1. For those looking for a history of the U.S.-Iran relationship, I will recommend three books. First, there is my own book, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), which tries to present a balanced perspective on the U.S.-Iran relationship up through 2004. Ali Ansari’s Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Next Great Crisis in the Middle East (Cambridge, Mass.: Basic Books, 2006), tells the same story from an Iranian perspective. Finally, the most recent book on the subject is David Crist’s The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012). Crist’s book tends to focus on the military rather than the political and economic aspects of the relationship, and is largely presented from the American perspective, but it is well done and brings the story up to 2012.
2. Herman Kahn, Thinking About the Unthinkable (New York: Horizon Press, 1962).
1. Hooman Majd, The Ayatollah’s Democracy: An Iranian Challenge (New York: Norton, 2010), p. 45.
2. John L. Esposito, ed., “Taqiyah,” Oxford Dictionary of Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003).
3. Shahram Chubin, “Extended Deterrence and Iran,” Strategic Insights 8, No. 5 (December 2009).
4. For two superb books that delve deeply into the impact of Persian culture on Iranian foreign politics, see Graham E. Fuller, “The Center of the Universe”: The Geopolitics of Iran (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991); and Nikki R. Keddie and Rudi Matthee, eds., Iran and the Surrounding World: Interactions in Culture and Cultural Politics (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2002).
5. Rouhollah K. Ramazani, “Iran’s Foreign Policy: Contending Orientations,” in Rouhollah K. Ramazani, ed., Iran’s Revolution: The Search for Consensus (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), p. 59.
6. Among other sources, see Geneive Abdo, “Iran’s Internal Struggles,” in Patrick Clawson and Henry Sokolski, eds., Checking Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 2004), pp. 39–60; Wilfried Buchta, Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic (Washington, D.C.: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000); Hossein S. Seifzadeh, “The Landscape of Factional Politics and Its Future in Iran,” Middle East Journal 57, No. 1 (Winter 2003): 57–75.
7. On the political influence of the Revolutionary Guard, see Ali Alfoneh, “The Revolutionary Guards’ Role in Iranian Politics,” Middle East Quarterly 15, No. 4 (Fall 2008): 3–14; Emanuele Ottolenghi, The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 2011); Kenneth Katzman, The Warriors of Islam: Iran’s Revolutionary Guard (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1993); Frederic Wehrey, Jerrold D. Green, Brian Nichiporuk, Alireza Nader, Lydia Hansell, Rasool Nafisi, and S. R. Bohandy, “The Rise of the Pasdaran: Assessing the Domestic Roles of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps,” RAND Corporation, 2009, available at http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG821.pdf.
8. Karim Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008, esp. pp. 4–8, 14–21.
9. Of course, since 2010 increasingly severe international and multilateral sanctions have crippled the Iranian economy, inflicting real hardship on the Iranian people—albeit not to the same extent as the suffering of the Iran-Iraq War.
10. For the most recent and insightful accounts of Iran’s decision-making to end the Iran-Iraq War, see James G. Blight, Janet M. Lang, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), pp. 195–226; and Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 101–107.
11. Karim Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,” Journal of International Affairs 60, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 127.
12. Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, pp. 240–41.
13. Ottolenghi, The Pasdaran, pp. 15–27; Wehrey et al., “The Rise of the Pasdaran,” esp. pp. 8–18, 35–43, 81–88.
14. Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei,” p. 9.
15. See for instance, Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran President Backs Down in Political Clashes,” Associated Press, November 2, 2012.
16. Ali M. Ansari, “Iran Under Ahmadinejad,” in Amin Tarzi, ed., The Iranian Puzzle Piece (Quantico, Va.: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), p. 13.
17. Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei,” pp. 11–12; Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,” esp. p. 126.
18. Mohsen Milani, “Tehran’s Take: Understanding Iran’s U.S. Policy,” Foreign Affairs 88, No. 4 (July/August 2009): 48–49.
19. Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei,” p. 14.
20. Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei,” pp. 17–19, 22–24; Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,” p. 126.
21. Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, p. 162.
22. Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei,” p. 20. See also Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, pp. 164–65.
23. Shahram Chubin, “Iran’s Strategic Environment and Nuclear Weapons,” in Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Options: Issues and Analysis, ed. Geoffrey Kemp (Washington, D.C.: Nixon Center, 2001).
24. For those interested, an English translation of Khomeini’s Testament can be found at http://www.imam-khomeini.com/web1/english/showitem.aspx?cid=1341&h=13&f=14&pid=1430.
25. On the 1996 coup plot, see “Bahrain Coup Suspects Say They Trained in Iran,” New York Times, June 6, 1996; “Bahrain Holds 44 It Says Are Tied to Pro-Iran Plot,” New York Times, June 5, 1996; and Richard A. Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), p. 112. On annexing Bahrain, see Saud al-Zahed and Eila Jazaeri, “Iran’s Khamenei-Run Newspaper Calls for Bahrain Annexation After GCC Union Talks,” Al-Arabiyya, May 16, 2012.
26. David Menashri, “Iran’s Regional Policy: Between Radicalism and Pragmatism,” Journal of International Affairs 60, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 155–56.
27. David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), pp. 514–15.
28. Douglas Jehl, “For Death of Its Diplomats, Iran Vows Blood for Blood,” New York Times, September 12, 1998.
29. The composition and powers of this council are described in Article 111 of the Iranian constitution. An English translation is available at http://www.iranonline.com/iran/iran-info/government/constitution-8.html.
30. For a superb discussion of the mechanics and politics of succession in Iran, including the potential for a leadership council to retain power rather than an individual successor, see Alireza Nader, David E. Thaler, and S. R. Bohandy, The Next Supreme Leader: Succession in the Islamic Republic of Iran (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2011), esp. pp. 73–76.
31. For a superb account of the 2009 presidential elections and the dramatic events that followed, see Majd, The Ayatollah’s Democracy, pp. 3–66.
32. For scholarly reports making the case that the 2009 election results were fraudulent, see for instance Ali Ansari, Daniel Berman, and Thomas Rintoul, “Preliminary Analysis of the Voting Figures in Iran’s 2009 Presidential Elections,” Chatham House, June 21, 2009, available at http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Middle%20East/iranelection0609.pdf; Walter R. Mebane, Jr., “A Note on the Presidential Election in Iran, June 2009,” University of Michigan, June 29, 2009, available at http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wmebane/note18jun2009.pdf.
33. Casey L. Addis, “Iran’s 2009 Presidential Elections,” R40653, Congressional Research Service, June 22, 2009, pp. 7–8; Robert Tait, Ian Black, and Mark Tran, “Iran Protests: Fifth Day of Unrest as Regime Cracks Down on Critics,” Guardian, June 17, 2009; Robert F. Worth, “A Struggle for the Legacy of the Iranian Revolution,” New York Times, June 20, 2009.
34. Ansari, “Iran Under Ahmadinejad,” pp. 12–14.
35. Numbers of killed during the Green Revolution is hotly disputed. A figure of about one hundred seems to be the consensus, but the sources for this figure are unclear. See “Iran Election: Faces of the Dead and Detained,” Guardian, January 28, 2010, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2009/jun/29/iran-election-dead-detained.
36. See for instance, Ali Ansari, “The Revolution Will Be Mercantilized,” National Interest, No. 105 (January/February 2010); Abbas Milani, “Iran: A Coup in Three Steps,” Forbes, June 15, 2009, available at http://www.forbes.com/2009/06/15/iran-elections-khamenei-mousavi-ahmadinejad-opinions-contributors-milani.html; Karim Sadjadpour, “Epilogue: The 2009 Iranian Presidential Election and its Implications,” in Tarzi, ed., The Iranian Puzzle Piece, pp. 84–86.
37. Emanuele Ottolenghi, The Pasdaran: Inside Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (Washington, D.C.: Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, 2011), pp. 37–39.
38. Ottolenghi, The Pasdaran, p. 29.
39. Ray Takeyh, “Iran’s Missing Moderates,” International Herald Tribune, March 18, 2012.
40. Karim Sadjadpour, correspondence with the author, April 2013.
41. On the divisions among even Iran’s current, uniformly hardline leadership see Ali Akbar Dareini and Brian Murphy, “Ahmadinejad Rivals Rack Up Parliament Wins in Iran,” Associated Press, March 3, 2012; Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran’s Khamenei Warns of Government Divisions After Rial Plunge,” Reuters, October 10, 2012; Thomas Erdbrink, “Iran’s Political Infighting Erupts in Full View,” New York Times, October 22, 2012; “Iran’s Ahmadinejad Denied Visit to Evin Prison,” Reuters, October 23, 2012.
42. For a cogent argument that Iran’s foreign policy is principally defensive, see Milani, “Tehran’s Take,” pp. 46–62.
43. On this see, Geneive Abdo, “Iran’s Internal Struggles,” in Patrick Clawson and Henry Sokolski, eds., Checking Iran’s Nuclear Ambitions (Carlisle, Pa.: U.S. Army War College, 2004), pp. 57–60.
44. Quoted in Amir Taheri, The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution (New York: Encounter Books, 2009), p. 189.
45. “Iran’s Struggle with America Should Continue,” Reuters, November 13, 2009, www.reuters.com/article/2009/11/13/us-iran-usa-cleric-idUSTRE5AC21I20091113.
46. Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, “U.S. Accuses Iranians of Plotting to Kill Saudi Envoy,” New York Times, October 11, 2011; Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 562–66.
47. Office of Public Affairs, “Two Men Charged in Alleged Plot to Assassinate Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States,” United States Department of Justice, October 11, 2011, available at http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2011/October/11-ag-1339.html.
48. Benjamin Weiser, “Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Murder a Saudi Envoy,” New York Times, October 17, 2012.
