Hassan
Rouhani, Iran’s new president, may sometimes talk like a “moderate”,
but he clearly knows how to maximize power in the international arena.
Rouhani’s record as Iran’s top nuclear negotiator reflects his inner Clausewitz — behind the winks and nods, the opening and closing of “windows of opportunity”, diplomacy is simply warfare by other means.
So
while the leaders of the international community and accompanying choir
of pundits sing Rouhani’s praises, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu
strikes a different note:
“Fifteen
years ago, the election of another president, also considered a
moderate by the West, led to no change in these aggressive policies.
Over the last twenty years, the only thing that has led to a temporary
freeze in the Iranian nuclear program was Iran’s concern over aggressive
policy against it in 2003.”
As
Yehuda Yaakov, an Israeli Foreign Ministry senior specialist in
political-military affairs, has documented in detail, Rouhani
successfully shepherded Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program through
its greatest crisis in 2003-2004. Yaakov’s research was presented in his
MA thesis for the IsraeliNationalDefenseCollege, andthe English text was published in June.
(Full disclosure — I served as his academic adviser.) The analysis is
based on extensive interviews with key Western diplomats, as well as
documents from this period and public records, including a revealing speech by Rouhani in 2004 and the 2012 memoir of his aide Houssein Mousavian.
The case made by this evidence is compelling.
A
thorough analysis of Rouhani’s conduct and statements while chief
negotiator reveals the cardinal goals he sought to achieve through
diplomatic engagement with the “international community” to advance the
nuclear program; to deflect the use of force and sanctions; to bolster
Iran’s regional status in strategic terms; and to orient the country’s
inter-agency dynamic to confronting an international crisis waged
against it. In conceiving and implementing this strategy, Clausewitz
would have given him high marks.
In
2003, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic in Teheran had good
reason to worry that their slow but steady progress towards becoming a
nuclear weapons state, in blatant violation of their legal obligations,
was about to be halted, and worse. US President Bush had recently
overthrown Saddam Hussein in neighboring Iraq, citing the nuclear
ambitions of this regime. As Rouhani admitted, throughout 2003 the
Iranians greatly feared the possibility of an American military
strike – and Rouhani job was to prevent this, while protecting their
nuclear assets. As Yaakov’s analysis demonstrates, the chief negotiator
did his job very well. Through carefully packaged diplomatic feints, he
kept his country off of the Security Council’s agenda and away from
America’s target list.
Rouhani
acknowledged that his model was Pakistan, whose leaders had managed to
walk the tightrope of building nuclear weapons while avoiding becoming
the target for a military strike. In his 2004 speech, he also discussed
the North Korean experience of negotiating while producing weapons, and
Brazil, which used diplomatic engagement for two decades to quietly
progress towards a threshold nuclear weapons capability.
With
Washington busy attempting to create democracy in Iraq, the European
Union claimed Iran as its chance to play a leading international role.
But the Europeans, led by Britain, Germany and France, talked softly and
instead of sticks, carried carrots designed to buy Iran’s cooperation.
Rouhani saw his opportunity to gain from European naïveté, and played
along, encouraging the facade of progress through agreements that were
never implemented. In parallel, Iran provided deceptive evidence by
hiding and slowing the visible production of weapons grade material.
Rouhani’s strategy also took in the Bush Administration. A US National Intelligence Council Estimate in 2007 concluded:
“We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its
nuclear weapons program.” As consistently documented by IAEA reports,
this slowdown was a temporary, tactical move; as soon as the immediate
threat had passed, Iran made up the lost ground, and far more.
Throughout
this period, Rouhani navigated to maximize gains while minimizing the
price Iran paid for keeping its nuclear ambitions alive during the
period of greatest threat. The agreements that he negotiated, declared
by European interlocutors as major diplomatic triumphs, were disposable
political band-aids without substance. Iran’s commitments evaporated as
soon as the immediate need had passed.
Indeed,
Rouhani himself repeatedly emphasized throughout the campaign that his
greatest achievement as chief nuclear negotiator between 2003-2005 was
advancing the nuclear program while preventing both force and sanctions.
Clausewitz
would have been proud. Using diplomatic skill, under Rouhani’s guiding
hand, Iran not only preserved its power, but expanded it, particularly
in progressing towards nuclear weapons. The only costs were economic,
and the leadership was immune.
For
his service, Rouhani was rewarded, and after winning the Iranian
version of a presidential election (closely supervised by Supreme Leader
Ayatollah Khameni), he declared that his “future government will
protect Iran’s fundamental rights [code for nuclear weapons], while
seeking to gradually remove sanctions." His previous experience
suggests that this is not empty rhetoric, and his reported appointments
to key positions suggest a rerun of the successful policies from the
earlier decade.
But
much has changed since 2003, and Rouhani will find that the political
environment that encouraged long negotiations towards meaningless
agreements has changed. His European interlocutors have learned some
lessons, hardened by years of Tehran's cat-and-mouse game at their
expense. Despite the severe economic crisis, today’s European leaders
are willing to pay the cost of increased sanctions to increase pressure
on the regime. And Obama, although a very reluctant warrior, has shown
that he is capable of ordering effective military strikes to protect
vital US interests including international stability.
At
the same time, since Rouhani's term as chief negotiator, Tehran has
made significant progress and is now on the verge of having a
first-generation weapons capability. As Iran sprints towards the nuclear
finish line, Rouhani faces an Israeli leadership that also understands
Clausewitz. In some cases, diplomacy can serve as war by other means,
but Netanyahu also knows that in the current Middle Eastern reality,
credible military threats are necessary to ensure that international
obligations are actually honored.
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