Iran

Today is the 30th anniversary of the Iranian seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran, an event that did as much as any other to seal Iranian-American acrimony over the past three decades. In a rather new development, however, the "Green Movement" chose to commemorate "Pupil's Day" (the Iranian name for this anniversary) with various anti-government demonstrations. You can follow some of the action on Andrew Sullivan’s blog here.

As one would expect, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khameini gave a combative speech commemorating the anniversary, specifically condemning the United States for its "arrogant" interference in Iranian affairs and casting doubt on Obama’s recent efforts to start a dialogue. He acknowledged that Obama "has said nice things," but went to criticize the Administration’s overall approach. Money quote:

On the face of things they say let us negotiate. But alongside this they threaten us and say that if these negotiations do no reach a desirable result they will do this and that. Do you call this negotiation? This is like the relationship between a wolf and a lamb ...

I'd question the characterization of Iran as a "lamb," but I think this statement (and indeed, the whole speech) demonstrates how hard it is to unwind the spiral of suspicion between Washington and Iran. Given the long record of enmity, and each side’s tendency to view the other’s behavior as both hostile and duplicitous, even well-intended gestures of accommodation are likely to be seen as insincere or even deceitful, as a trick intended to take advantage. Any diplomatic misstep merely confirms the sense of suspicion and resentment on both sides, and missteps are probably unavoidable. If this effort is going to succeed, it will take at least as much patience as we are being asked to exhibit vis-à-vis Afghanistan.

Unfortunately, Obama's own remarks on this occasion aren’t going to help, at least not in the short term. Although he reiterated his desire “to move beyond the past,” some of his comments are bound to reinforce Iranian suspicions instead of mollifying them. He said that "we do not interfere in Iran’s internal affairs," which most Iranians would regard as a bald-faced lie.  And they would be right, given recent revelations of covert U.S. programs to destabilize the Iranian regime. He also said "we have recognized Iran’s international right to peaceful nuclear power." He’s technically correct, insofar as the Western powers have offered to supply Iran's reactors with fuel produced outside the country. But to Iran, our insistence that Iran give up enrichment looks like an attempt to keep them dependent on U.S. benevolence and as a denial of Iran's rights under the NPT.

Obama also reiterated America’s "great respect for the people of Iran" and said “the world continues to bear witness to their powerful calls for justice, and their courageous pursuit of universal rights” (my emphasis). These statements can only be interpreted as an appeal to the Iranian people over the heads of the clerical regime, and as a statement of solidarity with the Green Movement. As such, it is bound to make the government of Iran -- with whom the United States is trying to negotiate -- even more suspicious of U.S. intentions.

One could argue that Obama is playing the long game here; that he is betting that the regime is unsteady, that the Green Movement is the wave of the future, and that the United States wouldn't be able to cut a deal with the clerics in any case. In this interpretation, he's willing to jeopardize or even scuttle a possible short-term deal in order to cultivate support among the forces he thinks will eventually triumph.

If that is what he’s doing, it is a huge gamble. Authoritarian regimes do not normally collapse according to a timetable convenient to those in Washington; instead, they show an annoying tendency to hang on far longer than outsiders hope or expect. If statements like this help derail the broader international effort to convince Iran to forego nuclear weapons and the clerics remain in charge, then Obama will have done no better than Bush and will face growing pressure for military action. And perhaps it is worth remembering that Mir Hossein Moussavi supports the nuclear program too, and has been condemning Ahmadinejad for being too forthcoming in the provisional nuclear deal whose fate is now uncertain.

Of course, these glitches in Obama's statement could also be a sign of muddled thinking in the White House or the State Department, which would hardly be surprising in light of some other recent stumbles.

