A nuclear Iran: promoting stability or courting disaster?

• Author: Sagan, Scott
• Position: THE NUCLEAR QUESTION

ON 8 FEBRUARY 2007, at the Kellogg Conference Center at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the Journal of International Affairs and the Middle East Institute hosted a live debate between Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz. The two political scientists revisited their classic debate on nuclear weapons, addressing recent developments in Iran and possible global responses. Richard K. Betts moderated the event. Dean Lisa Anderson delivered opening remarks.

Lisa Anderson: I'm delighted to welcome you here and to congratulate the Journal of International Affairs for having put together such a distinguished and, as it turns out, popular program. It is a tribute to the Journal that for sixty years it has addressed questions in ways both timely and timeless. Some of Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs' most renowned faculty and distinguished students have been associated with the Journal.

Among these faculty is one who has agreed to serve as moderator tonight. Professor Richard Betts could make the case for either of our contestants nearly as well as they do, and, in their absence, often does. Now he will help us to pursue the question of whether Iran should go nuclear. Dick, the arena is yours.

Richard Betts: Thank you, Dean Anderson. We are fortunate to have Kenneth Waltz and Scott Sagan here tonight. Their company here is appropriate for two special reasons.

First, to help answer the general question of whether the acquisition of nuclear weapons by middle-powers like Iran is bad, good or indifferent in its implications. Many of you have read their book, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, which explores the question in very provocative detail. The question tonight is how the particular case of Iran fits into this debate.

Second, focusing on Iran brings us to the question--in the air at this very moment--of whether the United States will soon attack Iran in an attempt to set back its nuclear program.

The United States has recently dispatched the [USS John C. Stennis] aircraft carrier battle group to patrol the waters of Iran's vicinity. It isn't clear why, unless President Bush is at least considering the option of an air attack. If this action is simply coercive muscle-flexing, it could prove embarrassing in the event Tehran doesn't back down and the United States does not in fact attack Iran. Exposing this gesture as a bluff would be reminiscent of [President Richard Nixon] sending the carrier USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal in 1971 to intimidate India during the invasion of East Pakistan--a gesture that was revealed as an empty tacit threat.

So, should the United States attack Iran to destroy its nuclear capabilities? If not, does that mean that prospective Iranian nuclear weapons will not be a grave danger? Can instruments other than military attack effectively impair Iranian progress toward the development of nuclear weapons?

With us tonight are two of the most thoughtful and provocative observers of international relations to answer the questions raised by Iran's nuclear program. Kenneth Waltz and Scott Sagan will present their basic arguments, and then I will pose a few questions to them, after which time we'll open the forum to audience participation.

Kenneth Waltz: Thank you very much, Dick, for that kind introduction. I'll begin with a few things about nuclear weapons, and then I'll say a few things about Iran.

First, nuclear proliferation is not a problem because nuclear weapons have not proliferated. "Proliferation" means to spread like wildfire. We have had nuclear military capability for over fifty years, and we have a total of nine militarily capable nuclear states. That's hardly proliferation; that is, indeed, glacial spread. If another country gets nuclear weapons, and if it does so for good reasons, then that isn't an object of great worry.

Every once in a while, some prominent person says something that's obviously true. Recently, Jacques Chirac [president of France] said that if Iran had one or two nuclear weapons, it would not pose a danger. Well, he was right. Of course, he had to quickly retract it and say, "Oh no, that slipped out, I didn't know the microphone was on!"

Second, it doesn't matter who has nuclear weapons. Conversely, the spread of conventional weapons makes a great deal of difference. For instance, if a Hitler-type begins to establish conventional superiority, it becomes very difficult to contain and deter him. But, with nuclear weapons, it's been proven without exception that whoever gets nuclear weapons behaves with caution and moderation. Every country--whether they are countries we trust and think of as being highly responsible, like Britain, or countries that we distrust greatly, and for very good reasons, like China during the Cultural Revolution behaves with such caution.

It is now fashionable for political scientists to test hypotheses. Well, I have one: If a country has nuclear weapons, it will not be attacked militarily in ways that threaten its manifestly vital interests. That is 100 percent true, without exception, over a period of more than fifty years. Pretty impressive.

Why would Iran want to have nuclear weapons? There are two very simple ways to answer that question. One is by looking at a map. To the east, Iran borders Pakistan and Afghanistan--countries that do not look greatly stable, and countries that might make any neighbor feel uneasy about what is going to happen next. To the west, Iran borders Iraq. And for eight bloody years in the 1980s, Iran fought a war against Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

I wonder if Iran really feels more comfortable now that it's not Saddam Hussein but instead the United States who represents the great military force in Iraq. If I were ruling Iran, I certainly wouldn't think this region of the world is safe.

Two, if the president of the United States says three countries form an axis of evil--which George Bush said in 2002--and he then proceeds to invade one of them--Iraq--what are Iran and North Korea to think?

We talk about dangerous rogue states that are hard to deter. But what state is in fact the biggest rogue state in the world? For countries that think the United States constitutes a threat, how should they react? In effect, there is no way to deter the United States other than by having nuclear weapons. No country can do that conventionally The United States can overwhelm other countries conventionally

If you were making decisions for Iran, would you say, "We don't want nuclear weapons," or, "Let's do everything we can to get a small number of nuclear weapons and get them just as quickly as we possibly can"? It would be strange if Iran did not strive to get nuclear weapons, and I don't think we have to worry if they do. Because deterrence has worked 100 percent of the time. We can deter small nuclear powers--after all, we have deterred big nuclear powers like the Soviet Union and China. So sleep well.

Scott Sagan: Thank you for this invitation. Nuclear weapons are horribly destructive. And, in theory, any statesmen in any state should be strongly influenced by the fear that his or her cities could be destroyed by an adversary. But in reality, as opposed to theory, nuclear weapons are not controlled by states. They are not controlled by statesmen. They are managed by imperfect, normal human beings inside imperfect, normal organizations.

To understand in which situations nuclear weapons are likely to produce successful deterrence and in which situations they are less likely to, we need to open the black box of decisionmaking inside states to look at who controls and manages the actual nuclear weapons or devices that are being built. We fail currently to do that in our thinking about Iran.

There is a creeping fatalism occurring in the American debate about this subject. Many policymakers and scholars are fatalists in thinking that there is nothing we can do, short of using military force, to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And that fatalism is often coupled with deterrence optimism, best exemplified by Kenneth Waltz's thinking.

Proliferation fatalism and deterrence optimism interact in a particularly diabolical manner; the more we think it inevitable that Iran is going to acquire nuclear weapons, the more we are...