The Strategic Implications of a Nuclear-Armed Iran
Chapter Two

A Walk on the Supply Side

The United States and the arms control community have focused a great deal of attention on determining who is assisting Iran, and how, as it builds its nuclear programs. The United States imposed sanctions on Iran as part of its overall containment policy to deter or delay the Islamic Republic's acquisition of weapons that could be used in the war with Iraq, in its asymmetric confrontations with Israel, and in support of extremist Islamist and radical Palestinian factions. In the 1990s, the focus became more specific--to delay or deny Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear weapons capabilities and ballistic missile delivery systems. Mysterious shipments from northern Asia, technology and scientists from the former Soviet Union and Central Asia, fissile material and rockets from many places--all reportedly are in Iran or on their way there.

Although scholars and analysts disagree about the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iran, the restrictions--including the arms embargo and efforts to block foreign loans to and investment in Iran--have delayed but clearly have not denied Iranian acquisition of nonconventional weapon capabilities. Spending on conventional military reconstruction may not have reached the levels U.S. Government sources estimated that they would reach in the early 1990s because of declining oil revenues and domestic demands on spending for subsidies, job creation, and economic infrastructure. Nonetheless, Tehran apparently has been able to afford the research and development (R&D) expenses of nuclear programs and has purchased technology from several suppliers, including Russia, China, and North Korea. Other potential suppliers are waiting in the wings until sanctions are dropped, the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) expires, and the United States itself embarks on the path to Tehran.²⁸

Russia

Most of the responsibility for Iran's apparent success in acquiring the technological assistance and materials necessary for nuclear weapon systems rests with Russia. The accusers, primarily official and unofficial sources in the United States and Israel, claim that Iranian scientists receive training in Russian scientific institutes, that Russian laboratories provide Iran with technology and even fissile material, and that Russian scientists are working on illicit programs inside Iran. Officials in the United States and Israel have attempted to influence Russia to halt nuclear cooperation with Iran, to end exports of sanctioned materials, and to stop building nuclear facilities at Bushehr.²⁹

Russia, a key source of missile technology, provided Iran with some of the technology and designs of its aging SS-4 liquid-fueled missile, and various public sources suggest that it has helped produce liquid-fueled missiles, specialized computer software, and model missiles. Cordesman cites reports that the Russian state corporations for export and import and armament and military equipment as well as Russian scientific institutes cooperate with Iranian counterparts in deals involving specialized laser equipment, mirrors, tungsten-coated graphite material, and maraging steel for missile development and production.³⁰ The Israelis believe that Russian private and state-owned firms have provided Iran with gyroscopes, electronic components, the use of wind tunnels and guidance and propulsion systems, and the parts needed to build missile component systems in Iran.³¹ In 1995, Russia signed an $800-million agreement with Iran to complete one of the two partially constructed nuclear reactors at Bushehr and to provide technical training and low-enriched uranium fuel for a period of 10 years beginning in 2001.

With minor exceptions, efforts to dissuade Russia from aiding Iranian attempts to acquire nuclear technology have failed. In the mid- to late 1990s, the United States pushed Moscow to end its assistance to Iranian missile and nuclear programs. In 1995, President Yeltsin acceded to U.S. pressure and agreed to cancel the transfer of a uranium enrichment facility to Iran. He told President Clinton that Russia would not supply militarily useful nuclear technology to Iran and that it would remove the centrifuge plant provisions from Moscow's protocol with Tehran because of the potential for creating weapons-grade fuel. Some progress also was made in establishing an export control regime. U.S.-Russian working groups were set up, and in July 1998, Russia made an unprecedented investigation of nine entities with links to Iran, according to a U.S. official.Iran.³² Moscow resented the U.S. measures to restrict the activities of some of the companies, however, and no further progress was made. Russia has agreed to build as many as four reactors in Iran--two at Bushehr--and to provide significant nuclear technology.

Why are the Russians unwilling or unable to cooperate with the United States on Iran? In part, the Russians see no threat to their interests or territory from a nuclear-armed Iran. And, in part, the answer may lie in leverage. Moscow would exact a high price for cooperation with Washington against Tehran. Analysts estimate the price could include more International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans, an end to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement, acknowledgement of Russian hegemony in Central Asia, U.S. acquiescence in pipelines laid through Russia instead of rival Turkey, or perhaps an end to sanctions on Iraq.

The answer lies also in the different views of Iran that Russians hold. According to some Russian specialists, Russians do not share American concerns about being the target of or endangered by a nuclear-armed Iran. In addition to denying that a problem exists, they note a cultural bias--a belief that the Iranians are incapable of developing advanced NBC or missile systems--and a historical bias that argues against agreeing with the United States. More important, the specialists add, Russia probably believes that it can control the consequences of its actions in helping to provide Iran with nuclear weapons capability.

