By Bryan Bender
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Iran’s current security outlook makes it highly unlikely that the country will forego clandestine efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and the Bush administration’s increasingly hard line toward Tehran makes a deal to rein in its nuclear ambitions less likely than in the past, several experts said last week (see GSN, Oct. 22).

Iran’s military and security services deeply believe that the country cannot count on outside assistance in a time of crisis, Iran experts told a nonproliferation conference sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

With growing uncertainty about some of its immediate neighbors, Tehran will continue to pursue a nuclear deterrent that it sees as the only guarantee of security, they said.

“They need a country-protecting” weapon, said Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

To the immediate west, archenemy Iraq may soon be in the crosshairs of a U.S.-led military assault to topple Saddam Hussein’s government, but if the United States is successful, the resulting situation might elicit multiple security risks for Iran — including a long-term American military presence next door and a new Baghdad regime closely allied with Washington.

Iraq is “quite worried about being next” on the U.S. hit list, said Gary Samore, senior fellow for nonproliferation at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.  The possible U.S. invasion of Iraq, however, could also serve to strengthen more moderate elements within Iran who are calling for caution, he said.

Nevertheless, other regional realities support the argument that Iran, predominantly made up of Shia Muslims, feels increasingly threatened from several directions.  Sunni Muslim Afghanistan and Pakistan to the east are both considered security threats to Tehran.  Growing U.S. influence in Afghanistan and nuclear-armed Pakistan’s long history of meddling with Islamic extremists in Afghanistan, will contribute to a growing Iranian sense of insecurity.

The uncertainty does not stop there from Iran’s perspective.  To the northwest is Turkey, whose close military and security ties with nuclear-armed Israel are viewed as being directed at Tehran, according to Clawson.

Should Iran be threatened, however, isolated Tehran has little confidence that other countries, such as ally Russia, or international institutions such as the United Nations, would come to its aid.  Clawson believes this view is grounded in the 1980-89 Iran-Iraq War, in which Baghdad initiated hostilities and the international community failed to respond.

Iran believes that “when Iraq invaded, the world yawned,” Clawson said.  “That’s a fair analylsis of what happened.”

Combined with Iran’s comparative military inferiority in the region — its conventional forces are considered weak — that sentiment makes “arms self-sufficiency” a key tenet of national security, Clawson said.

Having a nuclear capability, however, could dramatically change the security outlook, Iran is said to believe, according to the experts.

The focus of suspected nuclear weapons efforts remains Iran’s Bushehr nuclear reactor, which the United States has pressed Russia repeatedly to cease providing assistance to.  The most recent negotiations ended without an agreement in June amid revelations that Moscow has a long-term plan to provide at least five more nuclear reactors to Iran.

The U.S.-Russian negotiations centered on “grandfathering” the Bushehr reactor in return for Russian commitment not to build any more and agreement to dispose of the Bushehr reactor fuel so it cannot be used to build nuclear weapons (see GSN, Oct. 11).

There is a  “hard line by Bush now,” said Rose Gottemoeller of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  She said low-level negotiations are continuing, but it is unlikely the Bush Administration would strike an agreement on Bushehr alone without agreement between Washington, Moscow and Tehran on larger issues.

The “motive for this plant is … purely and simply to acquire nuclear weapons,” said Clawson.

Samore agreed that it is a “guise for acquiring capabilities to allow it to develop nuclear weapons.”

But Samore is not as sanguine about the possibility of reaching some agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear future.  “I’m optimistic we will see progress in that area.”

He added, however, that Tehran could try to have it both ways, agreeing to expand monitoring of its civilian nuclear facilities, while also continuing covert weapons efforts.  Iran could still develop nukes “under the guise of a civilian program,” he said.

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