49. On the Mykonos trial, see Roya Hakakian, Assassins of the Turquoise Palace (New York: Grove Press, 2011).
50. See David E. Sanger, “America’s Deadly Dynamics with Iran,” New York Times, November 5, 2011. Most speculation focuses on Israel as having been behind those killings. While not impossible, it seems unlikely that the United States would have participated because of the extreme American aversion to assassination after the firestorm of the 1970s, in which CIA involvement in a number of assassination plots was revealed, senior CIA officials were interrogated and embarrassed, new congressional oversight tools were established, and a sacrosanct executive order was issued prohibiting CIA participation in assassination. Since then, the CIA (as well as the U.S. military) has, to the best of anyone’s knowledge, steered well clear of traditional assassinations.
51. On the Tanker War, see, Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 235–379; Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 217–33; Steven R. Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009), pp. 279–96.
52. Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 511–37; Mohsen Milani, “Iran’s Ties to the Taliban,” Iran Primer, United States Institute of Peace, August 10, 2011, available at http://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2011/aug/10/iran’s-ties-taliban; Khwaja Basir Ahmad, “Alleged Spies Say Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Trained Them,” Pahjwok Afghan News, May 7, 2012, available at http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2012/05/07/alleged-spies-say-iran’s-revolutionary-guards-trained-them; Aamer Madhani, “Experts Discuss Iran-Taliban Relationship,” USA Today, July 22, 2010.
53. For a superb encapsulation of how Iran dealt with the first year of the Arab Spring, see Suzanne Maloney, “Iran: The Bogeyman,” in Kenneth M. Pollack and Daniel L. Byman, eds., The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), pp. 258–67.
54. David Ignatius, “The ‘Day After’ in Syria,” Washington Post, July 25, 2012.
55. For instance, see “Egypt’s Top Cleric Voices Sunnis’ Worries of Iran,” Associated Press, February 5, 2013.
56. Lolita C. Baldor, “U.S. Blaming Iran for Persian Gulf Cyberattacks,” Associated Press, October 12, 2012; Dan De Luce, “Cyber War on Iran Has Only Just Begun,” Agence France-Presse, July 13, 2012; Siobhan Gorman and Julian E. Barnes, “Iran Blamed for Cyberattacks,” Wall Street Journal, October 13–14, 2012.
57. Joel Greenberg and Simon Denyer, “Israel Blames Iran for India and Georgia Bombing Attempts; Tehran Denies Role,” Washington Post, February 13, 2012; Nicholas Kulish and Eric Schmitt, “Hezbollah Is Blamed for Attack on Israeli Tourists in Bulgaria,” New York Times, July 19, 2012.
58. For a good summary of Iranian support to various terrorist groups, see Kenneth Katzman, “Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses,” Congressional Research Service, RL32048, September 5, 2012, pp. 43–65.
59. For an excellent discussion of the anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism among Iran’s current leadership, see Reuel Marc Gerecht, “Should Israel Bomb Iran? Better Safe Than Sorry,” Weekly Standard 15, No. 42 (July 26, 2010).
60. Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader, and Parisa Roshan, Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2011), pp. 57–77; Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, pp. 20–21, 62–69.
61. For a lovely and informative vignette of this community, see Majd, The Ayatollah’s Democracy, pp. 212–53.
62. Mark J. Gasiorowski, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 120–24.
63. Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 145; Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 141.
64. Shahram Chubin, Whither Iran? Reform, Domestic Politics, and National Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 73.
65. Gawdat Baghat, “Nuclear Proliferation: The Islamic Republic of Iran,” Iranian Studies 39, No. 3 (2006): 307–27; Kaye, Nader, and Roshan, Israel and Iran, pp. 65–70.
66. “65 Suspects Arrested on Charges of Blast in Southeast Iran,” Fars News Agency, February 16, 2007; M. K. Bhadrakumar, “Foreign Devils in the Iranian Mountains,” Asia Times, February 24, 2007, available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IB24Ak$1.html; “Iran: Many Die in Zahedan Mosque Bombing,” BBC, May 28, 2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8072795.stm; William Lowther and Colin Freeman, “U.S. Funds Terror Groups to Sow Chaos in Iran,” Telegraph, February 25, 2007; Mark Perry, “False Flag,” Foreign Policy, January 13, 2012, available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag?page=0,0. It is worth noting that the United States has denied any involvement in these attacks. In 2010, the U.S. government designated the Baluch extremist group Jundallah a terrorist organization, thereby making it a crime for any U.S. government personnel to provide material support to them.
1. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State (London: Tauris, 2012), pp. 14–82. See also Chris Quillen, “Iranian Nuclear Weapons Policy: Past, Present, and Possible Future,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 6, No. 2 (June 2002): 17; Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 242–43; Steven R. Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009), pp. 319–20.
2. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, pp. 50–54.
3. Ibid., pp. 102–130; Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution, p. 243.
4. George Jahn, “Iran Says It Will Speed Up Nuclear Program,” Associated Press, January 31, 2013, http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jPHLK4rK7Md1f42qK3DZwSHvQM_A?docId=82f8ffeeab294344bc57c3df6f719acc.
5. David Albright and Christina Walrond, “Iran’s Gas Centrifuge Program: Taking Stock,” Institute for Science and International Security, February 11, 2010, available at http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/irans-gas-centrifuge-program-taking-stock/. Richard P. Cronin, Alan Kronstadt, and Sharon Squassoni, “Pakistan’s Nuclear Proliferation Activities and the Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission: U.S. Policy Constraints and Options,” RL32745, Congressional Research Service, January 25, 2005, p. 11.
6. Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), p. 318.
7. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, pp. 141–43.
8. Pollack, Persian Puzzle, p. 362; Ward, Immortal, p. 320.
9. One superb recent study has concluded that Iran could have purchased the same fuel abroad for 10 percent of the cost of manufacturing it domestically—and that does not include the cost of sanctions, lost investment, and other penalties Iran has suffered that dwarf the simple cost comparison. See Ali Vaez and Karim Sadjadpour, “Iran’s Nuclear Odyssey: Costs and Risks,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, April 2013, esp. pp. 13–17.
10. Seth Carus, “Iran and Weapons of Mass Destruction,” pre-publication copy prepared for the American Jewish Committee Annual Meeting, May 3, 2000, pp. 2–4; Gary Milhollin, “The Mullahs and the Bomb,” New York Times, October 23, 2003; “Nuclear Weapons—2004 Developments,” GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/nuke2004.htm, accessed on August 5, 2004; “Nuclear Weapons—2003 Developments,” GlobalSecurity.org, available at http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/nuke2003.htm, accessed on August 5, 2004; “Nuclear Weapons—2002 Developments,” http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iran/nuke2002.htm.
11. In 2005, Iran took out a full-page ad in the New York Times to explain its version of the nuclear standoff and this should be seen as the most authoritative statement of Iranian claims about its nuclear program. See “An Unnecessary Crisis—Setting the Record Straight About Iran’s Nuclear Program,” New York Times, November 18, 2005, p. A11.
12. Simon Shercliff, “The Iranian Nuclear Issue,” in Amin Tarzi, ed., The Iranian Puzzle Piece (Quantico, Va.: Marine Corps University Press, 2009), pp. 50–51; Stuart Winer, “Iran Admits It Deceived the West over Nuclear Program,” Times of Israel, September 20, 2012.
13. As part of signing on to the NPT, countries must have a Safeguard Agreement with the IAEA that describes procedures for handling nuclear materials, notification of changes in the countries’ nuclear program, and other basic functions. It is unclear whether violation of the Safeguard Agreement constitutes a violation of the NPT itself, another problem with the NPT.
14. International Atomic Energy Agency, Report by the Director General, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” GOV/2003/40, June 6, 2003. Also see Joby Warrick and Glenn Kessler, “Iran’s Nuclear Program Speeds Ahead,” Washington Post, March 10, 2003, p. A1. Note that Warrick and Kessler claim that the Natanz facility was designed to house 5,000 centrifuges while the actual IAEA report says 50,000. See IAEA, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” p. 6.
15. “Iran Signs Additional Protocol,” International Atomic Energy Agency, December 18, 2003, available at http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/2003/iranap20031218.html.
16. IAEA, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran: Resolution Adopted by the Board on 18 June 2004”; “Iran’s Continuing Pursuit of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Testimony by Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John R. Bolton,” House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East and Central Asia, June 24, 2004; Karl Vick, “Another Nuclear Program Found in Iran,” Washington Post, February 24, 2004, p. A1.
17. For a fuller account of how Iran’s claims belie the economic realities of its nuclear program, see Vaez and Sadjadpour, “Iran’s Nuclear Odyssey.”
18. Ibid., p. 17.
19. See “Tensions Grow over Iran’s Nuclear Goals,” PBS NewsHour, September 27, 2004, available at http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/iran_9-27.html.
20. Shercliff, “The Iranian Nuclear Issue,” pp. 50–51.
21. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, pp. 166–68.
22. David Patrikarakos reaches the same conclusion. See ibid., p. 169.
23. For the details of how much more cost-effective it would be for Iran to pursue natural gas rather than nuclear power, see Vaez and Sadjadpour, “Iran’s Nuclear Odyssey,” pp. 17–21.
24. Author’s conversation with senior British officials, Washington, D.C., April 2004.
25. David Albright, Paul Brannan, Andrea Stricker, and Christina Walrond, “Natanz Enrichment Site: Boondoggle or Part of an Atomic Bomb Production Complex?” Institute for Science and International Security, September 21, 2011, available at http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/natanz-enrichment-site-boondoggle-or-part-of-an-atomic-bomb-production-comp/.
26. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran Plans Enrichment Sites in Defiance of UN,” Associated Press, November 29, 2009; Thomas Erdbrink, “Ahmadinejad Vows Dramatic Expansion of Iran’s Nuclear Program,” Washington Post, November 30, 2009.
27. See also David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), p. 491.
28. See National Intelligence Council, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007, p. 5. The text of the declassified version of the key judgments can be found at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/20071203_release.pdf.
