HJS Submission: House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee

UK Policy Towards

The Henry Jackson Society (HJS) is a London-based think-tank founded on the global promotion of the rule of law, liberal and human rights. HJS has a long-running programme studying the challenge Iran presents to the national interests of the United Kingdom and our allies. This submission represents a corporate view on the subject.

Summary

- Iran's behaviour over the last decade leaves little doubt it is seeking nuclear weapons, or at a minimum to reach the threshold of nuclear-weapons capacity from which it could “break out” undetected.

- The "Joint Plan of Action" (JPA) that Iran signed with the P5+1 negotiators in November significantly eases sanctions on Tehran while doing little to roll back or even stall its nuclear-weapons campaign.

- The JPA is unlikely to lead to a comprehensive deal, and the United Kingdom (UK) and fellow P5+1 negotiators must prepare for the "day after" its likely failure.

- Sanctions remain the most effective method of changing Iran's behaviour on the nuclear front.

- Should the JPA fail to produce a final deal, sanctions must be expanded to force Iran to agree to terms considerably more limiting than those outlined in the interim agreement.

- Iran's reckless and damaging foreign policy, and flagrant human rights abuses at home, must not be overlooked for the sake of hollow diplomatic victories.

Iran’s intentions

1. No reasonable analysis of Iran’s behaviour over the last decade comports with its insistence that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes. 2. Iran claims it seeks energy self-sufficiency, despite being one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers. Despite its resource bounty, Iran only meets 60% of its domestic petrol needs. If it were truly seeking energy self-sufficiency, Iran would be building oil refineries rather than nuclear-enrichment facilities. 3. Iran claims its uranium-enrichment drive is aimed at feeding a single reactor at its nuclear-energy facility Bushehr, but Russia is already supplying all of the enriched uranium that facility requires. 4. Iran has suffered devastating economic damage and diplomatic isolation due to its nuclear program – a sacrifice only understandable in reference to its higher objective of nuclear-weapon capability. If Iran were truly seeking the prestige of scientific development, it could have launched any number of other prestige projects (space programs, internet and high technology, medical advances) that would not bring the attendant economic and diplomatic costs of nuclear enrichment. 5. Iran is in breach of six (UN) Security Council resolutions (1696, 1737, 1747, 1803, 1835 and 1929) related to its nuclear program, as well as its Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 6. The European Union (EU) and IAEA have repeatedly condemned what they termed Iran's "concealment" of the true nature and scope of its nuclear program. Iran kept both of its main known nuclear-enrichment sites - Natanz and Fordow – hidden for years until they were discovered, and it is not unlikely that others exist now or will in future. If Iran does not currently have a nuclear facility it is keeping secret, it would be the first time in 20 years that all of its nuclear facilities were known.1 7. Iran is believed to have sanitized, paved over and reconstructed the military complex at Parchin – its key site for nuclear-weapons research – in yet another attempt to hide the non-civilian nature of its nuclear programme. 8. Iran contends that the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) to which it is signatory allows for peaceful nuclear enrichment, and therefore it insists on its "right to enrich." However, the peaceful enrichment the NPT allows applies only to states complying with the rest of the treaty's provisions. Iran, in serial breach of its obligations to the IAEA and the UN, plainly fails that test. 9. Iran’s new president Hassan Rouhani is a consummate regime insider and close colleague of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the theocratic ideologue who promulgated and personified the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Rouhani is Iran's former lead nuclear negotiator, and has boasted of deceiving his Western counterparts in the past.2 The current lead negotiator, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, is himself a regime insider deeply committed to revolutionary ideals. 10. Final say on all policy foreign and domestic - including Iran's nuclear program - belongs to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. In his quarter-century as head of state, Khamenei has shown unflagging commitment to his country's nuclear program. He and his regime have sacrificed too much in financial and political capital to now relinquish that program, and the resulting loss of face to the West is a bitter pill none of Iran’s leaders can be expected to swallow.

The Joint Plan of Action

11. The net effect of the JPA is to ease sanctions on Iran and boost its floundering economy, while demanding little to nothing in way of Iranian concessions on its illicit nuclear program.

