The Political Impact of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE)

Number 22 ● 27 May 2008

The publication of the key judgments from the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran (the section of the report which was made public) in early December 2007 should be viewed in large part as a product of U.S. bureaucratic politics. The debate regarding whether the U.S. intelligence community is responsible for producing "actionable" intelligence is rooted in the run-up to the 2003 Iraq invasion, and, in all likelihood, was not far from the minds of the intelligence community when it crafted its latest round of qualified judgments on Iran's nuclear program.

The report's semantic acrobatics suggest it was drafted in a way that would prevent its intelligence findings from being politicized. However, the declassified section of the report is missing important context and analysis without which public opinion has been left to “cherry-pick” from its conclusions. U.S. Senator Carl Levin noted, "…in Senate testimony, Director McConnell [of U.S. National Intelligence] said the wording of the NIE led to the misperception that Iran has abandoned its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons," Levin also added that McConnell, "emphasized that the other two critical elements of a weapons program -- uranium enrichment and a ballistic missile delivery capability -- continue, and continue openly." And Thomas Fingar, chairman of the U.S. National Intelligence Council, has alluded to the problematic nature of the report's key judgments given their public disclosure, “If we thought for a minute they [the report's judgments] would be released, which we didn’t, we would have framed them somewhat differently.”

The first declaration of the NIE states "with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” and assesses with moderate-to-high confidence that Tehran “is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons." The unstated implication of this judgment is that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program until 2003. In January 2003, in front of the European Union parliament, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi stated, "We are against developing weapons of mass destruction," noting that Iran's then nuclear program was "for energy purposes." Kharrazi also said "nothing is secret, everything is transparent." In February, Kharrazi reiterated that Iran was not developing a nuclear arms program. The NIE, if it is correct, would seem to refute the assertions of the former Iranian minister and raise doubts regarding ongoing Iranian claims regarding its nuclear program. The second sentence suggests that Iran paused its nuclear weapons program in response to “increasing international scrutiny and pressure resulting from disclosure of Iran's previously undeclared nuclear work."

The public's perception of the report’s findings is that Iran has not been developing nuclear weapons since 2003 and therefore its nuclear program is not an urgent or threatening issue. The immediate result has been that the very international pressure that caused Iran to halt its program has been undermined and diluted. The U.S., within the framework of the Security Council, had been trying to employ a “carrot and stick” approach to pressuring Iran regarding its nuclear program—an approach the NIE appears to validate as effective. In fact, the Security Council in March 2008 passed a third round of limited sanctions on Iran in response to its ongoing uranium enrichment. However, despite new sanctions, the public’s reaction to the NIE findings has largely removed the stick as an effective policy tool.

In light of these developments, U.S. policy analysts have refocused the policy debate on Iran’s nuclear program. As the military option appears to recede as a viable option given the lack of broad domestic political support, there has been a renewed public discussion regarding direct dialogue with Iran.

Former National Security Council officials Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann claim international sanctions via the U.N. have provided limited political leverage because they have not been fully supported by Europe, Russia, or China. They suggest engagement and confidence building to constructively approach the nuclear issue (New York Times, 11 December 2007). Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh claimed the U.S. policies are based on faulty assumptions about the nature of the Iranian regime and have urged the George W. Bush administration to end its wrong-headed policy of containment and isolation. Similar to the Leveretts, they recommend direct engagement with Iran based on an incremental approach to regional security cooperation which would result in confidence building that could be leveraged in addressing the nuclear issue (Foreign Affairs, January/February 2008).

Several influential neo-conservative analysts appeared to change course, also advocating direct engagement. Robert Kagan’s editorial in the Washington Post (December 5, 2007), “Time to Talk to Iran,” argued that the NIE eliminated American military option and made European support for tougher sanctions “impossible.” Kagan concluded that the timing is right, “with its policy tools broken, the Bush administration can sit around isolated for the next year or it can seize the initiative, and do the next administration a favor, by opening direct talks with Tehran.” Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former intelligence officer and proponent of military action, published an editorial “Attack Iran, With Words,” in the New York Times (February 20, 2008). Gerecht advocated direct engagement with Iran, however he cynically views engagement, once it has been tried and rejected (by Iran), as a necessary step to reinvigorate direct international pressure. "If the White House tried more energetically to find a diplomatic solution to the nuclear threat, if it demonstrated that it had reached out to Iranian ‘pragmatists’ and ‘moderates', and that again no one responded, then the military option would likely become convincing to more Americans.”

