Brian M Downing
There’s no evidence Iran has a nuclear weapons program. The US intelligence community hasn’t budged from its assessment of 2007, though politicians and media outlets cling to what they want to believe. However, today Iran is avoiding JCPOA talks, increasing enrichment levels, closing off snap inspections and monitoring, and threatening to curtail IAEA inspections. It’s plausible that Iran, recognizing longterm dangers and fleeting opportunities, is going to build nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, powerful counterarguments come readily to mind as well.
International context
Nuclear weapons have an air of opprobrium about them, understandably so. Some countries build them for prestige, others because they serve a vital security need. Iran can check both boxes.
Iran is surrounded by hostile states. Iraq invaded in 1980 and acquired broad Sunni support. The war was an eight-year stalemate with relatively little territory changing hands. Estimates of Iran’s dead range from 400,000 to 800,000. The lower number is about what the US suffered in WW2.
Today, the Sunni powers around Iran remain hostile. Israel supported Iran in the Iraq war but it’s now squarely behind the Sunnis. Syria, Iran’s only significant regional ally, is in a shambles and can’t offer any strategic help for a decade or more. Tehran also knows that Saudi Arabia funded Pakistan’s nuclear program and may be persuaded or bribed to use its arsenal for Saudi purposes. (Paradoxically, Israel shares this concern.)
The US is intermittently hostile. Tehrano delenda est sentiment is firmly entrenched in congress, think tanks, media, and K Street. Though the sentiment is on the back foot now, it may return to the White House in four years. Taking advantage of the respite to develop nuclear weapons must have considerable support in the military.
Rationales d’etat
The credibility of American and Israeli intelligence is at a nadir. If they picked up clear signs of a weapons program, few outside the circle of Sunni monarchs would believe them. American power is not what it was. The political system is deeply divided, the nation strife-ridden, and the military overstretched.
Nuclear weapons would serve several purposes. Iran’s power relative to the Sunni powers would increase tremendously. They would have to think twice before provoking Iran and their large, well-appointed armies would be even less relevant. A large-scale invasion, like the one Iraq launched in 1980, would be even more unthinkable than it is now.
Iran would have a powerful unifying symbol that would ease at least some turmoil and enhance the leadership’s prestige, perhaps especially the military contingent’s.
The clergy opposes all WMDs. It made that judgment based on religious texts amid the Iraq war. Saddam used chemical weapons on Iranian troops but the clergy held fast to its ruling – and apparently still does. However, the generals may feel they have better judgment on the perils facing the nation and on the best ways to defend it.
The view here has long been that the IRGC wants to invert the government from an aged clergy defended by a deferent military to a robust military legitimized by subordinate mullahs. Today might be an auspicious time to begin the transition.
Counterarguments
The above is a plausible explanation for Iran’s intransigence on talks with the US and steps toward weapons-grade uranium. The explanation could be picked up by the Tehrano delenda est camp and made part of its talking points, but fair-minded analysts will see several counterarguments.
1) Iran’s main security threat isn’t foreign invasion. The Saudis and Emiratis could never match up with the IRGC, especially while defending Iranian soil. Iraq’s army showed its heels when a spirited but ragtag ISIL column neared Mosul in 2014. Today the army’s internally divided, hopelessly corrupt (save for a brigade or two), and focused on internal problems – one of them powerful Shia militias. Iran’s main threat is small MEK, Kurdish, Arab, and Baloch bands. Nuclear weapons would be of no help.
2) The world may well disregard CIA and Mossad warnings for years but Iran would eventually announce its achievement. Secret nuclear weapons do not deter enemies nor do they dazzle publics. At that point, sanctions and isolation would be worse than today. Foreign supporters would fall away.
3) The US, even under Biden, would hit nuclear sites such as Natanz, Fordo, and Parchin. The same holds for Israel, which might not feel the need to limit its response to conventional weapons.
4) It’s unlikely that Russia and China would look the other way. They prefer a small nuclear club and are mistrustful of religious figures, unless firmly subordinated to secular leaders. Further, a nuclear Iran would damage ties with Sunni states. China wants their oil. Russia and China want their arms purchases and hope to establish themselves as hegemons of the Gulf at US expense.
Even if Iran has no plans to build nuclear weapons, it should be concerned that its opposition to talks, curtailment of snap inspections and video streams, and ongoing enrichment program will be misinterpreted. Neutral and even supportive states will begin to have grave suspicions and act accordingly.
© 2021 Brian M Downing
Brian M Downing is a national security analyst who’s written for outlets across the political spectrum. He studied at Georgetown University and the University of Chicago, and did post-graduate work at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. Thanks as ever to Susan Ganosellis.