COMMENTARY

EPSILON MAGAZINE. NOVEMBER ISSUE 2005. P 6

COMMENTARY

What If Iran Gets the Bomb?
The Iranian Challenge to the West

By Dr. Ephraim Kam

The Iranians are conducting a clandestine nuclear program in parallel to the public one, the aim of which is clearly the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The Israeli intelligence assessment speaks of three or four years; the Americans add another year or two to this timetable. The Americans conducted a large-scale operation in Iraq in order to bring down a regime which was engaged, it was thought at the time, in supporting terrorism and having weapons of mass destruction programs. Iran is clearly in the same category, and therefore it is concerned about an American/Israeli operation against its nuclear facilities. From the Israeli viewpoint, an Iranian bomb will mean that for the first time an enemy country - and Iran is an enemy country by all definitions - will acquire the capability to inflict a very heavy blow on Israel. The more so since the formal Iranian position is that Israel should disappear from the map, that the solution of the Palestinian problem should be the establishment of a Palestinian state not alongside Israel but instead of Israel. No Arab government today holds such a position. A nuclear Iran has to take into account certain important constraints. One is American deterrence. The Iranians have no doubt about the balance of power between themselves and the Americans. And if they had any doubts, the American conduct of the war in Iraq left no doubt about American capabilities. The Iranians must also take into account that if Iran uses a nuclear bomb against any of the allies of the U.S., especially against Israel, America will regard this as an attack against itself, and will react accordingly.

If Iran acquires the bomb, it will encourage other countries in the Middle East to join this nuclear arms race, especially Egypt, and perhaps Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Algeria, and Syria. It would be difficult for a country like Egypt, the leader of the Arab world, to stay out of this circle.

The Failure of the Reformist

Iran has been undergoing important domestic change since the late 1980s, in fact, since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. This change is reflected by the fact that the Iranian political system is now more open, there is more freedom. People allow themselves to criticize the regime or at least the policy of the regime. People speak more freely. After the election of former president Muhammad Khatami in 1997, a majority in parliament was captured by those who wanted reform.

The elected institutions in Iran - the presidency, the parliament, many municipal councils - were in the hands of reformists, moderates who wanted change, while the unelected institutions - the army, the revolutionary guards, the legal system, the economic system, and, above all, the spiritual leadership - remained in the hands of the radical wing of the regime. There were many expectations. Immediately after his election, former president Khatami referred to his admiration of Western culture and suggested a dialogue between the Iranian people and the American people.

The feeling was that things were moving toward further important changes inside Iran and in its foreign policy, but this has not happened. During the last two years, change has occurred in the other direction, which means the reformists lost their strongholds one by one. They lost a majority in many municipal councils; last year they lost the majority in the parliament; and this year they lost their last stronghold, the presidency, when a radical president was elected. The election of a radical as the new president of Iran was not a surprise because there was no chance that a reformist would be elected this time. The surprise was that an unknown politician like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the former mayor of Teheran and an ultra-radical, won. He won because he managed to deliver a message that he's going to take care of the poor and transfer money from the rich to the poor. Many of the poor people voted for him. The other reason he won is that the radical establishment and spiritual leader Ali Khamenei himself supported him. What are the reasons for the failure of the reformists in the last two years? Although they had a leader, former president Khatami, he was not determined enough to lead the struggle and eventually many of those who wanted change despaired of the current situation and didn't come to the polls to vote. In the short run, the election of the new president is a clear victory for the radical establishment and for Khamenei, but the president doesn't have much ability to change foreign policy. Even with eight years of Khatami as president, he did not manage to advance his call for improving relations with the United States. He did not differ with regard to Iran's nuclear policy, and he never said one positive word with regard to Israel.

Iran's Drive to Acquire Nuclear Weapons

The other bad news relates to the nuclear arena. Beginning three years ago, there have been a series of revelations regarding the Iranian nuclear program. We know now about an entire series of nuclear sites which had been unknown before. The Iranians are conducting a clandestine nuclear program in parallel to the public one, under the title of building a full nuclear fuel cycle, the aim of which - though not of course admitted by the Iranians - is clearly the acquisition of nuclear weapons. The bottom line is that Iran is close to having these weapons. The Israeli intelligence assessment speaks of three or four years, which means they need about another year to get control of the technology, and another year or two to gather a sufficient amount of fissile material, probably highly enriched uranium, and then to turn it into an atomic bomb. The Americans add another year or two to this timetable. In the past, both the American and Israeli intelligence communities were mistaken, predicting since 1992 that Iran would acquire its first bomb in five to eight years.

Consideration of a Pre-emptive Strike

The American administration under President Bush is indicating quite clearly that it is not ignoring the military option with regard to the Iranian program if the diplomatic option fails. The outcome is that Iran is very much concerned about an American/Israeli operation against its nuclear facilities. There is very little to compare when considering a possible military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities and the case of the Israeli attack on the Iraqi nuclear plant in 1981. The Iranian site is much better protected. It's not a matter of one plant, as in the Iraqi case, but a series of three or four important sites. Some of them are deep underground, and the Iranians may have some secret sites we don't even know about. Furthermore, even if Iran's known sites are destroyed, it might take Iran a relative short time to rebuild them? There are other difficulties.

Any country that attacks Iran will have to pay a political price, especially Israel. Even those who may benefit from such an attack will condemn it. In addition, Iran can respond to an attack, unlike Iraq in 1981. It can respond, for example, by using Hizballah to fire its large rocket system against the north of Israel. It can try to disrupt the oil flow from the Gulf area. It can act against American targets in the Middle East and the Gulf area. And Iran says explicitly that if Israel attacks Iranian nuclear sites, it will respond by using its new operational missile, the Shihab III, which can reach Israeli targets. The bottom line is that to carry out such an attack is a huge mission. It may be necessary to repeat such an attack two or three times because one attack may not be enough. In my judgment, it's a matter for a superpower to consider, not a local power, even if its name is Israel.

A Change in European Attitudes

Another outcome of the revelations about the Iranian nuclear program has been a real change in position by many European governments and, above all, the French government, which until a few years ago did not believe that the Iranians really intended to acquire the bomb.