Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80
- 93)
WEDNESDAY 23 MAY 2007
DR ALI
ANSARI AND
DR FRANK
BARNABY
Q80 Andrew Mackinlay: It is about
mixed messages.
Dr. Ansari: Yes. At the moment,
we are in a sense catching up and a certain amount of progress
is certainly being made in this country. The hand that we have
been dealt, or at least the one with which we have to deal, in
Iran, is not the one that I would choose. There is definitely
a problem to solve.
Chairman: Thank you. We want to come
back to the military strike issue, and Mr. Pope has a question
on that.
Q81 Mr. Pope: Thank you, Chairman.
In February, Tony Blair said that as far as he was aware there
was no planning going on to make an attack on Iran, but that he
could not predict every set of circumstances. I am sure that you
are aware that Israel have purchased bunker-busting technology
from the United States. Do you think that there is evidence of
a plan by either the United States or Israel to attack Iran?
Dr. Barnaby: It is clear that
some people in the Pentagon are doing planning of a military type,
because there are people whose job it is to do that. How seriously
the politicians take that planning I do not know. It would be
so counter-productive that one has to hope that there is really
no political possibility of a military attack in the foreseeable
future.
One has to remember that Iran is still a signatory
to the non-proliferation treaty, and to the extent that we know
about Iranian nuclear activities it is because of that fact. IAEA
inspectors go to Iran because of it, and are to some extent able
to see what is going on. If the Iranians felt too threatened,
they would leave the treaty and we would then have no way of knowing
what was happening.
I have no evidence that there is a serious plan
for a military attack. It is true that the Israelis have bought
bunker-busting conventional weapons and have made threats of using
nuclear weapons against Iranian buried targets. I would say that
to use nuclear weapons is out of the question. The international
reaction would be so great that Israel would not do it. On the
other hand, it is clear that plans exist that could be called
upon if there were a political decision to make a military strike.
Q82 Mr. Pope: Could you just say
a word on how effective a strike might be? Some commentators have
suggested that a military strike could be in some ways surgical,
and that a brief strike would be in and out, successful and over
in a short time. However, I understand that the Iranians' facilities
are probably inside mountains and well dispersed, so it would
be quite difficult to do that. I should be interested to know
your view on that.
You wrote that one possible side-effect of a
strike might be that "Iran could embark on a crash programme
just to make one nuclear weapon." I should be grateful if
you could just enlarge a little on that. It seems an extraordinarily
nightmarish scenario that the net effect, if the Americans or
Israelis embark on a strike, might be to enhance the nuclear programme.
Dr. Barnaby: I believe that it
is the truth that a military attack would accelerate the programme.
As I have said, the current programme is broad and almost on an
industrial scale, whereas a military programme would probably
be very small. The amount of resources used would be much less
than those needed for a large-scale programme to produce nuclear
fuel for nuclear power reactors. Therefore, a military strike
is likely to focus the attention of the Iranians on getting a
weapon or a few weapons. If they did focus their attention on
that, they could do it rather rapidly, so it would accelerate
the programme.
One imagines that the Iranians are hiding facilities.
For example, they are clearly building large numbers of centrifuges.
We now know that they have 1,300 centrifuges operating and plan
to have 3,000, which is of the sort of scale that you would need
to produce highly enriched uranium for military purposes. One
would imagine that they are not using all their production centrifuges
and are keeping some aside to produce nuclear weapons if they
believe they must do that. So they would not be starting from
scratch. Furthermore, if the Bushehr reactor is operating, the
Russians are under contract to provide enriched uranium nuclear
fuel for that. Once the reactor starts operating, a military strike
on the reactor would be a Chernobyl, so that may make it very
unlikely. Unless it destroyed the reactor, the military strike
would not serve much purpose, because the plutonium produced in
that reactor can be separated chemically from the spent fuel and
used to produce nuclear weapons, so it would then become part
of their military programme. It is a very complicated issue.