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If I were President Obama (now there's a scary thought!), I'd ask some smart people on my foreign policy team to start thinking hard about "Plan B." What's Plan B? It's the strategy that he's going to need when it becomes clear that his initial foreign policy initiatives didn't work. Obama's election and speechifying has done a lot to repair America's image around the world -- at least in the short term -- in part because that image had nowhere to go but up. But as just about everyone commented when he got the Nobel Peace Prize last week, his foreign policy record to date is long on promises but short on tangible achievements. Indeed, odds are that the first term will end without his achieving any of his major foreign policy goals.

To be more specific, I'd bet that all of the following statements are true in 2012.

1. There won't be a two-state solution between Israel and the Palestinians, and Israel will still be occupying the West Bank and controlling the Gaza Strip. More and more people are going to conclude that "two states for two peoples" is no longer possible, and that great Cairo speech will increasingly look like hollow rhetoric.

2. The United States will still have tens of thousands of troops in Afghanistan. Victory will not be within sight.

3. Substantial U.S. personnel will remain in Iraq (relabeled as "training missions"), and the political situation will remain fragile at best. 

4. The clerical regime in Iran will still be in power, will still be enriching nuclear material, will still insist on its right to control the full nuclear fuel cycle, and will still be deeply suspicious of the United States. Iran won't have an actual nuclear weapon by then, but it will be closer to being able to make one if it wishes.

5. There won't be a new climate change agreement to replace the Kyoto Protocol.

6. Little progress will have been made toward reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the world. The United States and Russia may complete a new strategic arms agreement by then, but both states will still have thousands of nuclear warheads in their stockpiles. None of the nine current nuclear weapons states will have disarmed, and I wouldn't be surprised if the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty is still unratified three years from now.

Other achievements that we won't see include the balancing of the federal budget, a major revamping of global financial architecture, reform of the U.N. Security Council, a significant increase in the size of the State Department or the foreign aid budget, or the completion of new trade round. I'm not even sure we will have closed Gitmo or ended "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" by then.

Assuming he wins re-election, therefore, President Obama is going to be looking at a foreign policy "to do" list with remarkably few boxes checked off. And somebody ought to start thinking about this possibility now, because wise statecraft ought to anticipate the circumstances one is going to face a few years hence, instead of focusing solely on what's in the in-box today.

So what's Plan B? I'm still wrestling with that issue myself, but here's a quick sketch of some of the fundamental ideas. Plan B begins by recognizing that the United States remains the most secure great power in modern history and that most of damage we have suffered recently has come from scaring ourselves into foolish foreign adventures. It means rejecting the belief -- common to both neoconservatives and liberal internationalists -- that virtually every global problem requires an American solution and "American leadership." It acknowledges that social engineering in complex traditional societies is something we don't know how to do and probably can't learn, but it takes comfort from the fact that it is also a task that we don't have to do. It accepts that there are a few bad guys out there that do need to be confronted, captured, and sometimes killed, but understands that the more force we use and the heavier our footprint is, the more resistance we will ultimately face. And yes, Plan B understands that sometimes bad things will happen to Americans, and there is nothing we can do to completely eliminate all foreign dangers. Get used to it.

Plan B means playing "hard to get" more often, so that other states don't take us for granted and so that they bear a greater share of common burdens. It means exploiting balances of power and playing divide-and-conquer, instead of trying to impose a preponderance of U.S. power on every corner of the globe. It prizes the individual freedoms that are the core of American democracy -- freedoms that are threatened by a steady diet of foreign wars -- and it recognizes that other societies will have to find their own way toward more pluralist and participatory forms of government, and at their own pace. It seeks to maintain armed forces that are second to none but eschews squandering lives or money on peripheral wars that are neither vital nor winnable. It rejects "special relationships" with any other state, if by that one means relationships where we support other states even when they do foolish things that are not in our interest (or theirs). 

And Plan B proceeds from the belief that other states will be more likely to follow America's lead if they look at us and like what they see. America used to dazzle the world by offering up a vision of opportunity, equality, energy and competence that was unimaginable elsewhere. The danger now is that America is increasingly seen as a land of crumbling infrastructure, mountainous debt, uninsured millions, fraying public institutions, and xenophobic media buffoons. Over the longer term, getting our house in order back home will to a lot more to shore up our global position than conducting endless foot patrols through the Afghan countryside.

