Response To Dr. Kissinger

The NIE does not so much reject this theory; it does not even examine it. It concludes that "Tehran's decisions are guided by a cost-benefit approach rather than a rush to a weapon." But a cost-benefit analysis does not exclude a rush to weapons on a systematic basis. It depends on the criteria by which costs and benefits are determined. Similarly, in pursuing the cost-benefit rationale, the estimate concludes that a combination of international scrutiny along with security guarantees might "prompt Tehran to extend the current halt to its nuclear weapons program." That is a policy, not an intelligence, judgment.

In drawing a distinction between policy, " might ' prompt Tehran to halt its nuclear weapons program,'" and intelligence, " We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program, " Former Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger raises an excellent point: The NIE has become a policy vehicle.

Yet, what appears to also be the case is the suggestion that Dr. Kissinger either supported, or currently does support the use of military force to secure the outcome.

By the fall of 2003, when Iran voluntarily joined the Additional Protocol for Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Saddam Hussein had just been overthrown. Is it unreasonable to assume that the ayatollahs concluded that restraint had become imperative? By the fall of 2005, the American effort in Iraq showed signs of bogging down; the prospects for extending the enterprise into Iran were diminishing. Iranian leaders could have felt free to return to their policy of building up a military nuclear capability -- perhaps reinforced by the desire to create a deterrent to American regional aspirations.

What Dr. Kissinger seems to indicate is that a military presence in both Afghanistan and Iraq has proven to be a deterrent, at least with regard to warhead development, which he qualifies by questioning whether the warhead development timeline is even a mitigating factor once some critical mass of fissile material has been accumulated:

The NIE holds that Iran may be able to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon by the end of 2009 and, with increasing confidence, more warheads by the period 2010 to 2015. That is virtually the same timeline as was suggested in the 2005 National Intelligence Estimate. The new estimate does not assess how long it would take to build a warhead, though it treats the availability of fissile material as the principal limiting factor. If there is a significant gap between these two processes, it would be important to be told what it is. Nor are we told how close to developing a warhead Tehran was when it suspended its program or how confident the intelligence community is in its ability to learn when work on warheads has resumed.

So, in identifying the notorious " gap " that the NIE fails to quantify in terms of fissile material production and warhead development and production, a gap that may extend the far end of that 2009 - 2015 timeline, Dr. Kissinger speculates that the current halt in warhead development is actually directed toward a more subtle strategy that will phase in a warhead in a brief period of time, and at which there will be ample fissile material available; hence, a short warhead development gap in the context of enriched uranium.

In short, if my analysis is correct, we could be witnessing not a halt of the Iranian weapons program -- as the NIE asserts -- but a subtle, ultimately more dangerous, version of it that will phase in the warhead when fissile material production has matured.

Dr. Kissinger's conclusions regarding Iran hold that normalization of relations is in order.

What is required is a specific vision linking assurances for Iran's security and respect for its identity with an Iranian foreign policy compatible with the existing order in the Middle East. But it must also generate an analysis of the strategy to be pursued should Iran, in the end, choose ideology over reconciliation.

But how Dr. Kissinger is able to speculate upon so obscure, almost purely subjective a notion as " existing order, " is anyone's hypothesis. The existing order in the Middle East appears to be one in which most Arab states want the United States to end the Iraqi occupation, which is exactly what Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said to Morley Safer on 60 Minutes.