He spent some time in Iran, at a military base near Parchin. The Iranians would have us believe that this was all part of a civilian nanodiamonds project. After the IAEA focused attention on the site, Iran undertook a thorough scrubbing of the area -- or what I like to call "the full Lavizan." Now, let's stipulate the explosives team at Parchin was working on nuclear weapons implosion until 2003, when they were told to work exclusively on nanodiamonds. Is that defense conversion? Or hedging? The answer, of course, is that it is both.
Now imagine you are an Iranian policymaker in 2003, debating with your colleagues about whether to "halt" the bomb program. Decide for yourself which side you want to take, and ask yourself this question about Parchin: If you want to shut down the bomb program, do you propose using the facility for civilian research? Why, yes, you do, if only so that the hawks won't accuse you of being under the control of Great Satan in using the nuclear weapons program to hold back Iran's scientific and technological development. If you don't want to shut down the bomb program? You also want to keep the scientists at work, if only to keep the option alive for another debate when you have the numbers. Two opposing politicians may agree on the same policy, but for very different reasons. If one looks in from the outside, how is it possible to make a larger statement about Iran's intentions in a situation like this?
The short answer is to look for something unambiguous, like an order from the supreme leader. It seems that much of what the U.S. intelligence community is now doing is looking for a sign that the supreme leader has authorized a resumption of the program. Micah Zenko, at the Council on Foreign Relations, has written an interesting piece noting that Clapper and other U.S. officials seem to have concluded that an order to resume the nuclear weapons program will come directly from the supreme leader. Zenko also noted that Israeli officials have suggested that the supreme leader has not done so because he believes his decision-making process has been penetrated and that any decision to restart the nuclear weapons program will be detected by the West. Given that the West detected covert Iranian enrichment facilities at Natanz and then again at Qom, to say nothing of the 2003 decision to pause the program, he wouldn't be paranoid to think so. On the other hand, the supreme leader may have other reasons for refraining, including real religious opposition, per a fatwa, or religious edict, he issued prohibiting the production, stockpiling, and use of nuclear weapons.
Very little has been written about how the supreme leader would authorize a resumption of the nuclear weapons program. Would he make a telephone call? Take a meeting? Or, as Franklin D. Roosevelt did to start the Manhattan Project, simply take a blue pencil to a report and write, "OK -- returned -- I think you had best keep this in your own safe. FDR."
Iran's paused program is why neither the United States nor Israel has launched an airstrike, at least not yet. Iran is creeping toward a bomb option, by accumulating multiple and redundant capabilities to build nuclear weapons. These steps make an airstrike less and less effective by the day, which is what some Israelis mean by the term "zone of immunity." Still, something seems to have stayed the supreme leader's hand. He does not yet appear to have decided to exercise his option to build a bomb -- something that he would almost certainly do following an attack. So we scour the deserts of Iran for any sign that the supreme leader has decided to go for it.
If Haaretz is correct and there is a new intelligence estimate, it appears to be old news. The substance of its story -- that "activity around the 'weapon group' … is progressing far beyond the scope known to the International Atomic Energy Agency" -- is apparently intended to be an official confirmation of similar allegations made by Iranian dissidents this year and published in the Daily Telegraph by Con Coughlin. The Iranian dissidents, according to Coughlin, alleged that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has established something called the "New Defence Research Organisation," comprising 60 scientists, "to work on the key areas of the weapons programme that still need to be completed before Iran can start work on assembling a nuclear weapon."
As it turns out, the New Defense Research Organization is just an English variant of Sazeman-e Pazhuhesh va Nowavari-ye Defaie, or SPND -- Fakhrizadeh's group. In an op-ed, one Iranian dissident admitted as much. Apparently, some people believe the creation of the SPND, which happened last year, and Iran's refusal to grant the IAEA additional access at Parchin demonstrate that Iran has restarted its weapons program. I think that's pretty thin gruel. Iran may be hiding past weaponization work at Parchin, but I don't know how anyone can conclude when that work occurred. And Iran has reorganized the PHRC at least three times since 2003. Oh, this is interesting all right, and worth considering, but hardly the sort of thing one puts in a PowerPoint to U.N. Security Council. Um, moving on.
There is a simple explanation for a new intelligence assessment at this time. According to the IAEA, Iran started using the SPND name in February 2011 -- the same month that the United States completed the last NIE. The authors must have loved that! Out of date immediately! It would be reasonable, following yet another reorganization and the standoff over Parchin, for the intelligence community to take another look. My guess is that the intelligence community found Fakhrizadeh still punching the clock, but no evidence that the supreme leader has made a decision to go all out for a bomb. This is not surprising. Iran is successfully slicing off one piece of salami after another, while the Israelis scream about the "zone of immunity." Why would the supreme leader invite an airstrike?
Then there is another reason for skepticism. We are reading about this in the paper! One thing I learned living in Washington is that intelligence leaks are usually the losing side of an argument. I was at a meeting recently at which an old intelligence hand made the same point rather forcefully. Leaks are a way of appealing a decision through the media and political opposition. In this case, there are clearly Americans and Israelis who believe that the United States lacks a sense of urgency over the challenge posed by Iran. Hence the leak this summer that appeared in the Daily Telegraph and now in Haaretz. Whether these leaks are coming from dissatisfied officials in the United States or Israel is beside the point. We probably only have half the story. The losing half, at that.
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