Postscript: Some smart observers -- such as Andrew Sullivan at the Atlantic -- have a more favorable view of Obama's performance to date. They discern a trademark style in Obama's cautious and reflective approach to most policy issues: he sets forth general goals, waits to see how others react, gauges the limits of the possible, and then decides on a course of action. There's probably something to this view, and surely the patient examination of alternative policy options makes more sense than relying on one's "gut instincts" and then stubbornly refusing to admit the possibility of error.

Whether one relies on calm deliberation or a president's entrails, however, the proof of any approach to policymaking is its ability to deliver tangible results. And here the jury is still out. My concern is that Obama has yet to use American power -- in either its hard and soft forms -- in ways designed to shape the calculations and actions of both allies and adversaries. Where Bush erroneously believed that the United States could simply dictate to the rest of the world, thus far Obama seems unwilling to wield American power against stubborn opponents or withhold U.S. support from recalcitrant allies. His speeches are a valuable tool, but ultimately others need to know that there is resolve and purpose and tangible actions behind them. Sometimes foreign policy is like community organizing -- i.e., you're trying to herd diverse groups to work together for a common goal and your task is to overcome suspicions so that the common ground can be seized. But at other times it's more like a gang war. And when it's the latter, you have to take names, draw lines, and use the power at one's disposal to get the outcomes you want.

Think about it this way: how many foreign leaders are now grateful because the United States has backed them and their prospects are improving, and how many governments are now worried because the United States is successfully using its power to undermine or thwart them and force them to rethink their positions?

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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to Moscow earlier this week, seeking Russian support for tighter sanctions on Iran. And what did she get for his efforts? A few nice photo ops, plus an unambiguous "nyet" from Russian Foreign Minister, Sergey Lavrov.

I have a couple of questions.

Did she go there believing that she really would get a meaningful commitment for tighter sanctions from the Russians? Or did she know beforehand that she wasn't going to get anywhere, but felt she had to go through the motions anyway?

Frankly, I don't know which answer would worry me more. If it's the former, she's getting very bad advice from her Russia experts, who clearly have no idea how Russia's leaders perceive their own interests. If the latter, she has no business wasting time and effort on a lost cause and giving Lavrov the opportunity to score points by stiffing her in public. The Secretary of State of a great power shouldn't be flying off to foreign capitals with the diplomatic equivalent of a tin cup, pleading with them to comply with our wishes. You're supposed to wait until your assistants have got the deal more-or-less in place, and then you show up to make the final push and iron out the last sticky details. Either way, this just wasn't very smart diplomacy.

And let's not overlook the obvious possibility that Lavrov was right: right now isn't an opportune time to threaten Iran with more sanctions. The initial round of talks were encouraging (though there's still a long way to go), and brandishing threats is probably the best way to derail them before any additional progress is made. There are undoubtedly people in the United States (and Iran) who would like to see that happen, but I didn't think Hillary was one of them.

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I've blogged a lot about Iran and Afghanistan over the past few months, but I've been remiss in not highlighting an important connection between the two issues. As Spencer Ackerman noted a few days ago, U.S. Afghan commander Stanley McChrystal offered this intriguing comment during his remarks at IISS headquarters in London last week:

Iran, of course, being, you know, in such proximity to Afghanistan and having significant influence inside Afghanistan, is a big player. They, in my view, they have a lot of very positive influence inside Afghanistan, some of it cultural, some of it financial, just things that any neighbor would have to try to build the stability. I think that if Iran takes a very mature look at a stable Afghanistan and support the government of Afghanistan, then we'll be -- we'll be in good shape. If they were to choose not to do that, and they were to choose to support insurgents, I think that would be a significant miscalculation.

