Iran: a true security dilemma?

• Author: Williams, Jared

Editor's Note: Continuing our practice of providing opportunities for promising graduate students to publish their work, we showcase this study of Iran's nuclear capabilities and United States security. --Ed.

The thesis of this paper is that there is a substantial basis to believe the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the Islamic Republic of Iran need not derail U.S. efforts to obtain its basic security objectives in the Middle East (e.g. the prevention of terrorism, secure corridors for the transportation of oil to global markets and progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). There is no known evidence of a state giving a nuclear capability to a nonstate actor to support its national security.

The paper assumes that U.S. intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan precipitated Iranian reactions, including development of a nuclear weapons program, which pose challenges for international security. These developments enhance the strength of the Iranian regime against certain threats like the use of conventional military power. Using theories developed by proponents of the school of realism in international relations policy, the paper proceeds to show that the U.S. can still pursue its basic security goals in the region successfully.

While nuclear weapons threatening U.S. interests are daunting, counter measures against them and steps to prevent proliferation are not certain to succeed. Parties involved in a conflict normally do not abandon working to secure their interests in tactical or low level actions simply because they face opposition (i.e.Taliban has continued its insurgency in Afghanistan despite U.S. state building efforts.). Accordingly, the U.S. needs to pursue balanced policy objectives in a disciplined manner while trying to mitigate the perceived risks from nuclear proliferation. This more balanced approach should be taken with Islamic Republic of Iran. Past nuclear programs and the results of past international efforts to deal with them indicate how better outcomes may have been achieved in those circumstances and how those lessons learned can be applied in the case of Iran.

International relations scholars from the "realist" school have argued that states are the units which make up the international system. States are the most important actors, because there is no central authority or enforcement organization at the supranational level that can hold states accountable for their actions. (1) This leaves the international system in a state of anarchy in which states are left to act in their self-interest to ensure security. (2) Security results from the ability of a state to exercise its capabilities within the international system and how power capabilities are distributed among other states within the international system. (3) As John Mersheimer, author of The Tragedy of Great Power

Politics, notes, "states pay close attention to how power is distributed among them, and they make a special effort to maximize their share of world power". (4) Like any other state in the international system, the Islamic Republic of Iran is preoccupied with maximizing as much power as necessary to guarantee the day to day security of the regime and preserve its place in the current international pecking order. (5)

Prior to the invasion of Iraq, President of the United States George W. Bush proclaimed that Iran, Iraq and North Korea were part of an "axis of evil". (6) This statement effectively conveyed to the world the administration's advocacy of regime change in all three countries. This policy and botched intelligence reporting on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs led to the invasion of Iraq. American power is now required to assure Iraq does not become a failed state. This extension of U.S. power undertook another democratic state building effort similar to the one already underway in Afghanistan. The proposed establishment of two democratic states, which maintain sympathetic, dependent relationships with the United States fundamentally, changed the way power would be distributed in the region and created a sense of vulnerability within the Iranian regime. The U.S. state building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan came to be viewed as a massive alteration of the current distribution of regional power and a threat to the continued existence of the current Iranian regime.

From the perspective of the Iranian regime, the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan are obvious threats to its continued security for three reasons. First, the United States put the most powerful conventional military force in the world on both sides of the Iranian border. Arguably, this gives the U.S. the strategic geographic position, manpower and weaponry to carry out its stated policy of regime change as it could attack simultaneously from Iran's Eastern and Western borders. With U.S. officials having already carried through with their policy of regime change in Iraq, it would not be farfetched for the Iranian regime to view U.S. military movements as the preparatory framework for a conflict with Iran. (7)

Secondly, the U.S. occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan gives the United States a new check on the Iranian regime's strategic exercise of power. The gap between the military, economic and diplomatic capabilities of the United States and Iran is significant. As renowned international relations theorist Kenneth N. Waltz points out, states (units) that form the international system are ultimately "undifferentiated" by their function", but they are substantially differentiated by their "greater or lesser ability for performing similar tasks". (8) Fundamentally, the Iranian regime does not have the collective economic or military capabilities to frontally challenge U.S. power, which arguably inhibits Iranian actions against its neighbors.

Third, as a result of the adverse policy of the U.S. against Iran, it was not an option for the Iranian regime to seek to align itself with the United States to maintain its day-to-day security. As a less powerful or secondary state, Iran had two options. It could seek to align itself with another regional power (China, Russia, India) that in all likelihood would deter the U.S. from engaging it in a conflict, or it could develop offensive nuclear weapons, which would in effect give the U.S. pause prior to any military action. Iran has creatively combined these two options into a brilliant hybrid approach, which successfully deters the U.S. and other states from exercising their military options or otherwise fully leveraging gains from the exercise of conventional military power in the region. These moves by Iran have created challenges for the implementation of U.S. policy in the region. U.S. strategic goals include, in addition to those noted earlier, stability and the deterrence of tensions in an effort to concentrate on its state building efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

As Robert Jervis astutely notes, "The fear of being exploited most strongly drives the security dilemma". (9) As outlined above, the Iranian regime has legitimate reasons to fear exploitation by the United States. The offensive movements of the United States designed to increase its security by overthrowing the regimes in Iraq and Afghanistan consequentially decreased the security of the Iranian regime. Iran has already adapted to protect its security as noted above. As a result, the U.S. and Iran find themselves trapped in a position popular among international relations theorists known as the security dilemma. As John Mersheimer puts it "The best defense is a good offense". (10) In order to develop a good "offense", the Iranian regime has sought to increase the state's absolute power through the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Absolute power remains fundamentally distinct from relative power. Unlike relative power, absolute power cannot be defended against. As Waltz points out in The Spread of Nuclear Weapons, when nuclear weapons are involved "if no state can launch a disarming attack, force comparisons are irrelevant". (11) Once Iran achieves an offensive nuclear weapons capability, the comparative advantage of relative (conventional) capabilities or relative gains of the U.S. become unimportant. The U.S. may be physically able to defeat Iran using conventional capabilities, but the likelihood that it would do so becomes severely reduced once Iran successfully obtains nuclear weapons. In any potential conflict the U.S. risks facing Iran's preemptive or retaliatory use of offensive nuclear weapons even if there is a high probability of success. Iran can develop a second strike capability inexpensively to make this threat real. (12) Iran simply needs to increase the likelihood that its "ability to punish" will inflict unacceptable damage against U.S. interests domestically or abroad. (13) Thus, the Iranian regime's pursuit of absolute power by acquiring an offensive nuclear weapons capability can ensure its day-to-day security and eradicates many of the imminent threats to Iran's security posed by the relative capabilities of the United States. The potential for a massive conventional confrontation such as Iraq had with Iran in the 1980's or as the U.S. has had twice with Iraq is now highly unlikely. The Iranian regime has successfully taken the U.S. policy of regime change effectively off the table.

This is not to say that the Iranian regime is completely uninterested in enhancing its relative capabilities. Recently, the Iranian defense industry unveiled an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) designed to carry out long distance bombing distance bombings missions against adversaries. (14) The cutting edge development of a UAV resembles the UAV's such as the Predator and Global Hawk that have been utilized by the U.S. military and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for assassinating high value targets in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the U.S. has shot down Iranian drones operating in Iraqi airspace previously. This sporadic...