29. Commercial satellite imagery and expert analysis can be found at David Albright and Robert Avagyan, “Suspected Clean-Up Activity Continues at Parchin Military Complex: Considerable Dirt Movement Near Suspect Building,” Institute for Science and International Security, June 20, 2012, available at http://isis-online.org/isis-reports/detail/parchin/. On the IAEA efforts to get Iran to discuss its suspected weaponization, see International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” August 30, 2012, available at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-37.pdf, p. 3; Kenneth Katzman, “Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses,” Congressional Research Service, RL32048, September 5, 2012, p. 28.
30. “UN Fails in Attempt to Restart Iran Nuke Probe,” Associated Press, January 18, 2013.
31. David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “Inspectors Say Iran Worked on Warhead,” New York Times, February 19, 2010, p. A13.
32. George Jahn, “UN: Credible Evidence Iran Working on Nuke Weapons,” Associated Press, September 2, 2011.
33. One of these documents has since made its way into the public domain. See George Jahn, “Graph Suggests Iran Working on Bomb,” Associated Press, November 27, 2012, available at http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-graph-suggests-iran-working-bomb-161109665.html.
34. Kenneth Katzman, “Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses,” Congressional Research Service, RL32048, September 5, 2012, p. 28.
35. International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” November 8, 2011, Report Gov/2011/65, available at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-65.pdf, p. 8.
36. That the WMD fiasco was foremost an intelligence failure and the role of the Bush 43 administration in that disaster, see Central Intelligence Agency, “Misreading Intentions: Iraq’s Reaction to Inspections Created Picture of Deception,” Iraq WMD Retrospective Series, January 5, 2006, declassified and released June 5, 2012; Robert Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails: Lessons from the Iranian Revolution and the Iraq War (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2010); Kenneth M. Pollack, “Spies, Lies, and Weapons: What Went Wrong,” Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2004, pp. 78–92; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq,” July 7, 2004, available at http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf.
37. This is the Lavizan-Shian site. On that site, and Iran’s efforts to conceal whatever it had been doing there, see Institute for Science and International Security, “Iran: Nuclear Sites: Lavisan-Shian,” available at http://www.isisnucleariran.org/sites/detail/lavisan-shian/.
38. According to declassified documents, the U.S. intelligence community believed by at least 1974 that Israel possessed a nuclear arsenal. See the declassified text of the Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE), “Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” September 4, 1974, available at http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB181/sa08.pdf, downloaded on January 16, 2008. The relevant page is the first page of the SNIE, which was also declassified as page 6 of “Memorandum from Atherton and Kratzer to Mr. Sisco, ‘Response to Congressional Questions on Israel’s Nuclear Capabilities,’ ” October 15, 1975, Secret, RG 59, Records of Joseph Sisco, Box 40, Israeli Nuclear Capability 1975, available at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB189/IN-30.pdf, downloaded on October 21, 2007. The third paragraph of the SNIE begins with the sentence: “We believe that Israel already has produced nuclear weapons.” This was the estimate’s key judgment regarding the Israelis’ nuclear arsenal. In addition, another declassified document (“Parker T. Hart to Secretary Dean Rusk, ‘Issues to be Considered in Connection with Negotiations with Israel for F-4 Phantom Aircraft,’ ” October 15, 1968, Top Secret/Nodis Sensitive, SN 67–69, Def 12-5 Isr, available at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB189/IN-02.pdf, downloaded October 21, 2007) states that as early as October 1968, the State Department had concluded that “[a]ll evidence suggests that present Israeli policy is to maintain its nuclear option and to proceed with a program to reduce to a minimum the lead time required to exercise that option.”
39. This report is the so-called Duelfer Report, named for Charles Duelfer, the head of the Iraq Survey Group, the official project to determine what had happened to Saddam’s WMD programs between 1991 and 2003. It is more properly titled “The DCI Special Advisor Report on Iraq’s WMD.” The entire report is available from the CIA website at https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html.
40. Pollack, “Spies, Lies and Weapons,” pp. 78–92. Also see “The DCI Special Advisor Report on Iraq’s WMD,” vol. 1, 2004, available at http://www.foia.cia.gov/duelfer/Iraqs_WMD_Vol1.pdf.
41. For one of the only works to make this argument before the invasion, see the extensive interview of Scott Ritter in William Rivers Pitt with Scott Ritter, War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn’t Want you to Know (New York: Context Books, 2002).
42. David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, “Iran Is Seen as Advancing Nuclear Bid,” New York Times, May 22, 2013; Anthony H. Cordesman and Abdullah Toukan, “Analyzing the Impact of Preventive Strikes Against Iran’s Nuclear Facilities,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 2012, available at http://csis.org/files/publication/120906_Iran_US_Preventive_Strikes.pdf, p. 14.
43. Frederik Dahl, “Iran Appears to Advance in Construction of Arak Nuclear Plant,” Reuters, February 22, 2013.
44. As a practical matter, nations have consistently found that to manufacture the first bomb requires twice as much LEU to produce the needed quantity of HEU because of various forms of wastage and inefficiency. See Mark Fitzpatrick, “Assessing Iran’s Nuclear Program Without Exaggeration or Complacency,” International Institute for Strategic Studies, October 3, 2011, available online at http://www.armscontrol.org/files/Iran_Brief_10_2011_Mark_Fitzpatrick.pdf, p. 2.
45. International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” August 30, 2012, available at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2012/gov2012-37.pdf, pp. 3–4; Kenneth Katzman, “Iran: U.S. Concerns and Policy Responses,” Congressional Research Service, RL32048, September 5, 2012, p. 30.
46. Jahn, “Iran Says It Will Speed Up Nuclear Program”; Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran: Advanced Enrichment Centrifuges Installed,” Associated Press, February 13, 2013; George Jahn, “Diplomats: Iran Starts Upgrade of Nuclear Site,” Associated Press, February 20, 2013.
47. Thomas A. Keaney and Eliot A. Cohen, The Gulf War Air Power Survey: Summary Report (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1993), pp. 78–79. Also see Garry B. Dillon, “The IAEA in Iraq: Past Activities and Findings,” IAEA Bulletin 44, No. 2 (2002), available at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Magazines/Bulletin/Bull442/44201251316.pdf.
48. International Atomic Energy Agency Board of Governors, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” November 8, 2011, Report Gov/2011/65, available at http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Documents/Board/2011/gov2011-65.pdf, Annex p. 3, footnote 19.
49. See National Intelligence Council, “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities,” National Intelligence Estimate, November 2007, p. 5. The key judgments of the NIE were released to the public almost immediately after the classified version was distributed internally. The full text of the published declassified version of the key judgments can be found at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/international/20071203_release.pdf.
50. Christopher Hope, “MI6 Chief Sir John Sawers: ‘We Foiled Iranian Nuclear Weapons Bid,’ ” Telegraph, July 12, 2012.
51. Bob Woodward, Plan of Attack (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2004), pp. 296–306.
52. For insightful accounts of the intelligence failure over Iraq’s WMD, see Central Intelligence Agency, “Misreading Intentions”; Jervis, Why Intelligence Fails; Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq.”
53. On non-U.S. assessments of Iran’s weaponization program, see Barak Ravid, “Israel Seeks Input on U.S. Iran Report,” Haaretz, July 25, 2008; Barak Ravid, “Sources: UN Watchdog Hiding Evidence on Iran Nuclear Program,” Haaretz, August 19, 2009; “European Leaders Considering Iran Sanctions, French Foreign Minister Says,” Associated Press, September 16, 2007; Bruno Schirra, “Germany’s Spies Refuted the 2007 NIE Report,” Wall Street Journal Europe, July 20, 2009.
54. IAEA, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement,” November 8, 2011, Annex pp. 4–12; Avi Issacharoff, “Report: Iran Scientist in Charge of Nuclear Weapons Program Resumes His Work,” Reuters, August 30, 2012; Jeffrey Lewis, “The Ayatollah’s Pregnant Pause,” ForeignPolicy.Com, August 15, 2012, available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/15/the_ayatollahs_pregnant_pause.
55. IAEA, “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement,” November 8, 2011, Annex pp. 4–12.
56. Ibid., Annex p. 4.
57. Scott Pelley, “The Defense Secretary: Leon Panetta,” 60 Minutes, January 29, 2012, transcript and video available at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57367997/the-defense-secretary-an-interview-with-leon-panetta/?tag=currentVideoInfo;videoMetaInfo; Maseh Zarif, “Current State of the Iranian Nuclear Program,” AEI Critical Threats Project, October 2012.
58. Michael D. Shear and David E. Sanger, “Iran Nuclear Weapon to Take Year or More, Obama Says,” New York Times, March 15, 2012; “Iran Would Need Around a Year to Build Atomic Bomb: Israel,” Reuters, March 22, 2013.
59. William C. Witt, Christina Walrond, David Albright, and Houston Wood, “Iran’s Evolving Breakout Potential,” Institute for Science and International Security, October 8, 2012, available at http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/Irans_Evolving_Breakout_Potential_8October2012.pdf, p. 3.
60. “Experts: North Korea Might Have Know-how to Fire Nuclear-Tipped Missile at South Korea, Japan,” Washington Post, April 6, 2013.
61. “France: Iran Seems on Track for Nukes by Mid-2013,” Associated Press, October 21, 2012.
62. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, “Ten Reasons Iran Doesn’t Want the Bomb,” National Interest online, December 4, 2012, available at http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/ten-reasons-iran-doesnt-want-the-bomb-7802.
63. For a longer discussion of this issue, see Amos Yadlin and Yoel Guzansky, “Iran on the Threshold,” Strategic Assessment 15, No. 1 (April 2012): 7–14.
64. Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran Says It Is Converting Uranium, Easing Bomb Fears,” Reuters, February, 13, 2013.