I don't think this comment was an idle remark by McChrystal. What he's telling us is that Iran could be a positive influence in Afghanistan, and that it could also be a real hindrance to our efforts. And that means that an attack on Iran would make our situation in Afghanistan even worse than it is already, because Iran would have both the capacity and the incentive to retaliate.

There's no love lost between Iran and the Taliban, in part because the Taliban murdered ten Iranian diplomats in Mazari Sharif back in 1998. But Iran does retain some influence there -- as McChystal points out --and they would undoubtedly be looking for some way to pay us back if we were foolish enough to strike them. McChrystal is probably aware that advocates of a hardline approach to Tehran have a lot of clout in the Obama administration, and that plenty of other voices -- such as GOP Senator Lindsay Graham -- continue to wave the big stick even as negotiations get underway.

So McChrystal's seemingly innocuous remark might actually be something of a pre-emptive strike against those who keep suggesting that our only approach to Iran is preventive war. If so, then this might be another illustration of Richard Betts's argument in Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises, which showed that at least in the U.S. context, civilians are often a lot more bellicose than the uniformed military. In any case, I hope Obama is paying attention.

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One of the arguments that is often invoked to justify a hardline approach to Iran's nuclear program is the fear of a "regional arms race." In this view, if Iran were to get the bomb, neighboring states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt might be forced to get them too, with presumably harmful effects on regional stability. (For a recent invocation of this line of thinking, see Michael Slackman's article in the New York Times today).

One obviously cannot rule out such a possibility out, but there are good reasons not to accept this particular justification uncritically. To begin with, the real danger is not a regional arms race per se, it is the possibility that an arms race might lead to conflict in a critical region (or make it easier for terrorists to steal a weapon). By themselves, arms races just waste money, which is obviously not a good thing but not necessarily a disaster in strategic terms. So the question is two-fold: Would an arms race actually occur if Iran went nuclear, and would it then have dangerous effects on regional stability?

Here the evidence is mixed. With respect the first question, history suggests that one state's acquisition of nuclear weapons does not necessarily produce an immediate flock of imitators. The Soviet Union did get nuclear weapons because the United States had them, and one could argue that Soviet acquisition (and the desire to retain the trappings of great power status) played a role in the British and French decisions to go nuclear in the 1950s. China's decision to get a minimum deterrent of its own undoubtedly reflected their concerns about U.S. (and later, Soviet) power, although Mao seems to have been as worried by the other great powers’ conventional capabilities as by their nuclear arsenals. And it's clear that Pakistan's nuclear program was an obvious response to India's nuclear program. So we obviously cannot rule out the possibility that an Iranian bomb would encourage others to follow suit.

But the overall record on this point is far from clear. There are between 40 and 60 states with the technological capacity and economic wherewithal to build a nuclear bomb, and the vast majority of them have decided not to do so, even when there were other nuclear powers in their neighborhood. A few states have started down that road and then turned back, sometimes in the face of international pressure (Libya, Brazil, Argentina), and sometimes mostly on their own (Sweden, South Africa). Israel's acquisition of nuclear weapons in the 1960s did spark some interest in the Arab world, but only Saddam Hussein got really serious about it (and even he gave up trying for nukes in the 1990s). Libya had a semi-serious nuclear program too, but it was hardly a crash program and Ghaddafi eventually abandoned it as well.  Iran’s own nuclear program (which began under the Shah) reflected broader security concerns and the Shah's own desire for status, and doesn't appear to have been a direct response to anyone else's bomb.  North Korea’s entry into the nuclear club hasn't led South Korea, Japan, or anyone else to start a new nuclear weapons program yet. In short, people have been forecasting the rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons ever since the nuclear age began, but all  of those forecasts have been overly pessimistic.

