THE AMERICAN RESPONSE TO PAKISTANI AND IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: A STUDY IN PARADOX FARHAD REZAEI Dr. Fhad Rezaei is a resech llow at e Center r Iranian Studies (AM), Anka, Turkey. He is the author of In's Nuclear Progm: A Study in Nuclear Pletion and Rollback (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Email: farhad[email protected]Introduction This article explores the paradox in the reaction of the United States to two different cases of nuclear proliraon: Iran and Pakistan. The article ies to answer the llowing question: why has e United States, as one of the gudians of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) whose objective is to prevent e spread of nuclear weapons and weapons, ulmately accepted proliraon in Pakistan, while imposing considerable pressure to prevent an om acquing nuclear weapons? Washington's perspective on Pakistani proliferation: an honorary cold war actor? On 28 May 1998, the long-held suspicion that Pistan had been devel- oping nuclear weapons was confirmed by the couny's simultaneous underground tesng of five nuclear weapons. However, regardless of some modest criticism and short-lived sanctions imposed by e US Con- gress, Pistan's proliration was virtually accepted. It has been said that US policy-makers did not consider Pakistan's nuclear arsenal as a challenge r US national secuty compared to Iran's poten- tial nuclear arsenal. Even though there had been seous conces about Pakistan's nucle course, given its unpredictable ture and the couny's instability, many analysts and policy-makers believed that Pakistan's
Transcript
THE AMERICAN RESPONSE TO PAKISTANI AND
IRANIAN NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION: A STUDY
IN PARADOX
FARHAD REZAEI CID
Dr. Farhad Rezaei is a research fellow at the Center for Iranian Studies (IRAM), Ankara, Turkey. He is the author of Iran's Nuclear Program: A Study in Nuclear Proliferation and Rollback (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016). Email: [email protected]
Introduction
This article explores the paradox in the reaction of the United States to two different cases of nuclear proliferation: Iran and Pakistan. The article tries to answer the following question: why has the United States, as one of the guardians of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons, ultimately accepted proliferation in Pakistan, while imposing considerable pressure to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons?
Washington's perspective on Pakistani proliferation: an
honorary cold war actor?
On 28 May 1998, the long-held suspicion that Pakistan had been developing nuclear weapons was confirmed by the country's simultaneous underground testing of five nuclear weapons. However, regardless of some modest criticism and short-lived sanctions imposed by the US Congress, Pakistan's proliferation was virtually accepted.
It has been said that US policy-makers did not consider Pakistan's nuclear arsenal as a challenge for US national security compared to Iran's potential nuclear arsenal. Even though there had been serious concerns about Pakistan's nuclear course, given its unpredictable future and the country's instability, many analysts and policy-makers believed that Pakistan's
weapons were for defensive purposes, a direct response to the security concerns posed by its neighbour India. 1 India itself had performed itsown nuclear tests near the Pakistan border, the first since 1974, on 11 May 1998, just over two weeks previously.
According to these analysts, the purpose of Pakistan's evolving nuclear posture was for deterrence and to preserve its territorial integrity against any attack by India, in addition to preventing the escalation of any military conflict as well as countering India's conventional superiority. By doing so, Pakistani leaders had no global ambitions to boost the position of their country in Asia or in the Islamic world, and did not consider their nuclear arsenal to support such ambitions. Therefore, its weaponization was not seen as havin� broader destabilizing implicationsoutside the Indo-Pakistani dispute.
For Pakistani leaders, the notion that a nuclear arsenal might give global prestige and influence to their country did not form part of their considerations. Rather, it was seen as a way of addressing a domestic audience. As one expert put it, "Pakistan kept a low international profile and made clear that nuclear weapons are a defensive strategy against the overwhelming strength of India".3
Pakistan's motivation for developing nuclear weapons can be best understood in the historical context. After Pakistan's defeat in the 1971 war against India, which led to the secession of East Pakistan to form Bangladesh, there was one conclusion in Islamabad: the national survival of Pakistan could not be left to the good-will of others. Close ties with the United States in the 1980s resulted in the US deliberately overlooking Pakistan's fast-expanding nuclear arsenal.4
In 1979, US intelligence discovered that Pakistan was secretly building a uranium-enrichment facility to acquire a nuclear weapons capability - apparently after it failed on the plutonium route - using materialfrom the safeguarded Karachi Nuclear Power Plant (KANUPP). Itwas reliant on this domestic source due to the constraints imposedby the nuclear export controls applied in the wake of India's firstnuclear test in 1974. To prevent Pakistan from doing so, PresidentJimmy Carter halted US aid to Pakistan in October 1979, andapplied modest sanctions against it, but the sanctions were not onlyfeebly enforced, they were withdrawn even before they started tobite Pakistan.5
Shortly afterwards in December 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the Carter Administration deemed this to be a greater threatthan Pakistan's nuclear plans.6 In a study by Kenneth Adelman, directorof the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and assistant to President Reagan for national security affairs, it was considered whether it was in the US interest to pressure Pakistan too much on the nuclear issue. The conclusion was that the United States should make a distinction between friends and non-friends on the issue of nuclear non-proliferation. 7 To block Soviet expansionism, President Ronald Reagan, who succeeded Carter on 20 January 1981, with agreement of Congress, restarted US aid to Pakistan in the form of nearly $3 billion in economicassistance and $2 billion in military aid. 8
Cold War politics were therefore a very important factor in Pakistan's weaponization. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan became a critical player in Washington's global game, firmly supporting the US fight to contain Communism. Pakistan's strategic location made it an indispensable ally for the United States for the most part of the Cold War period. Thus, Washington decided that Pakistan had an important 'frontline' role to play in helping the US to counter Soviet expansionism and stopping it from potentially obtaining a warm-water port on the Indian Ocean.