1 Olli Heinonen, former deputy director of the IAEA, told the Wall Street Journal in 2013: “If there is no undeclared installation today . . . it will be the first time in 20 years that Iran doesn't have one." Available at: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323978104578329890771686954. 2 For more, see Philip Serwell, “How we duped the West, by Iran’s nuclear negotiator,” The Daily Telegraph, 5 March 2006: "When we were negotiating with the Europeans in Teheran we were still installing some of the equipment at the Isfahan site. There was plenty of work to be done to complete the site and finish the work there. In reality, by creating a tame situation, we could finish Isfahan." Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/1512161/How-we-duped-the-West-by-Irans-nuclear- negotiator.html. 12. On November 24, 2013, the day the JPA was announced, Iran was estimated to be six months from breakout capacity – namely, the ability to build a nuclear bomb fast enough so that the IAEA and Western intelligence services would not notice until it were completed. Judged by the rates at which Iran has hitherto enriched uranium, by January 24 it will have enriched an additional 460 kilograms of uranium to 5 percent and 30 more kilograms to 20 percent – a point at which it is relatively easy to enrich to weapons grade (90%). 13. Former IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen estimates that Iran has already passed the “point of no return,” and can currently convert its existing uranium stockpile to weapons- grade in as little as two weeks. From there, he believes, Iran would be one or two months from assembling a nuclear weapon.3 14. Once the Arak heavy-water facility is in operation, Iran will be able to produce one nuclear bomb a year, according to French estimates.4 Existing UN Security Council resolutions call on Iran to freeze construction at Arak, but the JPA merely requires it to not commission the reactor over the six months of the deal’s duration. The concession is meaningless – Iran has declared that the facility would not be ready until mid-to-late 2014. 15. At the time of writing, the JPA is about to be implemented (it is scheduled to go into force January 20, but could be further delayed, pending approval in capitals). Even if ultimately enacted, the JPA will be valid for only six months, after which Iran can either revert to its prior violations or use the threat of such behaviour to wring further concessions from the P5+1. 16. One of the most plausible scenarios for the upcoming years is an indefinite series of interim agreements, none of which will be the comprehensive deal the JPA envisions. Even with such interim deals, however, it is imperative that the P5+1 ensure that each subsequent agreement produce additional concessions from Iran and not vice versa. 17. The method for doing so is sanctions - the only proven leverage mechanism for improving Iranian behaviour. It was the economic pain inflicted by prior sanctions that forced Iran to agree to the (limited) concessions of the JPA. 18. If Iran fails to meet its obligations in the interim or a final deal, new bipartisan sanction legislation being deliberated in the United States (US) Senate could help force Tehran to agree to terms it had rejected in the past. Those new sanctions include further reductions to Iran’s petroleum production and penalties to its engineering, mining and construction industries. 19. US officials insist that the assets unfrozen in the JPA will inject approximately $7 billion into Iran’s coffers. In effect, the sum total is likely to be significantly higher – some estimates come close to $20 billion – a huge sum in exchange for the minimal nuclear concessions the agreement calls on Iran to make.5

3 Cited in Ilan Berman, “Too Much Breathing Room for Iran,” U.S. News and World Report, 5 November 2013. Available at www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/world-report/2013/11/05/obama-is-giving-too-much-away-to-iran-with-sanctions-talk 4 Cited in Olli Heinonen and the “Iran’s Arak plant reveals depth of distrust,” Financial Times, 12 November 2013. Available at www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/7aae8716-4bc2-11e3-a02f- 00144feabdc0.html?siteedition=uk#axzz2pufwvOLk 5 Calculations cited in Mark Dubowitz, “The Dollar Value of the of Proposed Sanctions Relief at Geneva,” Foundation for Defense of , 9 November 2013. Available here: www.defenddemocracy.org/media- hit/the-value-of-the-proposed-sanctions-relief-at-geneva. 20. Even before the JPA’s implementation, the flagging Iranian economy has benefited immensely. Iran is negotiating a major oil-for-goods deal with Russia, and Oman is positioning itself as Tehran’s natural gas broker. In just the week following the JPA’s signing, Iranian oil exports rose by 10 percent and its currency by 3 percent.