The key point to remember is that a decision to build a bomb involves some complex cost-benefit calculations, and Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon would not necessarily lead any of its neighbors to decide that their best course is to follow suit.  One reason they might hold back is simply the recognition that getting a bomb would not enhance Iran's influence as much as is sometimes claimed. China did not suddenly become a more influential power when it tested a bomb in 1964; its rise to true great power status came when it began to modernize its economy in the l980s. Getting a bomb may have reinforced Israel's "existential security" (which is why Ben Gurion wanted one), but having a couple of hundred nuclear weapons doesn’t enable them to blackmail the Palestinians or the other Arab states into doing whatever Jerusalem wants. Similarly, North Korea has hardly any influence in world affairs despite its recent entry into the nuclear club; the only thing that that Pyongyang can do with its weapon is discourage others from putting too much pressure on them. Americans really should understand this: we have several thousand nuclear weapons and we have a tough enough time getting other states -- even rather weak ones -- to do what we want. The same would be true for a nuclear Iran: it could not blackmail anyone because the threat would not be credible, and even nearby states might find it easier to adjust to than we sometimes think .

By the way, this same logic may also help convince Iran that it doesn't need to go all the way to full acquisition of a nuclear capability. It won't buy them much influence, but it still might encourage some of their neighbors to follow suit. Ironically, that situation might decrease Iran’s regional influence over time. Iran is the most populous state in the Gulf region, and it has enormous economic potential. If the mullahs ever get their act together, Iran’s conventional capabilities would overshadow the other states in the region. And if that's the case, crossing the nuclear threshold might lead others to look for a cheap way to counter that. Thus, from Iran's own point of view, staying on this side of the nuclear threshold (but having the capacity to go nuclear quickly if need be), might be the optimal strategy, particularly if they were less worried about an imminent Israeli or U.S. attack.

Next, would a Middle Eastern arms race lead to war? There is a vast academic literature on the general relationship between arms races and war, and the results are at best inconclusive. The empirical results are highly sensitive to the model specification and other definitional questions, and the best short answer is that the effect is highly conditional: arms races may raise the danger of war in some circumstances, but make war less likely in others.  

And what about nuclear arms races? Here too, there is a heated academic debate. On one side are those who believe the slow spread of nuclear arsenals might actually be stabilizing (or at least not destabilizing), essentially because the logic of deterrence would kick in, make war too dangerous, and also induce greater overall caution short of war. Other scholars question this optimistic appraisal, and argue that new nuclear states might have trouble establishing stable deterrent relationships and would also create a greater risk of nuclear leakage to terrorists.

I lean toward the former view, but it’s clearly not an open-and-shut case.  Nonetheless, it is worth noting that the spread of nuclear weapons has generally been stabilizing so far; in the sense that no one has launched a major war of aggression against a nuclear power at any time in the past. (The Egyptian-Syrian attack on Israel in the 1973 October War is not an exception, by the way, as it was clearly a "limited aims" attack focused on regaining territory captured by Israel in 1967, and not an attempt to conquer Israel itself). The Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan is probably the most serious counter-example, but even that dispute remained at a fairly low level and fear of nuclear escalation probably played some role in allowing cooler heads to prevail.

There are plenty of good reasons to try to prevent Iran from going nuclear, which is why one hopes that the talks in Geneva will make progress. But the sometimes apocalyptic visions of what an Iranian bomb might mean rest on worst-case arguments about which one should maintain a healthy skepticism. And for other reasons to be skeptical about the current effort to mobilize for war, see Juan Cole's "top ten things you know about Iran that are not true," here.

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Two recent op-eds tell you a lot about the corner the United States is painting itself into on Iran.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, neoconservative Eliot Cohen says we have only two options: an American or Israeli military strike "which would probably cause a substantial war," or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, "which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear."  Echoing the neocons' earlier campaign for the invasion of Iraq (a decision he enthusiastically endorsed),  Cohen recommends that we "actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic."  He does not call for a U.S. invasion (for which there are no forces available and scant public support), but instead calls for employing "every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard" to bring down the clerical regime.  And he warns darkly that if Obama allows Iran to get a nuclear weapon, he will face a firestorm at home that "will makes the squawks of protest against his health care plans look like the merest showers on a sunny day."  Hmmm....I wonder what he's talking about here?

