Iran's Nukes: Did Gates Just Complicate the Obama Position?

Transcripts: Secretary of Defense Gates on CNN, ABC
Iran’s Nuclear Program: Gary Sick on the US Approach after the “Secret Plant”
Iran’s “Secret” Nuclear Plant: Israel Jumps In
The Latest from Iran (27 September): Is There a Compromise Brewing?

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UPDATE 2035 GMT: The Los Angeles Times summarises Gates' appearance on ABC's This Week: noting that the unemployment rate is 40% among Iran's young people, he asserted that past economic sanctions "are having an impact" and said severe additional sanctions "would have the potential to bringing them to change their policies". The article also notes Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on CBS's Face the Nation: "World powers have learned more about how to effectively use sanctions in their recent effort to halt the nuclear and missile programs of North Korea."

Threatening to punish Iran's young people? Crippling the economic life of "ordinary" Iranians? I stand by my assessment below --- if Tehran does not make concessions at the 5+1 meeting, can the Obama Administration really cross the line of harsh across-the-board sanctions? And will that be a precipice not only for Iran's people but for the White House strategy, bringing confrontation rather than solution?

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had a major set-piece interview on CNN today. While the most prominent issue will be US strategy in Afghanistan, he also spoke at least on Iran's nuclear programme. And while I can see his tactical path --- balancing tough talk on the "secret second plant" with the maintenance of a diplomatic track --- I think he may have cluttered it with excessive rhetoric.



Gates laid the criticism on thick and without reservation: "Certainly the intelligence people have no doubt that....this is an illicit nuclear facility, if only … because the Iranians kept it a secret.”

That conveniently throws out the complexity of Iran's position under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. (Tehran is relying on the provision of the NPT that it only needs to give six months' notice before uranium is placed in a plant.) And then Gates pushed his boat out, without supporting evidence, on the allegation of military intent: “If they wanted it for peaceful nuclear purposes, there's no reason to put it so deep underground, no reason to be deceptive about it, keep it a … secret for a protracted period of time.” (That ignores the perfectly logical explanation that Iran, wanting to protect enrichment capacity, would put a plant underground as protection against an airstrike. Its first plant, Natanz, is in open air.)

Gates at least did emphasize diplomatic efforts even though, in the standard sop to domestic hard-line opinion, he would not explicitly rule out military action:

The reality is, there is no military option that does anything more than buy time. The estimates are one to three years or so. And the only way you end up not having a nuclear-capable Iran is for the Iranian government to decide that their security is diminished by having those weapons, as opposed to strengthened. And so I think, as I say, while you don't take options off the table, I think there's still room left for diplomacy.

So what's the problem with this balance between tough talk and a maintenance of engagement? If the rhetoric does not bring Iranian concessions but, to the contrary, pushes Tehran into resistance (and, at least for some inside Iran, justify that resistance), then the Obama Administration will find that its balance between pressure and engagement is more rather than less precarious. A good section of US domestic opinion will be baying for, at the least, a wide range of punishing economic sanctions, while the objective of Iran's cooperation on issues such as Afghanistan will be harder to meet.