Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

US-Russia: Holding the line against nukes

Iran after the Lebanon War: Same Nuclear Ambitions, Different Regional Context

As the August 31 deadline for Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment activities approaches, Iran remains defiant and determined to not give up its right to engage in these activities. While the war in Lebanon was raging and the UN Security Council took a firmer stance on the nuclear issue, statements from Iran clarified that, far from suspension, Iran plans to expand its enrichment activities.

Iran’s Lebanon Card

The futures of Lebanon and nuclear weapons in the Middle East now intertwine, and Iran is the common link. But Tehran will rebuff pressure in one area by indirectly threatening to make things worse in the other. Iran’s counterparts must step back and develop a more comprehensive diplomatic strategy.

Diplomacy for Now

Iran has said no to the U.N. Security Council's legally binding demand that Tehran suspend enrichment of uranium, as a first step toward resuming negotiations over the future course of its nuclear-energy program and broader relations with the West. It's now time for the U.S. to quietly rally Europe, the Middle East and Asia to develop plans for containing and deterring a nuclear-armed Iran.

Iran and the Nuclear Deal

UN Resolution 1696 Moots Iranian Legal Claims

On July 31, 2006 the United Nations Security Council adopted Resolution 1696, demanding that Iran “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.” The resolution came after Iran had ignored a series of requests from the IAEA, the EU-3, and the United States for Iran to cease its enrichment program until its peaceful nature could be confirmed by the IAEA. Iran claimed that neither the IAEA nor any member of the international community had the right to prevent Iran from pursuing a domestic nuclear energy program. Resolution 1696 undermines the legal basis on which Iran has resisted suspension. As the international community awaits Iran’s response to the Security Council’s demands, it is important to understand this new legal context.

1696 was adopted after three years of negotiations between Iran and France, Germany and the United Kingdom failed to resolve outstanding questions regarding Iran’s compliance with its IAEA safeguard obligations and its Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons obligation under Article II “not to seek or receive assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” Throughout these negotiations, Iran has been pressed to suspend uranium enrichment activities, as a confidence-building measure to facilitate negotiations over longer-term parameters to objectively guarantee that Iran’s nuclear activities are exclusively for peaceful purposes. Iran agreed as a voluntary, unilateral measure in November 2003 to suspend all enrichment and reprocessing activities as defined by the IAEA. It then intermittently broke the terms of the suspension until November 2004, when a more specific agreement was made with the EU-3. Iran then breached that agreement on August 10, 2005 when it removed the IAEA seals from its conversion plant in Esfahan in preparation for manufacturing UF6 gas to be enriched. (Read More)

Update: Indian Questioning of US-India Nuclear Deal

On July 26, the US House of Representatives passed the “United States and India Nuclear Cooperation Promotion Act of 2006” by a clear majority. The Senate version of the Bill will be voted upon, most likely, in September. The House of Representatives adopted the Bill only after ensuring that even after being passed by the Senate and the enactment of the Act into law, the nuclear cooperation agreement would still need the approval of the Congress, thus maintaining its full oversight authority.

The House also demanded periodic reporting from the President on India’s compliance with key U.S. objectives in the region as well as on issues of non-proliferation. In two non-binding sections included in the Bill, the “Sense of the House” and “Statements of Policy,” the House outlined key U.S. interests including, but not limited to : (i) the achievement of a moratorium on the production of fissile material for production of nuclear weapons; (ii) securing India’s full support of and participation in U.S. efforts to deter and possibly isolate and sanction Iran for its attempts to acquire nuclear weapons; and (iii) a complete declaration of India’s civil nuclear facilities to the IAEA as well as a safeguards regime in perpetuity in conformity with IAEA’s practices, standards and principles,  rather than an India-specific safeguards regime.

These modifications have generated apprehension on the Indian side. Among the political parties, the CPI (M), a key leftist ally of the ruling Congress government with a traditionally anti-US stance, has expressed a heightened sense of concern about the deal’s impact on India’s ability to continue to pursue an independent foreign policy. The Hindu nationalist party, the BJP, has also voiced similar concerns. On August 10th, the BJP announced that former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee would lead a delegation of Parliamentarians to President Abdul Kalam to seek his intervention to prevent the passage of a deal that they believed would compromise India’s ability to maintain a credible nuclear deterrent. Sensing an opportunity to rally all the parties in opposition to the deal against the ruling Congress, the BJP also invited the Left, including CPI (M) to support this move. (Read More)

Inside the A.Q. Khan Network

Rather than being primarily composed of a shadowy subversive network of international terrorists, most of the central players in the A.Q. Khan proliferation network were well-to-do Anglo-Saxons. They were clever and exploited voids in national and international export control laws to sell their wares. Greed was their central motivation.