Good relations with Tehran are important to protect Russian interests abroad, particularly in the Muslim republics and regions of the former Soviet Union, in Chechnya, and in the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Russia sees itself as this region's natural protector, given its geographic proximity, centuries of political and economic domination, and demographics (substantial Russian populations live in most of the republics, and Russian security forces are present in several).³³ Russia has long seen the region as a buffer against the spread of Islamic extremism and believes good relations with Iran will help to prohibit its spread north. Russia, like Iran, also views with concern expanding U.S. ties to the Central Asian republics, especially the military-to-military links. Yet Moscow realizes its ability to compete economically or militarily with the West is limited. Ties to Tehran help Moscow to shape the security environment in a volatile and potentially unstable region on its borders.

Other reasons are more systemic, more Russian. The absence of strong governmental, economic, or social infrastructures allows personalities both inside and outside of the government to be more influential in policy and decisionmaking. The current Minister of Atomic Energy, for example, served as administrator of the leading Russian institute cooperating with Iran. One U.S. official described Russia as also trying to establish the wrong kind of export control system (Moscow has none, nor does it believe that restricting Iranian exports is proper or in Russian interests).³⁴ Moreover, the Russian entities have little incentive to stop promoting proliferation. The economic crisis in Russia exacerbates efforts to restrict exports to Iran. One Russian specialist noted that the time horizon of most Russian scientists was one week; the short-term thinking reflects dire economic conditions, with many scientists going without pay for long periods of time in distant, isolated, and neglected communities. Government infrastructure no longer serves or protects the scientists, and social consensus favors trade and work over principle.

Given the near-term concerns of many Russian officials and scientists, the United States will have difficulty finding long-term incentives that would appeal to Moscow. The successful exception has been U.S. assistance to the Russian space launch missile program. We have little confidence that Russia knows the status of its nuclear/fissile material, can control its flow, or has any interest in sharing information about the situation. To date, no evidence has been confirmed of leakage of such material, which is stored in small, uninventoried caches across the country.

Finally, the appearance, if not reality, of Russian independence in determining its relations with Iran--not to appear to be kowtowing to the West or the United States--is a factor for any administration in Moscow battling for leadership in the press and political arena.

Northeastern Asia

Like Russia, China and North Korea see no threat from a nuclear-armed Iran and anticipate benefits in improved relations and access to much-needed energy resources. China, once an oil exporter, now imports half of all its energy needs, mostly from Central Asia and the Persian Gulf States. China's energy imports are estimated to double by 2010.

In the past decade, China has expanded its interests in the Persian Gulf region to ensure a secure source of gas and oil and to try to supplant the United States as a reliable regional partner. China has offered Iran investment loans to build a pipeline from Kazakhstan through Iran to the Gulf, and in the mid-1980s, it sold CSS-2 missiles to Saudi Arabia and Silkworm missiles to Iran. The United States has long suspected China of providing other advanced weapon technology and expertise to Iran. The assistance allegedly includes transfers of long-range missiles (CSS-6s), surface-to-surface missiles (the CSS-8 with a range of 130-150 kilometers), and antiship cruise missiles, and help in building missile research and production facilities for a solid-fueled missile.³⁵

Moreover, China provided significant assistance to Iran's civil nuclear program beginning in the mid-1980s. It reportedly trained Iranian nuclear technicians and engineers under a 10-year agreement signed in 1990 and supplied Iran with two small research reactors and a calutron, which, according to Cordesman, had no direct value in producing fissile material.³⁶ China agreed in 1992 to postpone indefinitely the sale of a plutonium-producing research reactor to Iran. The sale was suspended 3 years later, possibly because of U.S. pressure and Iranian difficulties with financing. In an October 1998 summit meeting with the United States, Beijing promised to cancel most of its existing nuclear assistance to Iran and to provide Iran no new nuclear assistance. Two years later, in November 2000, China promised not to sell missiles or dual-use components for missiles that could be used to deliver nuclear weapons.³⁷

China may be reassessing its role in exporting nonconventional weapon technology to Iran, according to one China scholar.³⁸ The three-way debate is among those who believe that China has the right to sell whatever technology it chooses to export, those who follow the international arms control debate and argue that it is more in China's interest to side with the other nuclear powers in denying the technology to nuclear aspirants, and those who advocate linking sales to Iran to leverage on the United States. Advocates of the third position argue that Taiwan is more important for Chinese security than Iran and that China should be able to limit U.S.-Taiwanese relations by dangling Iran before Washington. The Taiwan issue has become more urgent for Beijing over the past 2 years as China monitors the growth of sentiments for independence. This scholar observed that the Taiwan issue was so powerful for China that it overrides any dysfunctional consequences in denying Iran advanced weapon technology.³⁹

