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Nuclear Weapons and Iranian Strategic Culture

2008; Routledge; Volume: 27; Issue: 5 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/01495930802430080

1521-0448

Jennifer Knepper,

Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts

Abstract Strategic culture is an amalgam of a country's set of shared beliefs, assumptions, and narratives that shape its strategic decision-making process. This article evaluates Iran's evident pursuit of nuclear weapons in light of four key elements of its strategic culture as an attempt to ascertain Iran's goals for developing these weapons. These four elements include: (1) an all-encompassing conviction in Shia Islam as the bedrock of the regime's political legitimacy and the country's national identity; (2) a hypernationalistic belief in Iran's rightful place as the leader of the Islamic civilization and as a regional hegemon; (3) a pervasive sense of external and internal vulnerability; and (4) an ingrained perception that the U.S. desires to dominate and eventually destroy the Islamic civilization. The evaluation of these elements strongly augurs that a nuclear-armed Iran is not likely to employ these weapons offensively due to its fear of retaliation and the constraining interests within its regime's political structure. Rather, its drive toward a nuclear-weapons capability is to provide Iran with a defensive deterrent that will advance its desires for regional hegemony and mitigate its pervasive sense of insecurity. Notes 1. President George W. Bush, “White House Press Briefing,” Washington, DC, 17 October 2007; available from http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/10/20071017.html. 2. Jahangir Amuzegar, “Nuclear Iran: Perils and Prospects,” Middle East Policy, vol. 13, no. 2 (Summer 2006) 92. 3. Matthew Levitt, “Iranian State Sponsorship of Terror: Threatening U.S. Security, Global Stability, and Regional Peace,” Testimony before the Joint Hearing of the Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, and the Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation United States House of Representatives, 16 February 2005; available from http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/templateC05.php?CID=2263. 4. For Ahmadinejad the only approach toward the U.S. of “any merit was that of robust confrontation … In simple terms, he was not interested in whether the West conceded anything. On the contrary, a state of continued tension and confrontation was desirable, and criticism of the West was to be actively sought.” Ali Ansari, Confronting Iran (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p. 230. 5. This article will initiates its discussion from the assumption that Iran is developing a nuclear weapons capability due to its pursuit “to acquire all elements of an uranium enrichment fuel cycle (including the ability to mine uranium indigenously) and is also seeking the capability to reprocess spent uranium to harvest plutonium.” See Kenneth Pollack, “The Threat from Iran,” Testimony before the House Armed Services Committee, Washington, DC., 29 September 2005. 6. Lt. Col Frederick R. Strain, “Discerning Iran's Nuclear Strategy: An Examination of Motivations, Strategic Culture, and Rationality,” (a research report submitted to faculty of the U.S. Air War College, Maxwell Air Force Base, AL, 15 April 1996), 18. 7. Willis Stanley, “The Strategic Culture of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” SAIC project prepared for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, 31 October 2006, p. 3. 8. Steve Ward, “The Continuing Evolution of Iran's Military Doctrine,” The Middle East Journal, vol. 59, no. 4 (Autumn 2005): 566. 9. According to Willis Stanley, “In 680, Ali's son, Hussein, led an impossibly small group of family and followers into battle at Karbala against the Umayyad army and were slaughtered. This sacrifice in the name of rightful succession is a central event in the development of Shi'ism as a distinct branch of Islam. The Shia reverences for martyrdom comes from reference to Hussein's death and the desire of the faithful to atone for the failure of the faithful (Shia who were not with the party at Karbala) to stand with Hussein and die.” p. 8. 10. Stanley, 20–21. 11. Ibid., 23. 