On Iran, Giving Futility Its Chance

Why Iran Should Suspend First

In the latest move in the wrestling match with the international community, Iran is being pushed back to the UN Security Council.  Iran’s unwillingness to negotiate over the recent international incentive package was too much for France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and even Russia and China to take.  This is not the last move, however, and it is important that the international community not waver on the need for Iran to  resume without further delay suspension of uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.

We say this because in Washington and elsewhere, the erroneous and unhelpful impression was being promoted that the United States is the actor holding up negotiations with Iran.  Seymour Hersh’s insightful article in the July 10 & 17 issue of The New Yorker begins by reporting that the Bush Administration’s offer to join talks with Iran was conditioned on the President’s demand that “‘the Iranian regime fully and verifiably suspends its uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities.’”  Hersh continues that in essence “Iran, which has insisted on the right to enrich uranium, was being asked to concede the main point of negotiations before they started.”  Herein lies a damaging fallacy.

The facts are that the International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors has called for Iranian suspension nine times in resolutions between September 2003 and February 2006, and the UN Security Council Presidential Statement of March 29, 2006 also calls for Iran to re-establish “full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development”.  In each case, the demand is for immediate Iranian suspension.  The logic follows the November 15, 2004 Paris Agreement between the EU-3 (France, Germany and the United Kingdom) and Iran, whereby Iran agreed that “the suspension will be sustained while negotiations proceed on a mutually acceptable agreement on long-term arrangements”. The aim of the agreement was to provide objective guarantees that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively for peaceful purposes, while meeting Iran’s interests in developing peaceful nuclear technology and gaining the economic benefits of ties with Europe and the security benefits of broader rapprochement in the Middle East.  Iran broke that suspension last August before it bothered to consider an offer of incentives by the EU-3.  It is risible that Iran now says it needs months to analyze and respond to the more ambitious incentive package offered by the EU-3 and supported by the US, Russia and China. 

In other words, the call for Iran to suspend enrichment now is an international demand, not an exceptional American one, and it does not prejudge the outcome of subsequent negotiations.  (Read More)

Beyond Nuclear Deterrence: Transforming the U.S.–Russian Equation

While deterrence as a concept has always been paradoxical, it is poorly equipped to handle today’s most significant nuclear challenges: proliferation and terrorism. Nuclear arms control must move beyond the deadlock of deterrence.

New Report Addresses Critiques of U.S.-India Nuclear Cooperation

In a new report, Atoms for War?: U.S.-Indian Civilian Nuclear Cooperation and India’s Nuclear Arsenal, Carnegie Senior Associate Ashley J. Tellis argues empirically that natural uranium resources do not limit India's potential nuclear arsenal and that any limitations in India's nuclear fuel stockpile stem from short-term problems that, in fact, give the U.S. little leverage over India.  Tellis argues that Indian policy-makers display no intention nor practice of dramatically building up their nuclear weapon arsenal and that the proposed U.S.-India deal will not cause India to do so or augment its capacity to do so in significant ways.

The report states that India is not seeking to maximize its nuclear arsenal as demonstrated by India’s decision to produce far less fissile material than its capacity allows given its natural uranium reserves. Tellis argues that India’s short-term deficiency of uranium fuel is due to technical hindrances in its uranium mining and milling practices. He maintains that India has the capability to rectify this shortcoming independently.

Tellis also addresses the contentious issue of whether the deal violates Article I of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. He states that the NPT legally allows for nuclear cooperation between nuclear-weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states on safeguarded facilities, even if the country has not committed to full-scope safeguards. Tellis asserts that critiques that the U.S.-India nuclear deal violates Article I lead “inexorably to the conclusion that no party to the NPT should have any economic intercourse with India whatsoever, because the resulting gains from trade would inevitably free up some domestic Indian resources that would be of use to New Delhi’s weapons program.”

Carnegie Foreign Policy Conference: Managing U.S. Dominance

The class of 2005-2006 Carnegie Junior Fellows were proud to present the first annual conference for young professionals, The Carnegie Foreign Policy Conference: Managing U.S. Dominance. Speakers remarked on the recent historical context of America's position in the world and idenified some of the debates that today's younger generation will be faced with over the course of their careers.