Geostrategic location, oil, and leverage on the United States notwithstanding, Iranian-Chinese relations have struck a discordant note. Beijing worries that Tehran is encouraging separatist activities among the approximately 8 million Uighur Muslims in the northwestern Chinese province of Xinjiang.⁴⁰ Russia and China suspect Iran of stirring up Islamic sentiments and encouraging militants in Central Asia, especially in Tajikistan, which has religious and linguistic ties to Iran and, until last year, was the scene of religious-based civil war. China supports Russian efforts to defeat Muslim rebels in Chechnya.

The United States has long suspected North Korea of supplying Iran with long-range missiles, including the No Dong missile, which has a range of 1,000-1,300 kilometers and can carry nuclear and biological weapons.⁴¹ As if to confirm these suspicions, Kim Jong Il told visiting South Korean media executives in August 2000 that his country was selling missiles to Iran and Syria. "How could we not do it when a couple hundred million dollars come out of rocket research?" he queried.⁴²

North Korea closed its first missile deal with Iran in 1990, following the visit of a senior North Korean delegation to Tehran. By 1998, Iran had approximately 60 or more of the 500-kilometer-range Scud-C missiles manufactured by North Korea and several transporter-erector-launchers as well.⁴³ North Korea may have provided Iran with the warhead technology for biological and chemical weapons when it sold Iran the Scud-Cs.⁴⁴ In addition, North Korea may have built Iran's largest missile assembly and production plant near Isfahan; Cordesman reports that the plant may use Chinese equipment and technology.⁴⁵

North Korea desperately needs foreign hard currency and, like China, has little interest in responding to U.S. concerns about proliferation or Iranian nuclear and missile ambitions. Moreover, according to a China scholar, Beijing is happy to connive with North Korea in facilitating weapons and missile transfers to Iran.⁴⁶ Beijing, which benefits from this arrangement when North Korea is accused of helping Iran, is willing to live with the consequences, even if they include Japanese adoption of theater missile defense (TMD).

Western Europe

European views of Iran have long favored engagement over containment. Europeans have a more benign view of Iran and its nuclear intentions than does the United States, rejecting U.S. warnings as ill informed and ill intentioned. France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom have done little, however, to boost Iran's acquisition of nuclear technology thus far, preferring to resume the full range of trade, investment, and diplomatic contacts. The European governments have been even less willing to support U.S. requests to sanction Iran and are not likely to support any new initiatives to restrict government or private connections. Europeans generally do not feel threatened by Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear and ballistic missile technology and pay lip service to U.S. demarches on preventing proliferation of nuclear weapons. Their response to U.S. claims of illicit Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear technology is to demand proof.

European reasoning on relations with Iran goes beyond a different threat perception than that of the United States and Israel; it also goes beyond economics. The European countries--including the United Kingdom--have not been happy with their exclusion from the Arab-Israeli peace process, and they (especially France) slowly have backed away from joining the United States in coalition actions against Iraq. By 1996, France had pulled out of air cooperation in Operations Northern and Southern Watch because it no longer supported retaliatory military strikes on Iraq. Europe never supported containment sanctions on Iran and was dismayed by the secondary boycott aspects of ILSA legislation, which threatened French oil companies considering investment in Iran. Although in public the Europeans frequently have urged the United States to drop sanctions against Iran, in private some European officials and scholars have indicated satisfaction that U.S. sanctions keep American companies from competing in the Iranian market and hope that the U.S. embargo will continue. Experts conclude that the United States can do very little to sway the Europeans, who are not eager to undertake proactive implementation of new punitive policies toward Iran.

A Word on Turkey

A nuclear-armed Iran would raise the stakes considerably in the fulfillment of NATO Article V guarantees to Turkey. Article V pledges to all NATO members that "an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all. . . . " ⁴⁷ Turkey would have reason for concern about NATO allies honoring that pledge, however. During the Gulf War, at least one NATO ally balked at sending NATO forces to the defense of Turkey, arguing that because the United States and its allies were staging offensive operations against Iraq from bases in Turkey, the alliance was released from obligation for Turkey's defense. To their credit, most NATO allies rejected this conditionality of Article V and quickly shamed the others into committing to defend Turkey and, moreover, to make preventative deployments of NATO air defense units to Turkey to deter an attack.