12. Anthony Cain, “Iran's Strategic Culture and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” Air War College, Maxwell Paper no. 26, August 2002, pp. 2–3. 13. Ibid., 5. 14. Farid Mirbaghari, “Shi'ism and Iran's Foreign Policy,” The Muslim World, vol. 94, no. 4, (October 2004): 588 – 560. 15. Stanley, 19. 16. Ray Takeyh, The Hidden Iran (New York: Holt Paperbacks, 2006), p. 171. “Ayatollah Khomeini captured this sentiment by stressing, ‘Victory is not achieved by swords; it can only be achieved by blood.”’ 17. Ibid. 18. Gary Sick, “Trial By Error: Reflection on the Iran-Iraq War,” The Middle East Journal, vol. 43, no. 2 (Spring 1989): 237. 19. Strain, 22. 20. Takeyh, 170. Khomeini believed that “this was an infidel war against the Islamic revolution, the ‘Government of God,’ and the sublime faith of Shi'ism.” 21. Takeyh, 172–173. 22. According to Takeyh, page 173, “The pressure exerted by an increasingly frightened population and the beleaguered armed forces proved a heavy burden for the clerical hard-liners seeking to perpetuate the war until victory.” 23. Sick, “Trial By Error: Reflection on the Iran-Iraq War,” p. 242. 24. Takeyh, 173. 25. Richard Perry, “Rogue or Rational State? A Nuclear Armed Iran and U.S. Counterproliferation Strategy,” Air Command and Staff College, March 1997, p. 11. 26. Takeyh, 174. 27. David Menashri, “Iran's Regional Policy: Between Radicalism and Pragmaticism,” Journal of International Affairs, vol. 60, no. 2 (Spring 2007): p. 155. 28. Perry, 11. 29. In October of 1984, after Iran realized that it was unable to breach Iraqi defenses and counter its air strikes, Ayatollah Khomeini “summoned all of Iran's diplomatic representatives from abroad and instructed them to take a new approach: ‘We should act as it was done in early Islam when the Prophet … sent ambassadors to all parts of the world to establish proper relations. We cannot sit idly by saying we have nothing to do with governments. This is contrary to intellect and religious law. We should have relations with all governments with the exception of a few with which we have no relations at present.” See Sick, “Trial By Error: Reflection on the Iran-Iraq War,” p. 237. 30. Menashri, 155. 31. This included chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons research. 32. “Most observers agree that the Iran-Iraq War was the catalyst for Iran's ambitions to acquire chemical and biological weapons. One analyst notes, “Iran was never a regional leader in the effort to acquire biological and chemical weapons until the Iran-Iraq War … Iran only revitalized its nuclear program and gave it chemical and biological programs high priority after Iraq made extensive use of chemical warfare against Iranian troops.” Cain, p. 9. 33. These activities included: assassinations of Iranian dissidents in Europe; efforts to undermine the governments of U.S. Arab allies in the region; and aggressive surveillance of Americans in the region “with the very deliberate intentions of developing attack profiles for assassinations, suicide attacks, bombings, and other forms of terrorism.” Kenneth Pollack, The Persian Puzzle (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 255–257. 34. Pollack, “The Threat from Iran.” 35. Jason Steorts, “Can Iran Be Deterred?” National Review, vol., 58, no. 19 (October 2006): 34. 36. Takeyh, 112. 37. Mirbaghari, 561–562. 38. Cain, 13. 39. As quoted in Strain, 22. 40. Amir Taheri, “The World and Iran's Second Revolution,” American Foreign Policy Interests, vol. 28, (2006): 103. 41. Takeyh, 61. 42. As quoted in Taheri, 102. 43. Ibid. 44. Strain, 22. 45. Ibid. 46. Iran's Sunni neighbors “fear Shia dominance … officials in Jordan, Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries have warned of an emerging ‘Shia crescent’ stretching from Iran through Iraq into Lebanon and have issued veiled threats that they might support Sunnis against Shia in Iraq if Iran does not back down.” Mark Gasiorowski “The New Aggressiveness in Iran's Foreign Policy,” Middle East Policy, vol. 14, no. 2 (Summer 2007), 125. 47. Lionel Beehner, “Iran's Multifaceted Foreign Policy,” Council on Foreign Relations, 7 April 2006. 48. Jahangir Amuzegar, “Nuclear Iran: Perils and Prospects,” Middle East Policy, vol. 13, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 90. 