Secrecy in Iran and deciphering Obama's Missile Defense policy

The noted US analyst Paul Kerr has argued that this occurred when Iran consolidated all of its nuclear programs under the auspices of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran. Certain aspects of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program come across as a parallel fuel cycle (especially "project green salt") and weaponisation effort under the leadership of hardline elements such as the Republican Guards. (This was written prior to the breaking news of a secret enrichment plant, I can’t resist now adding.)

The recent revelations of a secret smaller scale Iranian uranium enrichment plant under construction near Qom are of great concern. In itself the Qom facility does not suggest that Iran has a parallel military fuel cycle currently under development. Iran may be interested, for instance, in developing a hedge against the possible bombing of the known Natanz plant. Iran would not be able to divert enough UF6 gas from its declared conversion plant to the Qom facility for a bomb without being caught.

I have been saying for years at my blog that the possibility of harsh sanctions and bombing encourages Iran to be secretive. I had argued that the top priority for the international community should be not suspension of enrichment but rather ensuring wider inspections through the Additional Protocol are put in place. This has now become fashionable. However, the previous hardline policy acted as a serious disincentive for Iran to do this.

In recent comments, not highly publicised, US officials have indicated that the conclusions of the 2007 NIE still stand. The International Atomic Energy Agency is attempting to clarify the nature of Iran's past activities based on western intelligence, but Iran is not co-operating. The IAEA has also complained that western states refuse to provide further information.

Israel has alleged that the IAEA has drawn up a "secret annex" to its Iran safeguards report which the IAEA chief has censored. The real meat in this story, first leaked by the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, was that Iran has now resumed nuclear warhead work. This "annex" has been seen by Associated Press and it contains no such claim, based on AP's reports on the matter. As noted the 2007 NIE still stands; there might be a "missile threat" but there currently exists no "warhead threat".

Iran and the US are to begin talks in due course. It would seem, judging by snippets provided by The New York Times and The Washington Post, that Obama's objective going into these talks is to demonstrate that he is not intransigent and thus helping to develop a case for much tougher multilateral sanctions against Iran. If, however, the US were to seriously pursue the thinking behind the Baker-Hamilton report then serious talks with Iran might instead lead to a durable comprehensive regional peace. Under such an arrangement there need be no warhead threat to Europe at all. President Bush rejected Baker-Hamilton and it seems that Obama's Iran policy is also founded upon rejection of Baker-Hamilton.

Notice that is not what Obama seemed to be promising during his campaign. In fact this conclusion should be seen as trivial because the administration has openly stated it just seeks to discuss the nuclear issue with Iran.

One aspect of the Obama BMD policy review is not well clarified. The Bush plan was a trilateral US, Poland and Czech Republic system. It was not a NATO system. NATO did have its own plan, which was meant to deal with short-range and medium-range missiles. France, in turn, also has its own BMD plans. Under the old approach Europe would have had three BMD systems. That was irrational and clearly not truly threat based. It might well be the case that Europe, following Obama's decision, would still have three BMD plans, which remains irrational. We need further clarification on this. If this be true we then have rationalisation within a broader irrational framework.

There are two more important aspects behind the Obama decision that have not been well amplified in commentary. The first is that the decision captures a very important component of Bush era policy. In his press briefing following the decision the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Cartwright, stated that, "I mean, if this system emerges the way we think it is, if the testing bears out, what you really are doing here is providing another form of deterrence, credible deterrence, that is an alternative to an offensive-only capability".

Those remarks are very important. This position is based on a repudiation of the rationality criterion of classical deterrence theory. This position was articulated in Bush's 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, "We have concluded that a strategic posture that relies solely on offensive nuclear forces is inappropriate for deterring the potential adversaries we will face in the 21st century. Terrorists or rogue states armed with weapons of mass destruction will likely test America’s security commitments to its allies and friends."

The argument rests on the idea that "rogue states" are irrational and fall outside of the ambit of traditional deterrence. This formed the intellectual underpinning of many of the Bush administration's strategic policies. For instance it formed an important conceptual role in the doctrine of preventive war.

Clearly Obama accepts the underlying intellectual rationale behind the set of Bush era strategic policy. This does not mean that Obama will adhere to the entire set of Bush policies, he's BMD policy is a little bit different, but it does mean that his administration will not present a radical break with the strategic approach of his predecessor as is widely supposed.