Parameters of any nuclear deal

21. For a comprehensive agreement - or even another interim deal - to be effective, it must include stronger provisions on Iranian enrichment, its heavy-water plant at Arak and its weapons-related research and development (R&D). 22. The JPA obligates Iran to keep enrichment below 5% for six months, but undermines the six UN Security Council resolutions on Iran's nuclear program that obligate Tehran to completely suspend enrichment. An acceptable comprehensive deal would demand a complete or near-complete suspension of that enrichment, and the transfer of already enriched material to a responsible international party. 23. A comprehensive agreement must require Iran to admit its prior violations of its obligations under the NPT, and to the IAEA to UN Security Council. It must also make a full disclosure of the totality of its current nuclear program, including all enrichment and research facilities. 24. An agreement must obligate Iran to declare the location of all of its estimated 19,000 centrifuges and prohibit it from manufacturing additional ones, particularly next- generation centrifuges that can enrich more rapidly and thereby shorten the path to a weapon. The wording of the JPA obligates Iran to suspend research on such advanced centrifuges, even if Iranian authorities insist it does not.6 25. Code 3.1 of Iran’s Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA obligates it to notify the monitoring body of any active enrichment or nuclear facility under its control. A new agreement must force Iran to abide by that directive, as it failed to do with Natanz and Fordow. 26. Any agreement must obligate Iran to comply with its Additional Protocol with the IAEA, which Tehran stopped implementing in 2006 after the nuclear watchdog referred its file to the UN Security Council. The Additional Protocol is a mechanism for strengthening and enhancing a country’s existing Safeguards Agreement through additional, prompter and more thorough access to nuclear sites of interest. 27. An agreement must verifiably halt all construction at the Arak heavy-water facility, which once online – as early as next year - could allow Iran to produce the plutonium necessary for a nuclear weapon. Plutonium is the main alternative to uranium for the production of nuclear energy, and credible estimates indicate Iran could still have a second, undisclosed plutonium facility.7 28. Any agreement must address the long-standing controversy over the Parchin complex. In its May 2011 report, the IAEA cites evidence of experiments at Parchin “involving the removal of the conventional high explosive payload from the warhead of the Shahab-3

6 On the disagreement over the JPA’s wording over next-generation centrifuges, see Blaise Misztal, “Iranian Centrifuge Advances,” Bipartisan Policy Center, 27 November 2013. Available at: bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/2013/11/27/iranian-centrifuge-advances. 7 See interview with Olli Heinonen in David Feith, “How Iran Went Nuclear” The Wall Street Journal, 1 March 2013. Available at: online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424127887323978104578329890771686954. missile and replacing it with a spherical nuclear payload.”8 In November of that year, inspectors wrote, “activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device . . . may still be ongoing.”9 The JPA makes no mention of Parchin. 29. The interim agreement restricts inspectors’ access to Iran’s two known enrichment sites: Natanz and Fordow. Fordow is the underground enrichment facility, kept secret until its discovery in 2009, where Iran enriches uranium to 20%. 30. The JPA requires Iran to dilute its approximately 200 kilograms of 20%-enriched uranium or convert it to a less potent oxide, but that process can be reversed in little time with basic technical knowhow and low detectability. 31. Inspections at Natanz and Fordow are not enough. Material verification – testing the substances found there – is also essential to give the IAEA the transparency it requires. 32. An agreement must include Iranian commitments on its ballistic-missile program, which the JPA does not mention.

Iran’s foreign policy 33. Supporters of greater engagement with Iran and/or containment of Iranian nuclear weapons contend that it is hypocritical of the UK, US and other nuclear-armed Western states to bar other countries from achieving the same technology. They note that is currently the only Middle Eastern state believed to have nuclear weapons, and decry Western double standards. 34. Containment of Iran, however, is not an option. Unlike Western states and Israel, Iran’s official ideology is one of perpetual revolution whose mission is to undermine the neoliberal international system in favour of a new world order founded on radical Islam. That worldview is at its core anti-status quo, anti-Western and anti-British. 35. Where Western governments prize stability - even, at times, at the expense of democratic ideals - the Iranian regime sees its interests served by instability across the Middle East and the world. 36. Iran is the world’s number-one state sponsor of terrorism, backing UK-designated terror groups Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. Suspected Iranian agents are also believed to have plotted an attack on the British High Commission in Kenya.10 37. In Syria, Iran is the primary financial and material supporter of the Bashar Al-Assad regime’s brutal three-year-long crackdown on popular dissent that has cost an estimated 130,000 lives. Iran has admitted to sending Revolutionary Guard officials to assist the

8 “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” IAEA Board of Governors, 24 May 2011, Available at www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-29.pdf. 9 “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” IAEA Board of Governors, 18 November 2011. Available at www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-65.pdf. 10 Mike Pflanz, “Iranians 'were targeting British High Commission in Kenya,’” The Daily Telegraph, 3 July 2012. Available at www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/kenya/9373798/Iranians-were-targeting-British-High- Commission-in-Kenya.html Syrian regime,11 and the US State Department has confirmed that Iranian troops are also aiding Syrian forces.12 38. In Afghanistan and Iraq, Iranian material support for the Taliban and other terrorist groups has killed UK troops, particularly through the use of armour-piercing Explosively Formed Projectiles or EFPs.13 39. In Yemen, Iran supports Shi’ite rebels and southern secessionists in a bid to destabilize the country to its benefit. In Iraq, Tehran is the key backer of the increasingly authoritarian and Shi’ite-sectarian prime minister Nouri al-Maliki. 40. Concern over the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon is not limited to America, Europe or even Iran’s primary target, Israel. The 2010 Wikileaks diplomatic cable trove showed urging the US to attack Tehran’s nuclear program, and Saudi officials including Riyadh’s envoy to Britain have taken to Western media to warn of the dangers of a bad deal.14 Media close to the governments of Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates have issued similar warnings.15 41. A regional arms race is a real prospect, should Tehran acquire nuclear weapons. Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey are all regional Sunni-majority states that fear the rise of a nuclear Iran. UK media have reported that Saudi Arabia has already ordered nuclear- weapons technology from Pakistan.16

