Foreign Policy In Focus

James Risen's April 14 article for the New York Times on Iran's Supreme Leader's nuclear-weapons intentions -- or lack thereof -- has attracted much attention. Ayatollah Ali Khameinei, he writes, "often uses religious language when he talks about the nuclear issue, which can jar Western analysts trying to gauge the meaning of such strong statements." It's well known that he once issued a fatwa against the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran. As recently as February, Risen writes, Ayatollah Khameini said: "Iran is not seeking to have the atomic bomb, possession of which is pointless, dangerous and is a great sin from an intellectual and a religious point of view."

Here are further excerpts from his pronouncements, about which I recently posted (Iran Tries to Take the Moral High Ground on Nukes). More from the February speech (the translation on his official website):

Nuclear weapons are not at all beneficial to us. Moreover, from an ideological and fiqhi perspective, we consider developing nuclear weapons as unlawful. We consider using such weapons as a big sin. We also believe that keeping such weapons is futile and dangerous, and we will never go after them.

In 2011 Ayatollah Khameini spoke about nuclear weapons at greater length.

Iran is not after an atomic bomb, and it is even opposed to possession of chemical weapons. Even when Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran, we did not try to manufacture chemical weapons. Such things are not in line with the principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Furthermore, he declared that nuclear weapons "are useless except for intimidation, massacre and a false sense of security based on pre-emptive power resulting from guaranteed annihilation of everyone." Citing the atom bombs that the United States dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Risen quoted him saying (emphasis added):

The use of nuclear weapons resulted not only in large-scale killings and destruction, but also in indiscriminate massacre of people. … Therefore, using or even threatening to use such weapons is considered a serious violation of the most basic humanitarian rules and is a clear manifestation of war crimes.

Risen points out, though, that:

… those comments are not only at odds with some of Iran's behavior but also with. … remarks Ayatollah Khamenei made last year that it was a mistake for Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi of Libya to give up his nuclear weapons program.

Referring to Colonel Qaddafi, Ayatollah Khamenei said that "this gentleman wrapped up all his nuclear facilities, packed them on a ship and delivered them to the West and said, 'Take them!' "

"Look where we are, and in what position they are now," he added.

Risen, however, fails to note that those remarks sound less like Ayatollah Khamanei expressing his personal feelings, than stating a fact. Risen then writes:

Complicating matters further, some analysts say that Ayatollah Khamenei’s denial of Iranian nuclear ambitions has to be seen as part of a Shiite historical concept called taqiyya, or religious dissembling. For centuries an oppressed minority within Islam, Shiites learned to conceal their sectarian identity to survive, and so there is a precedent for lying to protect the Shiite community.

In response to Risen, Juan Cole examines taqiyya more closely.

Imam Ruhullah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran, demanded that taqiyya be abandoned in favor of holy war or jihad. Shiite expert Rainer Brunner argues that pious dissimulation has “completely lost its importance” in contemporary, Shiite-majority Iran.

So the idea that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, the theocratic leader of a Shiite-majority Islamic Republic, would give a dishonest fatwa about a key principle in Islamic law (the prohibition on killing innocent non-combatants in war) is a non-starter. Khamenei, being in Khomeini’s tradition, is bound by the latter’s hostility to dissimulation. 

That may well be, but considering his brutal record, Ayatollah Khameini's ethical code can only be judged as selective at best. In 2009 accounts by a defector from his private guard provided insights into his ruthless policies, as well as his lavish lifestyle. For instance, the defector -- considered credible by many -- provided:

… new information that links Ayatollah Khamenei to the brutal assault on protestors following the presidential elections in June. The man [named Hossain Taeb] alleged to have [been] carrying out interrogations of prisoners at the notorious Kahrizak detention centre, where at least three people were tortured to death, is a key part of the inner circle. [He] is said to have run an extensive surveillance operation for the personal use of Ayatollah Khamenei for almost 15 years. Each evening the leader is said to listen to recordings of senior officials and colleague talking about him in a compilation that normally lasts 20 minutes. [Meanwhile] the leader's second son… played a prominent role in organising the Basij militia that has meted out violence against protesters. [Like the Stalinesque touch where the emphasis is added? -- RW]

But Gareth Porter provides more evidence that Ayatollah Khameini sought to keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons.

