Q: What is the most authoritative U.S. assessment of Iran’s nuclear program?
Daryl Kimball: The most authoritative U.S. government report on Iran’s nuclear program is the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which is an all source, multi-agency assessment of Iran’s nuclear program. Each year the Intelligence Community prepares its annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment”, which includes any updates on Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. The key findings of the NIE still apply. In presenting the intelligence community’s annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” to the Senate Committee on Intelligence on January 31, Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, used language identical to that used in recent years on a number of critical points:
- “Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so. These [technical] advancements contribute to our judgment that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, if it so chooses.”
- “We judge Iran’s nuclear decision making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran.”
Clapper’s testimony acknowledged Iran’s additional accumulation of low-enriched uranium at both the 3.5 percent and 20 percent level and the start of enrichment at its second enrichment plant near Qom.
The senior intelligence officials also endorsed the November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report as being the best public accounting to date of Iran’s nuclear activities, including information “relevant to possible military dimensions.”
However, the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Iran’s post-2003 nuclear activities has apparently not convinced it that Tehran has decided to build a nuclear weapon. Moreover, Clapper’s testimony suggests that Iran has the domestic capabilities eventually to do so, regardless of foreign actions taken against it. The “central issue” is thus affecting political will.
Q: If Iran made the decision to make nuclear weapons, what is the most authoritative estimate of how quickly it could do that?
Daryl Kimball: It is extremely difficult to accurately estimate how long it would take for Iran to make nuclear weapons if it decided to do so, in part because: a) estimates of the efficiency rates of its centrifuges are estimates; b) if Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons it might have a clandestine facility that could accelerate its progress; c) it depends on how many nuclear weapons we are talking about; and d) acquiring enough weapons grade fissile material for one bomb does not a nuclear arsenal make; in order to be able to build and deliver a small arsenal with confidence, a state must build up its supply of fissile material, assemble and possibly test its warhead design, and conduct tests involving its delivery system and the warhead design. At various stages along this path, a state runs a high risk that one of more of these activities are detected.
Taking all of these factors together, most independent experts estimate Iran is years not months away from building nuclear weapons if it chooses to do so. Nevertheless, we should not be complacent about the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Q: Does Iran have a nuclear weapons program?
The November 2011 IAEA report underscores that Iran was engaged in a comprehensive nuclear weapons-related research program, which was halted in late 2003 after being exposed. Since then, some weaponization-related activities have resumed. Unless Iran cooperates with the IAEA regarding the outstanding questions about the past and possibly ongoing “studies” related to nuclear weapons and agrees to a work plan than can help verify that such activities have ceased, it is hard to say with confidence that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons research and development effort.
Although the IAEA and U.S. intelligence findings show that Iran is slowly improving its uranium-enrichment capabilities and already has some of the expertise needed to build nuclear weapons, they also make it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is neither imminent nor inevitable.
The bottom line is that Iran is pursuing activities that could shorten the timeframe to build the bomb once and if it makes that decision.
Q: How has Iran failed to live up to its IAEA obligations?
Daryl Kimball: Serious concerns about Iran’s compliance with its IAEA safeguards commitments first arose in late 2002 when the IAEA began investigating two secret Iranian nuclear facilities, a heavy-water production plant near Arak and a gas centrifuge uranium-enrichment facility near Natanz. Since that time, the agency has identified several clandestine nuclear activities and experiments, some of which violated Iran’s safeguards agreement with it. Much of Iran’s uranium-enrichment program is based on equipment and designs acquired through former Pakistani nuclear official A.Q. Khan’s secret supply network.
After the revelations of Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom launched negotiations with Iran to address international concerns about the intent and scope of its nuclear program. These negotiations collapsed in 2005.
In response in 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors declared Iran in noncompliance with its safeguards obligations and referred the matter to the UN Security Council.
Since 2006, the Security Council has adopted a number of resolutions calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment-related activities and cooperate fully with the IAEA investigation.
See the news report on the February 2006 IAEA resolution that outlines the basic concerns and the IAEA resolution itself online here.
Q: The U.S. officially states that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon but there is constant talk about how the world can convince Iran not to build a nuclear weapon. Do we have evidence that Iran is considering that option? What do we know Iran is really doing vs. what people think it’s doing?
Daryl Kimball: What Iran’s leaders ultimately intend to do—to try to build nuclear weapons or not—is not clear. What is clear is that Iran seems to be keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. Even the U.S. intelligence community acknowledges “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”
Q: Professor Daniel Drezner wrote in Foreign Policy last week that the “sanctions policy is pushing the United States into a policy cul-de-sac where the only way out is through regime change”. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen had said a day earlier that “there’ no sleep here for anyone” if Iran goes nuclear and “The ultimate remedy is Iranian regime change.” What is the Obama administration’s official policy with regard to Iran’s nuclear program? Do you agree or disagree that the sanctions policy against Iran is moving toward regime change and why?
