a credible military threat in place. If we simply show less urgency, Iran will march forth in its activities, delay negotiations, and use that to buy time. Iran must realise there are consequences for engaging in continuing to develop nuclear weapons.

I am increasingly asked about US versus Israeli military action. Are the two countries on the same page? The US and Israel largely share the same timetable as regards any threat from Iran’s nuclear program, though the level of perception is different. Obviously, Israel is a much smaller country and closer to Iran.

Based upon talks I’ve had with leaders, and also the public statements of Israeli leaders, I believe Israel will take military action if it is absolutely necessary. But it prefers diplomatic solutions. The question would be, if it ultimately becomes necessary, would the US be ready to take military action in cooperation presumably with a coalition of allies? I don’t think there are many who would disagree that this would be preferable to a solo Israeli military action. But it will become the question if diplomacy fails. So far, one doesn’t get the sense that the US is firmly committed to military action. And we need to reverse that impression, first and foremost, in Tehran, but also into the minds of our allies.

We also need to be focused not just on the nuclear question but also on the entirety of Iran’s strategy. So far, we’ve focused almost entirely on pressuring Iran through sanctions against its nuclear program. In fact, there are other areas where we can pressure Iran. Iranian activities in places like Syria and Afghanistan, for example.  This could also have a useful impact on Iran’s behaviour. What we want Iran to do is not simply temporarily ramp down its nuclear program but to change its overall strategy towards the way it pursues its security. We need to convince Iranians that these things won’t be successful.

Finally, we need to remain open to the diplomatic process. The bottom line message I think to the to the Iranian regime from the P5+1, needs to be that if they do make a strategic step, and that they are ready to make a deal, then the P5+1 are ready to embrace that. But if they don’t, we should remain resolute.