Iran’s human rights record

42. Iran’s human rights record is by any measure appalling. In his 2013 annual report, UN rapporteur on Iran’s human rights Ahmed Shaheed lamented Iran’s “systemic and systematic violations of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights” of its own citizens. 43. The Islamic Republic strictly curtails freedom of speech, with at least 40 journalists behind bars (the world’s second-highest total after Turkey) and 800 political dissidents. Since 2000, Iran’s judiciary has shuttered some 120 reformist newspapers for releasing articles not in line with state-sanctioned religious and political ideology. Leading opposition figures including Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi remain under house arrest.

11 The Associated Press, “Iran admits to elite troops in Syria ‘advising,’ 24 September 2012. Available at: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/iran-admits-to-elite-troops-in-syria-advising/ 12 Anne Gearan, “Iranian soldiers fighting for Assad in Syria, says State Department official.” The Washington Post, 21 May 2013. Available at: www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/state-dept-official-iranian-soldiers-are- fighting-for-assad-in-syria/2013/05/21/a7c3f4ce-c23e-11e2-914f-a7aba60512a7_story.html 13 See Mark Townsend, “Special forces find proof of Iran supplying Taliban with equipment to fight British,” The Guardian, 22 June 2008. Available at www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/jun/22/military.afghanistan?gusrc=rss&feed=uknews. See also Ed O’Keefe and Joby Warrick, “Weapons prove Iranian role in Iraq, U.S. says,” The Washington Post, 6 july 2011. 14 See, for example, Roger Boyes and Roland Watson, “Saudi Arabia turns up heat on the West over possible Iran nuclear deal,” The Times, 22 November 2013. Available at www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/world/middleeast/article3929509.ece. See also Mohammed bin Nawaf bin Abdulaziz al Saud, “Saudi Arabia Will Go It Alone,” The New York Times, 18 December 2013. Available at www.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/opinion/saudi-arabia-will-go-it-alone.html?_r=0. 15 “Reactions In The Arab Press To The Geneva Agreement,” Middle East Media Research Institute, 25 November 2013. Available at: www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/7592.htm. 16 Mark Urban, “Saudi nuclear weapons ‘on order’ from Pakistan,” BBC News, 6 November 2013. Available at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-24823846. 44. Executions in Iran are on the rise, and last year’s figures are believed to have exceeded the appalling 2012 total of 522. Public executions remain commonplace. 45. Iran’s 300,000 Baha’is are barred from government jobs, their marriages not recognized and their children prohibited from university education. More than 100 of their leaders remain in prison for the “crime” of practicing their religion and teaching it to their children. 46. Christians in Iran also suffer regular abuse, and in October 2013 four Christians were sentenced to 80 lashes for drinking communion wine. Converts to Christianity are regularly jailed, and the US pastor Saeed Abedini has been imprisoned in the notorious Evin prison for more than a year solely because of his faith. 47. In November, Britain appointed a non-resident charge d’affaires to Tehran, two years after an angry mob attacked its embassy there with no response from Iranian authorities. Early this year, former foreign secretary Jack Straw led a parliamentary delegation to Iran – the first in five years. 48. Given these blatant human rights abuses, it is essential that British values not be sacrificed for the sake of hollow diplomatic victories. As Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s most recognizable human-rights crusader, argued in a recent op-ed, Iran’s human rights and nuclear file are “complimentary halves.”17 49. Similarly, any nuclear agreement, interim or comprehensive, must also address Iran’s damaging, destabilizing foreign policy and human rights abuses at home.

17 Shirin Ebadi and Payam Akhavan, “In Iran, human rights cannot be sacrificed for a nuclear deal,” The Washington Post, 30 November 2013. Available at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/in-iran-human-rights-and-nuclear-security-go-hand-in- hand/2013/11/29/e131a7dc-578b-11e3-8304-caf30787c0a9_story.html