Iran: From Regional Challenge to Global Threat
A Jerusalem Center Anthology
Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira (ed.)
with Amb. Dore Gold, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, Brig.-Gen (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser, Dr. Shmuel Bar, Uzi Rubin, Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael Segall, Dr. Harold Rhode, Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, Amb. Zvi Mazel
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Copyright 2012 Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
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Cover: Iran
Nuclear Facility at Fordow
* * * * *
Foreword – Shimon Shapira
Part I – The Military Threat from Iran
The Threat from Nuclear Weapons
What
Is Happening to the Iranian Nuclear Program?
Dore
Gold
The
U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and Its Aftermath: A
Roundtable of Israeli Experts
Yaakov Amidror,
Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, and Yossi Kuperwasser
The
Limited Influence of International Sanctions on Iran's Nuclear
Program
Yossi Kuperwasser
Iran
Signals Its Readiness for a Final Confrontation
Michael
Segall
Can
Cold War Deterrence Apply to a Nuclear Iran?
Shmuel
Bar
Other Iranian Military Capabilities
New
Developments in Iran's Missile Capabilities: Implications Beyond the
Middle East
Uzi Rubin
The
Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force – Mission Accomplished!
Michael
Segall
The
Iranian Navy, the Strait of Hormuz, and Beyond
Dore
Gold
Does
Iran's June 2011 Military Exercise Signal a New Defense
Doctrine?
Michael Segall
Iran
Holds Major Air Defense Drill Amid Tensions with Turkey
Michael
Segall
Part II – Ideology in Islamic Iran
The
Emergence of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Regime
Dore
Gold
Is
Iran a Role Model for Arab Revolutions?
Michael
Segall
Revolutionary
Guards' Influence Grows in Iran as Opposition Falters
Michael
Segall
The
Sources of Iranian Negotiating Behavior
Harold
Rhode
Part III – Iran Spreads Its Tentacles
Latin
America: Iran's Springboard to America's Backyard
Michael
Segall
An
Iranian Intelligence Failure: Arms Ship in Nigeria Reveals Iran's
Penetration of West Africa
Jacques Neriah
How
Iran Helped Assad Suppress Syria's "Arab Spring"
Michael
Segall
Iran
Sees New Opportunity for Regional Domination Despite Turkish
Competition
Michael Segall
Deteriorating
Relations between Iran and Turkey
Michael Segall
Could
the Kingdom of Bahrain Become an Iranian Pearl Harbor?
Jacques
Neriah
Why
Iran Is Pushing for a Shiite Victory in Bahrain
Michael
Segall
Rising
Tension between Iran and the Gulf States
Zvi
Mazel
Part IV – The Iranian Threat on Israel's Northern Border
Hizbullah: A Creation of Iran
Hizbullah's
Veneration of Iranian Leader Ali Khamenei
Shimon
Shapira
Has
Hizbullah Changed? The 7th Hizbullah General Conference and Its
Continued Ideology of Resistance
Shimon Shapira
Ahmadinejad
in Lebanon
Shimon Shapira
Countdown
to a New Lebanon Crisis: Iran Sends a Signal to Obama through
Beirut
Shimon Shapira
The
Fantasy of Hizbullah Moderation
Shimon Shapira
Iran
Changes the Balance of Power in Lebanon
Michael
Segall
Hizbullah Today
Hizbullah
Discusses Its Operational Plan for War with Israel: Missile Fire on
Tel Aviv and Conquest of the Galilee
Shimon
Shapira
Iran
Steps Up Arming Hizbullah Against Israel
Jacques
Neriah
Hizbullah's
Predicament in Light of Syria's Decline
Shimon
Shapira
About the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs
* * * * *
Foreword
Shimon Shapira
This anthology of thirty recent studies by eleven leading security and diplomatic experts outlines the Iranian threat to Israel, the Middle East region, and the West. The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, a major Israeli think tank focusing on Israeli diplomacy and security issues, offers this collection of its most recent published studies to enable policy-makers, opinion-makers, academics, and students to become better informed about the many facets of the Iranian threat to world peace.
Over the last decade many books have been written on the challenge posed by Iran to the West as a whole. But today these challenges have become more apparent than ever. Iran's progress in developing nuclear weapons is now openly acknowledged by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN watchdog, based in Vienna. Iran's efforts to reach beyond the Middle East in order to penetrate the Western Hemisphere reached new levels when the U.S. disclosed that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) was seeking to work with a Mexican drug cartel in order to carry out a mass-casualty terrorist attack in the heart of Washington, D.C., aimed at the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. Finally, Iran's repeated threats to close off the Strait of Hormuz, and its naval maneuvers in that area, underlined how Tehran sought to use the dependence of the world on Persian Gulf oil to force the West to adopt new policies. These events together have made an updated analysis of Iranian policies more urgent than ever.
Part I – "The Military Threat from Iran" – opens with a section focusing on the threat from an Iran armed with nuclear weapons. Dore Gold, President of the Jerusalem Center and former Israeli Ambassador to the UN, begins with a current description of "What Is Happening to the Iranian Nuclear Program?" He assesses the chances of the West increasing sanctions against Iran in order to deter it from developing nuclear weapons.
Three senior Israel Defense Forces (IDF) officers – Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Yaakov Amidror, Maj.-Gen. (ret.) Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, and Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Yossi Kuperwasser follow with a critical look at the November 2007 "U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and its Aftermath." Farkash notes: "ironically, the NIE opens the way for Iran to achieve its military nuclear ambitions without any interference," while Kuperwasser concludes that the National Intelligence Estimate was "a very poor intelligence product."
Kuperwasser, former Head of Research and Assessment for IDF Military Intelligence, then surveys "The Limited Influence of International Sanctions on Iran's Nuclear Program." Kuperwasser finds that "there is no indication that international sanctions can be relied upon as a source of real leverage to force the Iranian government to pull back from its clear intention to complete an advanced nuclear program for military purposes. Unfortunately, the Iranians have exploited the time they have been granted while sanctions were tried to complete most of the technological groundwork for reaching this goal."
IDF Lt.-Col. (ret.) Michael (Mickey) Segall writes in "Iran Signals Its Readiness for a Final Confrontation" that since the publication of the November 2011 IAEA report, which explicitly spotlights Iran's plans to build nuclear weapons, senior figures of the Iranian regime and the state-run media have begun to use threatening, defiant, and sometimes contemptuous language toward Israel and the United States. Segall states that, from Iran's standpoint, an ongoing, head-on confrontation with the U.S. and Israel would serve its purposes in the region and build its image as a key actor that stands firm against the West and provides an alternative agenda to reshape the Middle East. Hence, compromise has almost ceased to be an option for Iran.
