Unthinkable (67 page)

46.
 Jahn, “Iran Says It Will Speed Up Nuclear Program”; Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran: Advanced Enrichment Centrifuges Installed,” Associated Press, February 13, 2013; George Jahn, “Diplomats: Iran Starts Upgrade of Nuclear Site,” Associated Press, February 20, 2013.

47.
 Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen,
The Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), pp. 78–79. Also see Garry B. Dillon, “The IAEA in Iraq: Past Activities and Findings,”
IAEA Bulletin
44, No. 2 (2002), available at
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull442/44201251316.pdf
.

48.
 International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” November 8, 2011, Report Gov/2011/65, available at
http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-65.pdf
, Annex p. 3, footnote 19.

49.
 See National Intelligence Council, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007, p. 5. The key judgments of the NIE were released to the public almost immediately after the classified version was distributed internally. The full text of the published declassified version of the key judgments can be found at
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/20071203_release.pdf
.

50.
 Christopher Hope, “MI6 Chief Sir John Sawers: ‘We Foiled Iranian Nuclear Weapons Bid,' ”
Telegraph
, July 12, 2012.

51.
 Bob Woodward,
Plan of Attack
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), pp. 296–306.

52.
 For insightful accounts of the intelligence failure over Iraq's WMD, see Central Intelligence Agency, “Misreading Intentions”; Jervis,
Why Intelligence Fails
; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq.”

53.
 On non-U.S. assessments of Iran's weaponization program, see Barak Ravid, “Israel Seeks Input on U.S. Iran Report,”
Haaretz,
July 25, 2008; Barak Ravid, “Sources: UN Watchdog Hiding Evidence on Iran Nuclear Program,”
Haaretz
, August 19, 2009; “European Leaders Considering Iran Sanctions, French Foreign Minister Says,” Associated Press, September 16, 2007; Bruno Schirra, “Germany's Spies Refuted the 2007 NIE Report,”
Wall Street Journal Europe
, July 20, 2009.

54.
 IAEA, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement,” November 8, 2011, Annex pp. 4–12; Avi Issacharoff, “Report: Iran Scientist in Charge of Nuclear Weapons Program Resumes His Work,” Reuters,
August 30, 2012; Jeffrey Lewis, “The Ayatollah's Pregnant Pause,”
ForeignPolicy.Com
, August 15, 2012, available at
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/15/the_ayatollahs_pregnant_pause
.

55.
 IAEA, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement,” November 8, 2011, Annex pp. 4–12.

56.
 Ibid., Annex p. 4.

57.
 Scott Pelley, “The Defense Secretary: Leon Panetta,”
60 Minutes,
January 29, 2012, transcript and video available at
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57367997/the-defense-secretary-an-interview-with-leon-panetta/?tag=currentVideoInfo;videoMetaInfo
; Maseh Zarif, “Current State of the Iranian Nuclear Program,” AEI Critical Threats Project, October 2012.

58.
 Michael D. Shear and David E. Sanger, “Iran Nuclear Weapon to Take Year or More, Obama Says,”
New York Times
, March 15, 2012; “Iran Would Need Around a Year to Build Atomic Bomb: Israel,” Reuters, March 22, 2013.

59.
 William C. Witt, Christina Walrond, David Albright, and Houston Wood, “Iran's Evolving Breakout Potential,” Institute for Science and International Security, October 8, 2012, available at
http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/Irans_Evolving_Breakout_Potential_8October2012.pdf
, p. 3.

60.
 “Experts: North Korea Might Have Know-how to Fire Nuclear-Tipped Missile at South Korea, Japan,”
Washington Post
, April 6, 2013.

61.
 “France: Iran Seems on Track for Nukes by Mid-2013,” Associated Press, October 21, 2012.

62.
 Seyed Hossein Mousavian, “Ten Reasons Iran Doesn't Want the Bomb,” National Interest online, December 4, 2012, available at
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/ten-reasons-iran-doesnt-want-the-bomb-7802
.

63.
 For a longer discussion of this issue, see Amos Yadlin and Yoel Guzansky, “Iran on the Threshold,”
Strategic Assessment
15, No. 1 (April 2012): 7–14.

64.
 Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran Says It Is Converting Uranium, Easing Bomb Fears,” Reuters, February, 13, 2013.

65.
 Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal, “Iran's Shrewd Move,”
Weekly Standard
, February 22, 2013.

66.
 Yadlin and Guzansky, “Iran on the Threshold,” p. 8.

67.
 Amos Harel, “IDF Chief to Haaretz: I Do Not Believe Iran Will Decide to Develop Nuclear Weapons,”
Haaretz
, April 25, 2012.

68.
 “Iranian TV: Ayatollah Khamene'i Speaks on Khomeyni's Death Anniversary,” Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN), Sunday, June 4, 2006.

69.
 Office of the Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei, “Iran to Break Authority of Powers That Rely on Nukes,” February 22, 2012, available at
http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?p=contentShow&id=9183
.

70.
 Barry Parker, “Stop Threats If You Want a Nuclear Deal, Ahmadinejad Tells West,” Agence France-Presse, December 18, 2009.

71.
 Ali Akbar Salehi, “Iran: We Do Not Want Nuclear Weapons,”
Washington Post
, April 12, 2012.

72.
 Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran: Khamenei's Ban on Nuclear Weapons Binding,” Associated Press, January 15, 2013.