Daryl Kimball: There are a lot of people in Washington who wish they were the Secretary of State. Thankfully they are not. The Obama administration is not seeking regime change, but is seeking to bring increasing international pressure on Iran in order to increase the cost of pursuing actions that could bring it closer to being able to build nuclear weapons and to encourage it to return to the negotiating table. The primary goal of U.S. policy appears to me to be to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
The UNSC-mandated sanctions directed at Iran’s nuclear and missile sectors have slowed Iran’s progress and are justified, but the harsher unilateral sanctions now being put in place by the United States and the EU run the risk of hurting the Iranian people and reinforcing Iran’s leaders’ determination to reject overtures and demands to restrain their nuclear program and to negotiate because the sanctions appear to them to be an attempt to destabilize the country and the regime.
Q: Do you think accuracy dominates in the media with regard to reporting facts about Iran’s nuclear program?
Daryl Kimball: Some reporters and editors are on tight deadlines, as well as politicians, and unfortunately they are not always accurate in their characterization of what we know about Iran’s nuclear activities and intentions.
The fact is that IAEA and U.S. intelligence findings show that Iran is slowly improving its uranium-enrichment capabilities and already has some of the expertise needed to build nuclear weapons, but they also make it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is neither imminent nor inevitable.
On the other hand, there is good reason to be concerned about its nuclear ambitions. There is disturbing and credible evidence that Iran has engaged in activities that have nuclear warhead development applications and it is enriching uranium to levels that it cannot currently utilize for civilian purposes.
What is to be done? UN-mandated sanctions can buy time and improve negotiating leverage, but the time available must be used constructively. Sanctions alone will not turn Tehran around and could harden its resolve.
Moreover, talk of military strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets is counterproductive and, in the long run, cannot prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. The “military option” would set back Iran’s program for no more than a couple of years, convince Iran’s leadership to pursue nuclear weapons openly, rally Iranian domestic support behind the regime, and lead to adverse economic and security consequences.
Ultimately, resolving the nuclear issue will require sufficient pressure and inducements to convince Iran’s current and future leaders that they stand to gain more from forgoing nuclear weapons than from any decision to build them.
]]>*This week’s must-reads/watch:
- News: U.S. War Game Sees Perils of Israeli Strike Against [...]]]>*This week’s must-reads/watch:
Mark Dubowitz, New York Times: After providing a long explanation for why Republicans should stop criticizing President Obama for high gas prices that have resulted from the U.S.’s Iran sanctions policy (which Dubowitz’s FDD career seems based on), the executive director of the hawkish Foundation for Defense of Democracies says working together now can result in more unity among Republicans and Democrats when “pursuing” war:
Republican candidates have boxed Obama in. Their dual line of attack might be smart politics, but it’s not smart policy. Either gas prices go down or Obama imposes suffocating sanctions on Iranian oil exports. They can’t have it both ways.
…
We are fast approaching a point when sanctions will no longer be able to stop Iran’s nuclear weapons program. As tempting as it may be, Republican candidates should set aside the opportunity to score quick political points and support the president in taking a bold step on sanctions that could destroy Iran’s oil wealth. And if Ayatollah Khamenei still refuses to compromise, Republicans and Democrats may find themselves more united in moving beyond sanctions and pursuing a military option.
Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal: Not a week goes by without Lobe Log being forced to feature some alarmist, hawkish article about Iran in the WSJ. So here is Bret Stephens, the former Jerusalem Post editor believed to be one of the main writers of the Journal’s unsigned editorial board pieces, declaring that U.S. intelligence about Iran should be ignored and people should just go with their (his?) gut feelings instead. Writes Stephens (brace yourself now):
It should come as no surprise that an intelligence community meant to provide decision makers with disinterested analysis has, in practice, policy goals and ideological axes of its own. But that doesn’t mean it is any less dangerous. The real lesson of the Iraq WMD debacle wasn’t that the intelligence was “overhyped,” since the CIA is equally notorious for erring in the opposite direction. It was that intelligence products were treated as authoritative guides to decision making. Spooks, like English children, should be seen, not heard. The problem is that the spooks (like the children) want it the other way around.
How, then, should people think about the Iran state of play? By avoiding the misdirections of “intelligence.” For real intelligence, merely consider that a regime that can take a rock in its right hand to stone a woman to death should not have a nuclear bomb within reach of its left. Even a spook can grasp that.