65. Michael Makovsky and Blaise Misztal, “Iran’s Shrewd Move,” Weekly Standard, February 22, 2013.
66. Yadlin and Guzansky, “Iran on the Threshold,” p. 8.
67. Amos Harel, “IDF Chief to Haaretz: I Do Not Believe Iran Will Decide to Develop Nuclear Weapons,” Haaretz, April 25, 2012.
68. “Iranian TV: Ayatollah Khamene’i Speaks on Khomeyni’s Death Anniversary,” Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN), Sunday, June 4, 2006.
69. Office of the Supreme Leader Sayyid Ali Khamenei, “Iran to Break Authority of Powers That Rely on Nukes,” February 22, 2012, available at http://www.leader.ir/langs/en/index.php?p=contentShow&id=9183.
70. Barry Parker, “Stop Threats If You Want a Nuclear Deal, Ahmadinejad Tells West,” Agence France-Presse, December 18, 2009.
71. Ali Akbar Salehi, “Iran: We Do Not Want Nuclear Weapons,” Washington Post, April 12, 2012.
72. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran: Khamenei’s Ban on Nuclear Weapons Binding,” Associated Press, January 15, 2013.
73. “Iran Issues Statement at IAEA Board of Governors Meeting,” IRNA, August 10, 2005.
74. Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji, “Forget the Fatwa,” National Interest online, March 13, 2013, available at http://nationalinterest.org/commentary/forget-the-fatwa-8220.
75. “Iran’s Nuclear Theology: Bombs and Truth: Muslim Theological Objections to Nuclear Weapons—Real and Imagined,” Economist, May 19, 2012; Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, pp. 117–30.
76. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, pp. 120–21.
77. Quoted in ibid, p. 121.
78. Quoted in ibid., p. 130.
79. Ibid., p. 126.
80. Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran, pp. 283–85.
81. Warren Bass, Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 99–174; Mordechai Gazit, “The Genesis of the US-Israeli Military-Strategic Relationship and the Dimona Issue,” Journal of Contemporary History 35, No. 3 (July 2000): 413–22.
82. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Iran Cleric Wants ‘Special Weapons’ to Deter Enemy,” Associated Press, June 14, 2010.
83. Ray Takeyh, “Introduction: What Do We Know,” in Robert D. Blackwill, ed., Iran: The Nuclear Challenge (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 2012), p. 9.
84. “Iran May Need Highly-Enriched Uranium in Future, Official Says,” Reuters, April 17, 2013.
85. On the internal politics of Iran’s nuclear decision-making, see Karim Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,” Journal of International Affairs 60, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 125–27.
86. See the Statement by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper in James Risen and Mark Mazetti, “U.S. Agencies See No Move by Iran to Build a Bomb,” New York Times, February 24, 2012.
87. Shahram Chubin, “Extended Deterrence and Iran,” Strategic Insights 8, No. 5 (December 2009).
1. “Iran Summons Bahrain Envoy over ‘Terror’ Cell Claim,” Agence France-Presse, November 22, 2011.
2. The United States did consider retaliating against Iran for its role in the killing of Americans in Iraq, including during the Obama administration. See Elisabeth Bumiller, “Panetta Says Iranian Arms in Iraq Are a ‘Concern,’ ” New York Times, July 10, 2011; Phil Stewart, “U.S. May Act Unilaterally vs. Iran-Armed Militias,” Reuters, July 11, 2011.
3. Paul Bracken, The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics (New York: Times Books, 2012), p. 77.
4. This foundational concept of nuclear deterrence was first articulated in Bernard Brodie, The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1946).
5. On the extent of Saddam’s reckless (and inadvertently suicidal) decision-making as we have now come to understand it from documents and interviews secured after the 2003 invasion, see for instance Amatzia Baram, “Deterrence Lessons from Iraq,” Foreign Affairs 91, No. 4 (July/August 2012): 76–85; Kevin M. Woods, James Lacey, and Williamson R. Murray, “Saddam’s Delusions: The View from the Inside,” Foreign Affairs 85, No. 3 (May/June 2006); Kevin M. Woods et al., The Iraqi Perspectives Report (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2006).
6. In particular, see the grand jury indictment against thirteen members of Saudi Hizballah filed by the U.S. government in Alexandria, Virginia, available at http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/khobar/khobarindict61901.pdf, accessed July 26, 2004. The 9/11 Commission also found that the evidence of Iran behind the Khobar Towers bombing was “strong.” See Report of the 9/11 Commission: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), p. 60. In addition, see the now-declassified memorandum “Iranian Response on al-Khobar,” September 15, 1999, written by this author while the director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, available from the National Security Archive at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB318/doc01.pdf. Also see Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 79–110, esp. p. 85; Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), pp. 112–31; David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), pp. 402–413; Timothy Naftali, Blindspot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism (New York: Basic Books, 2005), pp. 248–51, 260–61; Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 280–302; Steven R. Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2009), p. 322.
7. James G. Blight, Janet M. Lang, Hussein Banai, Malcolm Byrne, and John Tirman, Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988 (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2012), pp. 195–226; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 223–35; Ward, Immortal, pp. 279–98.
8. “Unclassified Report to Congress on the Acquisition of Technology Relating to Weapons of Mass Destruction and Advanced Conventional Munitions, 1 January Through 30 June 2003,” Central Intelligence Agency, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/archived-reports-1/jan_jun2003.pdf, p. 3.
9. Ibid.
10. Paul Pillar, Terrorism and U.S. Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2001), p. 57.
11. Paul Pillar, “We Can Live with a Nuclear Iran,” Washington Monthly, March/April 2012, available at http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/marchapril_2012/features/we_can_live_with_a_nuclear_iran035772.php.
12. On this, see also Ward, Immortal, pp. 318–19.
13. Although there is a wealth of excellent work on the drivers of Iranian foreign policy, on this point in particular see Graham E. Fuller, “The Center of the Universe”: The Geopolitics of Iran (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1991); Karim Sadjadpour, “Reading Khamenei: The World View of Iran’s Most Powerful Leader,” Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2008; Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009).
14. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 13–71.
15. Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the 1953 Coup in Iran (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004), esp. pp. 227–80; Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003); Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 40–71.
16. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 147–48.
17. Clarke, Against All Enemies, pp. 103–105; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 273–75.
18. See David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (New York: Crown, 2012).
19. Blight et al., Becoming Enemies, pp. 98–123.
20. International Crisis Group, “Dealing with Iran’s Nuclear Program,” October 27, 2003, pp. 11–15; Ray Takeyh, “Iranian Options: Pragmatic Mullas and America’s Interests,” National Interest, Fall 2003, pp. 49–56; Ray Takeyh, “Iran’s Nuclear Calculations,” World Policy Journal, Summer 2003, pp. 21–26.
21. Dalia Dassa Kaye, Alireza Nader, and Parisa Roshan, Israel and Iran: A Dangerous Rivalry (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2011), pp. 57–77.
22. Takeyh, Hidden Iran, p. 144; Ward, Immortal, p. 320.
23. Kenneth N. Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb,” Foreign Affairs 91, No. 4 (July/August 2012).
24. Scott Sagan, Kenneth Waltz, and Richard K. Betts, “A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster?” Journal of International Affairs 60, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 137.
25. For others who have provided more fulsome rebuttals of Waltz’s arguments, see Colin Kahl, “One Step Too Far,” Foreign Affairs 91, No. 5 (September/October 2012): 157–61; Emily Landau, “When Neorealism Meets the Middle East: Iran’s Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons in (Regional) Context,” Strategic Assessment 15. No. 3 (October 2012): 27–38; and the various responses of Scott Sagan in his extended debate with Waltz in Sagan, Waltz, and Betts. “A Nuclear Iran: Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster?” and Scott D. Sagan and Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed, 2nd ed. (New York: Norton, 2002).
26. Avner Cohen, the great historian of the Israeli nuclear program, believes that Israel first acquired nuclear weapons in 1966. See Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 99–174. According to declassified documents, the U.S. intelligence community believed that Israel possessed a nuclear arsenal by at least 1974. On this, see Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE), “Prospects for Further Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,” September 4, 1974, available at http://www.gwu.edu/%7Ensarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB181/sa08.pdf, downloaded January 16, 2008.
27. Warren Bass, Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Abraham Ben-Tzvi, Decade of Transition: Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Origins of the American-Israeli Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998); Mordechai Gazit, “The Genesis of the US-Israeli Military-Strategic Relationship and the Dimona Issue,” Journal of Contemporary History 35, No. 3 (July 2000): 413–22; Lipson, “American Support for Israel: History, Sources, Limits,” pp. 129–42; Douglas Little, “The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and Israel, 1957–68,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 25, No. 4 (November 1993): 563–85; Kenneth Organski, The $36 Billion Bargain: Strategy and Politics in U.S. Assistance to Israel (New York: Columbia University Press, 1990); Kenneth M. Pollack, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (New York: Random House, 2008), pp. 34–40; Steven L. Spiegel, The Other Arab-Israel Conflict: Making America’s Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985).
28. The nine major military operations since then that I am counting here are the Six-Day War, the War of Attrition, the October War, Operation Litani in 1978, the Israeli Invasion of Lebanon, Operation Accountability in 1993, Operation Grapes of Wrath in 1996, the 2006 Lebanon War, and Operation Cast Lead in 2009.
29. Jack Kim and Lee Jae-Won, “North Korea Shells South in Fiercest Attack in Decades,” Reuters, November 23, 2010; “ ‘North Korean Torpedo’ Sank South’s Navy Ship—Report,” BBC, May 20, 2010, available at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10129703.