The countries of the Middle East will probably be more predisposed than the Cold War protagonists to brandish their nuclear weapons, not only rhetorically but also through nuclear alerts or nuclear tests, leading to situations of multilateral nuclear escalation, says Dr. Shmuel Bar in "Can Cold War Deterrence Apply to a Nuclear Iran." Bar, who is Director of Studies at the Institute of Policy and Strategy at IDC Herzliya and served for thirty years in the Israeli intelligence community, adds that such multilateral escalation will not be mitigated by Cold War-type hotlines and means of signaling, and the absence of a credible nuclear second-strike capability may well strengthen the tendency to opt for a first strike.
Opening a review of other potentially aggressive Iranian military capabilities, Uzi Rubin, who served as head of Israel's Missile Defense Organization between 1991 and 1999, observes in "New Developments in Iran's Missile Capabilities: Implications Beyond the Middle East" that Iran is vigorously pursuing several missile and space programs at an almost feverish pace with impressive achievements. The Iranians have upgraded their ballistic missiles to become satellite launchers. To orbit a satellite is a highly sophisticated endeavor. A space launcher that can orbit a satellite weighing 300 kg can be altered into an ICBM that could drop more than 300 kg on Washington.
Michael Segall in "The Revolutionary Guards' Qods Force—Mission Accomplished!" addresses the significance of the revelation of the involvement of the Qods Force (including its senior figures') in the assassination plot on the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. on U.S. soil revealed in October 2011, as part of a pattern of Iranian involvement in international terror.
Dore Gold takes a look at Iran's moves to control the Persian Gulf and Iranian threats to the movement of 20 percent of the world's oil trade in "The Iranian Navy, the Strait of Hormuz, and Beyond."
In "Does Iran's June 2011 Military Exercise Signal a New Defense Doctrine?" Michael Segall points out that in the midst of the large-scale missile exercise called "Great Prophet 6," underground missile silos were disclosed, large numbers of surface-to-surface missiles (SSMs) of different ranges were fired, and a new radar system was revealed.
Segall then assesses the significance of Iran's major air defense drill held in September 2011 in "Iran Holds Major Air Defense Drill amid Tensions with Turkey." The exercise took place in the midst of escalating Iranian rhetoric towards Turkey as a result of Ankara's decision to deploy a radar system in its territory that is part of the NATO anti-ballistic missile system.
Part II deals with ideology in Islamic Iran. Dore Gold begins by describing the influence of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran in "The Emergence of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Regime." Given the heavy indoctrination of the Revolutionary Guards and the ongoing influence of Iran's most hard-line clerics on their officer corps, it would be an error to assume that their emergence in Iranian politics as the dominant internal force will make Iran more pragmatic and rational in any confrontation with the West. Moreover, their religious and ideological training raises serious questions about whether Western deterrence doctrines can be expected to work with a nuclear Iran.
Michael Segall then asks: "Is Iran a Role Model for Arab Revolutions?" He concludes that the collapse of the old Arab order in the moderate Sunni countries of the Middle East is, at least in the short-to-medium term, favorable to Tehran and has significantly improved that country's geo-strategic status and its ability to promote an ambitious agenda, which it defines as "a change in regional equilibrium." Iran is taking advantage of the current commotion in the Arab world and Western confusion to intensify its intervention and influence throughout the neighboring Persian Gulf, as well as in other regions that were formerly under U.S. and Western influence, while also exploiting the assets of Hizbullah, Syria, and Hamas.
Segall notes how the "Revolutionary Guards' Influence Grows in Iran as Opposition Falters." Since its foundation at the time of the revolution as scattered groups with loose ties, the Revolutionary Guards has developed into an economic-military-political powerhouse; in practice, it is the central power and source of influence in Iran.
Finally, Iran expert and former U.S. Defense Department official Dr. Harold Rhode looks at "The Sources of Iranian Negotiating Behavior," by identifying patterns exhibited by the Iranian government and the Iranian people since ancient times. Most importantly, he identifies critical elements of Iranian culture that have been systematically ignored by Western policy-makers for decades. It is a precise understanding of these cultural cues that should guide policy objectives when dealing with the Iranian government.
Part III focuses on Iran's efforts to extend its penetration into Latin America and Africa, as well as its drive for regional hegemony in the Middle East. Michael Segall in "Latin America: Iran's Springboard to America's Backyard" notes that ever since Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected in 2005, Iran has been working resolutely to establish a foothold in the Latin American countries. His partners in promoting this policy are the presidents of Venezuela and Bolivia.
Col. (ret.) Dr. Jacques Neriah, a foreign policy advisor to former Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in "An Iranian Intelligence Failure: Arms Ship in Nigeria Reveals Iran's Penetration of West Africa," describes how Iran has invested heavily in strengthening its diplomatic, economic and security ties with West African countries since the Khomeini revolution, especially Senegal, Mauritania, Gambia, and Nigeria. Iran's goal is clear: to obtain African support for Tehran's policies, and most recently for its nuclear program, in international forums.
Michael Segall then looks at "How Iran Helped Assad Suppress Syria's 'Arab Spring.'" Since the beginning of the protest wave against Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, Iran has backed Damascus and assisted it in both the security and propaganda aspects of its violent repression of the protests. Tehran charges that Syria is the victim of an attempt by the West, led by the United States, to overthrow the Assad regime, under cover of the "Arab Spring." At the same time, Iran sees the "Arab Spring" – or, as it calls it, the "Islamic awakening" – as a golden opportunity to export Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Revolution to the changing Arab world.
Segall then discusses how "Iran Sees New Opportunity for Regional Domination Despite Turkish Competition," noting how the Iranian political-military leadership has argued that the protest movements in the Arab world draw their inspiration from Iran's Islamic Revolution. Turkey and Iran are currently in competition to lead the changes now shaping the Muslim world. Initially, Iran reacted with restraint toward Turkey, but now it appears to be fighting back. Iran has accused Turkey of sponsoring "liberal Islam" and cooperating with the West. In any case, both countries remain hostile toward Israel.
