In which the Secretary of State blurs definitions to clarify the approach to Iran

Mar 8, 2010

By Mark Jansson and Joe Lardizabal

A few overdue thoughts on developments with Iran and Hilary Clinton’s comments about Iran moving towards a “military dictatorship.”

It’s not news that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has remained adamant about the “Iranian nation’s obvious rights”to pursue a peaceful nuclear program and has been resistant throughout the diplomatic process. A few weeks ago Ahmadinejad backed a deal to remove low-enriched uranium for fuel for a research reactor that produces medical isotopes and said, “If we allow them to take it, there is no problem . . . We sign a contract to give 3.5 percent enriched uranium and receive 20 percent enriched ones after four or five months.” Later, in an February 8 letter to the IAEA, Iran announced that it would begin enrichment up to 20% anyway – the very next day in fact – and that it would therefore be moving large portions (1950kg) of its low enriched UF₆ from the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP) to the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) feed station.

The IAEA responded, “seeking clarification regarding the starting date of the process for the production of UF₆ enriched up to 20% U-235 and other technical details, and requesting that, in light of Article 45 of the Safeguards Agreement, no low enriched uranium be fed into the process at PFEP for enriching the material up to 20% U-235 before the necessary additional safeguards procedures were in place.”

For reference, Article 45 of Iran’s safeguards agreement states that

. . . the Agency shall be provided with design information in respect of a modification relevant for safeguards purposes, for examination, and shall be informed of any change in the information provided to it under Article 44, sufficiently in advance for the safeguards procedures to be adjusted when necessary.

And for further reference, Article 44 states that Iran must provide:

. . . other information relevant to the application of safeguards shall also be provided to the Agency in respect of each facility, in particular on organizational responsibility for material accountancy and control. The Government of Iran shall provide the Agency with supplementary information on the health and safety procedures which the Agency shall observe and with which the inspectors shall comply at the facility.

There may be some space to debate what “sufficiently in advance” means, and this may be yet another case as to why greater specificity would be helpful. However, as James Acton has argued, there is a “worryingly permissive attitude toward non-compliance with nonproliferation agreements . . . [specifically in that] safeguards violations only become significant when a state has actually diverted nuclear material; lesser violations—such as reporting failures or refusing access to inspectors—do not represent a proliferation concern and can be more-or-less ignored.” In other words, there’s a strong case to be made to start treating safeguards agreement violations a lot more seriously, even if we don’t go quite as far as declaring them outright violations of the NPT.

Bold moves, bad signs

The exact nature of the offense aside, the fact remains that Iran doesn’t seem to have a good explanation for doing what it’s doing. ISIS, always timely in their analyses, estimated that the 1950kg of ~4% U235 would be enough for the PFEP to produce nearly 200kg of ~19% U235. This would be far more than would be needed to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) that Iran uses to produce isotopes for medicinal purposes – the reason Iran gives for needing to Uranium to this level. And this says nothing of the inevitable struggles that Iran will face in fabricating the fuel rods for the TRR, which may be damaged if Iran doesn’t get it right.

All of this, of course, looks very suspicious. And given that the PFEP is considerably more vulnerable to airstrike than the previous location, the move has apparently stoked suspicion that part of Iran’s strategy may be to goad the Israel to strike the facility, creating a crisis scenario that would provide a pretext for brutal crackdowns on political opposition. (Although, that’s one of the more extreme hypotheses.)

Israel, for its part, is keeping the pressure on. Its Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Yaalon commented on using force to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Yaalon remarked:

“Iran’s plan will probably be stopped by a regime change or, if there is no other choice, by a recourse to force to deprive Iran of its nuclear arms production capabilities . . . It is important to continue to make clear to the extremist regime in Iran that all options remain on the table and that ignoring the demands of the international community will probably end in bitter tears for Iran . . . It is important to make Iran understand that the leaders of the international community are determined to the point of putting this matter at the top of their list of priorities, even if they have to pay an economic or even military price.”

However, an attempt at a capacity-destroying strike seems unlikely, even with all the talk about it being “on the table” as an option. The American appetite for action that could lead to a full-blown military confrontation is understandably, and appropriately, low. Mere complicity in an Israeli strike is hardly better; the U.S. would be held at-fault anyway. So the threat of military enforcing safeguards agreements compliance militarily, on the table or not, may not be as credible as it might seem given all the speculation about if and when it could happen. Besides, in some respects, Iran has already achieved a significant amount of breakout capacity – see Jeff Lewis’ enrichment mathematics post for a brief and easy to follow explanation – and yet nothing has happened.