We must not forget that they will, eventually,
within a few years, have a heavy water reactor operating, so they
have a number of routes to fissile material to put into nuclear
weapons. It would be very difficult in a military strike to destroy
all those facilities. We do not know where they are—the
intelligence is bad—so to pinpoint them will be extremely
difficult. Some of them are hidden and protected. It is hard to
see how one military strike could succeed. If you are talking
about wave after wave of military attacks, which would essentially
destroy the infrastructure of the country, that is a different
matter, but within reason it would be extremely difficult. Of
course, you would not kill all the scientists involved, so they
would have the knowledge and the capability left after a military
strike. It would be the worst possible way of stopping the Iranians
getting nuclear weapons.
Q83 Mr. Pope: It seems to me that
there is an interesting divergence of views. On one hand, we have
people like the Committee's favourite neocon, John Bolton—[Interruption].
I was not being ironic. He said that if the choice is between
a nuclear-capable Iran and the use of force, we need to look at
the use of force. That is a very clear view from the right-wing
neocons in the United States. You are saying that, actually, this
could invoke the law of unintended consequences and that taking
that course action could have the opposite effect: it would be
hard to degrade the whole of their capability and, in any event,
it might speed up their capability of getting the bomb, which
would be an entirely unintended consequence.
What then are the politics if we did the opposite?
If we say to Iran, "OK, we're going to take the option of
military strikes completely off the table and rule it out completely,"
is that likely to have an effect on the Iranian regime, to give
them a sense of security so that they do not need to try to militarise
their nuclear programme rapidly?
Dr. Barnaby: It would help if
the Iranians felt less threatened. However, to do what you suggested
as a negotiating move may not be very sensible. If you started
off negotiating without any preconditions, without saying that
we will not negotiate until they stop enriching uranium, I think
that the Iranians may negotiate sensibly. It is when you impose
preconditions that it makes it very difficult for them to negotiate.
Dr. Ansari: I certainly agree
that, if we were able to develop a framework that provided the
Iranians with a sense of security, it would help to persuade them
not to go down that particular route, but the problems are much
more serious than that, in that there is a strong perception in
Iran—it has been denied in Washington, but probably not
volubly enough—that the Americans are involved in fomenting
ethnic separatism in the country;. That is another form of military
option, and in many ways a much more pernicious one, I have to
say, which could cause a lot more problems in the long term. If
you have a country in the throes of what is essentially a very
strong nationalistic sense—which could go chauvinistic at
any moment, it must be said—and you excite that sense by
seeking to generate ethnic disturbances in Balochistan, Khuzestan
or wherever you might want, that will cause a lot of difficulties.
Of course, that process does not make them feel secure either.
For me, that is the one truly red line that
I wish the likes of Bolton, Michael Ledeen and our other neocon
favourites would stop talking about, because the issue is a real
powder keg and it would cause enormous problems, not just for
Iran itself, in geographical terms, but much more broadly in the
region.
Dr. Barnaby: The people who think
like John Bolton would see a military strike not solely as destroying
the nuclear capability but also as a way to get regime change.
Q84 Mr. Keetch: Dr. Barnaby, may
I say first that I certainly do not want to see a strike? However,
you are suggesting something that is counter-intuitive to some
of the military advice that all of us on the Committee have heard:
that Iran is not only potentially developing a nuclear weapon
but developing a missile system to deliver it, and that it would
then also need to miniaturise its weapon to be fitted on to such
a delivery system—I accept that that is another stage entirely.
What you are saying to us is that, at the moment, they are engaged
in some kind of long-term, broad scheme, which may or may not,
in five to 10 years, produce a weapon for them, but that if we
do something now, bingo, they could suddenly produce a weapon
in a year to two years. If it so easy for them to do that in a
year to two years, why do they not do that now, just in case we
attack them, because certainly if I was the Iranians I might think
that that was a better insurance policy?
Dr. Barnaby: I would argue two
things. First, maybe one should take at face value the declaration
that the purpose of their programme is to produce nuclear fuel
for their nuclear power reactors.
Q85 Mr. Keetch: So why have the missiles?