49. By the middle of the war, Iranian Prime Minister Mir Hoseyn Musavi offered assurances to the nations in the region who came to fear the Shia Revolution. He stated, “We do not want to export armed revolution to any country. That is a big lie. Our aim is to promote the Islamic Revolution through persuasion and by means of truth and courage. These are Islamic values.” Sick, “Trial By Error: Reflections on the Iran-Iraq War,” p. 237. 50. Amuzegar, 97. 51. In December 2006, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council, whose members are Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and the UAE, announced a joint project for peaceful nuclear energy. Jordan and Egypt have expressed a desire to go nuclear. Most recently, Yemen also “jumped on to the nuclear bandwagon” when its Minister of Energy announced that “specialized international firms” would build a nuclear reactor to produce electricity. See Yaniv Salama-Scheer, “France Helping Arab States with Nuke Programs,” The Jerusalem Post, 24 August 2007; available from http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1187779149131&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull. 52. S. Enders Wimbush, “Understanding the Iran Crisis, Testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs,” Washington, DC, 31 January 2007; available from http://www.hudson.org/files/pdf_upload/Enders%20TestimonyHouse%20Committee%20On%20Foreign%20Affairs.doc. 53. “Iran Offers to Help Gulf States With Atom Technology,” Reuters, 28 May 2007; available from http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSL2827620320070528. 54. “Gulf States Suggest Iran Nuclear Compromise: Report,” Agence France Presse, 1 November 2007; available from http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hNjJe9jmZ6b8BOsVS-TxnbtWVwlbA. 55. Dr. Robert Joseph, “Iran's Nuclear Program,” Statement Before the House International Relations Committee, Washington, DC, 8 March 2006; available from http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/63121.htm. 56. Takeyh, 199. 57. Ibid. 58. Ibid., 200. 59. Ibid., 213. 60. For a timeline of Persian history, see: http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/persians.html. 61. Takeyh, 61. 62. Ibid. 63. Manochehr Dorrai, “Behind Iran's Nuclear Pursuit?” Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice, vol. 18 (May 2007): 326. 64. Perry, 10. 65. Strain, 20. 66. Takeyh, 62. 67. Steorts, 34. 68. Nader Entessar, “Iran's Security Challenges,” The Muslim World, vol. 94, no. 4 (October 2004): 538. 69. Ibid., 539. 70. Ward, 566. 71. Perry, 13. 72. Cain, 14. 73. Ward, 560. 74. Ibid., 575 and 567. “Tehran's efforts to deter foes, as with any country, must rest on an ability to demonstrate its resolve to act. In Iran's case, this determination has been shown in the past by harsh rhetoric and occasional saber-rattling. Iranian leaders may only be seeking greater freedom of action as they try to assert what they see as their rightful regional role, but their language is provocative and threatening.” 75. Ibid., 567. 76. Takeyh, 62. 77. Mark Roberts, “Iran and the Great Satan,” Joint Forces Quarterly (Autumn 1995): 55. 78. Steorts, 31. 79. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, xxv. 80. Ibid., 68. 81. The phrase “Great Satan” was “an effective semantic tool by which Khomeini Islamized Marxist rhetoric against global capitalism and materialism. In Islamic thought, Satan is temptation personified, and the United States therefore personified the temptations of material culture, the excesses of which were among the great faults of the Pahlavi Iran.” Ali Ansari, Confronting Iran (New York: Basic Books, 2006), p. 87. 82. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, 128. 83. Stanley, 22. 84. Cain, 4. 85. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, p. 399. 86. Ward, 564. 87. Ibid. 88. Ibid. 89. Takeyh, 63. 90. “Generally speaking, Iran's motives for attaining nuclear capability are not very different from other nations who have sought such capability in the past. It includes such factors as being ‘prisoners of insecurity,’ an aspiration for prestige and clout, and using the nuclear arsenal to negotiate from the position of strength on the international stage. Such considerations may loom even larger among the developing nations with a history of colonial or semi-colonial subjugation and dominance. The possession of nuclear capability presumes certain levels of technological sophistication, grants membership to the exclusive nuclear club and imbues nations with a sense of achievement and national pride.” Dorrai, pp. 325–326. 