For some time now a pattern has developed in the standoff
between Iran and the United States in which the U.S. and its allies
strengthen sanctions against Tehran, which responds by making advances
in its nuclear program. The increased sanctions and nuclear advances are
then used by each side as bargaining chips in negotiations.
In the meantime the standoff has become relatively stable in the short term as Iran has carefully limited its stockpile of 20 percent enriched uranium
and has not enriched to higher levels, while the U.S. has not acted on
its military threats and has sought to constrain Israel from exercising
its own military option.
In the last 24 hours two new factors have emerged that could potentially derail this stability over the next few years.
The first and most serious one was an announcement by the head of the
Iranian Atomic Energy Organization, Fereydoon Abbasi-Davani, that Iran
may seek nuclear submarines in the future. This is significant because
nuclear submarines require nuclear fuel that is enriched to anywhere
between 45 and 90 percent levels, the latter being bomb-grade.
"At present, we have no enrichment plan for purity levels above 20
percent, but when it comes to certain needs, for example, for some ships
and submarines, if our researchers need to have a stronger underwater
presence, we will have to make small engines which should be fueled by
45 to 56 percent enriched uranium," Abbasi-Davani said on Tuesday.
The only potential bright spot is that Abbasi-Davani said that future
nuclear submarines would be designed to run on the low-end of the
nuclear spectrum. Still there is no question that a decision by Iran to
move beyond 20 percent uranium would be seen as a major escalation in
the ongoing standoff, and one that might prompt Israel or the U.S. to
act on their military threats.
It should be noted that it is quite possible (probably even likely)
that Abbasi-Davani is bluffing.
Iranian officials in the past have
suggested Tehran may someday want nuclear submarines, and despite the
relative stability of the current standoff Iran has clear interests in
ending it given that it is the side suffering economically from
sanctions. Thus making this announcement could very well be aimed at
forcing the West’s hand in negotiations. This would be consistent with
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s recent warnings that Iran will not negotiate simply for the sake of negotiating.
At the same time, the nuclear submarine gambit would be consistent
with the trajectory of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s nuclear program to
date. Specifically, Iran has made incremental progress on its nuclear
program without technically going beyond what non-nuclear weapon states
that are in good standing have a right to do under the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty. It has justified making these advances on
civilian grounds but the same technologies have nuclear weapon
applications. While nuclear submarines are not for civilian purposes
they still allow Iran to deny it has ambitions to acquire nuclear
weapons. Thus, in making this announcement Tehran is reminding the U.S.
and its allies that if the current standoff continues, it can take
actions that put it remarkably close to actually having a nuclear weapon
while maintaining some plausible deniability.
This was not the only bad news Western policymakers received on
Tuesday regarding Iran’s nuclear program with the rest coming from the
International Monetary Fund's (IMF) World Economic Outlook.
In the report the IMF forecasts that, although Iran’s economy shrunk by
1.9 percent in 2012, and is expected to shrink an additional 1.3
percent this year, it will begin growing again by 2014 starting at a
rate of 1.1 percent. Furthermore, the IMF believes Iran will continue to
maintain an account surplus, which significantly reduces the
possibility that the Islamic Republic will encounter a
balance-of-payment crisis that could undermine its ability to govern.
Although Iran has become more secretive about economic data as
international sanctions against it have increased, it has continued to
cooperate with the IMF, leading some to believe
the IMF data on Iran’s economy are the most accurate available. If the
IMF is correct in its forecast, Iranian leaders have every reason to
believe that their economic situation will not get much worse than it
currently is, and will in a short while begin improving.
In essence, Iran has threatened to strengthen its hand relative to
the U.S. and its allies at the same time the Western powers’ hand has
been shown to be weakening. The U.S. still has a number of options
available short of military strikes to strengthen its bargaining
position— such as additional actions to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program, deepening its involvement in Syria, and/or imposing a full economic blockade on Iran— but many of these carry risks and costs
which the U.S. has thus far not demonstrated a willingness to bear. In
any case, it is far from clear that any of these options would have much
impact on Iran’s nuclear program.
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