Israel Urges U.S. Diplomacy on Iran

Many observers believe that Israel is pushing the U.S. to take military action against Iran's nuclear program. We asked Israel's senior defense journalist, Ze'ev Schiff, a man with outstanding contacts, to describe Israeli establishment thinking today on the Iran challenge.

When in Washington, I was amazed to hear on a number of occasions that Israel was urging the United States to go to war with Iran and that its strategic objective was to induce the United States to attack Iran, thus putting an end to that country's nuclear program. To the best of my knowledge and understanding this claim is totally false. It is an error based on ignorance or on disregard for important details in Israeli strategic thinking. It may even be founded on a deliberate lie.

To the best of my knowledge, Israel does not believe war against Iran to be the best way to eliminate the Iranian nuclear project. There is a common tendency to forget that Israel lies on the frontline of such a war. Israel stands to suffer more than anyone else, including the United States, should such a war break out. It would certainly be the prime target of Iranian retaliation should the United States decide to use force against Iran. It is a known fact that the attack on the Israeli consulate in Buenos Aires some years ago was the work of Iranian agents. Also in Buenos Aires, Iranian agents were responsible for the destruction of the Jewish community offices, causing many casualties. In fact, the Iranian government aims its violence against Jewish institutions in countries outside the Middle East. (Read More)

Testimony by Patrick Clawson: More Subtle Pressure and Inducements Needed for Iran

The following are excerpts from the prepared remarks by Patrick Clawson, deputy director at The Washington Institute, on "Iran's Motives and Strategies: The Role of the Economy" delivered at a Senate Committee on Foreign Relations hearing on May 17, 2006. Click here to access his full testimony.

The Limitations of Economic Instruments

Economic instruments alone are unlikely to be sufficient to persuade Iran to freeze its nuclear program. The principal levers of power in Iran are in the hands of revolutionaries who are not motivated primarily by economic concerns, while those who care about the state of the economy do not have sufficient influence on their own to persuade the real power-holders to change policies. Success at influencing Iranian policy is much more likely if action on the economic front is combined with action on other fronts...

Much as pressure should be applied on several fronts rather than just on the economy, so inducements offered Iran should take multiple forms rather than only being trade and investment incentives. Indeed, economic inducements look suspiciously like bribes paid for bad behavior. Besides being odious, such bribes give the impression that bad behavior is more profitable than good behavior...

A much more appropriate form of inducement would be security inducements. Such security inducements should be designed to counter the argument that Iran needs nuclear weapons for its defense. There are many confidence- and security-building measures and arms control measures that would provide gains for both Iran and the West, similar to the way such steps reduced tensions between the old Warsaw Pact and NATO during the Cold War. One example would be an agreement to reduce the risk of incidents at sea between the U.S. and Iranian navies.

A further security inducement which the United States could offer would be to address the reported concern that the Bush administration's real goal is regime change in Iran and that the Bush administration will use force to that end. Such complaints sound peculiar coming from an Iranian government whose president lectures President Bush on why the United States should abandon its liberal democracy and who sponsored a conference last fall on theme "The World Without Zionism and America"...

It would of course be inappropriate for the U.S. government to offer any security guarantees to the Iranian or any other government; what government is in power in another country is up to the people of that country to decide. But what Washington could offer Tehran would be a "conditional security assurance" -- jargon for the simple proposition, "We will not attack you if you do not attack us." (Read More)

Congressional Progressive Caucus Forum on Iran and Preemption

Carnegie President Jessica Tuchman Mathews discusses U.S.-Iran Relations and whether war with Iran would help or hurt U.S. national security.

Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Crisis

At first glance, Russia's current position on the Iranian nuclear crisis is quite controversial.

Russia and the Iranian Nuclear Crisis

At first glance, Russia's current position on the Iranian nuclear crisis is quite controversial.

U.S.-India Relations: The Global Partnership

Burns, Thibault, Markey, Tellis, & Perkovich discussed 'U.S.-India Relations: The Global Partnership'
Features event audio and video

A Realist Case for Conditioning the U.S.-India Nuclear Deal

The debate over the nuclear deal negotiated by the Bush Administration and the government of India is too narrow, focusing on the nonproliferation aspects of the deal and leaving larger strategic questions relatively unexamined. This is ironic, as the best argument for the deal is that it advances big strategic goals.