When the IAEA passed a resolution demanding that Iran suspend enrichment and adopt an intrusive monitoring system in September [2003]. … hardliners were arguing publicly that Iran should withdraw from the NPT rather than make any effort to convince the West that Iran did not intend to make nuclear weapons. 

Sometime in September and October, Khamenei ordered the designation of the Secretary of Supreme National Security Council Hassan Rohani, who reported directly to him, as the single individual responsible for coordinating all aspects of nuclear policy. … It was Rohani himself who announced on Oct. 25, 2003, that Khamenei believed that nuclear weapons were illegal under Islam.  

Still, it behooves us to revisit some of Ayatollah Khomeini's comments for a moment.

… we do not possess a nuclear weapon, and we will not build one. … Iran is not seeking to have the atomic bomb. … using or even threatening to use such weapons is considered a serious violation of the most basic humanitarian rules and is a clear manifestation of war crimes.

Ayatollah Khomeini addresses the possession and use of nuclear weapons, but neglects to mention developing or acquiring the capability to build nuclear weapons without actually manufacturing and deploying them. One might be inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that denouncing what's known as "latent" or "virtual" deterrence is obviously implied in condemning the use of weapons.

First of all, though, even though he was never a marja (a grand ayatollah empowered to make decisions in religious law), it's a mistake to overlook the fondness for hair-splitting that theological authorities of all stripes share with lawyers (the "How many angels can fit on the head of a pin?" syndrome). In other words, Ayatollah Khameini may see actual nuclear weapons and their deployment as a sin, but not the capability to manufacture them.

Let's return now to Risen's statement that he "often uses religious language when he talks about the nuclear issue, which can jar Western analysts trying to gauge the meaning of such strong statements." The "jarring" or disconnect may occur because of a natural tendency on our part to hold a religious leader -- who just happens to be the leader of a state -- to a higher standard. The truth is, Ayatollah Khameini probably hedges and equivocates like any ruler. His disinclination to live up to the ethical and spiritual standards to which a religious leader ought to aspire shouldn't serve as an excuse to avoid treating him and his people like statesmen and negotiating with them in good faith.

"Amano's director-generalship began under a bad star."

That's Julian Borger at the Guardian quoting Mark Hibbs, the journalist who helped take down the AQ Khan nuclear-weapons black market and is now with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Yukio Amano, the "head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the nuclear watchdog at the heart of the growing Iranian crisis," Borger explains, "has been accused by several former senior officials of pro-western bias, over-reliance on unverified intelligence and of sidelining sceptics."

Some of the controversy around Amano's management dates to his election in 2009, when he narrowly beat Abdul Minty, a South African diplomat. [Hibbs said] "The election was extremely polarised and bitter. Minty clearly appealed to states who see themselves as underdogs and have-nots. Amano was supported by the US and others who saw him as rolling back the IAEA's political aspirations under ElBaradei to a more technical agency."

Previous director Mohamed ElBaradei was noted for his objections to IAEA findings being used as a pretext for ultimatums and/or war with Iran. Borger also reminds us of those WikiLeaks cables that confirmed suspicions about Amano almost too perfectly.

[They] revealed Amano's assiduous courting of American support. In an October 2009 cable, the US charge d'affaires, Geoffrey Pyatt, wrote: "Amano reminded [the] ambassador on several occasions that he would need to make concessions to the G-77 [the developing countries group], which correctly required him to be fair-minded and independent, but that he was solidly in the US court on every key strategic decision, from high-level personnel appointments to the handling of Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program."

Not sure of the exact motivations for Amano's bootlicking, but there it is for the world to see. Confirming Amano's toadyism toward the United States

… the IAEA's reports on Iranian behaviour have become steadily more critical. In November, it published an unprecedented volume of intelligence pointing towards past Iranian work on developing a nuclear weapon, deeming it credible.

However, some former IAEA officials are saying that the agency has gone too far. Robert Kelley, a former US weapons scientists who ran the IAEA action team on Iraq at the time of the US-led invasion, said. … "Amano is falling into the Cheney trap. What we learned back in 2002 and 2003, when we were in the runup to the war, was that peer review was very important, and that the analysis should not be left to a small group of people," Kelley said. "… Just like [former US vice-president] Dick Cheney, Amano is relying on a very small group of people and those opinions are not being checked."

Meanwhile …

Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund [said]: "On Iran, the difference is like night and day. ElBaradei constantly sought a diplomatic solution, while Amano wields a big stick and has hit Iran hard and repeatedly."

