The struggle went public last Saturday, with The New York Times publishing details from a secret, three-page memo written by Dr. Gates in January. According to the Times, the Gates memorandum said the U.S. lacks "an effective, long-range strategy" for curbing Iran's progress towards developing nuclear weapons. One senior official, who is familiar with the memo, described it as a "wake-up call."
Not surprisingly, the White House disagreed with that characterization and by Sunday, Secretary Gates was in full "clarification mode." His memo was not a warning to the administration, he told reporters, but rather, it was a list of planning steps that will be required in the months ahead.
But that explanation doesn't really hold water. First, it's not the job of the SecDef to generate a list of planning milestones--that's a task generally handled by a mid-level staffer at the National Security Council or somewhere in the bowels of OSD. And secondly, Mr. Gates planning outline triggered a flurry of activity at the Pentagon and the nation's intelligence agencies, aimed at giving Mr. Obama new options for dealing with Iran. That would suggest something beyond the "normal" planning process, which has (supposedly) been underway for some time.
As the Times reported:
Several officials said the highly classified analysis, written in January to President Obama’s national security adviser, Gen. James L. Jones, touched off an intense effort inside the Pentagon, the White House and the intelligence agencies to develop new options for Mr. Obama. They include a revised set of military alternatives, still under development, to be considered should diplomacy and sanctions fail to force Iran to change course…
Pressed on the administration’s ambiguous phrases until now about how close the United States was willing to allow Iran’s program to proceed, a senior administration official described last week in somewhat clearer terms that there was a line Iran would not be permitted to cross.
The official said that the United States would ensure that Iran would not “acquire a nuclear capability,” a step Tehran could get to well before it developed a sophisticated weapon. “That includes the ability to have a breakout,” he said, using the term nuclear specialists apply to a country that suddenly renounces the nonproliferation treaty and uses its technology to build a small arsenal.
Mr. Gates’s memo appears to reflect concerns in the upper echelons of the Pentagon and the military that the White House did not have a well-prepared series of alternatives in place in case all the diplomatic steps finally failed.
Specifically, the defense chief is reportedly worried that Iran could take all steps necessary to create a nuclear weapon, but stop short of final production assembly. That would give Tehran a "breakout" capability, allowing it to renounce any non-proliferation agreements and rapidly build a small nuclear arsenal. The bottom line on Mr. Gates's memo is strikingly clear: what do we do if (read: when) diplomacy fails? If the current planning "surge" in Washington is any indication, it would seem that no one could answer the SecDef's question as recently as three months ago.
The absence of "worst case" options should come as no surprise. The U.S. has been kicking the Iran "can" down the road since the Bush Administration, which out-sourced engagement on the issue to the Europeans. Years of talks between Iran and our surrogates (Germany, France and Great Britain) yielded nothing, except Tehran's continuing progress on nuclear weapons.
And, more recently, Mr. Obama gave Iran a year to come around, a gesture that was greeted with amazement and derision by the ruling clerics and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who couldn't believe their continued good fortune. While Washington fiddled, Iranian scientists and technicians kept working towards their goal.
Now, U.S. experts say Tehran may be only a year away from producing its first nuclear weapon, and could build a "deployable" device by 2013. Not bad for a program that was "suspended" for several years, according to that infamous 2007 National Intelligence Estimate. Of course, that warhead would be quite useful on an Iranian missile with the range to strike the CONUS. Coincidentally, U.S. intelligence officials now say Tehran may have such a weapon by the middle of this decade.
None of these developments should surprise readers of this blog, which was long documented Tehran's efforts to gain nuclear weapons--and the means to deliver them. It's also unsurprising that some in the administration seemed willing to ignore the tough policy choices that may be required in dealing with Iran. After all, this is an administration that puts diplomacy ahead of all other options, and prefers to avoid the discussion of military force, let alone its potential use.
Borrowing a phrase from a former Obama advisor, it would seem that our Iranian planning chickens have come home to roost. Years of inactivity, over the course of multiple administrations, have allowed Tehran to reach the cusp of the nuclear club. Now, the U.S. must face potential options that many senior officials clear find unpalatable. If nothing else, Dr. Gates succeeded in reminding his peers that it is (often) their job to think--and plan for--the unthinkable.
