Excerpts from Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe
By Graham Allison
Chapter 7: “Where We Need to Be: A World of Three No’s”
A new approach is needed to convince the Islamic Republic that the costs of pursuing a
nuclear infrastructure will exceed any potential benefits. In short, the United States and
the other nuclear powers should offer Iran a grand bargain. In exchange for a
commitment to freeze the country’s development of enrichment and reprocessing
facilities and ultimately dismantle them, Iran would receive the following: (1)the
opportunity to pursue civilian nuclear power through a fuel-cycle agreement with Russia,
at less than half the cost of producing fuel domestically; (2) American and international
acceptance of the completion of the nuclear power plan at Bushehr and even additional
reactors, provided that the fuel is delivered by and returned to Russia; (3) economic
benefits from increased trade and investment resulting from a relaxation of U.S. unilateral
sanctions and eventual entrance into the World Trade Organization; and (4) an American
agreement not to use force to change the Iranian regime and to discuss Iran’s legitimate
security concerns.
According to a Financial Times report in March 2004, Iran offered its own version of this
bargain through a Swiss intermediary following the war in Iraq, but the ideologically
divided Bush administration could not even muster a response.36 The administration’s
hard-liners apparently believe that the Iranian regime is on the verge of being overthrown
and that negotiations are therefore pointless. It is worth recalling that many in the U.S.
Government believed that same thing about Saddam Hussein in the years following the
1991 Gulf War, only to marvel at his staying power. A Financial Times editorial rightly
concluded, “The Bush administration does not appear even to be keeping its eye on the
prize: a nonnuclear Iran whose security concerns are recognized in return for pursuing
détente with its neighbors, and the world.”
All the parties that have worked to restrain Iran’s nuclear program stand to gain from
such a deal. Russia would enjoy economic benefits through the sale of reactors and fuel
services, and first-mover advantages in the spent-fuel storage business; the Europeans,
led by Britain, France, and Germany, could take the lead in trade and investment in Iran
without American commercial retaliation; the United States would achieve its goal of a
nonnuclear Iran without having to use force; the IAEA would accomplish its nonproliferation objectives; and, most important, the world would benefit from a peaceful,
nonnuclear Iran, and an illustrative case that made “no new nascent nukes” a new bright
line.
U.S. negotiators must persuade Iran that its effort to acquire a nuclear arsenal will only
compound its deepening economic malaise and increase the threat of attack. If it refused
to accept the deal, Iran would find itself economically isolated, unable to bring its vast
natural resources to market and barred from inclusion in high-tech and other global
industries. Worse, its nuclear facilities could be destroyed by American precision-guided
missiles, like Saddam’s palaces next door.
In fact, Israel might conduct such an attack. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon told the Times
of London in November 2002 that he would push Iran to the top of the “to-do list” after
the war in Iraq. A year later, Israel’s defense minister, Shaul Mofaz, drew a line in the
sand, declaring an Iranian nuclear bomb “intolerable” and warning that “only a few
months are left for Israel and the world to take action and prevent Iran from getting the
nuclear bomb.” Israel has recently been flexing its military muscles in ways not lost on
Iranian intelligence. And Iran can have no doubt about Israel’s willingness to pull the
trigger, having witnessed the Israeli Air Force’s destruction of Saddam’s nuclear reactor
at Osirak in 1981. As European negotiators explain to Iranian leaders that acceptance of
their demands is Iran’s best hope to hold off American military action, U.S. officials can
explain that meeting America’s requirements is the only way to forestall Israeli action.
Iran’s conservative leaders have shown themselves to be pragmatic in calculating and
choosing their best option, even when it is not the preferred option. They are not likely to
conclude that economic isolation and American or Israeli bombs serve their regime’s best
interests.