Strengthening its alliance with the United States substantially helped Pakistan to develop its nuclear weapon programme. As mentioned, nuclear non-proliferation did not figure high on Reagan's agenda. He subordinated the US non-proliferation policy to its anti-Soviet crusade and left Pakistani nuclear efforts unchecked. With the Afghan mujahedeen fighting Soviet forces and being supplied through Pakistan, the Reagan Administration and Congress were willing to give Pakistan the benefit of the doubt. In fact, as one analyst noted "Pakistan has correctly perceived that the United States would be prepared to do almost anything to enlist Pakistan to help thwart the Soviets in Afghanistan - even tothe extent of looking the other way while Pakistan builds its bomb".9
Although many scholars argue that the Pakistani nuclear tests caught the US intelligence community by surprise, there are a number of others who argue that successive US administrations were fully aware of the evolution of Pakistan's military nuclear programme as it took place, and deliberately turned a blind eye to it. In other words, the United States sacrificed its non-proliferation goals to filain Pakistani cooperation tosupport its fight against communism. This was reflected in a
New York Times report of 21 September 1982 that claimed China was helping Pakistan to develop a capability to enrich uranium for the purpose of producing nuclear weapons. Similarly, on 21 January 1983 the Washington Post reported that China was advising Pakistan on producing nuclear weapons. Moreover Howard Schaffer, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, referred to collaboration between the two countries in his testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Committee on 25 February 1983. This evidence in the public domain suggests that the US intelligence establishment was fully aware of the extent of Pakistan's nuclear programme.11
According to the testimony by Paul Leventhal, president of the Nuclear Control Institute, before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on 22 October 1987, the White House was willing to allow the Pakistanis to go far in producing nuclear weapons, something called the "bomb in the closet" approach. As Leventhal put it, "the implicit assumption [is] that Pakistan's having a bomb in storage is better for US interests than Pakistan's having an assembled device in a test hole or in a deliverable weapon".12 Worse, Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, who wrotein detail on the secret trade in nuclear weapons between Pakistan and the United States, contend that even the policy-makers in Washington were fully aware of the secret collaboration between Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani nuclear scientist, and Libya, Iran and North Korea, but ignored it as a way to keep Pakistan as a partner, first against the Communists and then in the 'War on Terror'.13
A.Q. Khan posed a unique challenge to the non-proliferation system by establishing an extensive nuclear network known as Khan's 'nuclear bazaar', in which he offered a wide range of blueprints and parts for fabricating weapon-grade uranium to the mentioned countries. By the mid-1980s, Khan was not only proliferating the 'Muslim bomb' but turning a good profit for himself and his partners.14
Khan was essentially an entrepreneur willing to deal with anyone who was ready to pay. Thus, for the first time in nuclear history, a dangerous array of materials were available entirely through the black market, beyond state control, creating a "Wal-Mart of private-sector proliferation".15 He sold Iran a 'starter package' that included a number ofitems: a set of technical blueprints for Pakistani P-1 centrifuges, a starter kit for a gas centrifuge plant, centrifuge component samples, and instructions for enriching uranium to weapon-grade levels. In
addition, he delivered several Pakistani-made centrifuges, a design for an atomic weapon, and an address book of his suppliers.16
The geo-political circumstances changed with the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. Washington likewise withdrew from Afghan affairs, lost its interest in Pakistan and a decade of alienation followed. It was at this point that all US government agencies agreed that Pakistan had crossed the cut-off line drawn by Congress but by that time, as one analyst put it, "Pakistan was far down the road to a bomb".17
In 1990, the administration of George H.W. Bush immediately suspended US aid flows to Pakistan, decreasing US military assistance from its peak of $1.2 billion to its $45 million a year. This amount declined further after Pakistan's first nuclear tests in May 1998.18
Immediately after the Indian nuclear tests of May 1998, Pakistani officials closely assessed the US response to judge whether an influential external actor would continue to accept yet another South Asian defiance of international non-proliferation norms. Pakistan's security managers were encouraged to respond to the Indian tests in kind on 28 May 1998, convinced that the US condemnation would be symbolic at best and shortlived at worst.19 As one expert noted,
after India's nuclear test, it was clear to many that nothing would stop Pakistan from getting the bomb. As Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the former Pakistani leader and architect of the country's atomic program, had said already in 1965, "if India built the bomb, we will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own".20
Soon after Pakistan's nuclear test, Afghan-related events once again caused a complete reversal of US policy toward Pakistan's nuclear programme. After the '9/11' attacks, the 'War on Terror' made Pakistan America's key ally again, a relationship even more important than previously. Many in the US maintained that America could not, at this juncture, cut off military aid to Pakistan, arguing that America needed Pakistan's support by providing the United States with military bases and logistical support to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. If the US withdrew its aid, they argued, Pakistan might give up its cooperation. Another more pressing concern was that radical Islarnists might somehow get their hands on a nuclear bomb in Pakistan, either through covert means or by actually coming to power.
