IAEA Inspectors will be in a difficult position as the
international community will inevitably look to them for “truth” about Iran. This is similar to Iraq case, but the comparisons with Iraq are otherwise limited. The data on the Iran case is overwhelming. Where IAEA is now in a jam is investigating the specific question of weaponization activities that evidence suggests took place. This is going to be tough, and the recent IAEA trip to Tehran came up empty. Tehran, apparently has not even given them enough to sustain a “process” of investigation. This is surprising since an ongoing dialogue would buy time for Iran and tend to sustain ambiguity about their intentions regarding nuclear weapons.

IAEA Director General IAEA chief Yukio Amano has wisely stated that the burden of proof is on Iran. This is correct, but you can be sure some will try to pin it on IAEA…like Russia or China. Not that I am sympathetic to Iran, but it is worth noting that even if Iran is innocent, it may be tough for them to prove it…As my Iraqi counterparts told me in the 1990s and even after the fall of Saddam, they were tasked with proving a negative regarding WMD….they had an impossible task in a way…especially since no one was inclined to give Saddam the benefit of the doubt. Saddam himself was puzzled on this…but that is another matter.

Ultimately the question regarding Iran is one of their intentions. Israel (which has experience in developing clandestine nuclear capability) seems convinced Iran has already made a decision to acquire a weapon and ballistic missile delivery. The US, as expressed by Leon Panetta (on 60 minutes 29 January 2012) has a different take, i.e. that they have not taken steps to weaponize yet, but such steps (whatever they are) would constitute a redline. The US has said an Iran nuclear weapon was “unacceptable.” There is no dispute that as time goes on and the “civilian” Iran nuclear efforts proceed, the breakout time between the moment Iran does something which unambiguously demonstrates their intent to produce a nuclear weapon, and the moment it has the weapon, is getting shorter…probably now on the order of months rather than years. They have ballistic missiles. They are now enriching to 20% highly enriched uranium. They can go to 90%…they have the knowledge and infrastructure. They probably have a workable weapons design. (Recall Iran was a good customer of Pakistan weapons designer A.Q Khan.) And they have an incentive. From Tehran’s perspective, nuclear weapons would seem pretty useful. When did we get rid of Saddam? After he got rid of WMD. When did we get rid of Qadaffi? After he got rid of WMD. Pakistan and India skipped into the nuclear club and what price did they pay? North Korea, is a case that I doubt Tehran draws too much from, but they do share technology.

So looking at the clock, it certainly seems that 2012 will be a decision year for Iran and the international community. Israel, if it concludes it must stop (or delay substantially) the Iran program has relatively limited military capacity to do this and as time goes on, the target gets harder. Politically (and probably militarily), Israel would need some support from the US…getting strong US support is more likely before the November elections than after. An upcoming visit to Washington (March 5, 2012) by Prime Minister Netanyahu will give them a reading on this point. A key question for Israel will be whether the US will commit to military action if the sanctions do not force Iran to quit their enrichment program (which is what Israel requires as unmistakable evidence that Iran has stopped). The US has had strong anti-nuclear weapons policies before that it has allowed to lapse…e.g. Pakistan and North Korea. This will be noted by both Israel and Iran. Indeed, serious debate in Washington over the potential cost of acting militarily against the Iran program vice relying on deterrence to contain a nuclear Tehran is on-going.

One other major difference between the Iraq case and Iran….Saddam was far more impervious to effects of sanctions than Iran….Saddam was relatively immune to the pain of the people….Tehran is much less a cult of personality and is relatively more vulnerable to the population (which is switched on in ways Iraq was not–Iraqis had no internet or cell phones…was not). Sanctions will be far more potent in Iran…now whether they generate support for the leadership or cause them to bend to international will is another judgment….and there are arguments on both sides. It is worth considering that Tehran may think that they have leverage over the Obama administration via the increased price of gas–which could be an election issue.

Its possible that the consequences of a military strike may not be that large (though the uncertainty and risk is certainly high). Israel hit the Iraqi program in 1981 and Syrian reactor in 2007. Not much happened. If they hit Iran, what would Iran do? The day after, the sympathy of the world towards Tehran would probably be higher. The UN would likely consider lifting or relaxing sanctions. The domestic support for the regime might be bolstered. Would Tehran jeopardize this by lashing out in various ways? I don’t know. Maybe. Maybe they would try to close the straits of Hormuz and that would force the US Navy to act. Maybe Hezbollah would rain rockets down on Israel. But would that really be in Iran’s interest? I suspect that Russia and China would strongly advise a measured response. Presumably Tehran would want to export oil and resume a revenue flow. That would be inhibited by a military response

These questions will be gamed out in Tel Aviv, Washington, Tehran, and other capitals during the months ahead and there will be a decision…even if it is to do nothing.