30. Waltz, “Why Iran Should Get the Bomb,” p. 4.
31. P. R. Chari, “Nuclear Restraint, Nuclear Risk Reduction, and the Security-Insecurity Paradox in South Asia,” in Michael Krepon and Chris Gagne, eds., The Stability-Instability Paradox: Nuclear Weapons and Brinksmanship in South Asia (Washington, D.C.: Stimson Center, 2001); S. Paul Kapur, “Ten Years of Instability in a Nuclear South Asia,” International Security, No. 33 (Fall 2008): 72; Benjamin S. Lambeth, Airpower at 18,000': The Indian Air Force in the Kargil War (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012), pp. 7, 39; Bruce O. Riedel, Deadly Embrace: Pakistan, America, and the Future of the Global Jihad (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011), pp. 45–47, 115–16. Lambeth notes that Pakistan’s thinking was not necessarily incorrect as the Indian Army and Air Force handcuffed themselves in a wide variety of ways that hurt their retaking of the captured terrain, because India’s political and military leadership were terrified of the potential for escalation with Pakistan. See Lambeth, Airpower at 18,000', pp. 12–13, 17, 25–26.
32. Riedel, Deadly Embrace, pp. 114–17; Eric Schmitt, Somni Sengupta, and Jane Perlez, “U.S. and India See Link to Militants in Pakistan,” New York Times, December 2, 2008.
33. Colin Kahl, “One Step Too Far,” Foreign Affairs 91, No. 5 (September/October 2012): 159.
34. See the declassified document, U.S. State Department Memorandum of Conversation, “US Reaction to Soviet Destruction of CPR [Chinese People’s Republic] Nuclear Capability; Significance of Latest Sino-Soviet Border Clash, etc.,” August 18, 1969, Secret/Sensitive, National Archives, SN 67–69, Def 12 Chicom, available at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/sino.sov.10.pdf.
35. See the declassified document, State Department cable 143440 to U.S. Consulate Hong Kong, August 25, 1969, Secret, Exdis, National Archives, SN 67–69, Pol Chicom-US, available at http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB49/sino.sov.13.pdf.
36. Amatzia Baram, “Deterrence Lessons from Iraq,” Foreign Affairs 91, No. 4 (July/August 2012): 80.
37. Hal Brands and David Palkki, “Saddam, Israel and the Bomb: Nuclear Alarmism Justified?” International Security 36, No. 1 (Summer 2011): 136.
38. Kevin M. Woods, David D. Palkki, and Mark E. Stout, eds., The Saddam Tapes: The Inner Workings of a Tyrant’s Regime 1978–2001 (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2011), pp. 222–24.
39. See for instance, Michael Eisenstadt, “Living with a Nuclear Iran?” Survival 41, No. 3 (Autumn 1999): 124–48; Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton, and Matthew Irvine, “Risk and Rivalry: Iran, Israel and the Bomb,” Center for a New American Security, June 2012, pp. 19–23; Clifton Sherrill, “Why Iran Wants the Bomb and What It Means for U.S. Policy,” Nonproliferation Review 19, No. 1 (March 2012): 40.
40. Thomas C. Schelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1966).
41. For scholarly work on this point, see Richard K. Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1987); Robert Jervis, Richard Ned Lebow, and Janice Gross Stein, Psychology and Deterrence (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985).
42. On the 1946 Iran crisis, see James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 31–35; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 44–48; Natalia I. Yegorova, “The ‘Iran Crisis’ of 1945–46: A View from the Russian Archives,” Cold War International History Project, Working Paper No. 15, Washington, D.C., May 1996.
43. Edward Friedman, “Nuclear Blackmail and the end of the Korean War,” Modern China 1, No. 1 (January 1975): 75–91. For historical assessments of the Chinese decision to agree to an armistice in 1953, see Clay Blair, The Forgotten War: America in Korea 1950–53, 2nd ed. (Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2003), pp. 859–976, esp. 771–972; T. R. Fehrenbach, This Kind of War: A Study in Unpreparedness (New York: Macmillan, 1963), pp. 641–50; Max Hastings, The Korean War (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987), pp. 317–20; Edwin Hoyt, The Day the Chinese Attacked: Korea, 1950 (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990), p. 216.
44. For an excellent discussion of Finland’s experience and motivations, see the declassified CIA study, “ ‘Finlandization’ in Action: Helsinki’s Experience with Moscow,” Central Intelligence Agency, August 1972, available at http://www.foia.cia.gov/CPE/ESAU/esau-55.pdf.
45. See “India Subjected to Nuclear Blackmail Before 1998 Pokhran Tests: NSA Shivshankar Menon,” Times of India, August 21, 2012. Of course, Menon’s boast begs the question of why India needed a nuclear arsenal if these attempts to coerce it had failed when it didn’t have one.
46. For additional scholarly work making this point, see Betts, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance; Jervis, Lebow, and Stein, Psychology and Deterrence.
47. Author’s interview with senior Arab government official, September 2011.
48. Arab publics often have a more complex view of the Iranian nuclear arsenal, simultaneously fearing it and evincing some degree of support for it because it is something that both Israel and the United States oppose. For instance, in his 2010 and 2011 polls of Arab public opinion, Shibley Telhami found that a majority of Arabs saw Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons as being a negative development for the region, but nonetheless, similar-sized majorities believed that Iran should not be stopped from pursuing its nuclear program. See Shibley Telhami, “The 2011 Annual Arab Public Opinion Survey,” Brookings Institution, November 21, 2011, available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/reports/2011/11/21%20arab%20public%20opinion%20telhami/1121_arab_public_opinion.pdf.
49. See Maloney, “Iran,” in Pollack et al., The Arab Awakening, pp. 258–67.
50. With the obvious exception that proves the rule, Syria, where the unrest has threatened Iran’s sole remaining ally in the region.
51. For a good overview of North Korea’s various aggressive actions since the Korean War, see Dick K. Nanto, “North Korea: Chronology of Provocations, 1950–2003,” Congressional Research Service, RL30004, March 18, 2003.
1. Warren Bass, Support Any Friend: Kennedy’s Middle East and the Making of the U.S.-Israel Alliance (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003); Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), pp. 99–174; Mordechai Gazit, “The Genesis of the US-Israeli Military-Strategic Relationship and the Dimona Issue,” Journal of Contemporary History 35, No. 3 (July 2000): 413–22.
2. For an even stronger assessment of the disincentives Saudi Arabia would face to acquiring nuclear weapons, see Colin H. Kahl, Melissa G. Dalton, and Matthew Irvine, “Atomic Kingdom: If Iran Builds the Bomb, Will Saudi Arabia Be Next?” Center for a New American Security, February 2013, esp. pp. 32–34, 39.
3. On all of these incidents, see Martin Kramer, “Khomeini’s Messengers in Mecca,” in Martin Kramer, Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival (New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction, 1996), pp. 161–87.
4. David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), pp. 300–310.
5. Lolita C. Baldor, “US Blaming Iran for Persian Gulf Cyberattacks,” Associated Press, October 12, 2012; Siobhan Gorman and Julian Barnes, “Iran Blamed for Cyberattacks,” Wall Street Journal, October 13–14, 2012, p. A1; Thom Shanker and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Suspects Iran Was Behind Wave of Cyberattacks,” New York Times, October 13, 2012.
6. On the Saudi-Pakistani relationship, see Yoel Guzansky, “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Options,” in Emily B. Landau and Anat Kurz, eds., Arms Control Dilemmas: Focus on the Middle East (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2012), pp. 75–82.
7. Arnaud de Borchgrave, “Pakistan, Saudi Arabia in Secret Nuke Pact: Islamabad Trades Weapons Technology for Oil,” Washington Times, October 22, 2003.
8. On Saudi-Pakistani nuclear cooperation, see Bruce O. Riedel, “Saudi Arabia: Nervously Watching Pakistan,” Brookings Institution, January 28, 2008, available at http://www.brookings.edu/research/opinions/2008/01/28-saudi-arabia-riedel.
9. For a concurring Israeli assessment, see Amos Yadlin and Avner Golov, “A Nuclear Iran: The Spur to a Regional Arms Race?” Strategic Assessment 15, No. 3 (October 2012): 7–12.
10. Former White House and State Department official Dennis Ross has publicly confirmed that King Abdallah told him this bluntly in private. See Chemi Shalev, “Dennis Ross: Saudi King Vowed to Obtain Nuclear Bomb After Iran,” Haaretz, May 30, 2012.
11. “Prince Hints Saudi Arabia May Join Nuclear Arms Race,” New York Times, December 6, 2011.
12. Jay Solomon, “Saudi Suggests ‘Squeezing’ Iran over Nuclear Ambitions,” Wall Street Journal, June 22, 2011.
13. Guzansky, “Saudi Arabia’s Nuclear Options,” pp. 77–79, 83–85.
14. On the UAE nuclear program, see Christopher M. Blanchard and Paul K. Kerr, “The United Arab Emirates’ Nuclear Program and Proposed U.S. Nuclear Cooperation,” Congressional Research Service, R40344, December 20, 2010, available at http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R40344.pdf.
15. For instance, see Blanchard and Kerr, “The United Arab Emirates’ Nuclear Program,” pp. 13–15.
16. For a concurring Israeli assessment, see Yadlin and Golov, “A Nuclear Iran: The Spur to a Regional Arms Race?,” esp. p. 21.
17. Jim Walsh, “In the Shadow of Dimona: Egypt’s Nuclear Choices, 1954–1981,” Draft Manuscript, November 1996, p. 2.
18. Ibid., p. 1.
19. Ibid., p. 2.
20. “Egypt Unveils Nasser’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Programme,” Deutsche Presse-Agentur, July 24, 1995; Jim Walsh, “A History of Egyptian Nuclear Efforts, 1954–1992,” Draft Manuscript, November 1996, pp. 5–9.
21. Walsh, “In the Shadow of Dimona,” p. 4; Walsh, “A History of Egyptian Nuclear Efforts,” pp. 18–20; Jim Walsh, “The Riddle of the Sphinx: Egypt’s Failure to Balance the Israeli Nuclear Threat,” Breakthroughs (Journal of the Defense and Arms Control Studies Program, MIT), Vol. 3, No. 1 (Spring 1994), p. 13.