Therefore, under the George W. Bush administration, Washington restarted its aid to Pakistan, giving it billions of dollars of unrestricted funds to fight against terrorism. Once again Washington officials came to the view that Pakistan's proliferation posed no threat to US national security. Hence Washington was disinclined to subject Islamabad to further punitive measures. Since numerous political, economic and strategic interests were as important as its nuclear non-proliferation objectives, the Bush administration favoured a policy of engagement that included unconditional inducements to influence Pakistan's nuclear behaviour.21 Therefore, to repay Pakistan for its fight in Afghanistan incombating Islamic terrorism, billions of dollars of US aid came to Pakistan in the form of Coalition Support Funds.22
There are still those who oppose the idea that the United States covered up Pakistan's nuclear proliferation efforts. For example, Robert Jervis, Professor of International Affairs at Columbia University, held that "this assumption is not quite right, or at least is a bit exaggerated". According to Jervis "the US did oppose Pakistan's building a bomb and its testing, and did impose sanctions. Even now it has not accepted Pakistan's nuclear status, much to the distress of that country's leaders". Jervis stressed "but there were also countervailing pressures not to do more in the form of the common interest in opposing the Taliban (although Pakistan of course has also sponsored parts of it)".23
Another expert held that "the policy may have failed" to prevent Pakistan's weaponization, "but it wasn't a cover-up. There was a huge and intense internal debate. In the end [U.S.] had to make a choice". After the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, he said, "electing to get Pakistan to support the resistance movement was the obvious choice to make. The non-proliferation concerns would come in second".24
Similarly, Robert Einhorn, a senior fellow in the arms control and nonproliferation initiative at Brookings, argues that Pakistan paid a significant price for its nuclear weapon programme in terms of US sanctions. "True, those sanctions were eventuall� removed, but they did causereal damage when they were in force." 5 Another analyst noted that theUS imposed intermittent sanctions on Pakistan, which also included transfer of nuclear technology from the West: "that's why much of the Pakistani nuclear programme depended on the clandestine procurement network. "26 Put similarly, Richard Nephew argued that after the Pakistanitest, the real question was whether, having failed to stop Pakistan, it should have remained a pariah state forever, or whether the US should
have reached an accommodation because it had nuclear weapons and was unlikely to give them up. "It was due to this reason that the US sanctions were eventually removed and the international community, for its part, essentially shrugged."27
Washington's perception of Iran's proliferation: an irrational
rogue?
Unlike US flexibility toward Pakistani proliferation, the prospect of Iran's potential to develop a nuclear arsenal generated a heated debate among Washington policy-makers. The US Government was concerned that should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, it might actually make use of them in long-standing regional conflicts against its adversaries as well as US interests.
However, in the case of Iran, proving proliferation was difficult. Iran was a signatory to the global non-proliferation regime (NPT) since its entry into force in 1970. It was thus subject to the safeguarding provisions of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and had the right to enrich uranium for peaceful use. Therefore, at least on paper, Iran was obliged not to seek assistance to divert nuclear energy from peaceful to military purposes. The IAEA found that obtaining evidence of Iran's attempts at proliferation was highly challenging.28
After relying on the intelligence services of a number of countries, notably the influential reports of the CIA in 2007, in 2011 the IAEA came to the firm conclusion that Iran, in a coordinated effort, had carried out the activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device prior to the end of 2003. Similarly in 2015, the Agency found the Islamic Republic to be in non-compliance with its safeguarding obligations within the previous 15-year period. It concluded that Iran's weaponization activities had continued after 2003 in a less coordinated manner up to 2009, yet it had pursued enrichment with a view to stockpiling enough fuel to give it the capacity to make a bomb.29
Unlike its reaction to proliferation in Pakistan, the United States tried to stop Iran's proliferation in a two-decade-long effort based on the carrot of diplomatic inducements and the stick of severe economic sanctions backed with the threat of military action. Many analysts highlighted a number of factors at the root of this differing approach. These included the regime's behaviour since the Islamic Revolution, and Iran's portrayal
as an irrational rogue actor which could cause Armageddon were it armed with nuclear weapons.
Regime's behaviour: irrational rogue actor
Since the 1979 Revolution, Iran has been considered as an enemy and a threat towards US interests. The revolution opened a deep and ongoing rift in US-Iranian relations. The Carter Administration sought to engage the Islamic regime, which initially had numerous moderates in senior posts, but this ended after the new regime began crafting the idea of actively exporting the revolution with an agenda of extending the new Shia Islamic regime's reach to liberate 'oppressed' peoples around the globe. The revolution was seen by the revolutionaries as the first step towards a global Islamic movement, not the culmination of a strictly domestic national struggle against the Shah. Khomeini postulated that the new Islamic international order would replace the nation-state, with the broader entity of the Ummah (the universal Muslim community).30
This 'Trotskyite' mandate was taken seriously enough to make it into the preamble of the new Constitution of the Islamic Republic promulgated on 3 December 1979. The document declared that "the way of Islamic ruling" was based on the Islamic content of Iran's revolution, stating that the constitution provided for the continuation of the revolution domestically and abroad. Under the new law, "the Army and the Revolutionary Guards should be organized in such a way as to achieve that goal".31 Soon after,Khomeini, empowered by the title of Supreme Leader, reaffirmed the revolutionary intention of the new regime by declaring the export of the revolution to the Muslim world to be a sacred duty of lran.32
Khomeini and his revolutionary exporters saw abundant opportunities in the region. Used in conjunction with other tactics, the violence destabilized neighbouring countries. By embarking on a high-profile revolutionary export venture, the new regime challenged the legitimacy of governments in other countries in the region. It was hardly helpful that some high-ranking officials claimed that states in the region were not entirely sovereign and should not be allowed to pursue an independent foreign policy, at least not with regard to the United States and its allies. Needless to say, the upheaval alarmed not only the rulers of the targeted countries but also their ally, the United States.33
According to Khomeini's anti-Western Islamic theocracy, the US was referred to as 'the Great Satan' and Iranians looked at the United States
with suspicion because of its role in keeping the Shah in power. The new regime declared Islamic war against the United States and the slogan most favoured by the revolutionaries, "Death to the Great Satan America", became the universal language of Islamic insurgency.34
On 4 November 1979, the Iranian radical pro-Khomeini group 'The Muslim Student Followers of the Imam's Line', stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took all American diplomats and employees captive for 444 days. On 7 April 1980, the Ayatollah himself blessed the hostage-taking by declaring that the hostages must remain in the hands of the students at the embassr, further fuelling the government'shard line against the United States.3
The hostage-taking was followed by an international embargo, the freezing of Iranian assets abroad, an end to US sales of arms and spare parts to Iran, and the sharp decline of Iran's standing in the world. Hence since 1979 bilateral relations have been extremely difficult.
