Why Washington Does Not Want to Admit to the Severity of the Iranian Nuclear Program

At first glance it seemed very strange that when Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that Iran was enriching its low-enriched uranium from 3.5%  up to 20 %, the Obama administration did not seize upon this declaration and use it to strengthen its case at the UN for instituting painful sanctions on Tehran.

Uranium that is enriched below 5% U-235 is for considered fuel for nuclear reactors and hence only has a civilian purpose.  While enrichment to 20% can have medical applications, it puts Iran much closer to the 90% enrichment of uranium needed for an atomic bomb. The White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs dismissed Ahmadinejad's claim, saying: "Iran has made a series of statements that are based on politics, not on physics." In short, he said that it was impossible that Iran could enrich its uranium to the 20% level. 
 
Yet seven days later the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) published one of its regular reports on Iran and completely contradicted the White House.  The report took into account both IAEA data and the data of the Iranians and showed that Tehran had enriched 2,065 kilograms of uranium--enough for two atomic bombs when enriched further. IAEA inspectors told that on February 14, Iran took 1950 kilograms of its uranium to a smaller facility at Natanz, where it had enriched uranium to 19.8 %. It shared this data with the IAEA. 

In other words, Iran was preparing to enrich almost all of its uranium inventory to a level beyond the standard level for civilian use. The IAEA did not dismiss Iranian claims, as did the US, but rather appeared to be confirming them. It also added to its report one more frightening detail: "the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile." If that observation by the IAEA is true, then Iran should have no problem whatsoever reaching 20% enrichment of its uranium. 

Why was the US not interested in pointing out the gravity of what was happening in Iran?  One of the ironies about how many states behave is that they frequently don't want to admit that their adversaries had done something terribly wrong or violated an international treaty. Winston Churchill tells the story that if his predecessor, Prime  Minister Stanley Baldwin admitted that the Germans had violated the Versailles Treaty, then his party would not win re-election. Violations by the enemy means your own diplomacy failed and perhaps you were naive.

There are other problems with admitting the other side took a dangerous step. It forces a government to do something about the aggressive act that has occurred. The Reagan administration also did not want to accept that the Soviets had violated the ABM Treaty with its Krasnoyarsk Radar because that argument might have disrupted Soviet-American relations at the time and forced the US to take specific action. In 2010,  when Robert Gibbs rejects the idea that Iran can enrich uranium to 20%, he protects the Obama administration from having to respond.

During the 1990's, this was a problem as much for the Israeli government as it was for the Clinton administration. Yasser Arafat, the PLO leader was massively violating the 1993 Oslo Accords, especially in the delicate area of security.  In his 840 page book on his involvement in Arab-Israeli diplomacy, Dennis Ross tells of the American tendency to deal only privately with Arafat's violations because revealing them would have strengthened those who had their doubts about sincerity of the PLO within Israel and in the US Congress.

It doesn't take much imagination to figure out his concerns; Congress would have called for breaking relations with the PLO and the Israeli public would demand that their government halt any further implementation of the Oslo Accords. Although he does not say this, such a revelation of PLO violations might have brought down the Labor government and brought the Likud party to power.  In his book,  Ross also complains about Israel but then says that if  the US does not point out violations of agreements, then the parties never take their commitments seriously. This is one of his main lessons in his final chapter.

President Obama is at a crossroads with Iran. He tried his policy of engagement, reached out on repeated occasions to the Iranian leadership but they ignored him. He first set a September deadline for the Iranians to comply with five UN Security Council resolutions concerning their nuclear program. He also set a deadline of the end of December. On February 9, in answer to a question, Obama plainly did not rule out the policy of engagement even after Ahmadinejad announced the Iranian plan to enrich uranium to 20%: "They have made their choice so far, although the door is still open". 

In the weeks ahead, it will be essential for the administration to admit what Iran has done and move quickly to the most severe sanctions--with or without Russia and China. The administration's reluctance to jettison engagement is understandable from a historical perspective--it is hard for states to make a 180 degree change in policy. But time is running out and US leadership in dealing with the growing Iranian challenge is more vital than ever.