22. The Israel Project, “Fact Sheet: Arab Leaders Voice Concerns About Iran and Its Nuclear Program,” 2009, available at http://www.theisraelproject.org/site/pp.aspx?c=hsJPK0PIJpH&b=2070505&printmode=1.
23. Keinan Ben-Ezra, “The Iranian Nuclear Program: An Egyptian Perspective,” in Landau and Kurz, eds., Arms Control Dilemmas, pp. 61–69.
24. On Turkey and nuclear weapons, see Sinan Ulgen, ed., The Turkish Model for Transition to Nuclear Power (Istanbul: Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies [EDAM], 2011), esp. pp. 138–77.
25. For a good summary, see Gallia Lindenstrauss, “Towards Turkey’s Own Bomb? Not Yet,” in Landau and Kurz, eds., Arms Control Dilemmas, pp. 91–99.
26. Henri J. Barkey and Graham E. Fuller, Turkey’s Kurdish Question (Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), p. xii.
27. Aaron Stein, “Understanding Turkey’s Position on the Iranian Nuclear Program,” WMD Junction, January 12, 2012, available at http://wmdjunction.com/120112_turkey_iran_nuclear.htm.
28. “Turkey—Trade Statistics,” European Council, March 2012, available at http://trade.ec.europa.eu/doclib/docs/2006/september/tradoc_113456.pdf.
29. For a concurring Israeli assessment, see Lindenstrauss, “Towards Turkey’s Own Bomb? Not Yet,” p. 99.
30. Sinan Ulgen, “The Security Dimension of Turkey’s Nuclear Program: Nuclear Diplomacy and Non Proliferation Policies,” in Ulgen, ed., The Turkish Model for Transition to Nuclear Power, p. 140.
31. On these problems, and their relationship to political instability, revolution, civil war, insurgency, and terrorism, see Kenneth M. Pollack, A Path Out of the Desert: A Grand Strategy for America in the Middle East (New York: Random House, 2008), esp. pp. 67–120.
32. On the impact of the Arab Spring so far, see Kenneth M. Pollack and Daniel L. Byman et al., The Arab Awakening: America and the Transformation of the Middle East (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2011).
33. Mitchell Reiss, Bridled Ambitions: Why Countries Constrain Their Nuclear Capabilities (Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1995); T. V. Paul, Power Versus Prudence: Why Nations Forgo Nuclear Weapons (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2000); Ariel Levite, “Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited,” International Security 2, No. 3 (Winter 2002–2003): 59–88; and Kurt M. Campbell, Robert J. Einhorn, and Mitchell B. Reiss, eds., The Nuclear Tipping Point: Why States Reconsider Their Nuclear Choices (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2004); James Walsh, “Bombs Unbuilt: Power, Ideas, and Institutions in International Politics” (Ph.D. diss., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, June 2001).
34. I have purposely excluded North Korea from this list. While the North Koreans did proliferate against the will of the international community, they paid an outrageous price for doing so. Three million North Koreans starved to death and many others live in abject poverty in part because Pyongyang refused to give up its nuclear program. No other nation on earth would be willing to make such a sacrifice, and so the North Korean case reinforces the disincentives for proliferation.
35. Michael Wines, “China Leader Warns Iran Not to Make Nuclear Arms,” New York Times, January 20, 2012.
36. Stepan Kravchenko, “Putin Says Iran Developing Nuclear Capability Would Risk Global Stability,” Bloomberg News, February 24, 2012.
1. Former senior Obama administration official Dennis Ross has outlined both the logic of this position and the deal he believes that the United States should offer Iran as just such an ultimatum. See Dennis Ross, “Calling Iran’s Bluff: It’s Time to Offer Tehran a Civilian Nuclear Program,” New Republic, June 15, 2012.
2. Paul Bracken has a fascinating and illuminating discussion of this issue in his newest book. See Paul Bracken, The Second Nuclear Age: Strategy, Danger, and the New Power Politics (New York: Times Books, 2012), pp. 127–61.
3. For a description of a pure engagement approach to Iran and how it would work, see Kenneth M. Pollack et al., Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2009), pp. 57–81.
4. Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 223.
5. For instance, see Nathan Gonzalez, Engaging Iran: The Rise of a Middle East Powerhouse and America’s Strategic Choice (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2007); Suzanne Maloney and Ray Takeyh, “Pathway to Coexistence: A New U.S. Policy Toward Iran,” in Richard N. Haass and Martin Indyk, eds., Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2008), pp. 59–92; Vali Nasr and Ray Takeyh, “The Costs of Containing Iran: Washington’s Misguided New Policy,” Foreign Affairs 87, No. 1 (January/February 2008); Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2007); Trita Parsi, “The Price of Not Talking to Iran,” World Policy Journal, Winter 2006; Barbara Slavin, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007); Barbara Slavin, “Engagement,” in Jon Alterman, ed., “Gulf Kaleidoscope: Reflections on the Iranian Challenge,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, May 2012, pp. 11–21; Takeyh, Hidden Iran, pp. 217–26; Ray Takeyh, “Time for Détente with Iran,” Foreign Affairs 86, No. 2 (March/April 2007).
6. Richard N. Haass and Meghan L. O’Sullivan, eds., Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), p. 167.
7. Ibid., p. 174. This quote is actually one of the subheadings of their concluding, summary chapter, representing one of their key findings.
8. Ibid., p. 175.
9. Johannes Reissner, “Europe and Iran: Critical Dialogue,” in Haass and O’Sullivan, eds., Honey and Vinegar, p. 46.
10. James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 276–93.
11. Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 106–174; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 198–205.
12. Senator Alfonse D’Amato introduced the initial sanctions legislation in January 1995. The Iranians announced that Conoco would be awarded the contract for two offshore oilfields in March 1995. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 271–72.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., pp. 303–342.
15. See David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State (London: Tauris, 2012), pp. 181, 185–86, 188–91, 193–201.
16. For various perspectives on the May 2003 Iranian message and its import, see David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), pp. 476–81; Steven J. Rosen, “Did Iran Offer a ‘Grand Bargain’ in 2003?” American Thinker, November 16, 2008, available at http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/11/did_iran_offer_a_grand_bargain.html; Michael J. Rubin, “The Guldimann Memorandum: The Iranian ‘Roadmap’ Wasn’t a Roadmap and Wasn’t Iranian,” Weekly Standard, October 22, 2007; Slavin, Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies, pp. 200–205; Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 217–18.
17. Asr Iran and Raja News, February 20, 2007, http://www.asriran.com/view.php?id=12170, translated and cited in Hassan Daioleslam, “Iran’s 2003 Grand Bargain Offer: Secrets, Lies, and Manipulation,” In Search of Truth website, June 25, 2008, available at http://english.iranianlobby.com/page1.php?id=10&bakhsh=ARTICLES.
18. Emrooz news website from the “Goftegoo” radio station, broadcast on January 31, 2007, translated and cited in Daioleslam, “Iran’s 2003 Grand Bargain Offer.”
1. See for instance, Karim Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,” Journal of International Affairs 60, No. 2 (Spring/Summer 2007): 126.
2. Fredrik Dahl and Parisa Hafezi, “Iran Defiant as UN Nuclear Talks Fail,” Reuters, February 22, 2012.
3. For a thoughtful analysis both of the general difficulty of making “coercive diplomacy” work, and making it work with Iran in particular, see Robert Jervis, “Getting to Yes with Iran: The Challenges of Coercive Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs 92, No. 1 (January/February 2012): 105–115. Jervis is one of the wisest and most sensible scholars of political science writing today and his work on a range of topics relevant to our current problems with Iran is well worth reading.
4. With complete immodesty, but after a thorough review of the literature, I would direct the reader looking for a fuller exposition of the concept of the Dual Track or carrot-and-stick approach for Iran to my own book The Persian Puzzle, which was one of the first to propose this strategy. See Kenneth M. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America (New York: Random House, 2004), pp. 400–424. For a more neutral presentation of the same basic points, see Kenneth M. Pollack et al., Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2009), pp. 31–56.
5. Sadjadpour, “The Nuclear Players,” esp. pp. 126–27.
6. Michael R. Gordon and Jeff Zeleny, “Obama Envisions New Iran Approach,” New York Times, November 2, 2007.
7. Brian Knowlton, “In Interview, Obama Talks of ‘New Approach’ to Iran,” New York Times, January 11, 2009.
8. Karim Sadjadpour, “Interview: Engagement with Iran: An Assessment of Options,” Middle East Progress, December 8, 2009.
9. Thomas Erdbrink and Glenn Kessler, “Obama Message to Iran,” Washington Post, March 21, 2009; Eli Bardenstein, “When Iran Said ‘No’ to Obama,” Maariv, October 28, 2012, translated by Sandy Bloom, Al-Monitor, October 28, 2012.
10. Bardenstein, “When Iran Said ‘No’ to Obama.”
11. David E. Sanger and James Risen, “Iran’s Slowing of Enrichment Efforts May Show It Wants a Deal, Analysts Say,” New York Times, December 27, 2012.
12. See Trita Parsi, A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2012).
13. For other ardent proponents of engagement with Iran agreeing that the Obama administration had sincerely tried to do so, see, inter alia, Suzanne Maloney, “Progress of the Obama Administration’s Policy Toward Iran,” Testimony Before the House Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense and Foreign Operations, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, November 15, 2011; Barbara Slavin, “Post-9/11 Rebuffs Set U.S.-Iran Relations on Downward Spiral,” InterPress News Service, September 7, 2011, available at http://www.ipsnews.net/2011/09/post-9-11-rebuffs-set-us-iran-relations-on-downward-spiral/.
14. These were the exact words used by a senior administration official to me in a conversation in July 2009, but these sentiments were echoed by a range of other Obama administration officials around the same time.
15. Karim Sadjadpour, “The Iranian Regime Is Now More Vulnerable than Ever Before,” Qantara, November 13, 2009, translated into English and available at http://www.carnegieendowment.org/2009/11/13/iranian-regime-is-now-more-vulnerable-than-ever-before/6a2.
