The Foreign Service Journal, June 2006

T he issue of nuclear weapons coming into Iran’s hands has seized center stage and is like- ly to remain there for quite some time. Many, President Bush among them, describe it as a development that must not be allowed to happen, in part because they take Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s ranting against Israel at face value. Other observers familiar with the Middle East discount Ahmadinejad’s threats as empty posturing for the benefit of his domestic audience, neighboring Arabs and fellow Mus- lims whom he is trying to impress. Still, there is an understandable fear that the rise of a second nuclear- armed state in the Middle East (along- side Israel), may drive the Arab states of the region into a headlong race to develop their own nuclear wea- pons. Many consider it a foregone con- clusion that, no matter what the West does, Tehran will persist in trying to develop such weapons, whether overtly or covertly. The logic of strate- gic realism appears to justify Iran’s nuclear program both as a counter to threats it perceives from the U.S. and other sources, and as a backstop to its own ambitions in the Middle East and broader Muslim world. Unfortun- ately, Iran is far less vulnerable to Western pressure than Colonel Qad- dafi’s largely isolated Libya, which vol- untarily gave up its nuclear program. It is also not as geographically isolated and economically unthreatening as North Korea, whose stated nuclear intentions are reluctantly being toler- ated, at least by its immediate region- al neighbors. Western diplomatic alternatives have failed so far, and U.S. or United Nations sanctions are unlikely, un- workable and perhaps counterproduc- tive. Some continue to place hope in a possible Iranian deal with Russia, even as Tehran drags out the negotia- tions, probably mindful of Moscow’s past maneuvering in the region. Meanwhile, the possibility of Ameri- can or Israeli military action is re- ferred to darkly, and Pentagon plan- ning is supposed to have taken on new life, even as the potentially disastrous practical and political consequences of any pre-emptive attack stare us in the face. Ironically, in the midst of all the fuss being made by policy-makers and the media, U.S. intelligence has announced that Iran will be unable to develop nuclear weapons for another decade! This timeline is disputed by Israeli analysts who suggest that Iran will pass a point of no return in devel- oping nuclear capability withinmonths, not years. And, of course, past experi- ence (e.g., American surprise at how close Saddam Hussein had gotten to the bomb before the first Gulf War, and how far from such capability he was at the time of our 2003 invasion) suggests that skepticism as to such estimates would not be misplaced. What are we to make of all this? Three Realities As head of Embassy Tehran’s polit- ical section at the time of the Iranian Revolution, and a hostage in the first (one-day) takeover of the embassy on Valentine’s Day, 1979, I do not under- estimate the current Islamic regime’s potential for mischief. I also see little to be gained by any effort to blunt the international community’s unhappi- ness and growing frustration with Iran’s camouflaging of what any ratio- nal person can see is its ultimate ambition. Still, whatever the status of Teh- ran’s nuclear program, three realities stand out. The first is that Iran is a Shiite, non-Arab country with a long history of competition and even con- flict in a region primarily populated by Sunni Muslim Arabs. Thus, any sig- nificant increase in Iranian power is bound to be eyed suspiciously by neighboring governments, whatever may be Iran’s protestations of anti- Israeli militancy that often resound well in the Arab “street.” Such suspi- cion can quickly turn to alarm, espe- cially if the new, Shiite-dominated Iraq — the only military foil to Iran in that part of the Arab world — appears to ally itself with its Shiite neighbor’s policies. 14 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U N E 2 0 0 6 Iranian Nuclear Weapons: Advantage or Liability? B Y G EORGE B. L AMBRAKIS S PEAKING O UT There is little chance that an Iranian nuke would constitute a “Muslim bomb” or be comfortably accepted as such by its neighbors.