Dr. Ansari: That is a legacy of
the Iran-Iraq war. The fact is that, in the Iran-Iraq war, they
were being subjected to Scud missile attacks from Iraq and they
had no defence, so they just want missiles for defence. I do not
think that they necessarily want to build missiles to send nuclear
devices.
Q86 Mr. Keetch: They are certainly
building missiles that have a range way beyond Iraq.
Dr. Ansari: Sure. They want to
be able to hit Israel if Israel hits them. They do not have the
air force that Israel has. They want to be able to retaliate.
Dr. Barnaby: The fact is that
the missiles at the moment do not really have the payload to deliver
the nuclear weapon they are likely to produce first. As you say,
the militarisation process is a difficult one. So I think Ali
is right: they are concentrating resources on missiles for historical
reasons rather than for the specific purpose of delivering nuclear
weapons.
Q87 Mr. Moss: I have two questions.
Given Iran's huge resources of oil and gas, what is the logic
of the argument that says they need nuclear power to produce electricity?
Dr. Barnaby: They say the logic
is that they need to sell oil and gas to get foreign currency,
which they need for obvious reasons, and they are better able
to do that if they conserve their oil and gas by having nuclear
power for their own electricity production. That is what they
say.
Q88 Mr. Moss: Do you see that argument?
Dr. Barnaby: Yes, I do see that
that is a possible argument. I am persuaded that they do want
quite an ambitious nuclear power programme. As we have said, that
dates back to the Shah. If they have that programme, it is reasonable
for them to want to produce the fuel indigenously. It is an argument;
whether one accepts it or not is a matter of judgment.
Dr. Ansari: I agree: they have
rather ambitious, and to my mind fanciful notions of how much
electricity they can get from a nuclear industry. I think they
have a very grandiose scheme of the number of power stations.
Quite clearly this could be much easier, and a much larger percentage
of their energy needs could come from gas. Natural gas in Iran
has largely been left untouched. There is another dimension, of
course, in that oil and gas are still sanctioned. No foreign company
can invest in Iran because of US sanctions, and they are now in
the process of producing another secondary sanctions Act, which
will remove the White House's waiver, so that EU companies will
come under that.
I have to say I think the Iranians are very
bad at getting a deal with western oil companies, in many ways;
they have not really been innovative, but at the same time, when
it comes to why they are developing an indigenous civil nuclear
industry and why they do not explore their oil and gas resources
more, one of the arguments is that they have been under quite
severe sanctions at least since 1996. You could certainly make
the case stronger if it was free and open to invest in that oil
and gas.
There were some deals—some tentative offers—made
during the Clinton Administration, that Rafsanjani was on the
verge of accepting: swapping Bushehr for a gas plant. That never
materialised, but there were talks about it; that the Americans
would support the development of a natural gas electricity generating
power station. It was being thought of.
Q89 Mr. Moss: My second question
is this: do either of you envisage any situation at all in the
future where Israel may be tempted to make a unilateral strike
on the nuclear facilities in Iran?
Dr. Barnaby: A nuclear strike?
Mr. Moss: No, a strike against a nuclear
installation.
Dr. Barnaby: I do not see how
they could do it without American backing. It would have to be
done with the Americans.
Dr. Ansari: I do not see a unilateral
option for the Israelis.
Q90 Mr. Hamilton: President Ahmadinejad's
biggest propaganda weapon in his domestic politics is to tell
his people that it is the west that is trying to stop Iran developing
civil nuclear power. That is of course not the case, because they
are entitled under the non-proliferation treaty to develop civil
nuclear power. Have we in the west done enough to make it clear
that they have that right, as long as they do not use it to develop
nuclear weapons?
Dr. Barnaby: It is true that they
are legally entitled to do it under the non-proliferation treaty.
Moreover, the parties to the non-proliferation treaty are legally
bound to help the Iranians get civil nuclear power. So I do not
think we have done enough; I agree.
Q91 Mr. Hamilton: What more could
we do?