If anyone doubted that the neoconservatives were still pushing for a U.S.-led effort to remake the Middle East-despite the disaster they've already created in Iraq-this piece (and a similar oped by Paul Wolfowitz in yesterday's Financial Times-should correct that assumption.  Of course, Cohen trots out the usual bogeymen about Iran's "fanatical, ruthless, and unprincipled regime" (an obvious hint that these are irrational criminals who could not be deterred), and flatly declares that no "real negotiation or understanding" is possible with such people.  He says that allowing Iran to have the bomb "may yield the first nuclear attack since 1945," even though he also believes the mullahs are "willing to do whatever it takes to stay in power."  (Newsflash: if "staying in power" is the Iranian leadership's  primary goal, starting a nuclear war and thus inviting overwhelming retaliation by the U.S. or Israel isn't something they're going to do.)

But what is most revealing about Cohen's piece-apart from the worst-case alarmism that pervades it-is his own awareness that the forceful line he favors won't work.

First, he recognizes that air strikes by Israel or the United States can delay but not stop the nuclear program and could easily unleash a wider, highly destructive war.  Second, he understands the economic sanctions haven't worked in the past and are unlikely to convince Tehran to change course now.  He cannot imagine trying a more accommodating route, so all that is left is "regime change."  But we've tried that too, beginning in the Clinton administration and continuing up to the present day, and Cohen doesn't argue that this will work either.

Cohen's proposed approach thus offers us the worst of all possible worlds: we continue to confront Iran with various ineffective threats, thereby ensuring that relations remain bitterly contentious, making ourselves look ineffectual, and giving them more reason to want a deterrent capability.  It is an approach that will only strengthen hardliners and undercut the moderates who still hope for change there, and convince a new generation of Iranians (70 percent of the population is under 30) that America is the "Great Satan" after all. 

Given that Cohen recognizes that his own recommendations won't work, one can only conclude that his real aim is to make sure that there is no accommodation whatsoever between Washington and Iran.  His warnings about the protests that Obama will face are intended less to solve the actual problem than to persuade the President to stick with the failed policies we have followed for the past two decades.

The alternative to Cohen's ineffectual pessimism is laid out clearly by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett in today's New York Times.  They also recognize that military force, covert action and economic sanctions aren't going to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.  Given the dearth of attractive alternatives, they recognize that the only way to convince Iran not to weaponize is to engage in a broad and patient effort to transform the whole U.S.-Iranian relationship.  Obama has made rhetorical gestures in that direction, but his administration has also continued covert action programs aimed at Iran, repeatedly threatened tougher sanctions, and never embraced the need for a broader "strategic understanding" with Iran.

The Leveretts remind us that Richard Nixon achieved his opening to China by taking concrete steps to reduce U.S. pressure on Beijing, even at a moment when China was helping North Vietnam kill U.S. soldiers.  (And this was Mao's China, remember, which U.S. officials had long seen as fanatical, ruthless, irrational, etc.).  Nixon did this because he understood that transforming the entire U.S.-China relationship was more important than worrying about Beijing's bad behavior; the key was move to a relationship where such bad behavior was no longer in China's interest.

The strategy they outline might not work with Iran, but it would hardly leave the United States worse off than the strategy Cohen recommends, which by his own admission is likely to fail.   The problem, of course, is that it is the neoconservative forces that Cohen represents are now working overtime to prevent the United States from pursuing the one course of action that might-repeat, might-actually convince Iran it is better off with an enrichment capacity but not an actual bomb.  

Alex Wong/Getty Images for Meet the Press

The big story this morning, of course, is the revelation that Iran has been building a second nuclear enrichment facility. Here's what I think it means, with the caveat that the story is about three hours old and I still have lots of unanswered questions.

