MUST READ: DEALING WITH A NUCLEAR IRAN

Dealing with A Nuclear Iran
By Kori Schake

Lost in the debate about how to prevent Iran from crossing the nuclear threshold is the fact that we lack the ability to prevent it. The Iranians have the indigenous technical ability, and possibly the nuclear material, to build nuclear weapons right now. They can do it if they want to, and we know so little about their program they could likely achieve it without detection. The question is why they’re so intent on detection.

There are several potential explanations of Iranian government behavior, but the U.S. is unlikely ever to have adequate understanding of the opaque workings of Iran to determine its true motivations. This gap in our knowledge is only one of many. Yet our government is going to need to make policy decisions on how to deal with Iranian intransigence and duplicity without the luxury of better information. Building a successful strategy requires acknowledging areas of uncertainty and hedging against misjudgment. But we should not allow imperfect information to paralyze action that better secures our interests.

The current course we are on seems likely to result in the U.S. accentuating the political value Iran would gain from going nuclear, while reducing our own leverage to affect Iran’s choices or increase the cost to them short of a military attack. It is very much in America’s interests to frame our concerns differently. Iran’s reaction to even the mild sanctions approved by the un Security Council in December will raise the stakes and force a confrontation should Iran actually expand enrichment, as they are preparing to do. Rather than trapping ourselves in a policy that will leave us little choice but destroying the Iranian program on terms unfavorable to us or appearing impotent to prevent it, we should adopt a three-pronged approach of:

• increasing un sanctions and U.S. military pressure on Iran while opening negotiations on cessation of enrichment and a range of other issues, such as government repression and stabilizing Iraq;
• calling into question the existence and usability of any weapons that have not been tested, thereby shifting the burden of proof from our claims that fuel enrichment will give Iran nuclear weapons to Iranian action that will be indisputable, namely, a test nuclear explosion;
• clearly and publicly articulating our determination to destroy any Iranian nuclear weapons we believe are being readied for use.

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1) Dealing with A Nuclear Iran