Segall follows with an analysis of "Deteriorating Relations between Iran and Turkey," emphasizing the extent of the struggle between the two countries for regional hegemony.
Focusing on Bahrain on the Arabian peninsula, Jacques Neriah explores "Could the Kingdom of Bahrain Become an Iranian Pearl Harbor?," while Michael Segall explains "Why Iran Is Pushing for a Shiite Victory in Bahrain." Bahrain is geographically situated opposite Iran on the Persian Gulf, yet hosts the main naval base of the American fleet in the Gulf region. Iran has claimed sovereignty over Bahrain, maintaining that it formerly constituted Iran's fourteenth province. Iran is acting vigorously to overthrow the current regime using clandestine cells and organizing the Shiite population for protests, aided by Lebanese Hizbullah.
Finally, former Israeli Ambassador to Egypt Zvi Mazel reviews the "Rising Tension between Iran and the Gulf States." He notes that the Gulf states are largely conducting a policy of appeasement toward Tehran while they are helplessly watching Iranian nuclear weapons development with increasing dread.
Part IV addresses the Iranian threat on Israel's northern border through its creation of the Hizbullah militia. Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon Shapira begins with an analysis of "Hizbullah's Veneration of Iranian Leader Ali Khameini," followed by his assessment "Has Hizbullah Changed? The 7th Hizbullah General Conference and its Continued Ideology of Resistance," which analyzes the group's most recent political manifesto published in November 2009.
Shapira then looks at "Ahmadinejad in Lebanon," explaining how Iranian President Ahmadinejad's visit to Lebanon in 2010 constituted an additional stage in the process of the Lebanese state's collapse. He notes that following the visit, Hizbullah supporters will find it difficult to argue that theirs is a national Lebanese party operating in the Lebanese reality on behalf of Lebanese objectives. Ahmadinejad arrived in Lebanon not as the head of a friendly country who wants to promote good relations with a sovereign state, but as the supreme commander who came to review his soldiers at the front against Israel, and as an investor who was coming to check on his investments.
In "Countdown to a New Lebanon Crisis: Iran Sends a Signal to Obama Through Beirut," Shapira illustrates how the main political developments in Lebanon are being decided today in Tehran and not in Washington. He asserts that failure to respond to these Iranian-sponsored provocations will only invite further adventurism by the Tehran regime elsewhere in the region.
Shapira then discusses "The Fantasy of Hizbullah Moderation," noting how John Brennan, President Barack Obama's advisor for homeland security and counterterrorism, stated that the U.S. administration was looking for ways to build up "moderate elements" within Hizbullah. But Hizbullah is part of the Iranian security apparatus. Saying that Hizbullah has moderate elements that have moved away from terrorism ignores how Hizbullah is serving its Iranian patrons.
Michael Segall expands on how "Iran Changes the Balance of Power in Lebanon," noting the lack of initiative on the part of Western countries in response to Iran's efforts.
Focusing on Hizbullah's future aggressive plans regarding Israel, Shimon Shapira offers details on how "Hizbullah Discusses Its Operational Plan for War with Israel: Missile Fire on Tel Aviv and Conquest of the Galilee."
Jacques Neriah follows with "Iran Steps Up Arming Hizbullah Against Israel." Israeli and Western intelligence services have long been aware of Syrian and Iranian involvement in Hizbullah's arms buildup. Damascus Airport has been identified as the transit point for airlifts of Iranian arms that were subsequently transferred to Hizbullah via the open Syrian-Lebanese border, under the supervision of the Syrian security services.
Finally, Shimon Shapira concludes with a look at "Hizbullah's Predicament in Light of Syria's Decline," where he assesses Hizbullah's status in the wake of the tenuous survival of the Assad regime in Syria, as well as in light of the international tribunal that has accused four Hizbullah members of involvement in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.
Brig.-Gen. (ret.) Dr. Shimon
Shapira
January 2012
* * * * *
Part I – The Military Threat from Iran
The Threat from Nuclear Weapons
What
Is Happening to the Iranian Nuclear Program?
(February
2012)
Dore Gold
Over the last decade, a clear international consensus has slowly emerged that Iran was not just pursuing a civilian nuclear program, as Tehran argued, but rather was seeking nuclear weapons. True, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees the right of signatories, like Iran, to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, but that did not include a right to enrich uranium in order to produce indigenous nuclear fuels that could be employed for nuclear weapons. Many countries with nuclear power infrastructures, like South Korea, Finland, Spain, and Sweden, actually received their nuclear fuels from abroad.(1) Even in the U.S., 92 percent of the uranium used in 2010 by nuclear power plants was of foreign origin.(2) But unlike these other cases, Iran chose to establish its own uranium enrichment infrastructure at Natanz and suspiciously kept it totally secret from the world until 2002, when it was revealed by the Iranian opposition. A second secret enrichment facility, near Qom, buried deep inside a mountain, was disclosed in 2009.
Iran's Uranium Conversion Facility outside of Isfahan in 2005. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Because of the way Iran proceeded with its nuclear program, international suspicions of its purpose only increased. The official Iranian line that its nuclear infrastructure was for the production of electricity lost all credibility over time, especially in light of its enormous oil and gas reserves which were a far more economical source of energy. In February 2006, French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy bluntly stated that "it is a clandestine military program."(3) Even the Russians could no longer protect what Iran was doing by saying that it was for purely civilian purposes. Thus, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev frankly admitted in July 2010, "We are not indifferent to how the military components of the corresponding [nuclear] program look."(4) More recently, U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta was interviewed by CBS News on December 19, 2011, at which time he stated that Iran could have a nuclear weapon in "about a year...perhaps a little less." For Washington, it was no longer a question of whether Iran wanted a nuclear bomb, but rather when it would obtain one.
While Iran's continuing enrichment of uranium that began in 2007 has defied no less than six UN Security Council resolutions, unfortunately there has been a tendency, at times, over the last five years to play down the immediacy of the Iranian nuclear threat.(5) This new conventional wisdom helped remove the urgency many in the West felt with respect to the Iranian nuclear program. For example, on August 19, 2011, the New York Times published a major article entitled: "US Assures Israel that Iran Threat Is Not Imminent."(6) The authors claimed that because Iran had been facing increasing problems with its nuclear program, the Obama administration concluded that it would take a year or more for Iran to make the final sprint to a nuclear weapon. According to the article, the critical question was how long it would take the Iranians to convert their supplies of low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade uranium to make a bomb: what has been called by experts, "nuclear breakout."