73.
 “Iran Issues Statement at IAEA Board of Governors Meeting,” IRNA, August 10, 2005.

74.
 Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji, “Forget the Fatwa,”
National Interest
online, March 13, 2013, available at
http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/forget-the-fatwa-8220
.

75.
 “Iran's Nuclear Theology: Bombs and Truth: Muslim Theological Objections to Nuclear Weapons—Real and Imagined,”
Economist
, May 19, 2012; Patrikarakos,
Nuclear Iran
, pp. 117–30.

76.
 Patrikarakos,
Nuclear Iran
, pp. 120–21.

77.
 Quoted in ibid, p. 121.

78.
 Quoted in ibid., p. 130.

79.
 Ibid., p. 126.

80.
 Patrikarakos,
Nuclear Iran
, pp. 283–85.

81.
 Warren Bass,
Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Avner Cohen,
Israel and the Bomb
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 99–174; Mordechai Gazit, “The Genesis of the US-Israeli Military-Strategic Relationship and the Dimona Issue,”
Journal of Contemporary History
35, No. 3 (July 2000): 413–22.

82.
 Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran Cleric Wants ‘Special Weapons' to Deter Enemy,” Associated Press, June 14, 2010.

83.
 Ray Takeyh, “Introduction: What Do We Know,” in Robert D. Blackwill, ed.,
Iran: The Nuclear Challenge
(New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2012), p. 9.

84.
 “Iran May Need Highly-Enriched Uranium in Future, Official Says,” Reuters, April 17, 2013.

85.
 On the internal politics of Iran's nuclear decision-making, see Karim Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,”
Journal of International Affairs
60, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 125–27.

86.
 See the Statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in James Risen and Mark Mazetti, “U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb,”
New York Times
, February 24, 2012.

87.
 Shahram Chubin, “Extended Deterrence and Iran,”
Strategic Insights
8, No. 5 (December 2009).

1.
 “Iran Summons Bahrain Envoy over ‘Terror' Cell Claim,” Agence France-Presse, November 22, 2011.

2.
 The United States did consider retaliating against Iran for its role in the killing of Americans in Iraq, including during the Obama administration. See Elisabeth Bumiller, “Panetta Says Iranian Arms in Iraq Are a ‘Concern,' ”
New York Times
, July 10, 2011; Phil Stewart, “U.S. May Act Unilaterally vs. Iran-Armed Militias,” Reuters, July 11, 2011.

3.
 Paul Bracken,
The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics
(New York: Times Books, 2012), p. 77.

4.
 This foundational concept of nuclear deterrence was first articulated in Bernard Brodie,
The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order
(New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946).

5.
 On the extent of Saddam's reckless (and inadvertently suicidal) decision-making as we have now come to understand it from documents and interviews secured after the 2003 invasion, see for instance Amatzia Baram, “Deterrence Lessons from Iraq,”
Foreign Affairs
91, No. 4 (July/August 2012): 76–85; Kevin M. Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson R. Murray, “Saddam's Delusions: The View from the Inside,”
Foreign Affairs
85, No. 3 (May/June 2006); Kevin M. Woods et al.,
The Iraqi Perspectives Report
(Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006).

6.
 In particular, see the grand jury indictment against thirteen members of Saudi Hizballah filed by the U.S. government in Alexandria, Virginia, available at
http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/khobar/khobarindict61901.pdf
, accessed July 26, 2004. The 9/11 Commission also found that the evidence of Iran behind the Khobar Towers bombing was “strong.” See
Report of the 9/11 Commission: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), p. 60. In addition, see the now-declassified memorandum “Iranian Response on al-Khobar,” September 15, 1999, written by this author while the director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, available from the National Security Archive at
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB318/doc01.pdf
. Also see Daniel Byman,
Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism
(Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 79–110, esp. p. 85; Richard Clarke,
Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror
(New York: Free Press, 2004), pp. 112–31; David Crist,
The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran
(New York: Penguin Press, 2012), pp. 402–413; Timothy Naftali,
Blindspot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism
(New York: Basic Books, 2005), pp.
248–51, 260–61; Kenneth M. Pollack,
The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America
(New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 280–302; Steven R. Ward,
Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces
(Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009), p. 322.

7.
 James G. Blight, Janet M. Lang, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman,
Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979
–1
988
(Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), pp. 195–226; Pollack,
The Persian Puzzle
, pp. 223–35; Ward,
Immortal
, pp. 279–98.

8.
 “Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January Through 30 June 2003,” Central Intelligence Agency, available at
https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/archived-reports-1/jan_jun2003.pdf
, p. 3.

9.
 Ibid.

10.
 Paul Pillar,
Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy
(Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), p. 57.

11.
 Paul Pillar, “We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran,”
Washington Monthly
, March/April 2012, available at
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril_2012/features/we_can_live_with_a_nuclear_iran035772.php
.

12.
 On this, see also Ward,
Immortal,
pp. 318–19.

13.
 Although there is a wealth of excellent work on the drivers of Iranian foreign policy, on this point in particular see Graham E. Fuller,
“The Center of the Universe”: The Geopolitics of Iran
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991); Karim Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran's Most Powerful Leader,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008; Ray Takeyh,
Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).

14.
 Pollack,
The Persian Puzzle
, pp. 13–71.

15.
 Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, eds.,
Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran
(Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004), esp. pp. 227–80; Stephen Kinzer,
All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror
(Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003); Pollack,
The Persian Puzzle
, pp. 40–71.