In January 1984, on account of the seizure of its embassy in Tehran and for the regime's sponsoring of terrorism, the Reagan Administration designated Iran as a "state sponsor of terrorism". As a result the US enforced an embargo on weapon sales. Consequently, Iran became desperately short of military supplies in its war with Iraq. 36 At this point, Iranstarted taking American citizens hostafe through its proxies in the region,among them Hezbollah in Lebanon. 3
In 1982 to 1992, during the 10-year-long Lebanese hostage crisis, 30 American nationals, among them CIA Station Chief William Buckley, were abducted. US intelligence officials believed that Hezbollah, under Iranian orders, was behind the kidnappings. On top of this, Hezbollah took other hostages by hijacking aircraft. On 14 June 1985, TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome was hijacked by Hezbollah. Many were taken hostage, including several Americans. The incident, in addition to the hostage-taking in Lebanon itself, eventually pushed President Reagan to offer weapons to the Iranian regime in return for the freeing of kidnapped Americans. 38
Iran's support for global terrorism
Additionally, since the revolution, the regime has been accused of financially supporting, providing weapons and training other terror
organizations or being a 'safe house' for terror group members. In fact, terrorism, which played a strategic role in exporting revolution at the very beginning of the Islamic Republic, has also served as a weapon in the struggle against the presence of the United States in the region in addition to allowing it to project its influence into the Arab world. 39
Iran is alleged to be responsible for numerous terror plots through its agents (Quds Forces) or its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas. For instance, the Revolutionary Guards are believed to have had a key role in the bombing of the United States' Marine barracks in Beirut in 1983 which killed 241 American soldiers. The US officials believe that Hezbollah, probably with the support of the Iranian regime, carried out the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996 that killed and wounded a large number of US servicemen.40 The US intelligence community concludedthat the attack was directed by Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security and Revolutionary Guards, "acting on the orders of the Supreme Leader of Iran".41
The intelligence community of the United States came to a similar conclusion that Iran was behind the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural centre, the Asociaci6n Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMlA), in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Based on the testimony of Abolghasem Mesbahi, an Iranian intelligence defector, the intelligence agencies concluded that Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), chaired by President Hashemi Rafsanjani, on 14 August 1993 approved the plot to bomb the AMlA building.42 Moreover, a set of classified documents leaked by WikiLeaks in July 2010 indicated that since 2001 numerous attacks on coalition forces in Iraq and US troops in Afghanistan have been attributed to the Revolutionary Guards and Iranian-made weapons in addition to Iran's extensive collaboration with the Taliban and al-Qaeda.43
According to Western intelligence analysts, despite being on opposite ends of the religious and ideological spectrum, Iran has given support to al-Qaeda terrorists as a way to leverage al-Qaeda against US interests. As explained by the 9/11 Commission Report, senior members of alQaeda maintained close relations with security officials in Iran and had frequently travelled to Iran in the months before the 9/11 attacks, although it is not confirmed whether the contacts were informal or officially sanctioned. A similar report by the non-partisan Congressional Research Service claimed that almost 20 members of Osama bin Laden's family were resident in Iran after '9/11 ', while bin Laden's son Saad Bin Laden and several of his advisors and high-ranking alQaeda members were able to travel to Iran frequently.44
According to the same report, the Iranians agreed to support the terror group in late 1991-1992 in operations against common enemies, mainly the United States and Israel. In 1993, senior al-Qaeda figures reportedly received training in Iran or in Lebanon from Iranian operatives.45 The report identified those high-ranking al-Qaeda members asMustafa Hamid, who "negotiated a secret relationship between Bin Laden and Iran"in the mid-1990s, Muhammad Rab'a al Sayid al Bahtiyti, who was advisor to Ayman al Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda chief, and Ali Saleh Husein, who directed al-Qaeda members to Iran after the attacks were carried out by the terror group on '9/11 '.46
Since then, Iran has been identified as a significant threat to US interests by various US administrations. The perception that Iran posed a threat increased in 2002 with confirmation that the country was building a secret uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water production plant at Arak, and adding other aspects to its nuclear programme that could be used to develop a nuclear weapon. Since this time, Iran's nuclear programme has been a key US national security challenge and highlighted as a danger to its national interests in its annual threat assessment.47 Ever since, the US priority has been toreduce the perceived threat posed by the Islamic Republic to the US interests.
Iran's bomb: United States losing deterrence power
A nuclear-armed Iran, in the view of US officials, would be more assertive than it is now in trying to influence the policies of regional states and in supporting groups in the Middle East and elsewhere that oppose US interests. US policy-makers have expressed concern that Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon would produce a nuclear arms race in one of the world's most volatile regions. Additionally, there have been concerns that Iran may transfer nuclear technology (possibly tactical nuclear weapons) to extremist groups or countries.