And …

Jim Walsh, an expert on the Iranian nuclear programme at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said. … "Amano has been way out in front of the US on [holding Iran's feet to the fire]. … I think if the agency is going to be a neutral player in this -- and we need a neutral player to make the sort of judgements that have to be made -- it will have to be more conservative [than] the national governments on this."

And …

Laban Coblentz, ElBaradei's former speechwriter and a collaborator on [his book] The Age of Deception, said that huge stakes could rest on the nuances with which the IAEA director-general interprets the evidence. … "Amano and ElBaradei were looking at the same allegations. … The other thing that is the same is that so far the most substantial allegations have not been verified. What has changed is the willingness to publish those allegations that have not been verified as a tool to pressure the Iranians to come to the table."

Compared to Dick Cheney, shamed by WikiLeaks, Yukio Amano is the wrong man for the wrong job at the wrong time. ElBaradei won the Nobel Prize; Amano is angling for the Ignoble Prize.

On March 14 I we posted a piece titled Do Albright and ISIS Buy Parchin Clean-up Story or Don't They? Excerpt:

The Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) refers to itself as a "non-partisan institution that focuses on stopping the spread of nuclear weapons." But it's sometimes demonstrated a tendency to lean toward, if not the right, the alarmist about nuclear proliferation. As late as 2002, its "ubiquitous" president David Albright, oft quoted in print and on television, issued nuclear warnings about Iraq. In January of this year, Albright and the ISIS staff published a report titled Reality Check: Shorter and Shorter Timeframe if Iran Decides to Make Nuclear Weapons.

ISIS also endorsed the unconvincing story that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion (the Danilenko affair, if you will). Albright told Toby Warrick of the Washington Post in November of last year:

"It remains for Danilenko to explain his assistance to Iran. … At the very least, Danilenko should have known exactly why the Iranians were interested in his research and expertise. The IAEA information suggests he has provided more than he has admitted."

Investigative journalist Gareth Porter, among others, debunked that story.

ISIS staff person Paul Brannan, presumably noticing the post on Google Alerts, responded. He begins:

For a more comprehensive review of information regarding Danilenko, please see:

ISIS Analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report: Part II – Iran’s Work and Foreign Assistance on a Multipoint Initiation System for a Nuclear Weapon

and

Vyacheslav Danilenko – Background, Research, and Proliferation Concerns

Then Brannan writes:

It strains credibility to suggest that Danilenko’s assistance to Iran regarding high explosive implosion system design would have been used by Iran for synthetic diamond production. Danilekno was an expert on the physics of a shockwave resulting from the detonation of high explosives and spent a career in the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons program. Synthetic diamond production is a commercial application of this expertise. Moreover, Danilenko was hired by Seyed Abbas Shahmoradi, the director of the Physics Research Center, a parallel nuclear program in Iran at the time—separate from the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and under the military. For more on the Physics Research Center, please see:

The Physics Research Center and Iran’s Parallel Military Nuclear Program

Regarding the building at the Parchin site, ISIS initially searched through satellite imagery looking for increased activity at the site (as was reported to have been present at the Parchin at various times) as a means to locate the building referenced in the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) November 2011 safeguards report on Iran. There is a consistent level of activity at the Parchin site going back many years, however, making the identification of new activity and determining its purpose difficult.  ISIS then sought to find the specific building itself. After identifying the building, ISIS published imagery of it the same day.

ISIS is committed to providing the public with accurate and unbiased information about nuclear proliferation worldwide. We will continue to do so, even when that information suggests unsettling acts of proliferation or nuclear weapons research and development. It is crucial that the international community find a solution to the Iranian nuclear issue that avoids military strikes, as ISIS most recently advocated in a March 5, 2012 report made possible by the United States Institute of Peace, found here: http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/USIP_Template_5March2012-1.pdf

At Foreign Policy, Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute for Strategic Studies writes about the dispute between Tehran and the International Atomic Energy Agency. If you'll recall, the IAEA is trying to determine if Iran once conducted high-explosives tests as part of nuclear weapons R&D at its Parchin military complex. Back in November 2011, Gareth Porter, as well as anybody, showed how futile it was to follow that lead in a piece that began:

A former inspector for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has repudiated its major new claim that Iran built an explosives chamber to test components of a nuclear weapon and carry out a simulated nuclear explosion.

