Iran policy is calculated risk

“Blocking research activities is similar to blocking the light” was the poetic phrase used by Iran’s head of nuclear research, Hossein Ghafourian, on Iranian radio last weekend to defend Iran’s plans to restart their nuclear centrifuge research.

It is precisely the fear of such blinding and incinerating nuclear light that is moving the world’s diplomats to speak out with increasing stridency and urgency in the face of Iran’s intent to recommence nuclear research and testing that might lead to their development of nuclear weapons.

German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier responded to Iranian words of intent to break the seals and restart the nuclear program: “This marks a breach of Tehran’s commitments. [Iran is sending ] very, very disastrous signals. It cannot remain without consequences… We have had two very, very grave signals from the Iranian government over the past weekend.”

French Foreign Minster Philippe Douste-Blazy warned: “We urge Iran to immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision — [It]is a reason for very serious concern.” The European Union’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, warned that the situation is “serious.” Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he is “losing his patience” with Iran and that they were approaching “a red line for the international community.”

These statements follow actions last Saturday by all five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council (China, Russia, France, Britain and the United States).

Each country separately sent a demarche (a formal diplomatic communique) to Iran warning Iran it could face Security Council censure and sanctions.

When cautious and circumspect European diplomats use words like “serious,” “grave,” “disastrous,” “red line for international community,” “urge Iran to immediately and unconditionally reverse its decision,” the rest of us should take these phrases as unambiguous evidence that an international crisis of the first water is fast building.

The event that may precipitate formal diplomatic action will occur in March, when IAEA head Mr. ElBaradei will file his next report to the United Nations on the nuclear program status of Iran.

The question remains whether all this diplomatic agitation will lead to effective international action. It is generally recognized among leading American and European statesmen that the period of negotiating with Iran is about at an end. We are now entering a period of what is being called coercive diplomacy.

But what kind of coercion is being contemplated? And what are the calculations that are going into selecting the means of coercion? As Dr. Henry Kissinger once wrote, the advantage that historians have over statesmen is that historians know all the facts and have years to assess them. Statesmen must act without knowing all the facts and without having enough time.

The spectrum of actions range from mere criticism, to censure, to diplomatic isolation, to economic sanctions as punishment, to specific barring of importation into Iran of products and services critical to nuclear weapons production, to military actions intended to physicallydestroyIran’s nuclear capacity.

All the possible actions short of the ultimate military one, rely on assumptions that are not fully verifiable.

Diplomatic isolation assumes the Iranian regime places a high value on non-isolation.

Economic sanctions assume that they can have their desired coercive effect before Iran can develop nuclear weapons. And denying Iran products and services needed to develop nuclear weapons assumes that they are and will remain unable to develop nuclear weapons exclusively from what they possess internally (and that such a ban on such imports could be enforced effectively even regarding such countries as Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan, as well as the international black market).

Nobody asserts (not even high U.S. government officials) that our intelligence within Iran is sufficient to certify Iran’s domestic capacities. But there appears to be a high level of belief in our government that Iran needs some outside help to fully develop and manufacture a nuclear weapon.

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