Dr. Barnaby: It is hard for us
to preach to Iran about its nuclear weapon capability when we
are improving the quality of our own nuclear weapons. I think
that it would be easier if there were moves towards nuclear disarmament
globally.
On the other hand, you could argue, and some
people do, that one should accept the fact that Iran will have
nuclear weapons in the foreseeable future, which means that other
countries will have them—Egypt and Saudi Arabia are threatening
already—and that we should be prepared to live in a world
of many nuclear weapon powers. There are two ways of looking at
it.
Dr. Ansari: Public opinion is
one of the battlegrounds, and we have not engaged with it yet.
It is as simple as that. We are talking at politicians, not communicating
with the people. That point has been made, but not so that ordinary
Iranians can hear. That is probably the best way to put it.
Q92 Ms Stuart: Can I explore a bit
further something that both Mr. Pope and Mr. Keetch raised? Given
the technology, why are they not developing it in any case, or
much quicker? There is a completely different way of looking at
the whole question of the threat of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.
There is an argument that militarily the United States is now
technologically at the level at which it can do about 95% of what
a nuclear weapon could do without nuclear weapons. The threshold
of engagement is that much lower, and that technology is therefore
much more dangerous than a nuclear weapon, which has a really
high threshold of engagement. The Iranians know that, and so do
the Americans. For the Iranians, as I think you were trying to
indicate in the opening statements, there is a hangover from the
Iran-Iraq war. It is quite a defensive position and actually quite
an outdated gut reaction rather than a serious, strategic, thought-out
future plan for the country. Or am I wrong?
Dr. Ansari: No, I agree with that.
In some ways there is an element of always fighting and deterring
the last war. In a sense they are deterring the Iraq of the 1980s.
There is the pursuit of missile technology and the purchase of
submarines, for instance. There was a huge discussion in Iran
about what the point was of having three submarines in the Persian
Gulf, which are hardly the deepest waters. They were quite determined
to get them, partly because they were so affected by the tanker
war and felt very vulnerable in their oil supplies. There is undoubtedly
an element of that, quite apart from the hyperbole that comes
out and the rhetoric from some of the military commanders who
say that they have invented all sorts of weird and wonderful weapons
that will affect the Americans.
As in any political society there is a wide
variety of views. There are those that we are much more familiar
with and are much more sensible, people who are saying, "Look,
this is not really a realistic military strategy for us. Our strategy
has to be more political and cultural rather than economic."
That was one argument that they made—that they have to be
the economic engine of the region rather than have big tanks,
loads of weapons and sophisticated weapons, which was not something
that they could realistically think about. There is an element
of that there.
Q93 Mr. Illsley: Just a quick one.
You said a few moments ago that you did not think that the western
world had engaged with Iran post-2003 or 2004, given the elections
and the move to the right. Do you think that the EU mission, the
troika, which began in October 2003, has completely failed over
the past few years? If you do agree that there has been that level
of failure, is it because we have misjudged Iran's hardening line
from that time to the present?
Dr. Ansari: I would not say that
they failed entirely. They had an extremely hard time of it—trying
to co-ordinate within the EU itself was often quite difficult,
let alone with other powers that might want to come in. On engagement,
I would say that the failure to engage happened earlier. We misread
the signs much, much earlier, partly for reasons that I have talked
about at some length at various times, including the absence of
expertise at critical moments.
In a sense there is always a time lag, so by
the time we started to engage with issues on a political level
the Government in Iran had changed. So we were trying to have
a negotiation with someone who did not want to talk to us, basically.
That was the problem. Now there is a change of mood, certainly
in the FCO among specialists working on Iran. Back in 1997 or
1998, the number of people working in Iran was fairly limited,
and the number of people who had seen service there was limited,
partly because diplomatic relations were so tight. I would not
want to say that the EU has failed entirely—certain progress
has been made—but clearly it has not gone as far as we would
have liked, for a variety of reasons. There is no doubt that it
was hampered, and the hand it was dealt was a very tough one in
some ways.
Chairman: Dr. Ansari and Dr. Barnaby,
thank you very much for coming and joining us today. It is much
appreciated.
| 