To start, it is not good news for those who have been hoping for a gradual improvement in Iran's relations with the outside world, hopes that were already undermined by the repercussions of the fraudulent election this past summer. At a minimum, it is bound to create new doubts about Iranian assurances regarding its nuclear program, although I don't know anyone who took those assurances at face value. After all, the whole idea behind inspections and other safeguards, and the whole reason that Western intelligence agencies have continued to watch Iran closely, is because we don't necessarily believe what Iran's government tells us.

That said, it is not clear from the early press reports exactly how blatant a violation this really is. According to the Washington Post, Iran notified the IAEA on September 21 that it was constructing a new pilot enrichment plant. Assuming that it has not already introduced nuclear material into this facility (and Tehran says it hasn't), Iran is therefore in compliance with the NPT's Comprehensive Full Scope Safeguards Agreement, which requires it to notify the IAEA six months before nuclear material is introduced into any new facility. Iran previously withdrew from the more demanding Subsidiary Agreement 3.1, which would have required more detailed and timely notification, in response to the IAEA's decision to refer Iran's nuclear program to the U.N. Security Council. So from Tehran's perspective, this new facility is not a violation at all: they are permitted to enrich under the NPT and they have complied with the Comprehensive Safeguards agreement by notifying the IAEA of the new facility. (Even that rather generous interpretation might not let Tehran entirely off the hook, however, as it seems likely that they informed the IAEA on September 21 because they had discovered that the United States had penetrated the program and they wanted to pre-empt today's revelation.)

The United States has an obvious response: unilateral withdrawal from Agreement 3.1 is not permissible, and so technically Iran is still in violation of its past commitments, but this legalistic back-and-forth is part of a long pattern. In addition, the U.N. Security Council has passed several resolutions demanding that Iran cease all enrichment, and its refusal to comply provides the main legal basis for sanctions. Iran is hardly the first country to ignore Security Council resolutions, however, and Tehran undoubtedly believes that the construction of a second plant is not a direct violation of its more basic obligations under the NPT.

The bottom line is that we still don't yet know just how serious the new discovery is. If nuclear material is already present there (despite what Iran now says), then it is a clear violation of the agreements that Iran's government has repeatedly claimed it is upholding, and thus casts even more doubt on its credibility. If the facility is still under construction and no nuclear material has been introduced, then Iran is technically in compliance of the basic safeguards agreement, and trying to exploit various legal loopholes. (Again, it is defying the SC resolutions, but it was doing that already and so today's announcement adds nothing new).

The New York Times story also makes it clear that this discovery is not by itself evidence that Iran has an active nuclear weapons program. The new facility is an enrichment plant, not a bomb-building factory, and everyone knows that Iran was already producing low-grade enriched uranium.  Accordingly, the new revelation does not contradict earlier intelligence estimates which concluded that Iran was not actively trying to build a bomb.

Of course, this does not mean Iran is not interested in getting nuclear weapons, or at least achieving a "breakout" capability that it would allow it to go nuclear rapidly at some point in the future. As I've noted before, there are good reasons why Iran might want a nuclear deterrent of its own, just as there are good reasons why the United States and its allies would prefer that it didn't. In any case, this new report is bound to reinforce suspicions about Iran's long-term intentions and hardliners will undoubtedly use this information to press for tougher economic sanctions. This is of course, why the United States, Britain, and France released it, and if I had to guess, I'd bet that stricter sanctions will in fact be imposed.

That's another puzzle, by the way. The Times's story says the United States "has been tracking the project for years," which makes one wonder why its existence was not disclosed previously. Perhaps the United States was trying to protect "sources and methods," or lacked fully convincing information. In any case, the timing of the release seems to be clearly related to the current push for more stringent sanctions.

Most importantly, this new information does not strengthen the case for using military force against Iran's nuclear program, although hawks are bound to invoke it for that purpose. Airstrikes can delay Iran's acquisition of a nuclear weapon, but cannot prevent it, and they are likely to strengthen Iran's resolve to acquire a genuine deterrent as soon as they can. Attacking Iran will rally the population around the regime, and given Iran ample reason to retaliate against the United States or its allies in Iraq, or Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East.