These optimistic assumptions about the Iranian nuclear program continued to appear. For example, the Washington Post ran a dramatic headline at the top of its front page on October 18, 2011, which read "Iran 'Setback' on Nuclear Program." In its opening paragraph, the article explained that beyond the reported cyber-attack that afflicted Iran's nuclear facilities last year, the equipment in its main uranium fuel plant was performing poorly; specifically, its centrifuges for enriching uranium were old and they had a shortage of spare parts. Because of its prominence, the report in the Washington Post set the news agenda for the days that followed. Time magazine featured the story. So did CNN. Even Fox News reported that Iran was having "major problems" with its nuclear program. One of its lead commentators, Charles Krauthammer, spoke about the Iranian nuclear program being "devastated" and suggested that the West had been able to "disarm and retard the program."(7) Hearing all this commentary in the U.S., it might be possible for some to conclude that the international community can relax a bit and not be so worried about an imminent Iranian atomic bomb.
As background to the debate over the Iranian nuclear program, it is important to know some basic essentials. Uranium is normally found in two forms or isotopes: U-238 (with a nucleus made up of 92 protons and 146 neutrons) and the lighter isotope, U-235 (whose nucleus is made up of 92 protons and 143 neutrons). It is only the lighter isotope, U-235, that can undergo nuclear fission and release the energy needed for a nuclear reactor or an atomic bomb. But natural uranium is only 0.7% U-235 and 99.3% U-238. Iran has converted its uranium ore into a gas, at a facility in Isfahan, and then injected the uranium gas into centrifuges that spin at high speeds to increase the amount of U-235, at its Natanz enrichment plant. A civilian reactor needs only 3.5% U-235, which is called low-enriched uranium (LEU), while for nuclear weapons, high-enriched uranium (HEU), which is based on 90% U-235, is required.
Most international concern was directed toward Iran's uranium enrichment efforts under the assumption that Tehran had decided that its nuclear weapons would be based on weapons-grade uranium. In comparison, North Korea's first nuclear test was based on a plutonium bomb. Iran had an active plutonium effort underway. It was building a heavy-water reactor at Arak and a heavy-water production plant. Iran told the IAEA that the heavy-water reactor would only be ready at the end of 2013. While UN resolutions called on Iran to suspend all heavy-water projects and Iran nonetheless persisted with this work, the more near-term threat to international security clearly came from its uranium projects.
The Growing Stockpile of Low-Enriched Uranium
Iran's known nuclear facilities are monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) which uses cameras and makes regular onsite visits to learn what is going on. According to the May 2009 report of the IAEA, Iran had 4,920 operational centrifuges in Natanz enriching uranium. But in the May 2010 report that number dropped to 3,936 – a thousand fewer operational centrifuges than in 2009. This change was one of the main factors that led some analysts to conclude that the Iranian nuclear program was in trouble; the stories on the problems that the Iranians faced were based on the view that some of their centrifuges were breaking down or were not as efficient as previously thought and had to be repaired or replaced. It would be reasonable to ask how Iran could make a final dash to weapons-grade uranium with faulty centrifuge machines. For example, Gary Samore, President Obama's advisor on nuclear issues, has been quoted as questioning the "technical competence" of the Iranians.(8)
Yet there were important counter-trends that contradict the conventional wisdom that was being heard in 2011 about a contracting Iranian nuclear program. First, the overall quantities of low-enriched uranium in Iranian stockpiles are steadily growing. If Iran had 839 kg. of low-enriched uranium, according to the June 2009 IAEA report, it had 2,427 kg. by the May 2010 IAEA report. In November 2011 the IAEA report stated that Iran had 4,922 kg. of low-enriched uranium. If all Iran requires is 914 kg. of low-enriched uranium to produce sufficient weapons-grade uranium for a single bomb, then Iran already has enough uranium on hand for at least four or five nuclear bombs, should it decide to further enrich its stock of low-enriched uranium.(9)
The rate of uranium enrichment, according to these reports, has also been accelerating. According to data developed by the Institute for Science and Technology, in May 2009, the Iranians were producing a little over 80 kg. of low-enriched uranium every month. A year later in May 2010, the rate of production increased to 120 kg. per month. By May 2011, the monthly rate of production was nearly 160 kg. per month – almost double the rate in 2009.(10) In short, Iran was managing to produce low-enriched uranium despite all the reported problems it was having with its aging centrifuges.
Another area of concern about the Iranian uranium enrichment program was connected with the Fordow facility near Qom. Iran had kept this facility a secret, until it informed the IAEA in September 2009. At the time, the Iranians informed the IAEA that they planned to install 3,000 centrifuges there. But what made Fordow a special concern was the fact that it was built deep inside a mountain that is roughly 200 feet in height, and hence far better protected than the Natanz facility (which is estimated to be only 25-30 feet deep). The November 2011 IAEA report revealed that Iran had already transferred "one large cylinder" containing an unspecified amount of low-enriched uranium from Natanz to Fordow. Presumably, the Iranians hoped to produce either 20-percent-enriched uranium or even weapons-grade uranium, without the fear of a Western air attack.
Producing 20%-Enriched Uranium
The second counter-trend that showed Iran's nuclear program was not regressing involves its decision to enrich uranium beyond the 3.5% U-235 level up to 20% U-235. When the West refused to supply 20%-enriched uranium for the small Tehran Research Reactor, where the Iranians produce medical isotopes, Iranian nuclear experts went ahead in June 2010 and fed their 3.5%-enriched uranium into the centrifuges to produce 20%-enriched uranium, by themselves. With a stockpile of 20%-enriched uranium, the Iranians would cut by more than half the time they needed to take the next enrichment step to weapons-grade uranium.(11)
This demonstration of Iran's enrichment capabilities certainly undermined assessments in the West that doubt Tehran's technical competence. On July 11, 2011, Britain's foreign secretary William Hague wrote an op-ed in The Guardian entitled, "Iran's Nuclear Threat Is Escalating." He estimated that it would only take two to three months of additional enrichment of the 20%-enriched stockpile to make weapons-grade material. Moreover, he added that Iran was planning to shift the production of 20%-enriched uranium from an above-ground facility in Natanz to the new Fordow facility near Qom that is deep underground and had been kept secret until September 2009.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appointed Fereydoun Abbassi-Divani on February 13, 2011, to head Iran's atomic energy program. His promotion to this sensitive position should have raised eyebrows in the West. The UN Security Council designated him in 2007 as one of a list of Iranians suspected of involvement in "Iran's nuclear or ballistic missile activities." He is thought to have been involved in the Iranian weaponization program.(12) Before this appointment he headed the physics department at Imam Hossein University, which is linked to Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
In June 2011, Abbas-Davani announced that Tehran was planning to triple its capacity to produce 20%-enriched uranium. Yet in an August 2011 interview published by the Iran News Agency, he admitted that Iran had produced 20%-enriched uranium in quantities that "already exceeded the required amount for the Tehran Research Reactor." Indeed, the November 2011 IAEA report indicates that Iran has already produced 73.7 kg. of 20%-enriched uranium. Given that Iran needs only 6 to 10 kg. per year to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor,(13) Iran has already produced more than seven years of fuel.(14) Moreover, that 20% stockpile could grow much larger if the Iranians install faster centrifuges for uranium enrichment. What will Iran do with all the excess of 20%-enriched uranium that it accumulates? Abbas-Davani's proposal to massively increase Iran's production of 20%-enriched uranium has clear military implications.
