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Iran's nuclear decision-making calculus.

Article Excerpt
Tehran's nuclear program has become the most significant source of friction between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the West, especially the United States. President Barack Obama, unlike his predecessor, has offered to negotiate with Iran without preconditions over its nuclear ambitions. Success, or even minimal progress, in this respect requires an understanding of the internal dynamics of Iran's nuclear decision making. This article endeavors to shed some light on this neglected discourse on Iran's nuclear calculus.

Iran's national perspective on its nuclear policy is shaped by a multiplicity of domestic, regional and global variables. Ever since 2002, when Iran's nuclear issue was elevated in the West as a growing threat to regional stability and the nonproliferation regime, the leadership of the Islamic Republic has couched the issue in terms of both its absolute rights under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its right to engage in the research and development of all phases of peaceful nuclear energy. The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the main factors that have shaped the evolution of Iran's national thinking on nuclear energy and to examine contemporary debates inside the country on the logic of its nuclear policy.

The genesis of Iran's nuclear program dates back to 1956, when Mohammad Reza Shah's government initiated a series of talks with the government of the United States, culminating in the 1957 signing of the first agreement between the two countries on the peaceful use of nuclear energy by Iran. (1) In that same year, the Institute of Nuclear Sciences, affiliated with the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was relocated from Baghdad to Tehran University. The Institute became a training center for Iranian students as well as those from Pakistan and Turkey. Subsequently, the shah ordered the establishment of the first atomic research center in 1959 at Tehran University. The United States provided the center with a five-megawatt research reactor, which became fully operational in 1967, and took a major step in assisting the shah's nuclear program by delivering in September of that same year a package containing 554 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and 112 grams of plutonium. (2) Furthermore, the shah's government signed a nuclear cooperation agreement with Canada to facilitate the training and research activities of Iranian scientists. (3)

In 1972, the shah's government completed a major study on Iran's future energy needs. A major finding was that Iran would need alternative energy sources in order to meet its needs in the next two decades. The quadrupling of oil prices in the aftermath of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war allowed the shah to order the construction of twenty 300-megawatt nuclear power plants and to earmark $60 billion from oil revenues to finance this ambitious project. Although this was to be a government-run effort, the shah used a select number of his trusted associates to spearhead it. Abolfath Mahvi, a Pahlavi confidant and the head of the Mahvi Group of conglomerates, became a key figure in securing the necessary contracts with foreign companies to construct Iran's nuclear power plants.

Due to his previous contacts with Germany's Kraftwerk Union (KWU) and Siemens, Mahvi arranged for these entities to become Iran's leading nuclear-power-plant contractors. Mahvi subsequently established the Iran Nuclear Energy Company (INECO) and the Iran Management Technical Consultations Company (IMTC) to act as an Iranian conduit for the German companies. In the final analysis, Mahvi became the single most important individual in facilitating the implementation of the shah's ambitious nuclear program. (4) According to Mahvi, it was he who first suggested to the shah the possibility of Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons. One opportunity arose during an official trip to the United States during Lyndon Johnson's presidency. On a flight to Chicago, Mahvi requested permission to discuss an issue with the shah. When the monarch asked what was on his mind, Mahvi replied, "Since the U.S. president will not support your request for America to increase its purchase of Iranian oil, which would, in turn, allow you to purchase more arms, why not consider acquiring nuclear weapons? It will reduce the need to purchase more sophisticated arms and military hardware and will add to Iran's prestige among the international community." (5) It was not until 1970, when the shah brought up the issue with Mahvi during a trip to Mashhad, that he confided his real intention in ordering a 5-megawatt nuclear research reactor for Tehran University: to allow Iran to develop the means to acquire nuclear weapons. (6)

It is debatable whether the shah wanted to make Iran a nuclear-weapons-capable state, but there were indications that some nations were suspicious of his ultimate motives. For example, when Arya Abbas Amirie, the executive director of the Institute for International Political and Economic Studies (IIPES), a leading Iranian think tank, visited Australia on behalf of the shah's government, the chairman of the Australian Commission on Uranium asked why Iran wanted to build "risky" nuclear power plants when it possessed major oil and natural-gas supplies. Similarly, Georgi Arbatov, the influential director of the Soviet Union's Institute for U.S. and Canadian Studies and a top foreign-policy adviser in Moscow, expressed his skepticism about the shah's nuclear intentions when he met with Amirie in October 1978. Arbatov bluntly stated that Soviet intelligence had concluded that the shah planned to make Iran a member of the atomic club and build atomic bombs because he did not wish to be outdone by countries like Israel. (7) Moreover, Arbatov stated that the shah would not hesitate to use his nuclear status to "blackmail" Iran's neighbors and that, in the event of a major conventional war between the Soviet Union and the West, Washington would use a nuclear Iran to tie down a large sector of the Soviet army on the Iranian border in order to delay its deployment to the European theater. The shah's purported desire to turn Iran into a nuclear-weapons state may have had its genesis in the monarch's fear of the destabilizing impact of the Soviet-supported states in the region: "According to the shah, Iran did not fear an attack from the Soviet Union, but rather from Afghanistan and Iraq acting as proxies for Soviet aggression. To counter this threat, the...

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