If we want to stop an Iranian bomb (as opposed to halting its nuclear enrichment activities), we are going to have to convince Iran that it doesn't need a nuclear deterrent to be safe. That won't be easy to do, given that Iran has three nuclear neighbors (Pakistan, India, and Israel), and a very bad relationship with the United States, which has given millions of dollars to Iranian opposition groups and formally committed itself to regime change on several past occasions. Persuading Tehran that they don't need a deterrent requires taking the threat of force, regime change, and the like off the table, instead of ratcheting the threat level up. I'm not saying that this approach will work; I'm saying that threatening preventive war won't. And actually launching a preventive war is likely to make things much worse.

On this issue, Iran expert Gary Sick has the right idea: "first, do no harm."  Iran is committed to mastering the full fuel cycle, and probably wants to get a "breakout capability." Money quote:

The real purpose of negotiations, in my view, is to build a system of monitoring and inspections that will (1) provide maximum early warning of a potential future Iranian decision to "break out;" and (2) insure the maximum possible interval between that moment and the moment where Iran could actually have a bomb. Iran has said on several occasions that it is willing to accept such an enhanced inspection regime, but it will no doubt insist on a price. That, I think, is what the negotiations should be about."

Ironically, today's report may make this solution more feasible, by reminding the Iranian government that hiding a nuclear facility isn't easy -- especially when the outside world is suspicious -- and that any attempt to renege on a future agreements is likely to be detected. Maybe, just maybe, today's episode will make a deal easier to reach down the road.  Not that I'd bet on that.

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Some semi-random thoughts on events that occurred since Friday.

1. I thought about posting something about Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's most recent fit of Holocaust denial, but Juan Cole said everything I would have said with just the right tone of outrage. For what it's worth, I see this latest bit of bile as a sign of desperation on Ahmadinejad's part. The government faced renewed protests last week and seems to be somewhat at a loss for how to deal with its manifest unpopularity. As I noted during the initial round of demonstrations that followed the elections in June, Iran's leaders are increasingly out of touch with the broader population, and especially its younger elements. The clerics are a bunch of old men, and Ahmadinejad himself hardly in the bloom of youth at 53. By contrast, seventy percent of Iran's population is under 30 and was born after the 1980 revolution. Spouting foolish and hateful nonsense about the Holocaust isn't going to buy him much support at home or abroad, and I think it's a sign of waning legitimacy for the clerical regime as presently constituted. I just hope we don't do something stupid that allows him to rally nationalist feeling.

2. A reader wrote in and pointed out that I had incorrectly referred to "Czechoslovakia" in my post last week on Obama's missile defense decision.  My bad; I obviously should have said "Czech Republic." 

3. Why is Benjamin Netanyahu stiffing Obama and Mitchell, and why are they letting him? My answer to that question is in Sunday's Washington Post.

4. Matt Yglesias had a nice comment over the weekend about one of my pet peeves: the infamous "Munich analogy." His obvious but still very important point is that making Adolf Hitler's behavior your standard guide to foreign policy is foolish, because Hitlers are (fortunately) quite rare and you'll do a lot of stupid things when dealing with the overwhelming percentage of governments that aren't Nazi Germany and who aren't led by a genocidal monster.

I would only add a corollary comment: another reason Britain and France had trouble dealing with Hitler is that they were overcommitted in other areas (such as the Far East), and were also loathe to get too close to Stalin's Russia. The lesson (which those who constantly warn of another "Munich" never mention), is that you can get your country in just as much trouble by exaggerating threats and losing sight of strategic priorities as you can by failing to respond vigorously enough when a real challenge arises. For more on how Munich has been misused in policy debates, check out the late Ernest May's "Lessons" of the Past: the Use and Misuse of History in American Foreign Policy (1973), and Christopher Layne's article "Security Studies and the Use of History: Neville Chamberlain's Grand Strategy Re-Visited." in the July 2008 issue of Security Studies.

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