How is Iran going to triple the production of 20%-enriched uranium? It could devote more centrifuges to 20% enrichment, or it could employ more advanced centrifuges that operated much faster. The standard centrifuge that Iran used was known as the IR-1. The new generation of Iranian centrifuges, known by professionals as the IR-2m and IR-4, by some estimates would be able to increase the output of each machine by 600%.(15) A more conservative estimate is that the output of the new centrifuges is 4 to 5 times greater than the older machines.(16) By August 2011, Iran had installed 136 IR-2m centrifuges and 27 IR-4 centrifuges at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz.
It appeared that at this stage the Iranians wanted to test the performance of the new centrifuges before replacing the older centrifuge machines on a wide scale. Abbas-Davani made clear in June 2011 that Iran ultimately planned to install the advanced centrifuges at the Fordow plant where production of 20%-enriched uranium would be located in the future. The main, unanswered question is how many enrichment sites Iran presently has. In August 2010, Iran announced that it was building ten new enrichment sites that were to be built inside of mountains.(17) Construction of these new plants was to begin in early 2011. But where are these sites? The IAEA admitted in its May 2011 report: "The Agency's knowledge about Iran's enrichment activities continues to diminish."
So where does Iran stand with respect to an atomic bomb, given both of its paths to weapons-grade uranium: converting low-enriched uranium to weapons-grade fuel and the fast track they are developing with 20%-enriched uranium? Olli Heinonen, the former deputy director-general of IAEA and one of its chief inspectors, told the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee on June 23, 2011, that he expects Iran to have the ability to produce up to 250 kg. of 20%-enriched uranium, which would be sufficient for two atomic bombs, by the end of 2012. The entire stockpile of 3.5%-enriched uranium, according to Heinonen's estimate, could reach 7-8,000 kg., which could be converted with further enrichment to enough weapons-grade uranium for several more atomic bombs. He concludes that both paths of enrichment could yield together between 125 and 150 kg. of weapons-grade uranium by the end of 2012.(18) Between 20 and 25 kg. of weapons-grade uranium is needed for a single bomb.
Nuclear Warhead Design
There are, of course, three dimensions to any nuclear weapons program: enriched uranium, ballistic missiles, and nuclear warheads. The latter issue also grew in importance for the IAEA. This began to become evident in February 2008 when, Heinonen, then IAEA deputy director-general, gave a highly classified briefing to representatives of more than 100 states. According to a description of the meeting reported by David Sanger of The New York Times, Heinonen displayed original Iranian documents that he stressed came from several member states of the IAEA, and not just from the U.S.(19) In June 2010, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that the material came from a joint operation by German and American intelligence agencies. The IAEA had the international standing to authenticate U.S. intelligence reports for those who doubted their veracity. When the IAEA said they were true, many more states were willing to accept them.
The Iranian documents detailed how to design a warhead for the Shahab-3 missile, which has been operational in the Iranian armed forces since 2003. While the Iranian documents made no reference to a nuclear warhead, they did show the arc of a missile's flight and that the warhead of the missile had to be detonated at an altitude of 600 meters. To the IAEA experts, a conventional explosion at that altitude would have no effect on the ground below. But 600 meters was the ideal altitude for a nuclear explosion over a city. As Sanger points out, it was in fact the height of the Hiroshima explosion. Despite the substance of his presentation, Heinonen did not yet say that the Iranians were producing nuclear weapons, but he left his audience in Vienna with many questions they had not asked before.
By May 2011, the IAEA became far more explicit in its report on Iran than Heinonen had been in 2008. Its report raised concerns about the "possible existence" of seven areas of military research in the Iranian nuclear program, the last of which was the most alarming: "the removal of the conventional high explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab-3 missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload."
Yet, the IAEA was not ready to say it had reached any conclusions. It only sought "clarifications" about its suspicions.
The most important of the IAEA reports on Iran was released in November 2011 and proved to be significant in a number of ways. First, it showed that the IAEA no longer had "suspicions" about the Iranian weaponization program – it had what it called "credible" intelligence. The appendix of the report, moreover, devoted a whole section to the "credibility of information." It was not relying on the Iranian laptop that was at the heart of Heinonen's 2008 presentation, but also on a much larger volume of documentation. The report states that the agency has more than 1,000 pages of material to substantiate its claims. In case there were suspicions that this material came from U.S. intelligence agencies alone, the report makes sure to clarify that the sources involved "more than 10 member states."
Second, the material that the IAEA presented pointed clearly to the fact that Iran wanted to develop a deliverable nuclear weapon. The Iranians had sought to obtain uranium for a secret enrichment program that would not be under IAEA safeguards. The uranium that would come out of this clandestine program would be further processed to produce the uranium metal required for a nuclear warhead. The planned warhead design also underwent studies that investigated how it would operate if it was part of a missile re-entry vehicle and had to stand up to the stress of a missile launch and flying in a ballistic trajectory to its target. The IAEA concluded that "work on the development of an indigenous design of a nuclear weapon including the testing of components" had been executed by the Iranians. That "indigenous design," however, required external help. The IAEA report discloses that aspects of Iran's nuclear weapons "design concept" came from a foreign country, presumably from a state that possesses nuclear weapons.