It would be nice if it were true that nuclear weapons did not matter. Some offer that nuclear weapons are only useful in the abstract, that it is their potential that matters because if you used them, it would be suicide. Therefore, if we just said we don’t care, or that we can simply deter another nuclear weapon state, it’s manageable. Unfortunately, it is very uncertain whether this logic applies in Tehran. That would be a very risky bet. Many things can go wrong. Even in the US-Soviet balance, there were moments (besides the Cuban Missile Crisis), when we came inadvertently close to disaster.

In the meantime the IAEA will remain in the crucible and many actors will seek to shift some burden of judgment upon them…I wish them luck in what will be a very difficult time ahead.

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Closing the respective embassies in Tehran and London may have been inevitable for political reasons, but there is a cost to this action.  Two governments that already have a poor understanding of one another will now have even less contact and data to base critical decisions.  Having examined in depth the previous case of Iraq and the United States, it is clear that massive miscalculations based on gross misperceptions on both sides contributed to the Iraq tragedy.  The absence of an embassy drastically reduced the number of officials who had any real grasp of the other government.  There was astonishing ignorance at senior levels and costly errors were made.  It may feel good to slam the embassy door shut, but there is a loss of knowledge and understanding that can be critical. The United States had full diplomatic relations with Saddam’s Iraq from 1984 until the invasion of Kuwait in 1990.  A cadre of diplomats, businessmen, and academics had regular dialogue—formal and informal–with real Iraqis in both Washington and Baghdad.  The former Iraqi Ambassador, Nizar Hamdoon (who died in a New York hospital in June 2003), was widely known and could interpret Baghdad to audiences in the US.  Perhaps more importantly, he interpreted Washington to Baghdad.  On both sides, during the 1980’s there were people who knew each other and had a tactile sense for the realities of both countries.  There were people who had a sense of the real dynamics in each country. However, from 1991 until 2003, relations were cut.  During that time, individuals with direct knowledge moved on.  During that period the misperceptions of each government grew uncorrected by the regular direct contact of officials when diplomatic relations are ongoing.  Consequently, politically expedient images of the opposing country grew unmodified by diplomats charged with reporting from their assigned posts.  In Washington, Saddam became a one-dimensional cartoonish image—a crazed monomaniacal ruthless dictator—end of story.   Of course he was a dangerous dictator, but he also ruled a complex country and produced important results inside Iraq.  Such data were unexamined but would have provided a fuller image of the problem subsequently confronted when he was removed. Likewise, and in many ways more challenging, was the task for Iraqis to explain Washington to Saddam.  Pity the poor Iraqi who had to explain how decisions were made in Washington—Congress, lobbyists, journalists and, yes, to some extent the president all have their say. We learned from debriefing Saddam just how malformed his model of Washington was.  His limited frame of reference provided him only a very distorted image of Washington decision processes. Even Tariq Aziz, the relatively worldly former Deputy Prime Minister asked me informally in 1998, “What is an intern?”  This was in the context of the Monica Lewinsky scandal then-breaking in Washington.  Try to explain to Saddam that the last super-power is tied up in knots over some young inconsequential intern. Absent contrary information and views, Saddam sustained a model of Washington that was based upon his experiences.  For example, he assumed presidents could act with far more freedom than is the reality.  He considered that President Bush, the son of the former president would be acting based on familial objectives.  And he had a simplistic notion of the influence of Israel on Washington’s behavior.  Baghdad also assumed that the United States knew more than we really did.  Their default assumption was that we must know the true extent of Iraq WMD programs.  After all, the US has a massive intelligence system with unknown technical capacities.  So Saddam evaluated US statements and actions assuming Washington was aware of his WMD status. And in Washington, assumptions about Saddam became progressively simplified as direct access atrophied.  The influence of external opposition groups became disproportionate because there was so little access to Iraqis living inside Iraq.  The repetition of the horrors of the regime dominated.  However, it would have been useful to examine the question, “What good things has Saddam done in Iraq?”  Whilst Iraq had an active embassy in Washington, it reminded interlocutors that there was a broader picture to the Saddam regime. There is a natural tendency to simplify the image of opponents.  There is a natural tendency to focus on the particularly absurd or horrible.  Media reporting focuses attention on such.  Often it is only embassy reporting that provides real context.  And they provide a pool of officials that have first-hand knowledge of the regime and that can be invaluable to decision-makers.  It was the Iraq embassy in Washington that would explain to Baghdad the difference between the Hollywood image of the United States and reality.  And, an operating American embassy in Baghdad would have been more attuned to the stability that, albeit at great cost, Saddam enforced on Iraq. Today, we risk becoming more ignorant of the dynamics inside Iran just at the time when progressively more critical decisions may be taken.  Maybe this is always the case, but we should remind ourselves that the uncertainty band of our knowledge is very large may become larger still.