16. Again, these were the words of one senior Chinese foreign ministry official, but the sentiment was repeated by a number of others. Author’s interviews, Beijing, April 2010.
17. For a concurring view, see Karim Sadjadpour, “Interview: Running a Marathon, Not a Sprint,” Der Spiegel, February 17, 2010.
18. On the TRR deal, see Mark Fitzpatrick, “Iran: The Fragile Promise of the Fuel-Swap Plan,” Survival 52, no. 3 (June/July 2010): 67–94; Paul K. Kerr, “Iran’s Nuclear Program: Status,” RL34544, Congressional Research Service, October 17, 2012, pp. 7–9.
19. Bernard Gwertzman, “Nuclear Quagmire with Iran: Interview with George Perkovich,” Council on Foreign Relations, November 23, 2009, available at http://www.cfr.org/iran/nuclear-quagmire-iran/p20831; Karim Sadjadpour, “Interview: Engagement with Iran: An Assessment of Options,” Middle East Progress, December 8, 2009.
20. “Remarks by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei,” Islamic Republic News Agency, August 20, 2010.
21. Kerr, “Iran’s Nuclear Program,” pp. 8–9.
22. Arshad Mohammed, Justyna Pawlak, and Warren Strobel, “Special Report: Inside the West’s Economic War with Iran,” Reuters, December 28, 2012.
23. David D. Kirkpatrick, “Chinese Visit to Saudi Arabia Touches on Oil and Politics,” New York Times, January 15, 2012; Mark Landler and Clifford Krauss, “Gulf Nations Aid U.S. Push to Choke Off Iran Oil Sales,” New York Times, January 12, 2012.
24. U.S. sanctions on Iran are summarized in Office of Foreign Assets Control, “Iran: What You Need to Know About U.S. Economic Sanctions,” U.S. Department of the Treasury, available at http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/sanctions/Programs/Documents/iran.pdf.
25. The U.S. Department of State maintains a website with useful summaries of these various sanctions at http://www.state.gov/e/eb/tfs/spi/iran/fs/index.htm.
26. James Kanter and Thomas Erdbrink, “With New Sanctions, European Union Tightens Screws on Iran over Nuclear Work,” New York Times, October 15, 2012; Justyna Pawlak, “EU Sanctions Target Iran Oil, Gas, Tanker Companies,” Reuters, October 16, 2012.
27. Rick Gladstone and Stephen Castle, “Global Network Expels as Many as 30 of Iran’s Banks in Move to Isolate Its Economy,” New York Times, March 15, 2012.
28. Public remarks by Bijan Khajepour, Washington, D.C., Stimson Center–Heinrich Böll Foundation event, March 4, 2013.
29. Initially, much of the impact from sanctions was principally a result of the regime’s mismanaged reactions to them. See “Spider Web: The Making and Unmaking of Iran Sanctions,” Middle East Report No. 138, International Crisis Group, February 25, 2013, pp. 24–26, 30.
30. Nasser Karimi and Brian Murphy, “Iran Forces on Alert as Economic ‘Surgery’ Begins,” Associated Press, December 19, 2010.
31. Mohammad Ali Shabani, “Iran Survives Sanctions, Girds for Further Economic War,” Al-Monitor, December 20, 2012.
32. Thomas Erdbrink and David E. Sanger, “U.S. Increases Pressure of Economic War on Tehran,” New York Times, February 6, 2013.
33. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, “Understanding the Rial’s Freefall,” Lobelog, October 4, 2012, available at http://www.lobelog.com/understanding-the-rials-freefall/; Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran’s Khamenei Warns of Government Divisions After Rial Plunge,” Reuters, October 10, 2012.
34. “Spider Web,” International Crisis Group, p. 26.
35. Jay Newton-Small, “One Nation Under Sanctions,” Time, September 24, 2013, p. 42.
36. “Spider Web,” International Crisis Group, pp. 37–38.
37. Farideh Farhi, “Iran Debates Direct Talks with the US,” Lobelog, December 11, 2012, available at http://www.lobelog.com/iran-debates-direct-talks-with-the-us/.
38. “Iran Pulls Back from Nuclear Bomb Goal: Israeli Defense Minister,” Reuters, October 30, 2012; David E. Sanger and James Risen, “Iran’s Slowing of Enrichment Efforts May Show It Wants a Deal, Analysts Say,” New York Times, December 27, 2012.
39. Ruholamin Saeidi, “Worn-out Revolutionaries and the Conspiracy of the Poisoned Chalice,” Kayhan, December 8, 2012, translated by Eskander Saeghi-Boroujerdi, Iran Pulse of Al-Monitor, December 10, 2012, available at http://iranpulse.al-monitor.com/index.php/2012/12/973/Kayhan-article-indicates-discontent-with-supreme-leaders-course-across-the-political-spectrum/.
40. Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran Says It, World Powers Must End Nuclear Stalemate,” Reuters, December 17, 2012.
41. Andrew Torchia, “Analysis: Iran Economy Far from Collapse as Sanctions Tighten,” Reuters, February, 20, 2013.
42. “Spider Web,” International Crisis Group, p. 31.
43. Erdbrink and Sanger, “U.S. Increases Pressure of Economic War on Tehran.”
44. Shabani, “Iran Survives Sanctions, Girds for Further Economic War.”
45. Shaul Bakhash, The Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution, rev. ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1990), p. 230; CIA, World Factbook (Washington, D.C: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1989); Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1980), p. 224.
46. Patrick Clawson, “Adjustment to a Foreign Exchange Shock: Iran, 1951–1953,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 19, No. 1 (February 1987): 1–22.
47. David E. Sanger, “Iran Offers Plan, Dismissed By U.S., on Nuclear Crisis,” New York Times, October 4, 2012.
48. “Spider Web,” International Crisis Group, p. ii.
49. “The Impact of Sanctions on Iran, the US, and the Global Economy,” National Iranian American Council Policy Briefing, October 4, 2011, podcast avail-able at http://www.linktv.org/programs/the-impact-of-sanctions-on-iran.
50. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, “Understanding the Rial’s Freefall,” Lobelog, October 4, 2012, available at http://www.lobelog.com/understanding-the-rials-freefall/.
51. Suzanne Maloney, correspondence with the author, October 2012. Printed with Dr. Maloney’s permission.
52. Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran’s Khamenei Warns of Government Divisions After Rial Plunge,” Reuters, October 10, 2012.
53. Nasser Karimi, “Iran’s Supreme Leader Rejects Direct Talks with US,” Associated Press, February 7, 2013.
54. Nasser Karimi, “Ahmadinejad Says Western Sanctions Won’t Stop Iran,” Associated Press, December 18, 2012.
55. Saeidi, “Worn-out Revolutionaries and the Conspiracy of the Poisoned Chalice.”
56. Scott Peterson, “Inside the Mind of Iran’s Khamenei,” Christian Science Monitor, December 4, 2012.
57. Ray Takeyh, Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), pp. 240–41.
58. Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Times Books, 2006), p. 150.
59. Ibid., pp. 40–42.
60. Shabani, “Iran Survives Sanctions, Girds for Further Economic War.”
61. Nidhi Verma, “India Plans Reinsurance Fund to Cover Refiners Using Iranian Oil,” Reuters, March 24, 2013.
62. Humeyra Pamuk and Emma Farge, “Iran Sidesteps Sanctions to Export Its Fuel Oil,” Reuters, December 20, 2012.
63. Luke Pachymuthu, “Iran’s Q1 Fuel Oil Exports Rise More Than 12 Pct over Q4—Sources,” Reuters, April 10, 2013.
64. Ali Akbar Dareini, “Ahmadinejad: Iran Won’t Retreat from Nuclear Path,” Associated Press, October 9, 2011.
65. Amos Yadlin and Yoel Guzansky, “Iran on the Threshold,” Strategic Assessment 15, No. 1 (April 2012): 12.
66. Barak Ravid, “Israel Inches Closer to Compromise on Iran Uranium Enrichment, Officials Say,” Haaretz, May 21, 2012.
67. Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran Could Halt 20 Percent Uranium Enrichment If Given Fuel: Officials,” Reuters, October 13, 2012.
68. Ibid.
69. For a concurring, Israeli assessment and emphasis on this point, see Yadlin and Guzansky, “Iran on the Threshold,” pp. 8–10.
70. Ibid., p. 12.
71. Yeganeh Torbati, “Iran Will Never Shut Down Fordow Enrichment Plant: MP,” Reuters, February 17, 2013.
72. For a fuller discussion of these ideas, see Kenneth M. Pollack, “Security in the Persian Gulf: New Frameworks for the 21st Century,” Middle East Memo No. 24, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, June 2012, available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/6/middle%20east%20pollack/middle%20east%20pollack.pdf; Kenneth M. Pollack, “Securing the Gulf,” Foreign Affairs 82, No. 4 (July/August 2003): 2–16. Also see Joseph McMillan, “The United States and a Gulf Security Architecture: Policy Considerations,” Strategic Insights 3, No. 3 (March 2004); James A. Russell, “Searching for a Post-Saddam Regional Security Architecture,” Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) 7, No. 1 (March 2003).
73. M. Javad Zarif, “A Neighbor’s Vision of a New Iraq,” New York Times, May 10, 2003.
74. The Times’ reportage is summarized in David E. Sanger, Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power (New York: Crown, 2012), pp. 188–225. In addition, see David E. Sanger, “America’s Deadly Dynamics with Iran,” New York Times, November 5, 2011.
75. Christopher Hope, “MI6 Chief Sir John Sawers: ‘We Foiled Iranian Nuclear Weapons Bid,’ ” Telegraph, July 12, 2012.
76. Sanger, Confront and Conceal; David E. Sanger, “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran,” New York Times, June 1, 2012.