The November 2011 report also contained references to documentation in Farsi detailing the safety arrangements that would have to be put in place for conducting an actual nuclear test. There were also public statements in 2011 that provide additional evidence that the Iranians were moving in the direction of an atomic bomb. For example, on June 23, 2011, Agence France-Presse quoted Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasting on Iranian state television: "If we want to make a bomb, we are not afraid of anyone and we are not afraid to announce it; no one can do a damn thing." He then added for the record, "we do not want to," but his initial statement demonstrated how confidant the Iranians have now become as their nuclear program progressed.
Timeline to Nuclear Weapons
The public data published by the International Atomic Energy Agency clearly points to the fact that the Iranian nuclear program is advancing. But, as noted earlier, there are conflicting assessments about the urgency of the problem. There is a mistaken impression in the West that Iran's ability to enrich uranium has been severely set back. The numbers do not indicate that such a conclusion is warranted. Hague's warning in June about the Iranian nuclear program at least indicates that one of the main Western powers sitting in the UN Security Council is aware of the severity of the situation.
There are elements of the Iranian nuclear program that are known to the international community. But there is also a great deal about the program that is not known that makes the calculation of a timeline for Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons capability very difficult. Are there more secret enrichment plants like the Fordow facility that was only disclosed in 2009? Even Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta inserted this caveat into his assessment during a December 19, 2011 interview on CBS in which he said that Iran could have a bomb by the end of 2012:
One proviso,
Scott, is if they have a hidden facility somewhere in Iran that may
be enriching fuel.
Pelley: So that they can develop a
weapon even more quickly...
Panetta: On a faster
track...
Pelley: Than we believe...
Panetta:
That's correct.
There are other factors that can affect the timeline for the Iranians. How quickly are the Iranians intending to install their latest-generation centrifuges that can enrich uranium at a much higher rate than the older IR-1 centrifuges that they have been using until recently? All of these calculations are relevant should the Iranians decide on a strategy of "nuclear breakout" – expelling all IAEA inspectors, shutting down their monitoring equipment, and making a final dash for a bomb. When North Korea undertook this approach in 2002, the West did not respond with any effective steps. Why can't Iran adopt this approach as well?
Professional assessments about the timeline of the Iranians to obtain an atomic bomb thus have varied. For example, Gregory Jones, an adjunct senior defense policy analyst at the RAND Corporation, suggested that Iran's breakout timeline at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant was as follows: he asserted that Iran could produce 20 kg. of weapons-grade uranium – enough for one nuclear weapon – in two months. In contrast, the Institute for Science and International Security assessed that a breakout scenario would take at least six months. In either case, Iranian nuclear weapons were no longer years away. Both analyses believed that Tehran could cross the nuclear threshold in a matter of months.(20)
Despite the dramatic information disclosed in the November 2011 IAEA Report, the Russians and the Chinese appeared to prefer to drag their feet on initiating harsh sanctions against Iran in the UN Security Council. A 2011 UN report assessed that sanctions were only having a limited impact on the regime in Tehran. The report concluded that the sanctions that had been imposed on Iran were "not yet having an impact on the decision calculus of its leadership with respect to enrichment and heavy water-related activities."(21) And while EU governments agreed in principle to impose an oil embargo on Iran in January 2012, it did not appear to be comprehensive, allowing for exceptions in implementation that take into account the special needs of Greece, Italy, and Spain and their economic conditions. At least six months were expected to pass before the European oil sanctions would be fully put into effect.
Similarly, while President Obama signed into law a defense authorization bill in early 2012 that imposed new sanctions on Iran's central bank, the harshest measures in the legislation will also not go into effect for at least six months. Yet by June 2012, the Iranian nuclear program will have advanced considerably further. The critical question that remained unanswered in the first part of 2012, was whether the most painful economic sanctions the West might institute, at this late date, would influence Iranian decision-making with regard to its nuclear-weapons program. It seemed doubtful that Iran would fully halt its drive to nuclear weapons and provide the transparency to the West to verify that its program had indeed been halted.
How far will the Iranians push their nuclear efforts in the year ahead? Writing in Foreign Affairs (Jan.-Feb. 2012), Matthew Kroenig, a former Special Advisor on Iran policy in the Office of the U.S. Secretary of Defense (during 2010 and 2011), outlined what should be the "red lines" of the U.S. as the Iranians progress:
1. Iran expels the IAEA inspectors from its nuclear facilities.
2. The Iranians enrich their uranium stockpiles to the weapons-grade level of 90%.
3. The Iranians install their advanced centrifuges at their underground Fordow facility near Qom.
In January 2012, the IAEA verified an Iranian announcement that Tehran had begun production of 20%-enriched uranium at the fortified Fordow facility, indicating that the Iranians were prepared to move close towards crossing at least the last of these red lines, though without advanced centrifuges at this stage. Kayhan, the Iranian daily that was close to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini, wrote in its editorial, in response, that as a result of the enrichment effort in Fordow, Iran was entering "the zone of immunity," a term the Iranians borrowed from the West.(22) Iran was not only prepared to engage in nuclear brinksmanship, but it was also positioning itself to shorten the time frame necessary for the final dash to nuclear weapons, when it takes that decision in the months ahead.
Appendix I
The Growing Iranian Stockpile of Low-Enriched Uranium
September 2008 - 480 kg.
November 2008 - 630 kg.
February 2009 - 839 kg.
February 2010 - 2,065 kg.
May 2010 - 2,427 kg.
September 2010 - 2,803 kg.
November 2010 - 3,183 kg.
May 2011 - 4,105 kg.
November 2011 - 4,922 kg.
February 2012 - 5,451 kg. (of which 985 kg. used for further enrichment and other purposes)
Source: IAEA
Appendix II
Iran's Stockpile of 20% Enriched Uranium
May 2010 - 5.7 kg.
September 2010 - 22 kg.
November 2010 - 33 kg.
February 2011 - 43.6 kg.
May 2011 - 56.7 kg.
November 2011 - 73.7 kg.
February 2012 - 109.2 kg. (of which 8 kg. removed and used for other purposes)
Source: IAEA
Notes
1. Therese Delpech, Iran and the Bomb: The Abdication of International Responsibility (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007).
2. U.S. Energy Information Administration, "Today in Energy," July 11, 2011.
3. "France: Iran's Program Military," CNN, February 16, 2006.
4. "Russia to Iran: Explain Military Components of Your Program," Reuters, July 15, 2010.