91. Perry, 12. 92. Amuzegar, 97. 93. John Swails, “Ahmadinejad Awaits the Hidden Imam,” The American Thinker, 25 January 2006; available from http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/01/ahmadinejad_awaits_the_hidden.html. 94. Perry, 12 95. Michael Eisenstadt, as quoted in Cain, 13. 96. Perry, 12. 97. Ibid. 98. Taheri, 101. 99. Amuzegar, 97. 100. “To Iran (and others in the region), a nuclear weapon places a nation at the pinnacle of military capability and, consequently, at the pinnacle of military prestige. The view of lesser powers like Iran is that nuclear weapons appear to provide a level of prestige disproportionate to one's true military position … Demonstrating one's state is on a technical par with others is another key component of prestige.” Strain, 13. 101. Amuzegar, 97. 102. Stanley, 24. 103. Ibid. 104. Takyeh, 154. 105. According to Strain, page 12, key indicators for a country with prestige/hegemonic-oriented nuclear desires include: “overt acknowledgement of programs funded for national prestige; expressed dissatisfaction with the nuclear double standard; growing nuclear programs with significant investment in training and education; a government controlled by a dictator, monarch, or military regime; a historic overestimation of the state's regional importance; and the tendency to attribute more influence to one's state than is logically supported by the instruments of national power.” 106. Strain, 8. 107. As quoted in Perry, 13. 108. Takeyh, 140. 109. Amuzegar, 97. 110. Dorrai, 328. 111. “Pakistan's recent nuclear saber rattling also highlighted for Iran its own relative weakness regarding WMD. Elements within the IRGC openly worry about Pakistan's support for the Taliban. Iran also blamed Pakistan for the death of Iranian diplomats in Afghanistan in August 1998. In addition, as anti-Shi'a violence in Pakistan has escalated in recent years, fears are growing that Pakistan may become virulently anti-Shi'a. Many forces in Islamabad, particularly its security establishment, have forged close ties with anti-Shi'a forces in Saudi Arabia. Pakistan's Shi'a community feels threatened by the prospective introduction of Sharia law.” David Byman, Shahram Chubin, Anoushiravan Ehteshami, and Jerrold Green, “Iran's Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era,” The Rand Corporation, 2001, p. 72; available from http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1320. 112. “The United States, in their view, would be unwilling to confront a nuclear-armed Iran much as America appears unwilling to confront a nuclear armed North Korea.” Stanley, 24. 113. As quoted in Takeyh, 155. 114. John Rood, Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Non-Proliferation, “Remarks to the 8th Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) Missile Defense Conference” London, England, 27 February 2007; available from http://www.state.gov/t/isn/rls/rm/81242.htm. 115. Strain, 8. Also see Stanley, page 19, where he states, “At sum, the regime's survival interest, honed by centuries living under Sunni Arab domination, is reflected in the IRI's identifiable “red lines”: foreign invasion, externally supported revolution and outside control over IRI oil exports … The IRI leadership reflects flexible, adaptive elements in Iranian culture and Shia Islam. These include the cultural and religious sanction of deception and façade when necessary to preserve the faith, one's life or, most importantly, the regime. The roots of this flexibility are not difficult to intuit: living as Shia in a sea of Sunnis, and as Iranians in a sea of Arabs, required developing the survival skills of the often weak and powerless. Indeed, the degree to which Iranian elites were able to co-opt their conquerors through application of the administrative skills developed over centuries speaks to the flexibility that has kept Iran's unique cultural identity alive through the present day.” 116. Stanley, 19. 117. According to Takeyh, page 219, “Despite continued revolutionary pronouncements, Iran has evolved from a revisionist state seeking to export its governing template to a rational state that bases its foreign policy on pragmatic calculations.” 