Michael Singh, Washington Institute: Founded in 1985 by the former research director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), Martin Indyk, the Washington Institute or WINEP is an influential think tank that makes confrontational policy recommendations about Iran. In a 20-page publication titled “To Keep the Peace with Iran, Threaten to Strike”, WINEP’s managing director accordingly argues that the “threat of force” against Iran should be emphasized and regarded as a “complement” to Obama’s Iran strategy:
The strenuous American efforts to ease the tensions and reassure Iran, whileunderstandable, were counterproductive. If Iran’s intention in issuing its threatswas to gauge the U.S. appetite for conflict, it can only have been comforted by theresponse. It revealed a superpower not girding itself, even reluctantly, for a militaryconflict, but scrambling to avoid one, seemingly bent on convincing itself andothers that a war would be futile. This episode likely only underscored what Iranmay see as the United States’ diminishing appetite or capacity for conflict, aperception fueled by the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, its impending withdrawal fromAfghanistan, large planned cuts to the U.S. defense budget as well as the size of U.S.forces, and the backseat approach the United States took (and celebrated) in Libya.Ironically, downplaying the threat of force may increase the odds that theUnited States will be left with little choice buteither to employ force or accept an Iraniannuclear weapons capability. While Washingtonand its allies clearly and appropriately see militaryaction as a last resort, this should not imply thatestablishing the credibility of the threat of forcebe left to a later, final phase of their approach toIran. Indeed, the threat of force is not analternative to sanctions or negotiations, but acomplement to them in forming a coherent Iran strategy.
Richard Cohen, Washington Post: In February the Post’s weekly columnist argued for “regime change” in Iran and for the U.S. to establish at minimum the perception that U.S. and Israel policy are aligned. This month he downplays the cons of an Israeli strike while emphasizing the pros:
]]>Sanctions may cause Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons program, if indeed that’s where it is now heading. But critics of Israel’s approach have to understand that Iran’s program looks different from Tel Aviv than it does from Washington. In the long run, an Israeli attack on Iran will accomplish nothing. In the short run, it could accomplish quite a lot.
Q: What is the most authoritative U.S. assessment of Iran’s nuclear program?
Daryl Kimball: The most authoritative U.S. government report on Iran’s nuclear program is the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), which is an all source, multi-agency assessment of Iran’s nuclear program. Each year the Intelligence Community prepares its annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment”, which includes any updates on Iran’s nuclear and missile capabilities. The key findings of the NIE still apply. In presenting the intelligence community’s annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” to the Senate Committee on Intelligence on January 31, Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, used language identical to that used in recent years on a number of critical points:
- “Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so. These [technical] advancements contribute to our judgment that Iran is technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon, if it so chooses.”
- “We judge Iran’s nuclear decision making is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran.”
Clapper’s testimony acknowledged Iran’s additional accumulation of low-enriched uranium at both the 3.5 percent and 20 percent level and the start of enrichment at its second enrichment plant near Qom.
The senior intelligence officials also endorsed the November 2011 International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report as being the best public accounting to date of Iran’s nuclear activities, including information “relevant to possible military dimensions.”
However, the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Iran’s post-2003 nuclear activities has apparently not convinced it that Tehran has decided to build a nuclear weapon. Moreover, Clapper’s testimony suggests that Iran has the domestic capabilities eventually to do so, regardless of foreign actions taken against it. The “central issue” is thus affecting political will.
Q: If Iran made the decision to make nuclear weapons, what is the most authoritative estimate of how quickly it could do that?
Daryl Kimball: It is extremely difficult to accurately estimate how long it would take for Iran to make nuclear weapons if it decided to do so, in part because: a) estimates of the efficiency rates of its centrifuges are estimates; b) if Iran did decide to build nuclear weapons it might have a clandestine facility that could accelerate its progress; c) it depends on how many nuclear weapons we are talking about; and d) acquiring enough weapons grade fissile material for one bomb does not a nuclear arsenal make; in order to be able to build and deliver a small arsenal with confidence, a state must build up its supply of fissile material, assemble and possibly test its warhead design, and conduct tests involving its delivery system and the warhead design. At various stages along this path, a state runs a high risk that one of more of these activities are detected.
Taking all of these factors together, most independent experts estimate Iran is years not months away from building nuclear weapons if it chooses to do so. Nevertheless, we should not be complacent about the risk of a nuclear-armed Iran.
Q: Does Iran have a nuclear weapons program?
The November 2011 IAEA report underscores that Iran was engaged in a comprehensive nuclear weapons-related research program, which was halted in late 2003 after being exposed. Since then, some weaponization-related activities have resumed. Unless Iran cooperates with the IAEA regarding the outstanding questions about the past and possibly ongoing “studies” related to nuclear weapons and agrees to a work plan than can help verify that such activities have ceased, it is hard to say with confidence that Iran does not have an active nuclear weapons research and development effort.