Prominent former U.S. diplomats Thomas Pickering and William Luers, and MIT researcher Jim Walsh recently (New York Review of Books, March 20, 2008) disclosed that former U.S. officials have been meeting privately with Iranian academics and policy advisers during the past five years for unofficial talks. The authors claim that there is a current opportunity for direct U.S.- Iranian talks on the nuclear issue and that the U.S. should initiate these discussions by proposing that Iran’s nuclear program “be conducted on a multilateral basis” and “jointly managed and operated on Iranian soil by a consortium including Iran and other governments.” The proposal outlined in the article has been endorsed by U.S. Senators Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Diane Feinstein of California.

In the meantime, the first cracks in the previously unified position of senior U.S. administration officials may be beginning to manifest themselves six months after the NIE’s public disclosure. On May 15th, the Washington Post reported that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates’ believes the U.S. should talk to Iran, “We need to figure out a way to develop some leverage . . . and then sit down and talk with them," Gates said. "If there is going to be a discussion, then they need something, too. We can't go to a discussion and be completely the demander, with them not feeling that they need anything from us." Gates diplomatic posture toward Iran is a significant reversal from blunt and forceful remarks he delivered to GCC states in December 2007: “Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos.” There “can be little doubt,” he added that “their destabilizing foreign policies are a threat” to U.S. interests and to “interests of all countries within the range of the ballistic missiles Iran is developing." It is also interesting to note that Gates was the co-chair (along with Zbigniew Brzezinski) of an independent task force report (“Iran: Time for a New Approach”) sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations in 2004. The task force’s report advocated direct negotiations with Iran with no preconditions.

Despite Gates new diplomatic tack, President Bush remains publicly committed to an unyielding approach regarding Iran. Bush comments on U.S. funded Radio Farda were blunt, "they've [Iran] declared they want to have a nuclear weapon to destroy people … that's unacceptable to the United States, and it's unacceptable to the world." (Washington Post, March 21, 2008) Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s position has not changed either; she continues to talk tough and offer incentives in order to convince Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment; a precondition to any talks.

Preconditions also seem to be the principal difference between the positions of the U.S. presidential candidates on Iran. Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and John McCain have each clearly stated that they intend on preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Obama appears in favor of engaging Iran in direct talks without preconditions. Clinton appears to favor isolation and pressure prior to engagement. McCain is staunchly against talking to Iran unless it meets U.S. preconditions.

It is too early to tell what real changes the NIE has prompted in U.S. decision-making circles. It appears, however, that NIE has contributed to the U.S. public's perception that the Iranian nuclear program is a less urgent issue. And while policy experts in the U.S. and Europe may not have changed their threat perception in response to the NIE, a critical mass of public opinion does seem less concerned. In response, the policy community in Washington appears to be reassessing its options for dealing with Iran. As Metternich observed two centuries ago, "Public opinion is one of the most powerful weapons, which like religion penetrates the most powerful hidden corners where administrative measures lose their influence; to despise public opinion is like despising moral principles." Examined from this perspective, the NIE's public and political impact was not insignificant.

Joseph S. Nye, an elder-statesman of U.S. foreign policy, wrote in an April 1978 Foreign Affairs essay, “non-proliferation policy is much more like a large construction project than an adversary contest. It may, to be sure, never follow the precise blueprint of its architects, which will always need a degree of improvisation or adjustment." Perhaps the NIE will prompt the U.S. to begin to improvise and adjust its approach to Iran; time is of the essence■

*Brandon Friedman is a research fellowof the Center for Iranian Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The Alliance Center for Iranian Studies (ACIS)

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Iran Pulse 22 ● May 27, 2008 © All rights reserved.