In the meantime, we’ll continue to quibble over sanctions, but it seems unlikely that they'll ever be severe enough to force Iran to the negotiating table with contrition for its noncompliance and a compelling incentive to negotiate a solution that takes away its ability to "hedge" with its nuclear program by maintaining a breakout capability (ala Japan).

One reason for this, and it is a big reason, is China. China’s trade with Iran contains to grow and its economic and security interests are therefore served by keeping the politcal boat from rocking too hard in Tehran. No news there. Making the point clear, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi said, “To talk about sanctions at the moment will complicate the situation and might stand in the way of finding a diplomatic solution.” Given the lack of options that offer significant hopes of success over the short or medium term, it may be the case that the U.S. is shifting from a prevention strategy to a containment strategy while showing solidarity for Iranian opposition movements.

Treating two problems at once

Some may remember back in February when Secretary of State Hilary Clinton remarked on Tuesday that Iran was heading towards a “military dictatorship.” Clinton commented to a group of students in Doha, the Qatari capital. "We see the government of Iran, the supreme leader, the president, the parliament is being supplanted and Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship."

Clinton’s choice of words provides a more concise denotation than “extremist regime,” but whether or not it’s an accurate depiction of the current state of affairs in Iran is another matter. Dan Brumberg, a scholar on regime transitions, assessed the situation differently at an event at the U.S. Institute of Peace last month, when he outlined the 4-player negotiation game – between regime hardliners, regime softliners, opposition moderates and opposition radicals – that typically unfolds when authoritarian systems come under duress and, according to Brumberg, is underway today in Iran. Yes, the Revolutionary Guard plays a role and can be a powerful force, but describing events in Iran as a drift towards “military dictatorship” where the military takes over the functions of government (first and foremost to protect the institutional integrity of the military) seems to fit awkwardly at best. There is plenty of room for debate on this issue, but that would be for another blog. For now, and for the sake of argument, let’s assume that terminological precision had less to do with this choice of words than the function they could serve. Here are a few possible, albeit highly speculative, reasons for why Clinton described Iran the way she did.

For audiences outside of Iran . . .

A “military dictatorship,” whose primary concern is preserving itself, would be probably be less of a regional and global threat than, as Moshe Yaalon calls it, an “extremist regime” supposedly willing to risk it all for the sake of fulfilling some divine purpose. By comparison, a military dictatorship would seem less likely to immediately bring to mind connections to terrorism and appear almost prosaic. The world has seen plenty of military dictatorships, some (i.e. Pakistan) have even wielded nuclear weapons, so there is a precedent for negotiating with states of this sort on an ‘as needed’ basis. For that reason, this may be a step in the direction of inoculating audiences to the shock of a nuclear weapons-capable (if not nuclear weapons-armed) Iran.

By replacing the “extremist” characterization with one that is less alarming and less likely to immediately provoke fear of terrorism, the State Department may have taken the view that it’s time to start laying the rhetorical groundwork for a strategy that assumes an Iran that is on the brink of having nuclear weapons or perhaps has them already. On one hand, it doesn’t seem like the new phrase would do much to drive states in the Middle East into the business of building political relationships and upgrading military capabilities simply for the sake of standing up to Iran. On the other hand, it may give states in the region a clearer picture of Iran as an enduring problem – not an unfortunate episode of bad governance by an obnoxious President – and may motivate them to think harder about their long-term strategy. In terms of response from the region, it’s hard to say which way this would play out.

For the opposition movement inside Iran . . .

The Administration has been struggling to figure out how to reconcile two efforts that are somewhat in-tension with each other: (1) to negotiate an acceptable outcome to the dispute of Iran’s nuclear program, and (2) to support the opposition movement inside Iran that denies the legitimacy of the same government the U.S. needs to negotiate with. This is where the “dictatorship” part of “military dictatorship” is of use, as it makes clear that the U.S. is under no illusions that the regime’s authority is derived from the outcome of free and fair elections.

Therefore, describing Iran as drifting towards a military dictatorship, even if not really accurate, can be functional in two ways – to ease the panic associated with a nuclear-armed Iran and to show solidarity with domestic opposition movements – and may be the Administration’s way of trying to deal with the nuclear issue and the governance issue simultaneously by applying a term that makes them both manageable/workable. It’s hard to say how long the Administration will stick with this line, but it looks like they’re willing to try fudging definitions in order to create a construct in which they can work two problems at once.