118. Amuzegar, 99. 119. Stanley, 24. 120. Ibid. 121. Amuzegar, 99. 122. Menashri, 156. 123. Since the 1990s, Iran has emerged as the principal source of funding for radical Palestinian groups, notably Hamas and Islamic Jihad. It has also multiplied its arms shipments to Palestinian radicals, and also armed the Lebanese branch of the Hezbollah with a whole new generation of theater missiles capable of striking any target in Israel. Taheri, 100. 124. Takeyh, 200. 125. Though “Iran has long possessed chemical weapons but has never given them to its terrorist allies.” Takeyh, 147. 126. “Although Tehran has been aggressive, anti-American, and murderous, its behavior has been neither irrational nor reckless. It has calibrated its actions carefully, showed restraint when the risks were high, and pulled back when threatened with painful consequences. Such calculations suggest that the United States could probably deter Iran even after it crossed the nuclear threshold.” Pollack and Takeyh, 1–2. 127. “It began eight years ago when a pirate translation of Samuel Huntington's essay, ‘The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of the World Order,’ appeared in Tehran. The publisher received an order for 1,000 copies, half of the print run … [and the truck that came to pick them up] belonged to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), and the books were intended for its active and reservists officers. Among those who received a copy was Yahyan Safavi, now a general and commander-in-chief of the IRGC. Another copy when to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a reservist officer who became president of the Islamic Republic. The new ruling elite, centered in the IRGC, has adopted Huntington's analysis and believes that the major ‘clash of civilizations’ today is between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America. They also believe that Iran will win the duel with the American ‘Great Satan.’ The last round in the duel concerns Iran's determination to pursue its nuclear project as it deems fit, thus risking a confrontation not only with the European Union but also with the United Nations Security Council.” Taheri, 101. 128. “Waiting for the Mahdi: Official Iranian Eschatology Outlined in Public Broadcasting Program in Iran,” MEMRI, 25 January 2007; available from http://sweetness-light.com/archive/iran-says-the-hidden-imam-is-coming-very-soon. 129. Cain, 2–3. 130. Gary Sick, “Iran's Quest for Superpower Status,” Foreign Affairs, vol. 65, no. 4 (Spring 1987) 697, 708. 131. Strain, 25. 132. Pollack and Takeyh, “Taking on Tehran,” 4. 133. Cain, 9. 134. Though “Ahmadinejad has some influence over foreign policy—he appoints the cabinet and the head of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC)—power remains mostly in the hands of the SNSC and the Supreme Leader. ‘[Ahmadinejad] is a small piece of the puzzle and can be influential on the fringes, but certainly not [by] steering Iranian foreign or nuclear policy,’ says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran analyst with the International Crisis Group. Experts say Ahmadinejad's controversial statements calling for Israel's elimination should not be construed as official foreign policy. ‘He's sort of a bull in a china shop and neophyte in foreign affairs,’ says William Samii, an Iran expert with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. ‘He does not have great input on [Iranian] foreign policy.’ Beehner, available from http://www.cfr.org/publication/10396#2 135. “Beginning in 1997 with the election of Khatami, the clerical elite recognized that it faces a profound challenge to its continued control over the country: Iran's massive youth bulge is straining the nation's economy, and young Iranians' demands for social freedoms are challenging a principal goals of the revolution itself. Currently the Iranian economy is generating roughly 400,000 new jobs a year, but more than one million new workers are entering the workforce each year. The ensuing rapid rise in unemployment has fed unrest with the regime, and the technocrats who manage Iran's economy have warned that only massive, foreign investment (to the tune of $20 billion a year for the next five-year plan) will be needed just to keep the status quo from deteriorating any further.” Pollack, “The Threat from Iran,” p. 9. 