Fitzpatrick writes (emphasis added):

But an IAEA visit now may not uncover much -- and not just because Iran has had plenty of time to hide any incriminating evidence in the eight-plus years since the alleged activity took place. The testing experiments that were reportedly conducted there used surrogate material to simulate nuclear components. Unless nuclear material was present for some other reason, IAEA environmental sampling would not detect any telltale signs, giving Iran an excuse to trumpet its vindication.

Which, presumably is why Fitzpatrick entitled his article "The Parchin Trap."

Meanwhile GQ is not only running Matthieu Aikins's account of the September 11, 2011 Taliban attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul, it also published another piece by him. In State of the Taliban 2012: The Secret Report, he excerpts and analyzes the classified NATO report leaked to certain media outlets in February. What's that got to do with Iran? Funny you should ask.

Iran has long been alleged to be playing both sides of the conflict in Afghanistan, which the report makes clear:

"The Iranians have provided moderate support to what coalition forces refer to as the Herat Insurgent Faction, or "Mujahedin of Martyr Akbari", which is a smaller insurgent group operating primarily in Herat and Badghis Provinces. However, Iran has offered far more support to Farsi-speaking groups, many of which currently support [the government of Afghanistan], rather than pro-Taliban elements."

In a 2010 article about the "bags of cash" Iran regularly bestows on Iran, Christian Science Monitor, Ben Arnoldy wrote that

… Iran and the US ultimately share an ally in Karzai, since both nations are opposed to a Taliban resurgence.

When in power, the Taliban killed Iranian diplomats and oppressed the Shia minority in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's new Constitution, written after the NATO invasion, officially recognized the rights of the Shiites for the first time in Afghanistan's history. Karzai's government also includes members of the Northern Alliance whom Iran supported in previous decades.

Also, if you'll recall, after 9/11, as the Asia Society reported:

… a remarkable period of U.S.-Iran cooperation began as Iran joined the U.S. to overthrow the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Iran then participated in the U.S.-sponsored Bonn Conference and helped to establish a new Afghan government that took office in December 2001. In Bonn, Iranian officials even approached their U.S. counterparts about engaging in dialogue on broader issues.

Afghanistan is pivotal to that shared regional security that states (such as North Korean, as well) that are viewed as hostile often seek with the United States -- an opportunity of which, in recent years, the United States inevitably fails to take advantage.

Iranian émigré Muhammad Sahimi is a petroleum engineering professor at the University of Southern California and a regular commentator at PBS Front Line's Tehran Bureau. In an article at IDE: Views on MidEast, he writes about the recent assassination of a young chemical engineer working in Iran's nuclear program.

Such cowardly assassinations are nothing but state-sponsored terrorism at its worst. … Just as the international community justifiably condemns any terrorist operations against innocent civilians, and in particular those in which Iran is accused of being indirectly involved (such as providing support to the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Palestinian group Hamas), it must also condemn such assassinations in Iran, but it has not. The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn an alleged Iranian plot to kill Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States last year, but has it taken any action regarding the assassinations? No, and it is highly unlikely that it will ever do so.

Thus, it should be abundantly clear that there are two types of terrorist operations in this world: the “good” ones committed by the West, and the terrible ones perpetrated by the West’s foes, and in particular the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Just try to imagine the international outcry had an Israeli or American nuclear scientist been assassinated here in the United States or in Israel. … But when it comes to murdering Iranian nuclear scientists, they are either mute, or even applaud and support it.

In other words, the West applies two double standards to Iran. The first: even if NPT signatories such as Iran that hadn't developed nuclear weapons prior to signing were allowed to after signing, Iran would still be perceived as too irrational to entrust with nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, existing in a parallel universe to international law is an unspoken rationality index, according to which even those states that have already developed nuclear weapons outside the NPT (India, Israel, Pakistan) are allowed to keep them because they score higher on the index (marginally in the case of Pakistan). In other words, they're allies of the West.

The wellsprings of the irrationalism seem to be a belief for which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- and not Supreme Leader Ali Khameini -- has shown sympathy: the return of the Twelfth or Hidden Imam, which translates into a form of apocalyticism similar to that of American fundamentalists and their day after.

Sahimi neatly outlines the second double standard: that assassinations assigned by Tehran are terrorism, while those carried out by the West are not. Trying to distinguish the ethics -- or lack thereof -- of the two is splitting hairs.