As far as US policy-makers have been concerned, the costs of Iran's achieving nuclear weapons would hardly be trivial, and the challenge of a containment strategy is high. The deterrence of a nuclear-armed Iran would require a far larger military presence in the Middle East and major investments in missile defence capability as well as a modernized nuclear arsenal.48
Iran's proliferation and its regional consequences
Additional concerns pertain to the consequences of proliferation. A decision by the Iranian leaders to break out with nuclear weapons would have profound implications for stability in the Middle East and US strategic planning as well as the objectives of the NPT. From the US perspective, if Iran were allowed to become a nuclear state, it would create a 'zone of vulnerability', and encourage its neighbours to seek a nuclear capability similar in size and scope to that of Iran, which would increase the probability of nuclear exchange. Many of the regional countries, among them Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey, have recently initiated nuclear energy programmes that have been interpreted as hedges against a nuclear-anned Iran.49
For instance, the Saudis have already stated that the kingdom would examine a military nuclear option if Iran were to cross the nuclear threshold because they would not tolerate a situation where Iran is anned with a nuclear weapon and they themselves are not. It was confirmed by Prince Turki al-Faisal, the former Saudi intelligence chief, in 2011 that "It is in our interest that Iran does not develop a nuclear weapon, for its doing so would compel Saudi Arabia ... to pursue £oliciesthat could lead to untold and possibly dramatic consequences". Similarly, Egypt is also one of the regional countries that is often named as a state that may respond in kind to Iran's nuclear challenge. As N abil Fahmy, a high-ranking Egyptian diplomat, noted, "If ultimately Iran develops what is seen at least by some as a latent nuclear weapons capability, Egypt will definitely react".51
Irrational religious extremists and validity of the MAD doctrine
The perception that Iran has a highly ideological regime with a desire to export its revolution, not to mention its messianic pronouncements, has led many to assume that the country might use any nuclear weapon for messianic or ideological purposes. Some observers have argued that an Iranian weapon would allow Tehran to achieve its revolutionary objectives even without using it.
These analysts assert that Iranian leaders could well be irrational religious extremists who welcome death for their faith and therefore cannot be deterred. A nuclear bomb in their hands would be an existential threat toward Israel. Because of the integration of religious elements into
politics and the leadership of 'fanatics', they say, Iran is viewed as an actor that cannot be relied upon, and with which negotiation would inevitably be fruitless; thus, it must be prevented from acquiring such weapons, even by using the military option.
Many analysts have thus questioned the reliability of deterrence in the case of the Iranian leadership and warn that the regime operates in a manner that deviates from the principles of rationality that underlay nuclear deterrence during the Cold War. Thus, the Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) doctrine would not apply in the case of Iran. As one consequence, nuclear weapons in the hands of 'irrational' Iranian leaders would thus pose a major threat to the existence of Israel.
The late Meir Dagan, former chief of Israel's national intelligence agency (Mossad), believed that the Iranian leadership did not display "logical thinking and does not value national survival as its very highest goal". More to the point, according to Dagan, an Iran armed with nuclear weapons would be dangerous even if the regime's leadership were rational because there would be a high possibility of "miscalculation, or errors in information".
Israeli involvement
Israel, the only country in the Middle East with nuclear weapons, has long been a leading opponent of Tehran. The 1979 revolution in Iran wrecked the long-standing Israeli 'periphery strategy', which is a series of alliances with non-Arab states in the Middle East periphery such as Turkey and Iran. Slow to catch up with the changing reality, the political community hoped for the collapse of the regime, but in the early 1990s the intelligence services came to a realization that not only was the Islamic Republic there to stay but it was intent on a nuclear arsenal.
As envisaged by David Ben Gurion, the Israeli nuclear arsenal was to provide a deterrent against threats from the Arab countries with numerically strong armies. To sustain this deterrent power, however, Israel has needed to preserve its nuclear monopoly in the region. Under the socalled Begin doctrine, the Israel Air Force bombed the Iraqi Osirik reactor in 1981 and the Syrian reactor in 2007.52
Still, with few exceptions, both the Labor government and the securityintelligence community did not conceptualize a nuclear Iran as an
existential threat to Israel. But some Labor politicians, irritated by the regime's efforts to derail the Oslo process, took to warning about the potential threat of a nuclear Iran.
Iran's regional activities and its anti-Israeli stance and extreme rhetoric of threatening the existence of the Jewish state have also been taken extremely seriously by Israel. With the 1979 Revolution in Iran, an anti-Israeli stance became a central approach of the revolutionaries and the new regime instigated its Islamic ideology with a fierce propaganda campaign in opposition to the spread of 'Zionism' in the region. Ayatollah Khomeini declared that once Iran's political situation stabilized, they would seriously plan a "historic victory over the Zionists", declaring "This source of corruption (Israel) which has settled in the heart of the Islamic lands should be eliminated". Soon, the slogans that called for Israel's annihilation took root in Iran's policies.
Many messianic pronouncements against Israel were made by other Iranian officials. In a Friday prayer sermon on 15 December 2000, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei declared "It is the mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to erase Israel from the map of the region".53 Likewise, on 14 December 2001, President Rafsanjani saidhe would not be concerned about fallout from an attack on the Jewish state "If one day, the Islamic world is also equipped with weapons like those that Israel possesses now then the imperialists' strategy will reach a standstill because the use of even one nuclear bomb inside Israel will destroy everything". He added "It is not irrational to contemplate such an eventuality". Contrary to the standard view that no one can win a nuclear war, Rafsanjani argued that Iran could achieve victory. "Israel is much smaller than Iran in land mass, and therefore far more vulnerable to nuclear attack", Rafsanjani said.54
Upon discovering Iran's nuclear programme in the 1990s, Israel had launched a fierce, multifaceted campaign to roll it back. Israeli strategists believed that with enough pressure and coercion they could compel the Iranian regime to stop its nuclear weapon programme and convince them that it would be impossible to achieve a nuclear arsenal. As one Israeli official put it
the width of the threshold separating Iran from nuclear weapons needs to be great
enough to enable the pre-emption of any Iranian attempt to acquire such weapons,
to the extent that Iran itself will recognize that ... there is no chance of
succeeding. 55
Israeli political elites, among them Ariel Sharon, who took over from Labor's Ehud Barak in 2001, strongly believed that Israel needed to roll back Iran's project but favoured clandestine efforts rather than a military attack. Meir Dagan, Sharon's appointee to Mossad, worked closely with the Directorate of Military Intelligence (Aman) and the experts in the Atomic Energy Commission, to evaluate Iran's nuclear programme and fashion ways to achieve this. Ehud Olmert, who took over from the ailing Sharon in 2006, continued with the policy. Mossad and the cyber unit of the Israel Defense Force (Unit 8200) were especially encouraged by the possibility of a cyber-attack on Iran's facilities, code-named "Olympic Games", first proposed by the United States in 2006.