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ADDENDUM: We also find it remarkable that the SecDef was willing to take his fight into the public arena. As a veteran of at least five administrations, Bob Gates clearly knows how the game is played, and is capable of using a timely leak to his advantage. But such steps are relatively rare for Dr. Gates, who has a long-standing reputation as a team player. Last weekend's article in the Times suggests that relations between Secretary Gates and the White House are beginning to fray. Mr. Obama's national security advisor, James Jones, claims the administration has been planning for a full range of possible "contingencies" involving Iran. The Gates memo seems to counter that claim, as does the sudden search for "new" Iranian options.
I agree that the Iranian nuclear threat is something to be very concerned about.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that is unresolved in my mind are the two themes about Iran.
1. Iran is technically incompetent. They keep producing photoshopped images and fake or old video footage of supposed new weapons platforms. The best they can do is a slight re-engineering of an F-5.
2. Iran is sufficiently technically competent to build a nuclear weapon.
It's possible Iran has barely enough technical staff to design and build an atomic bomb but not enough to do anything else.
Or the nuclear bomb effort is the same as their other weapons programs, a propaganda campaign.
Announce that our secret plan all along was the removal of Saddam so that we could give a nuke or two to an Iraqui regime to counter Iran.
ReplyDeleteHeh, heh.
It would be good to remember that Nuclear Iran would have been a threat to Saddam.
What would Saddam do?
A very good review. Thanks. I was surprised to see a front page NYT article that would be so clearly uncomfortable for the WH.
ReplyDeleteAdm. Mullin, on Sunday morning, attempted to quiet concerns regarding the lack of a long-term strategy following the Gates memo leak. US viewers and Mullahs in Teheran heard the Admiral explain that we risk catastrophic instability in the region if we cede nuclear weapons to Iran - OR if we act militarily to prevent it - perhaps inferring that the administration is now wrestling with policy paralysis. His assessment may be correct, but did he advertise to Teheran that we are unlikely to ever apply military action on their nuclear facilities since we weigh the alternative equally?
The fact is, it's become obvious to even the most myopic that we are approaching a turning point whereby effective sanctions are extremely unlikely. Hence the Gates leak, updated Iranian timetable estimates by DIA in public testimony, and public reports of Syrian moves to transfer SCUDS to Hezbullah control (as a potential deterrent to Israeli)- all released within 72 hours.
We have an ally in the mid-east that has been "contingency planning" for years in the event a US Administration is unable to address this threat diplomatically or economically - and unwilling to address it militarily. Unfortunately, I think we're basically there.
It is not surprising to me that the US is having difficulty coming to grips with the Iranian nuclear program, because you know and I know there is really NOTHING we can do to stop the Iranians from acquiring nuclear weapons capability if they really want it. Full stop.
ReplyDeleteTalk of military strikes, whether by the US or Israel, is pure unadulterated crap. It will not happen, I am now convinced, because every knows it would be futile. At best, such adventures would only delay the inevitable.
Even the Israelis know this to be true. So, we continue with the song and dance about sanctions and "all options being on the table."
The problem is, the Iranians are smart enough to know there will be not attack. GWBush wanted dearly to launch an attack and the combined analysis of the US military and intelligence apparatus concluded such a course would be folly. Why can't you guys understand that?
What is needed now is a strategic approach to the region that incorporates the outcome of an Iranian nuclear weapons capability. It is a headache, but little more than that. It is not the end of the world, unless you people want it to be. Pretty simple to imagine constructing a regional political-military alliance system from Cairo to Baghdad and Amman to San'a. Israel could not overtly be a part of that alliance unless there is comprehensive peace. But that requires Israel to do the correct and responsible thing and make a final peace with the Palestinians, which necessarily involves the evacuation of all the occupied territories including the non-Jewish parts of Jerusalem. Israel is not prepared to do that, though. So we are back where we started talking about idiotic things like Hezbollah's toys . . .