136. Pollack and Takeyh, “Taking on Tehran,” 4–5. Also see Takeyh, page 213, where he notes that a subtle backlash occurred within the IRI after Ahmadinejad's “wipe Israel off of the map” speech. He elaborates that “the foreign ministry was the first to issue its rebuke of Ahmadinejad: ‘The Islamic Republic of Iran adheres to the UN Charter and has never used or threatened the use of force against any country.’ The powerful head of the Supreme National Security Council, Ali Larijani, followed suit: ‘The situation in Iran with respect to Palestine is the same as in the past. This is a decision of Palestinians about how to reclaim their rights.’ Given Iran's power structure, such statements would not have been invoked without the approval of Khamenei and the regime's essential power brokers.” 137. Pollack, “The Threat from Iran.” 138. “The Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, suffered an embarrassing blow to his prestige when his own party attacked him for adopting a jocular tone towards inflation at a time of rampant price rises… Mr. Ahmadinejad, an engineer with a PhD in traffic management, is on record as saying: ‘I pray to God I never know about economics.’ Now the Islamic Revolution Devotees Society, a fundamentalist grouping of revolutionary veterans co-founded by Mr. Ahmadinejad himself, has added its voice to a rising chorus of economic discontent by warning the president that spiraling living costs are hurting the poor and undermining his stated goal of social justice … Mr. Ahmadinejad also answered recent criticism of his policies by saying he took advice from his local butcher. ‘There is an honorable butcher in our neighborhood who knows all the economic problems of the people. I get my economic information from him,”’ Robert Tait, “It's the Economy, Mr. Ahmadinejad,” Guardian Unlimited, 19 September 2007; available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/iran/story/0,2172550,00.html. 139. Pollack, “The Threat from Iran.” 140. Amuzegar, 100. Iran's current nuclear program “was born nearly 50 years ago with the full consent and support of the United States, [and] not only endorsed but encouraged by Washington. President Gerald Ford offered the Shah a full nuclear fuel cycle in 1976. The Ford team—including many senior officials in the present Bush administration who are now opposed to even a limited uranium-enrichment capacity—reportedly approved the deal for a complete nuclear fuel cycle. U.S. companies offered atomic reactors capable of generating fissile materials on a self-sustaining basis to the shah's government for sale, albeit without the uranium-enrichment capabilities sought by Tehran today.” Amuzegar, 91–92. 141. Ward, 574. 142. Ibid. 143. Some writers have argued that the most direct threat from Iranian nuclear developments is “not that Tehran would suddenly use the weapons against Saudi Arabia, Israel, or some other country, or even that it would give such weapons to terrorists, but simply that the more aggressive among Iran's leadership would see themselves as no longer constrained by the fear of military retaliation for acts of terrorism, subversion, and other forms of clandestine warfare. A strong argument can be made that this strategy is most consistent with Khomeini's legacy and most comfortable for his hard-line heirs now once again fully in control in Tehran with the waning of the Reformist movement and the electoral victory of radical hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.” Pollack, “The Threat from Iran,” p. 3. 144. According to Ward, pages 564–565, “Deterrence … is still Iran's announced primary security strategy. Warnings about Iranian redlines, retaliatory capabilities and resolve have predominated official statements as concern about potential U.S. and Israeli threats to Iran's nuclear-related facilities were heightened in the second half of 2004 through early 2005. [Admiral] Shamkhani provided the most unambiguous signal of Iran's redlines, saying that ‘any military action against our country, including limited and surgical operations, would be considered as an attack on the existence of the Islamic Republic of Iran and therefore would be responded to with all our might.”’ 145. As quoted in Strain, 13. 146. Pollack and Takeyh, “Taking on Tehran,” 1–2. 147. Ibid.