Don’t Bomb Iran

summary:
CIA’s own intelligence assessment is that Iran’s interest in nuclear
weapons is not driven by aggressive intentions, but by defensive fear
of US agression. So says two top ex-CIA analysts, one of them
managed all CIA National Intelligence Estimates on Iran from 2000 to
2005. This of course, is contrary to White House statements about
Irans threat to peace, and calls into question their refusal to give non-
agression guarantees.

http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=32065

from InterPress news service:

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (IPS) - Two former Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) officials who were directly involved in producing CIA estimates
on Iran say CIA’s National Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on Iran from
2000 to 2005 have consistently portrayed its concerns about the
military threat posed by the United States as a central consideration in
Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability…. (i.e. the intelligence
is they

Paul Pillar, who managed the writing of all NIEs on Iran from 2000 to
2005 as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South
Asia, told IPS that all of the NIEs on Iran during that period addressed
the Iranian fears of U.S. attack explicitly and related their desire for
nuclear weapons to those fears.

http://www.ipsnews.net/print.asp?idnews=32065
POLITICS:
Fear of U.S. Drove Iran’s Nuclear Policy

Gareth Porter

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (IPS) - Two former Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA) officials who were directly involved in producing CIA estimates
on Iran revealed in separate interviews with IPS that the National
Intelligence Estimates (NIEs) on Iran have consistently portrayed its
concerns about the military threat posed by the United States as a
central consideration in Tehran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapons
capability.

Paul Pillar, who managed the writing of all NIEs on Iran from 2000 to
2005 as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South
Asia, told IPS that all of the NIEs on Iran during that period addressed
the Iranian fears of U.S. attack explicitly and related their desire for
nuclear weapons to those fears.

“Iranian perceptions of threat, especially from the United States and
Israel, were not the only factor,” Pillar said, “but were in our judgment
part of what drove whatever effort they were making to build nuclear
weapons.”

Pillar said the dominant view of the intelligence community in the past
three years has been that Iran would seek a nuclear weapons
capability, but analysts have also considered that a willingness on the
part of Washington to reassure Iran on its security fears would have a
significant effect on Iranian policy.

Pillar said one of the things analysts have taken into account is Iran’s
May 2003 proposal to the Bush administration to negotiate on its
nuclear option and its relationship with Hezbollah and other anti-Israel
groups as well as its own security concerns.

“It was seen as an indicator of Iran’s willingness to engage,” he said.

A second theme in the NIEs, alongside the emphasis on Iranian fears
of U.S. military intentions, was Iran’s aspiration to be the “dominant
regional superpower” in the Persian Gulf.

However, the estimates suggested that the Iranian regime would not
pursue that aspiration through means that would jeopardise the
possibility of a relationship with the United States.

Ellen Laipson, now president of the Henry L. Stimson Centre in
Washington, managed three or four NIEs on Iran as national
intelligence officer for the Near East from 1990 to 1993, and closely
followed others as vice chair of the National Intelligence Council from
1997 to 2002.

In an interview with IPS, she said the Iranian fear of an attack by the
United States has long been “a standard element” in NIEs on Iran.

Laipson said she was “virtually certain the estimates linked Iran’s threat
perceptions to its nuclear programme”. She added, however, that she
was not directly involved in preparation of NIEs that focused
exclusively on Iran’s nuclear programme, as distinct from overall
assessments of Iranian intentions and capabilities.

Laipson said the intelligence analysts had a “fairly consistent
understanding” of Iranian perceptions of threat. “We could tell they
were afraid of the U.S. both from their behaviour and from their public
statements,” Laipson recalled. The acuteness of those Iranian fears of
U.S. attack fluctuated over time, she said, in response to different
developments.

The 1991 Gulf War, in which U.S. forces destroyed most of the Iraqi
army, caused the Iranians to become much more concerned about
U.S. military intentions, according to some scholarly analyses of
Iranian thinking, because of the awareness that the same thing could
happen to Iran.

The aggressive stance of the Bush administration toward Iran again
increased Iranian fears of a U.S. attack. In early 2002, a secret
Pentagon report to Congress on its “Nuclear Posture Review” named
Iran as one of seven countries against which nuclear weapons might
be used “in the event of surprising military developments”. The report
was obtained by defence analyst William Arkin, who revealed its
contents in the Los Angeles Times on Jan. 26, 2002.

Five days later, Pres. Bush referred to Iran in his State of the Union
address as being part of an “axis of evil”, along with Iraq and North
Korea. “By seeking weapons of mass destruction,” he said, “these
regimes pose a grave and growing danger.”

Although it did not refer directly to fears of the United States, a
declassified letter from the CIA to Senate Intelligence Committee
Chairman Bob Graham on Apr. 8, 2002 alluded to the linkage between
Iranian perceptions of threats and its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

The letter stated, “There appears to be broad consensus among
Iranians that they live in a highly dangerous region and face serious
external threats to their government, prompting us to assess that
Tehran will pursue missile and WMD technologies indefinitely as
critical means of national security.”

The letter then suggested that the external threats were focused largely
on the United States, adding that “persistent suspicion of U.S. motives
will help preserve the broad consensus among Iran’s political elite and
public for the pursuit of missile and WMD technologies as a matter of
critical national security”.

After the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, the spokesman for the Iranian
government stated that, in a “unipolar world”, Iran had to have policy
that would avoid war with the United States.

That preoccupation with averting a U.S. attack cut both ways: it forced
the Iranian leaders to seek a political-diplomatic accommodation with
the United States, as illustrated by its cooperation with the United
States in Afghanistan after 9/11, and its offer of broad negotiations on
all major issues between the two countries in 2003. But when the
United States failed to respond to those efforts, it also strengthened the
argument for pressing ahead with a nuclear option.

Joseph Cirincione, a non-proliferation specialist at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told IPS that an
analysis that links Iran’s security concerns about the United States
have driven its quest for nuclear weapons would be consistent with the
history of other nations’ policies toward acquiring nuclear weapons.

“No nation has ever been coerced into giving up a nuclear
programme,” he said, “but many have been convinced to do so by the
disappearance of the threat.”

Cirincione cited three former Soviet republics, Argentina and Brazil,
South Africa and Libya as examples of countries that decided to give
up nuclear weapons only after fundamental international or internal
changes eliminated the primary security threat driving their nuclear
programmes.

*Gareth Porter is an historian and national security policy analyst. His
latest book, “Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to
War in Vietnam”, was published in June 2005. (FIN/2006)