Turkey has good reason to doubt the intentions of European Union (EU) members and NATO European members regarding its security and well-being. Ankara's relations with them are more acrimonious now than they were during the 1990-1991 Gulf War. Europe objects to how Turkey manages its Kurdish problem, including the issues of Kurdish terrorism and demands for political autonomy, civil rights, or outright separatism. Turkey resents EU members' unwillingness to offer it the embrace being extended to the democratizing states of Central and Eastern Europe. Although Turkey certainly would need to make progress in several aspects of its current government practices to meet EU standards, some European leaders reject Turkey outright, saying that a Muslim state could never be part of the European Union. These kinds of declarations only deepen the Turkish sense of exclusion. EU states have prevented arms sales to Turkey, publicly condemn Ankara's military operations in predominantly Kurdish areas of southeast Turkey, and question the legitimacy of proceedings against convicted terrorist and Kurdistan Workers' Party leader Abdullah Ocalan. In particular, they criticize the death penalty that he is under; the EU bans the death penalty.

However, with U.S. encouragement, Turkey very likely would call for pledges of support from its NATO allies if Iran were to cross the nuclear threshold openly and to threaten Turkish security. In Ankara's view, the support of Western Europe and the United States would protect Turkey. It also would significantly increase the stakes for Iran if Western Europe and the United States made their relations with Iran contingent on its behavior toward Turkey.

The United States probably would want a statement from NATO condemning Iran and reiterating the allied pledge of "continuous self-help and mutual assistance" for Turkey. Holding consensus should not be problematic, even though such an action is contrary to the current EU policy of constructive engagement with Iran. Condemnation and possible political and economic sanction by the EU states would be an expected consequence for Iran if it were to become openly a nuclear-armed state.

However, neither the United States nor Turkey is likely to be satisfied with so limited a response. Both countries are likely to want an affirmation of NATO nuclear doctrine, threatening Iran with at least retaliation--to include using nuclear weapons--by NATO. The Alliance nuclear doctrine stresses that nuclear weapons are "weapons of last resort" but are nonetheless essential to collective security. The United States and Turkey both probably would press NATO to reaffirm publicly that the nuclear umbrella covers Turkey. This announcement would serve to deter aggression by Iran against Turkey and to remind Iran of the magnitude of military power amassed by the NATO nations.

Gaining consensus among the NATO allies to issue what amounts to a nuclear threat to Iran would be exceedingly difficult absent an immediate threat to Turkey--and perhaps even with an imminent threat. Whatever they may say about being excluded from the Middle East peace process, European states basically do not want to be drawn into conflicts outside Europe. Becoming the major guarantor of peaceful relations between Turkey and Iran is nowhere on the European radar screen. That role would disrupt current EU defense priorities and require a level of engagement in Middle East politics that would dominate Europe's security agenda and quite likely lead it into conflict with the U.S. course of action.

If Iran were to choose an opaque course of nuclear acquisition, gaining allied support for overt actions or statements drawing attention to NATO Article V commitment and the nuclear component of its strategy would be even more difficult. Absent a clear and present danger to Turkey, NATO is unlikely to commit to this course of action. This reluctance would leave the United States to make a unilateral declaration that Turkey, as a NATO ally, enjoys the protection of the American nuclear umbrella. Considering the strategic importance of Turkey to the United States, this assurance would likely be considered necessary. However, the pledge would be a costly one with respect to transatlantic relations. It surely would give further impetus to the EU desire for an autonomous European security and defense policy and would renew concern about backdoor security guarantees offered by the United States that Europe would be pulled into helping honor.

U.S. efforts to deny Iran technology, including missiles, for its NBC weapon programs have met with only minimal success. Russia has made several promises not to aid Iran, in particular the Gore-Chernomyrdin Agreement of 1995, but it has failed to restrict sales or training; in November 2000, for instance, Moscow announced that it would no longer abide by its agreement with the United States limiting the sale of arms--conventional and nonconventional--to Iran.⁴⁸ China has promised to stop supplying missiles and dual-use components, but only time will tell whether it stops providing Iran with technical assistance directly as well as indirectly through cutouts. Dealing directly with Iran rather than with its suppliers probably is the more effective route to containing if not stopping Iran's acquisition of NBC weapons.