5. UN Security Council Resolutions 1696 (2006), 1737 (2006), 1747 (2007), 1803 (2008), 1929 (2010).
6. Mark Mazzetti and David E. Sanger, "U.S. Assures Israel that Iran Threat Is Not Imminent," New York Times, August 19, 2010.
7. Bret Baer, "What Will U.S. Do About Iran?" Fox News Special Report, October 18, 2011.
8. Mazzetti and Sanger.
9. Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, Iran Watch, September 12, 2011, http://www.wisconsinproject.org/
10. David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker, and Christina Walrond, IAEA Safeguards Report, Institute for Science and International Security, September 2, 2011.
11. Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka, "Deconstructing the Meaning of Iran's 20 Percent Uranium Enrichment," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, May 18, 2010.
12. Address of David Albright at George Washington University, October 21, 2011.
13. David Albright, Paul Brannan, and Jacqueline Shire, "Taking Stock of the Production of 19.75 Percent Uranium at the PFEP," Institute for Science and Security, June 11, 2010.
14. "Iran's Nuclear Program: Status and Breakout Timing," Staff Paper, Bipartisan Policy Center (Washington), September 2011.
15. Joby Warrick, "Iran Touts Major Advances in Nuclear Program," Washington Post, April 11, 2011.
16. David Albright and Christina Walrond, "Iran's Advanced Centrifuges," Institute for Science and Security, October 17, 2011.
17. Ian Black, "Iran Outlines Plans for New Uranium Plants," Guardian, August 16, 2010.
18. Olli Heinonen, "Iran and Syria: Next Steps," Testimony to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, June 23, 2011.
19. David Sanger, The Inheritance: The World Obama Confronts and the Challenges to American Power (New York: Harmony Books, 2009), pp. 86-94.
20. http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/debunking-gregory-jones-again2/8
21. "Final Report," Panel of Experts Established Pursuant to Resolution 1929 (2010), p. 23, http://www.innercitypress.com/1929r051711.pdf
22. Spotlight on Iran, January 2012, Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center.
* * * * *
The
U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran and Its Aftermath: A
Roundtable of Israeli Experts
(March
2008)
Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze'evi
Farkash, former Head of IDF Military Intelligence
Maj.-Gen.
(res.) Yaakov Amidror, former Head of Research and Assessment,
IDF Military Intelligence
Brig.-Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser,
former Head of Research and Assessment, IDF Military Intelligence
The opening sentence of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007 stated: "We judge with high confidence that in Fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." This conclusion put the U.S. intelligence community at odds with Israel, which believes that Iran only engaged in a temporary halt in 2003, and since that time the Iranian nuclear weapons program had been resumed.
Israel is not alone in disagreeing with the conclusion of the NIE. Already in December, just after the NIE's release, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported London's response with the headline: "Britain: Iran 'Hoodwinked' CIA Over Nuclear Plans," stating that Britain's intelligence chiefs had "grave doubts that Iran...mothballed its nuclear weapons program."
It was in the context of the Western detection of their nuclear program and the Iraq War that led Iran to halt its nuclear program across the board in 2003, with the exception of their surface-to-surface missile program. But prior to that freeze, Iran had been developing a military nuclear capability under a broad civilian cover for fifteen years.
The Iranian ballistic missile program is part of the Iranian nuclear weapons program; Iran does not have a civilian space program and it is doubtful that it would develop ballistic missiles with a range of thousands of kilometers in order to carry conventional warheads alone.
Between 2003 and 2005, the Iranians refrained from any nuclear activity under the influence of the impression created by America's pre-emptive policies in the region, which served as the main instrument that enabled the Europeans to force Iran to postpone uranium conversion and enrichment. But when the Iranians realized in 2005 that there was no actual threat behind their fears of U.S. pre-emption, they decided to start conversion and then enrichment. As a result, the Iranians already have prepared enough uranium hexafluoride gas (UF6) for more than ten atomic bombs.
Yaakov Amidror:
The NIE - More Confusion than Clarity
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007, entitled Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities, has created more confusion than clarity. To many observers who heard news reports when it was first released, it appeared that the U.S. intelligence community had concluded that there was no longer any nuclear threat from Iran. That impression was fostered by the opening sentence of the report: "We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program." Moving beyond the NIE's first sentence, however, there are other conclusions that seem to suggest the very opposite.
It might be suggested that the seemingly contradictory statements in the NIE are due to the fact that it is a product of sixteen different agencies that belong to the US intelligence community.(1) But this would be too simple an explanation. There must have been a consensus of those drafting the report that caused them to lead with the idea that in 2003 Iran was no longer developing nuclear weapons. This conclusion put the U.S. intelligence community at odds with Israel, whose Defense Minister, Ehud Barak, stated openly that Iran only engaged in a temporary halt in 2003, and since that time the Iranian nuclear weapons program had been resumed.
It was not the first time that the U.S. and Israel disagreed over their assessments about Iran. In 1995, I was the head of the Research and Assessment Division of IDF Military Intelligence and we found the first signs that the Iranians were going nuclear. In those days, we thought the most important action that we could take was to brief our counterparts in Washington and convince them that this was a danger soon to be faced by the entire Free World. It was not easy to convince them that this subject should be on the table. We sought to do so at a meeting in Washington where a very well-known ambassador represented the U.S. side and I tried to convince the Americans that the Iranians had indeed decided to go nuclear.
At the end of our discussions, the U.S. side gave us the impression that they were thinking to themselves: "After we Americans finish off Iraq as an enemy of the State of Israel, then you Israelis are going to build a new threat because you cannot live without such a threat." During my more than four years as the head of the Assessment Division, this was one of my great failures. It took American experts another two years, until 1997, for the American intelligence community to understand that the Iranians were going nuclear.
Today, Israel is not alone in disagreeing with the conclusion of the NIE. Already in December, just after the NIE's release, Britain's Daily Telegraph reported London's response with the headline: "Britain: Iran 'Hoodwinked' CIA Over Nuclear Plans," stating that Britain's intelligence chiefs had "grave doubts that Iran...mothballed its nuclear weapons program."(2) French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel also went out of their way to state that Iran still remained a danger and pressure had to be kept up over its nuclear program.(3) Even officials at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who were traditionally more forgiving about Iranian behavior than the U.S., expressed doubts about the NIE right after it was released. One official stated: "We don't buy the American analysis 100 percent. We are not that generous with Iran."(4)
While we are dealing only with the public version of the NIE, we understand that there is no fundamental difference between this version and the unpublished version. For this reason, it is very important that the NIE be carefully analyzed. There is no argument about the civilian side: Iranian enrichment efforts continue. But what we need to focus upon are Iran's purely military capabilities. We believe that this report of the U.S. intelligence community was a huge mistake from both a methodological and professional point of view. I would not have permitted such a report to be issued by Israeli Military Intelligence while containing such holes in its arguments.