To Mossad and Aman, the malaise affecting Iran was a vindication of the sanctions and sabotage option that Dagan had vigorously pushed. Indeed, seeking to further hamper weaponization, Israel was apparently behind a number of assassinations of nuclear scientists and a series of sabotage actions against enrichment and ballistic facilities. In spite of the apparent success of Dagan's tactics, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud Party won the 2009 election, questioned the efficacy of the combined sanctionssabotage option. 56
Indeed, Netanyahu and Ehud Barak, who served as defence minister, were contemplating military action in Iran along the lines of the raid on the Iraqi reactor in 1981. But Dagan, most of the senior military and intelligence officials, as well as a senior cabinet ministers put an end to the Netanyahu-Barak plan during dramatic behind-the-scenes debates in 2010-2012. Dagan, who was essentially fired in 2012, campaigned against Netanyahu's policy, describing it as ill-informed and dangerous. Those close to Dagan believed that if it was not for his deteriorating health (he died of cancer in 2016), the former Mossad chief would have challenged Netanyahu as the head of the opposition Zionist Union party.57
Apart from its own efforts to stop Iran's proliferation, Israel placed Iran's nuclear threat firmly on the international agenda. Though its ability to influence directly the talks with Iran was limited, Israel had significant capabilities to influence the Iranian nuclear programme through the power of its intelligence capabilities as well as its American supporters. These included a loose network of Jewish groups, Christian Evangelicals and the large Christian-Zionist lobby The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and hard-line Republican interventionists in the US Congress, who took a similar view of the severity of the threat.58
In many ways, the concerns of the Israel lobby overlapped with a broader neo-conservative critique of American foreign policy. Suspicious of international organization and wary of diplomacy as a tool for settling conflicts, this approach opposed the Clinton-era push to negotiate further nuclear-reduction treaties. Neo-conservative think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute and projects such as the New American Century advocated regime change in Iran as the best tool for rolling back proliferation.
By mid-1994, Israel and AIP AC turned the full force of their diplomatic and lobby power against Iran and its nuclear programme, highlighting it as the greatest threat to the existence of Israel and peace in the Middle East. AIPAC, reportedly at the behest of Israel, distributed a paper in Washington arguing that the Islamic Republic was a threat not only to the existence of Israel, but also to the interests of the United States and its Western allies. As former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft recalled ''The pro-Israeli community turned strongly a�ainst Iran, influencing US policy on Iran in an almost emotional way". 9
With 85,000 members, an annual budget of $33.4 million, AIP AC organized campaigns to pressure the US administration to force Iran to give up its nuclear programme and urged Congress to outline terms for a nuclear agreement with Iran that would include the dismantling of its entire nuclear programme so that Iran would have neither a uranium nor a plutonium pathway to produce a nuclear weapon.60
With little hard evidence, the Israel lobby pressured Congress to impose a series of sanctions on Iran. It supported the passing of legislation in Congress to curtail Iran's nuclear weapon programme along with resolutions to fund Israeli-American efforts to build defences against weapons of mass destruction.61 The sanctions, backed by AIPAC and put forward by Senator Alfonse D' Amato (R-N.Y.) had a severe impact on Iran's economy. After the war with Iraq, which lasted for eight years and ended in 1988, Iran's foreign debt, which was less than $5 billion, dramatically increased to about $30 billion in the fiscal year of 1993. In May 1995, as a result of sanctions on Iran's oil sales, which compelled the Islamic Republic to sell its oil 80 cents below the standard price, Iran suffered a loss of approximately $200 million, in addition to the collapse of its currency, the Rial.62
Under such pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, Washington started to adopt the AIPAC line on Iran. Though both countries advocated a
strong stand against Iran's development of nuclear weapons, Israel continued to urge more serious actions than Washington initially putforward.63 Thus, AIPAC also advocated a bill that would prohibit diplomacy between the two nations. This lobbying caused anger among many policy-makers, prompting some to say that the best way to approach Iran was not to ban diplomacy but to intensify it, regardless of the state of itsnuclear programme. 64
Based on a detailed dossier of Russian involvement in the programme, Israeli officials even lobbied Washington to put sanctions on Moscow as they were convinced that Russia, through its help with the Bushehr nuclear plant, was opening a back door for Iran's illicit weaponization.65
Though not directly involved in the more recent nuclear negotiations with Iran, Israel was a major player in framing the discussions as well in its effect on the ultimate development of the Iranian programme. A significant proportion of the international determination to impose sanctions on Iran stemmed from the need to dissuade Israel from using military force against Iran's nuclear sites. Israel's threats were taken with the utmost seriousness and, as noted by some analysts, without Israel's actions Iran would be much closer today to having nuclear weapons. 66
AIP AC insisted that any effort to negotiate with Iran should include the so-called 'zero enrichment' option, meaning the total dismantlement of the centrifuge programme. Other pro-Israeli groups had also pressed Congress to impose harsh sanctions on Iran. Christian Evangelicals, already a vital force in Congress, redoubled their efforts because of the emerging belief that a nuclear Iran would host the pivotal battle of Gog and Magog. Pastor John Hagee, the head of the Christian United for Israel (CUFI), a key lobby group, made this prophecy popular in a book and a series of essays.