Although the IAEA and U.S. intelligence findings show that Iran is slowly improving its uranium-enrichment capabilities and already has some of the expertise needed to build nuclear weapons, they also make it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is neither imminent nor inevitable.
The bottom line is that Iran is pursuing activities that could shorten the timeframe to build the bomb once and if it makes that decision.
Q: How has Iran failed to live up to its IAEA obligations?
Daryl Kimball: Serious concerns about Iran’s compliance with its IAEA safeguards commitments first arose in late 2002 when the IAEA began investigating two secret Iranian nuclear facilities, a heavy-water production plant near Arak and a gas centrifuge uranium-enrichment facility near Natanz. Since that time, the agency has identified several clandestine nuclear activities and experiments, some of which violated Iran’s safeguards agreement with it. Much of Iran’s uranium-enrichment program is based on equipment and designs acquired through former Pakistani nuclear official A.Q. Khan’s secret supply network.
After the revelations of Iran’s clandestine nuclear activities, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom launched negotiations with Iran to address international concerns about the intent and scope of its nuclear program. These negotiations collapsed in 2005.
In response in 2006, the IAEA Board of Governors declared Iran in noncompliance with its safeguards obligations and referred the matter to the UN Security Council.
Since 2006, the Security Council has adopted a number of resolutions calling on Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment-related activities and cooperate fully with the IAEA investigation.
See the news report on the February 2006 IAEA resolution that outlines the basic concerns and the IAEA resolution itself online here.
Q: The U.S. officially states that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon but there is constant talk about how the world can convince Iran not to build a nuclear weapon. Do we have evidence that Iran is considering that option? What do we know Iran is really doing vs. what people think it’s doing?
Daryl Kimball: What Iran’s leaders ultimately intend to do—to try to build nuclear weapons or not—is not clear. What is clear is that Iran seems to be keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. Even the U.S. intelligence community acknowledges “We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.”
Q: Professor Daniel Drezner wrote in Foreign Policy last week that the “sanctions policy is pushing the United States into a policy cul-de-sac where the only way out is through regime change”. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen had said a day earlier that “there’ no sleep here for anyone” if Iran goes nuclear and “The ultimate remedy is Iranian regime change.” What is the Obama administration’s official policy with regard to Iran’s nuclear program? Do you agree or disagree that the sanctions policy against Iran is moving toward regime change and why?
Daryl Kimball: There are a lot of people in Washington who wish they were the Secretary of State. Thankfully they are not. The Obama administration is not seeking regime change, but is seeking to bring increasing international pressure on Iran in order to increase the cost of pursuing actions that could bring it closer to being able to build nuclear weapons and to encourage it to return to the negotiating table. The primary goal of U.S. policy appears to me to be to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
The UNSC-mandated sanctions directed at Iran’s nuclear and missile sectors have slowed Iran’s progress and are justified, but the harsher unilateral sanctions now being put in place by the United States and the EU run the risk of hurting the Iranian people and reinforcing Iran’s leaders’ determination to reject overtures and demands to restrain their nuclear program and to negotiate because the sanctions appear to them to be an attempt to destabilize the country and the regime.
Q: Do you think accuracy dominates in the media with regard to reporting facts about Iran’s nuclear program?
Daryl Kimball: Some reporters and editors are on tight deadlines, as well as politicians, and unfortunately they are not always accurate in their characterization of what we know about Iran’s nuclear activities and intentions.
The fact is that IAEA and U.S. intelligence findings show that Iran is slowly improving its uranium-enrichment capabilities and already has some of the expertise needed to build nuclear weapons, but they also make it clear that a nuclear-armed Iran is neither imminent nor inevitable.
On the other hand, there is good reason to be concerned about its nuclear ambitions. There is disturbing and credible evidence that Iran has engaged in activities that have nuclear warhead development applications and it is enriching uranium to levels that it cannot currently utilize for civilian purposes.
What is to be done? UN-mandated sanctions can buy time and improve negotiating leverage, but the time available must be used constructively. Sanctions alone will not turn Tehran around and could harden its resolve.
Moreover, talk of military strikes against Iranian nuclear and military targets is counterproductive and, in the long run, cannot prevent a nuclear-armed Iran. The “military option” would set back Iran’s program for no more than a couple of years, convince Iran’s leadership to pursue nuclear weapons openly, rally Iranian domestic support behind the regime, and lead to adverse economic and security consequences.
Ultimately, resolving the nuclear issue will require sufficient pressure and inducements to convince Iran’s current and future leaders that they stand to gain more from forgoing nuclear weapons than from any decision to build them.
]]>Pillar also points out the absurd method Cohen uses to tie the alleged Iranian nuclear “threat” with the curious “Iranian plot”:
Read more.
]]>