It is noteworthy how Admiral Mike McConnell, the U.S. Director of National Intelligence, tried to correct the impression created by the NIE in his remarks to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February 2008: "The only thing they've halted was nuclear weapons design, which is probably the least significant part of the program."(5) For a detailed look at the NIE, Maj.-Gen. (res.) Aharon Ze'evi Farkash, who served as head of Israeli Military Intelligence from 2001 to 2006, offers his own insights into the evolution of the Iranian nuclear program.
Aharon Ze'evi Farkash:
No Evidence that Iran Did Not Renew Nuclear Weaponization Work
In August 2002, Iran understood that the Western countries - U.S., the EU-3 (France, Germany, and the United Kingdom), and Israel - had obtained hard information that Iran was conducting a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Shortly thereafter, in March 2003, the regional environment quickly became dominated by the outbreak of the Iraq War and the downfall of Saddam Hussein. By July 2003, the Iranians opened negotiations with the EU-3, which sought to halt the Iranian nuclear program. At the end of the same year, Qaddafi stopped Libya's nuclear military plans.
It was in the context of the Western detection of their nuclear program and the Iraq War that led Iran to halt its nuclear program across the board in 2003, with the exception of their surface-to-surface missile program. But prior to that freeze, Iran was developing a military nuclear capability under a broad civilian cover. The participants were the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and the Iranian Ministry of Defense (MOD).
A nuclear weapons program is comprised of three key elements:
1. A delivery system, requiring the development of surface-to-surface missiles.
2. The accumulation of fissile material through uranium enrichment and plutonium production.
3. Weaponization - preparing a warhead from the fissile material and fitting it into a missile.
Several of these elements in the Iranian nuclear program were in fact soon resumed.
At the beginning of 2003, the Iranians were concentrating all their efforts on the centrifuge program at their facility in Natanz, where they had managed to build a cascade with 164 centrifuges. Today, they have reached a capacity of 3,000 centrifuges. If parts of the nuclear weapons program were restarted, there is every reason to believe that all parts were reactivated as well. Indeed, Iran's development of surface-to-surface missiles had never ceased, even when uranium enrichment had been temporarily halted.
At the same time, the Iranians were busy with procurement activities, with a focus on obtaining all the materials and components needed for uranium enrichment. At the beginning of 2004, we know that Iran was attempting to procure fast high voltage switches suitable for a nuclear weapons system. The Iranian Ministry of Defense was also supervising the mining of uranium in southeast Iran.
According to information provided by the Iranian opposition, Lavizan was one of the sites that dealt with Iran's weaponization program, and the IAEA requested to visit Lavizan in September-October 2003. By March 2004, the Lavizan facility had disappeared; it had been dismantled. When Iran renewed its nuclear enrichment program in January 2005, there is no evidence that they did not renew the work of the weaponization group at the same time.
Editor's note: In February 2008, the Iranian opposition charged that Iran had erected a new command and control center: code-named Lavizan-2. In addition, they identified yet another facility at Khojir, where they claimed the production of nuclear warheads was being undertaken.(6)
Developing the Missiles to Deliver a Nuclear Payload
Together with developing a nuclear weapon, Iran has been developing an appropriate long-range delivery system. Its Shihab 3 missile can carry a warhead of approximately 700 kilograms over a distance of 1,300-1,500 kilometers. These missiles are under the command of the Revolutionary Guard, not the Iranian military. The Revolutionary Guard reports to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and it is not under the authority of President Ahmadinejad. Iranian missile exercises showed that the missiles are aimed at both Tel Aviv and Riyadh.
Iran is continuing to develop even longer-range missiles with a range of 3,500-5,000 kilometers that could reach all of Europe (perhaps with the exception of Portugal), while those with a range of 6,000-10,000 kilometers could reach the east coast of the U.S. The original missile technology was delivered to the Iranians by North Korea, and the Iranians have made substantial efforts to improve their range. As we know, the Iranian ballistic missile program is part of the Iranian nuclear weapons program; Iran does not have a civilian space program and it is doubtful that it would develop ballistic missiles with a range of thousands of kilometers in order to carry conventional warheads alone.
European Reaction to the Iranian Missile Threat
As Director of IDF Military Intelligence, I briefed leaders in Europe about Iran's nuclear military plans and met personally with decision-makers in Italy, France, the UK, and other European countries over a period of six months. Most of the European leaders understood the data about Iran's nuclear plans, but their response was not encouraging.
The Europeans said they did not understand why Israel was trying to scare them with a nuclear military threat since they had lived with such a threat during the Cold War. They were also of the opinion that, in the end, if Iran did achieve a nuclear military capability, the U.S. and Israel would solve the problem, and I believe this remains their attitude today.
What Does the NIE Say?
The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate summary report says that in 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program, but the NIE's headline finding is written in such a way that guarantees that its other conclusions will be misunderstood.
In Paragraph C, the NIE summary states that Iran made significant progress in 2007 installing centrifuges at Natanz. Based upon this finding, Israeli military intelligence estimates that late 2009 is the earliest possible date that Iran will be technically capable of producing enough highly enriched uranium for a weapon.
Paragraph D of the NIE says that Iranian entities are continuing to develop a range of technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons if a decision is made to do so. Thus, Iran's continuing civilian uranium enrichment program could produce enough fissile materials by the end of 2009 or 2010.
Paragraph F of the NIE notes: We assess that Iran probably would use covert facilities rather than its declared nuclear sites for the production of highly enriched uranium for a weapon.
Finally, Paragraph H of the NIE states: We assess that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to produce nuclear weapons if it decides to do so.
All of this means that the Iranians will have enough fissile material no later than 2010 and that if they decide to build a nuclear military plant, no one can promise that we or the Americans will know about it, if they indeed actually did halt their nuclear weapons program in 2003. It would be a mistake to conclude that Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions have been halted on the basis of reading the first sentence of the NIE alone.