Fighting back, the Iran lobby renewed its efforts to limit sanctions and persuade public opinion that the zero-enrichment condition for negotiating with Tehran was not viable. The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) recruited senior American diplomats to produce analysis to this effect. To influence the public discourse, a number of high-profile books argued that the Israel lobby - led by Jewish neo-conservatives working on behalf of the State of Israel - was harming American national interests. 67
The Israel lobby still continued to advocate the zero-enrichment option and highly punitive policies towards Iran. Both the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP,) a think tank associated with AIP AC, and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracy, a think tank supported by the pro-Israeli billionaire Sheldon Adelson, offered a list of punitive sanctions. Adelson, an increasingly high-profile player in the Jewish community, was a vocal critic of Obama and his Iran policy. A close friend of Netanyahu, Adelson was an outspoken advocate of a pre-emptive strike on the Iranian facilities. At the very least, the Jewish froups urged the president to signal that "all options are on the table".6
Obama, however, was determined to pursue a diplomatic solution bolstered by robust sanctions and the ongoing 'Olympic Games' sabotage. Fortunately for Washington, Yukiya Amano, the successor to Mohammed ElBaradei in the IAEA, was less tolerant of Iran's policy of obfuscation. In 2011, Amano published a strongly worded report, listing apparent weaponization efforts. Though the Iran lobby accused Amano of working for the Americans, the Security Council and the European Union passed more sanctions. Under guidance from Obama's Treasury Department, the sanctions culminated in forcing Iran out of the international banking system. 69
By 2013, the crippling measures had brought the Iranian economy to its knees. The regime responded by entering negotiations in 2013 that produced the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on 14 July 2015. By this, Iran committed itself to a serious rollback of its nuclear project in exchange for sanctions relief. The IAEA promised stringent oversight of Iran's remaining civil programme for the 15 years duration of the agreement. All sides to the agreement expressed optimism that the historic deal would prevent proliferation in the Middle East. 70
By any measure, the JCPOA wiped out most of the achievements of Tehran's decades-long nuclear endeavour. Iran has been restricted to 6,000 IR-1 first generation centrifuges of limited enrichment capacity. In addition, Iran has been allowed only 300 kg of low enriched uranium (LEU) per year; any excess LEU needs to be shipped out of the country. These limitations were devised with a view to lengthening the 'breakout' time, meaning the length of time Iran would need to fabricate enough weapon-grade uranium for a single nuclear weapon, should it renege on the agreement and leave the NPT. The same time framework applies to the so-called 'sneak out scenario', a clandestine effort to enrich uranium without renouncing the NPT membership.71
The one-year timetable is limited to uranium production alone. It does not include projections about other parts of weaponization: fabricating the metallic core of the weapon from the powdered uranium hexaboride, building the trigger mechanism, integrating the weapon package into a delivery system, and testing. The time period to produce a working weapon known as 'effective breakout time' is estimated to be at least one year.72
To prevent Iran from covertly transgressing the terms of the agreement -a justifiable suspicion given its record - the JCPOA put in place a strict safeguard protocol based on electronic monitoring, visits of the IAEA inspectors, and unspecified cyber sleuthing. Depending on the type of activity, the JCPOA restrictions would be lifted in 10--15 years, but the Additional Protocol which Iran is obliged to ratify guarantees stringent IAEA oversight beyond the agreement's expiration date. Should Iran default on its JCPOA obligations, sanctions would be reinstated.73
Conclusion: why Iran could never become a 'new Pakistan'
The contrasting behaviour of the US towards Iran and Pakistan regarding their nuclear programmes appears at first sight paradoxical, but this analysis shows the reasons for Washington's differing approach to the two countries.
First, as discussed, many policy-makers believe that when it comes to Iran - a country ruled by what they perceive to be religious extremists withaspirations to regional hegemony - the doctrine of Mutual AssuredDestruction (MAD) would have no meaning. Thus, they believe that ifIran were to obtain a nuclear weapon, it would not refrain from "wipingIsrael off the map" as periodically threatened by Iranian leaders. Analystsperceived this threat to be missing in the case of Pakistani proliferation.Consequently, many in the intelligence community argued that nuclearweapons in the hands of 'irrational' Iranian leaders would pose a majorthreat to Israel, the United States and world stability. Their possession ofsuch weapons would add to their belligerence. In these circumstances,the US would lose its capacity for deterrence. Thus, it had to be stoppedfrom developing nuclear weapons, even by military force.
The second factor pertains to the consequences of proliferation, in particular the likelihood of neighbouring countries developing nuclear weapons in response, with the increased probability of a planned or
unplanned nuclear exchange. US policy-makers believed that Pakistani proliferation would not be followed by such a regional chain reaction. Washington ultimately accepted that Pakistan's weapons were solely defensive in nature or that it intended to use them to exert a wider regional influence. In contrast, a decision by the Iranian leaders to obtain nuclear weapons, they argue, would cause neighbouring countries to weaponize and hence have profound implications for stability in the Middle East and US strategic planning as well as the objectives of the NPT.
Third, following the US experience of Iranian-backed hostage-taking and terrorism after the 1979 revolution, the American government continued to view Iran as a threat in this regard. The prospect of nuclear material reaching terrorist organizations backed by Tehran, either by official or unofficial means, has been a persistent fear of Washington.