Endnotes

²⁸The Iran-Libya Sanctions Act bars arms sales and economic investment in Iran and threatens companies seeking to invest there with a boycott of their U.S. investments and interests. It expires in 2001. In February 1996, President Clinton signed two pieces of legislation aimed at constraining assistance to Iranian NBC programs. The first amended the 1992 Iran-Iraq Non-Proliferation Act to impose sanctions on any person or foreign government that "transfers or retransfers goods or technology, so as to contribute knowingly and materially to the efforts by Iran or Iraq to acquire chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons." The sanctions to be placed on individuals and corporations were a 2-year ban on U.S. Government procurement contracts export licenses; the impact on governments was a ban on U.S. assistance, opposition to multilateral loans, suspension of codevelopment or coproduction assistance, and suspension of military and dual-use technical exchange agreements. The President was given discretion to halt all dual-use exports to the country in question. The second act applied new sanctions on Russia for the sale of nuclear equipment and technology to Iran. See Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation. [BACK]

²⁹See chapter 1. [BACK]

³⁰Cordesman, Iran's Military Forces in Transition, 229-30. [BACK]

³¹Ibid., 229-31. [BACK]

³²Comments of a senior official of the Department of Defense, March 10, 2000. [BACK]

³³Sylvia Babus and Judith S. Yaphe, "U.S.-Central Asian Security: Balancing Opportunities and Challenges," Strategic Forum, no. 153 (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, January 1999). [BACK]

³⁴Comments of a senior official of the Department of Defense, March 10, 2000. [BACK]

³⁵According to The Korea Times, February 17, 2000, China began selling C-802 cruise missiles with a range of 120 kilometers (74 miles) in 1992 and stopped in 1996, when the United States demanded a halt to arms transfers to Iran. Iran and North Korea started joint production of an advanced version of this missile in the mid-1990s. See also Cordesman, Iran's Military Forces in Transition, 228. [BACK]

³⁶Iraq used calutron equipment in its electromagnetic isotope separation enrichment program to separate weapons-grade uranium. Cordesman claims China supplied Iran with a heavy water, zero-power research reactor at Isfahan Nuclear Research Center as well as with subcritical assemblies. See Cordesman, Iran's Military Forces in Transition, 243, and Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation. [BACK]

³⁷In return for China's commitment, the United States announced that it would waive penalties against China for supplying missile parts to Iran and Pakistan. John Lancaster, "U.S. Waives Proliferation Penalties on China," The Washington Post, November 22, 2000, A20. See also Jones and McDonough, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation. [BACK]

³⁸Study group meeting, March 10, 2000. For a discussion of China's strategic planning for nuclear weapons capabilities, see Brad Roberts, Robert A. Manning, and Ronald N. Montaperto, "China: The Forgotten Nuclear Power," Foreign Affairs 79, no. 4 (July/August 2000): 53-63. [BACK]

³⁹Ibid. [BACK]

⁴⁰The Uighurs speak a Turkic language and are ethnically different from the Han Chinese. Press accounts say Uighur militants receive support from Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf states, and Turkey as well as Iran. In 1944, Uighur leaders declared themselves to be the independent state of East Turkestan. Six years later, the People's Liberation Army suppressed their rebellion. See John Pomfret, "Separatists Defy Chinese Crackdown," The Washington Post, January 26, 2000, A17. [BACK]

⁴¹A photograph of Iran's Shahab-3 ballistic missile--put on display for the first time during Iran's Sacred Defense Week in September 1998--"bears a striking resemblance" to the No Dong 1 and its Pakistani cousin, the Ghauri, according to Current Missile News, February 1, 2000. [BACK]

⁴²According to one press account, this is the first time Kim--or perhaps any Korean official--has identified purchasers of North Korean missiles. Doug Struck and Joohee Cho, "N. Korean Dismisses Missile Idea," The Washington Post, August 15, 2000, A1, A20. [BACK]

⁴³Cordesman, Iran's Military Forces in Transition, 224. [BACK]

⁴⁴Ibid., 225. Iran was a transit point for missile deliveries to Syria in the early 1990s. [BACK]

⁴⁵Ibid. [BACK]

⁴⁶Remarks by Ronald N. Montaperto, "Conference on Iran and the Supply Side of WMD," National Defense University, Washington, DC, March 1999. [BACK]

⁴⁷The North Atlantic Treaty, Article V. NATO Handbook (Brussels: North Atlantic Treaty Organization, 1995), 232. [BACK]

⁴⁸Vice President Albert Gore reached a confidential deal in June 1995 with Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin to exempt Russia from sanctions for selling weapons to Iran in exchange for a pledge to end all deliveries of sophisticated conventional arms by December 31, 1999. In subsequent statements to the press, Russian officials denied this decision had any implications for the provision of un-conventional weapons. Russia, they said, adheres to its international obligations not to proliferate weapons of mass destruction. John M. Broder, "Russia Ending Deal on Arms Negotiated by Gore," The New York Times, November 23, 2000, A1, A20; David Hoffman, "Russian Dismisses Threat of Sanctions," The Washington Post, November 24, 2000, A5. [BACK]