Fourth, unlike post-revolutionary Iran, Pakistan by and large was an ally of the United States against the Soviet Union. Its strengthening alliance with the United States allowed Pakistan to develop its nuclear weapon programme, causing the US even to overlook the actions of A.Q. Khan. The war on terror after '9/11' and the consequent revivification of the US-Pakistan alliance was another important factor in the United States letting Pakistan off the hook. As Harold Rhode, a former Pentagon official, put it, "there has been no similar steady stream of anti-American rhetoric and no threat toward Israel's existence from the Pakistani side", as has been always the case with Iran. 74
The last factor was Israel's involvement, the existence of AIPAC with its allied lobbying organizations, and the considerable pressure they exerted on Washington's policy-makers to stop Iran's proliferation. The absence of such a lobby against Pakistan facilitated Islamabad's proliferation.
All of these reasons taken together have generated the contrary US approaches to Pakistan and Iran, allowing nuclear proliferation in Pakistan but strenuous efforts against Iran to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons and becoming a 'new Pakistan'.
NOTES
1. Robert Einhorn, senior fellow in the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative
and the Centre for 21st Century Security and Intelligence, e-mail correspondence
with author, 25 December 2015.
2. Ibid. see also Lisa Curtis, US Policy and Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons: Containing
Threats and Encouraging Regional Security, The Heritage foundation, 2007.
3. Ofira Seliktar, Professor of Political Science at Gratz College and head of the Strat
egy and Intelligence Section at the Association for the Study of the Middle East and
Africa (ASMEA), e-mail correspondence with author, 25 December 2015.
4. Barry Blechman, 'Unblocking the Road to Zero: Pakistan and Israel.'; Sarnina
Ahmed, 'Security dilemmas of nuclear-armed Pakistan'. Third World Quarterly
Vol. 21. Issue 5 (2000): 781-793.
5. Bhumitra Chakma, 'Pakistan's Nuclear weapons Programme: Past and Future', in
0. Nji;llstad (Ed.), Nuclear Proliferation and International Order: Challenges to
the Non-Proliferation Treaty. New York: Routledge Global Security Studies, 2011.
6. Lawrence Wright, 'The Double Game'. The New Yorker, May 16, 2011.
7. Kenneth Adelman, 'Pakistan's Nuclear Weapons Programs and US Security Assist
ance'. Assets.documentcloud.org, 16 June 1986. https://assets.documentcloud.org/
documents/34 7039/doc-20-6-16-86. pdf.
8. See Wright.
9. Fank N. von Hippel, e-mail correspondence with author; Thazha Varkey Paul,
Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons. Montreal:
McGill-Queen's University Press, 2000; P.R. Kumaraswamy, 'Israel and Pakistan:
Public Rhetoric versus Political Pragmatism'. Israel Affairs Vol. 12. Issue 1 (2006):
123-135; Claude Rakisits, Engaging Pakistan. Sydney: Lowy Institute for Inter
national Policy, 2008.
10. Richard Nephew, senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Program and affiliated with the
Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Centre for 21st Century Security and
Intelligence, e-mail correspondence with author, 26 December 2015.
11. R.R. Subramanian, 'US Non-Proliferation Policy and Pakistan'. Strategic Analysis
Vol. 6. Issue 12 (1983): 699-703.
12. Testimony by Paul Leventhal, President, Nuclear Control Institute, on Pakistan and
US nuclear non-proliferation policy before the House Foreign Affairs Committee,
Thursday, 22 October 1987, Nuclear Control Institute, Washington DC, www.nci.
org/t/tl 02287 .htrn.
13. Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, Deception: Pakistan, the United States, and
the Secret Trade in Nuclear Weapons; David Armstrong and Joseph J. Trento,
America and the Islamic Bomb: The Deadly Compromise. Hanover: Steerforth
Press, 2007.
14. David Albright and Corey Hinderstein, 'Unraveling the Aq Khan and Future Pro
liferation Networks'. The Washington Quarterly Vol. 28. Issue 2 (2005).
15. James Doyle, Nuclear Safeguards, Security and Nonproliferation: Achieving Secur
ity with Technology and Policy. London: Elsevier, 2008.
16. Andrea Stricker and David Albright, 'Iran's Nuclear Program'. The Iran Primer:
Power, Policy, and U.S. Policy (2011).; Yossi Melman and Meir Javedanfar, The
Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran.
New York: Basic Books, 2008.
17. Frank N. von Hippel, e-mail correspondence with author; T.V. Paul, Power Versus
Prudence; PR Kumaraswamy, 'Israel and Pakistan: Public Rhetoric versus Political
Pragmatism'. Israel Affairs Vol. 12. Issue 1 (2006): 123-135; and Claude Rakisits,
Engaging Pakistan.
18. Lawrence Wright, The Double Game; and CGD, 'Pakistan: US Development Strat
egy Aid to Pakistan by the Numbers,' Centre for Global Development, www.cgdev.
org/page/aid-pakistan-numbers.
19. Samina Ahmed, 'Security Dilemmas of Nuclear-Armed Pakistan'.
20. Frank N. von Rippel, e-mail correspondence with author.
21. Samina Ahmed, 'Security Dilemmas of Nuclear-Armed Pakistan'; Lawrence
Wright, 'The Double Game'.
22. Lawrence Wright, 'The Double Game'; and Mark Hibbs, 'Pakistan's Bomb: Mission
Unstoppable'. The Nonproliferation Review Vol. 15. Issue 2 (2008): 381-391.
23. Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Affairs at Columbia
University, e-mail correspondence with author, 24 December 2015.
24. Mark Hibbs, 'Pakistan's Bomb: Mission Unstoppable'.
25. Robert Einhorn, e-mail correspondence with author.
26. Mustafa Kibaroglu, e-mail correspondence with author.
27. Richard Nephew, e-mail correspondence with author.
28. Farhad Rezaei, Iran's Nuclear Program, 1979-2015 -A Study in Proliferation and
Rollback. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.
29. IAEA Report, Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant pro
visions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran, International