77. Sanger, Confront and Conceal, pp. 197–203.
78. When asked about the Flame virus, Israel’s vice prime minister and strategic affairs minister, Moshe Yaalon, told Israeli Army Radio, “Anyone who sees the Iranian threat as a significant threat—it’s reasonable that he will take various steps, including these, to harm it.” Thomas Erdbrink, “Iran Confirms Attack by Virus That Collects Information,” New York Times, May 29, 2012.
79. Thomas Erdbrink, “Facing Cyberattack, Iranian Officials Disconnect Some Oil Terminals from Internet,” New York Times, April 23, 2012; Rick Gladstone, “Iran Suggests Attacks on Computer Systems Came from the U.S. and Israel,” New York Times, December 25, 2012; “Iran Says Defeats Cyber Attacks on Industrial Sites,” Reuters, December 25, 2012.
80. Erdbrink, “Facing Cyberattack, Iranian Officials Disconnect Some Oil Terminals from Internet.”
81. See, for instance, Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 552–53; Eli Lake, “Who Is Sabotaging Iran’s Nukes?” Daily Beast, September 19, 2012.
82. See for instance, Ronen Bergman, “Will Israel Attack Iran?” New York Times Magazine, January 25, 2012; Dan Raviv and Yossi Melman, Spies Against Armageddon: Inside Israel’s Secret Wars (Sea Cliff, N.Y.: Levant Books, 2012), pp. 312–25.
83. Anshel Pfeffer, “The Bulgaria Attack: Hard Truths from Israel’s Former National Security Chief,” Haaretz, July 19, 2012.
84. “Iran Sends Rare Letter to U.S. over Killed Scientist,” Reuters, January 15, 2012.
85. M. K. Bhadrakumar, “Foreign Devils in the Iranian Mountains,” Asia Times, February 24, 2007; Frances Harrison, “Iranians Fear of the ‘Little Devil,’ ” BBC News, June 21, 2007, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6222876.stm; “Iran: Many Die in Zahedan Mosque Bombing,” BBC News, May 28, 2009, available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/8072795.stm; Chris Zambelis, “Balochi Nationalists Intensify Violent Rebellion in Iran,” Terrorism Monitor 7, No. 3, Jamestown Foundation, February 9, 2009.
86. Mark Perry, “False Flag,” Foreign Policy, January 13, 2012, available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/13/false_flag?page=0,0.
87. Various Iranian cyberattacks on the United States have also been documented in the press. See, for instance, Lolita C. Baldor, “U.S. Blaming Iran for Persian Gulf Cyberattacks,” Associated Press, October 12, 2012; Dan De Luce, “Cyber War on Iran Has Only Just Begun,” Agence France-Presse, July 13, 2012; Siobhan Gorman and Julian Barnes, “Iran Blamed for Cyberattacks,” Wall Street Journal, October 13–14, 2012, p. A1; Nicole Perlroth, “In Cyberattack on Saudi Firm, U.S. Sees Iran Firing Back,” New York Times, October 27, 2012.
88. On the risks of escalation from the covert and cyber battles with Iran, see David Ignatius, “Lessons from an Iranian War Game,” Washington Post, September 20, 2012; Kenneth M. Pollack, “A Series of Unfortunate Events: A Crisis Simulation of a U.S.-Iranian Confrontation,” Middle East Memo No. 26, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, October 2012, available at http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2012/11/us%20iran%20crisis%20simulation%20pollack/us%20iran%20crisis%20simulation%20pollack%20paper.pdf; Kenneth M. Pollack, “Are We Sliding Toward War with Iran?” New Republic, January 18, 2012, available at http://www.tnr.com/article/world/99741/war-iran-america#.
89. Bradley Klapper, “Senators Mull Tougher Iran Sanctions,” Associated Press, November 9, 2012.
90. See the conclusions of the so-called Duelfer Report, the independent inquiry into Saddam’s WMD programs after the fall of Baghdad, Comprehensive Report of the Special Adviser to the DCI on Iraqi WMD, December 20, 2004, available at https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/Comp_Report_Key_Findings.pdf.
91. Richard N. Haass, Economic Sanctions and American Diplomacy (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1998), p. 197.
92. Stuart E. Eizenstat, “Do Economic Sanctions Work? Lessons from ILSA and Other U.S. Sanctions Regimes,” Atlantic Council, Occasional Paper, February 2004, p. vii.
93. The classic work on this topic remains David A. Baldwin, Economic Statecraft (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985), esp. the section on trade policy, pp. 206–289.
94. Gary Clyde Hufbauer, Jeffrey J. Schott, and Kimberly Ann Elliott, Economic Sanctions Reconsidered, 2nd ed. (Washington, D.C.: Institute for International Economics, 1990), p. 93.
95. Daniel W. Drezner, The Sanctions Paradox: Economic Statecraft and International Relations (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1999), esp. p. 308.
96. Meghan L. O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), p. 288.
97. Ibid.
98. Eizenstat, “Do Economic Sanctions Work?” pp. 9–12; Richard N. Haass and Meghan L. O’Sullivan, eds., Honey and Vinegar: Incentives, Sanctions, and Foreign Policy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2000), pp. 189–91; O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions, pp. 173–230.
99. For a concurring view from the man responsible for imposing sanctions during the 1990s, see Eizenstat, “Do Economic Sanctions Work?,” pp. 8–9.
100. “China Knocks US Sanctions on State-Run Firm over Iran,” Agence France-Presse, January 15, 2012.
101. See Helia Ighani, “Video: Analysts Say New Sanctions Bill Would Increase Gas Prices, Unlikely to Change Iran’s Behavior,” October 13, 2011, available at http://www.niacouncil.org/site/News2?page=NewsArticle&id=7648; Robert McNally, “Energy Brief: Managing Oil Market Disruption in a Confrontation with Iran,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 2012, p. 1.
102. James Risen and Duraid Adnan, “U.S. Says Iraqis Are Helping Iran to Skirt Sanctions,” New York Times, April 18, 2012.
103. Rick Gladstone, “Iran Finding Some Ways to Evade Sanctions, Treasury Department Says,” New York Times, January 10, 2013.
104. The question of Iraqi deaths from casualties has been an issue of controversy for nearly twenty years. Unfortunately, the matter remains in dispute even long after the fall of Saddam. See, for instance, J. Blacker, M. Ali, and G. Jones, “A Response to Criticism of Our Estimates of Under-5 Mortality in Iraq, 1980–98,” Population Studies 61 (2007): 7–13; Michael Spagat, “Truth and Death in Iraq Under Sanctions,” Significance 7, No. 3 (September 2010): 116–20; Michael Spagat, “The Iraq Sanctions Myth,” Pacific Standard, April 26, 2013. In particular, Spagat cites several post-invasion surveys as strongly disputing the claim that 400,000–500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the sanctions. His evidence, relying on three post-invasion surveys, suggests that only thousands or a few tens of thousands may have died from the sanctions.
105. On the humanitarian impact of the Iraq sanctions, see Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology and Kurdistan Regional Statistics Office, Iraq Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2006, Final Report (Baghdad: Central Organization for Statistics and Information Technology, 2007); Richard Garfield, Morbidity and Mortality Among Iraqi Children from 1990 to 1998: Assessing the Impact of Economic Sanctions (Goshen, Ind.: Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame, 1999); Sarah Graham-Brown, “War and Sanctions: Cost to Society and Toll on Development,” in John Calabrese, ed., The Future of Iraq (Washington, D.C.: Middle East Institute, 1997), pp. 31–42; Sarah Graham-Brown, Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq (London: Tauris, 1999); Youssef Ibrahim, “Iraq Is Near Economic Ruin,” New York Times, October 25, 1994; O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions, pp. 105–167; Kenneth M. Pollack, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 125–40; David Rieff, “Were Sanctions Right?” New York Times Magazine, July 27, 2003; Spagat, “Truth and Death in Iraq Under Sanctions,” pp. 116–20.
106. See O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions, pp. 105–167, 310–11; Pollack, The Threatening Storm, pp. 71–108.
107. On the collapse of sanctions and containment, see in particular the report of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme, “Manipulation of the Oil-for-Food Programme by the Iraqi Regime” (colloquially known as the “Volcker Committee Report”), United Nations, October 27, 2005, available at http://www.iic-offp.org/documents/IIC%20Final%20Report%2027Oct2005.pdf. Also see, O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions, pp. 114–22, 130–36; and Pollack, The Threatening Storm, pp. 85–108.
108. O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions, p. 311.
109. Nasser Karimi, “Iran’s Medical Crisis Deepens as Economy Sputters,” Associated Press, January 8, 2013; “Spider Web,” International Crisis Group, pp. ii, 35–36.
110. “Spider Web,” International Crisis Group, p. 34.
111. “Iran: New EU Sanctions ‘Inhuman’ but Won’t Force Nuclear Concessions,” Associated Press, October 16, 2012.
1. On the abuses of the Iranian regime, see “Iran,” World Report 2012, Human Rights Watch, available at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/iran_2012.pdf. For more intimate accounts, see Maziar Bahari with Aimee Molloy, Then They Came for Me: A Family’s Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival (New York: Random House, 2011); Haleh Esfandiari, My Prison, My Home: One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran (New York: HarperCollins, 2009); Roxanna Saberi, Between Two Worlds: My Life and Captivity in Iran (New York: HarperCollins, 2010).
2. David Crist, The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran (New York: Penguin Press, 2012), pp. 490–91.
3. Sara Beth Elson and Alireza Nader, “What Do Iranians Think? A Survey of Attitudes on the United States, the Nuclear Program and the Economy,” RAND Corporation, 2011, pp. 11–13.
4. Ibid., p. 13.
5. Jay Loschky and Anita Pugliese, “Iranians Split, 40% to 35%, on Nuclear Military Power,” Gallup, February 15, 2012, available at http://www.gallup.com/poll/152633/Iranians-Split-Nuclear-Military-Power.aspx.
6. Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, p. 318. See also, Ray Takeyh, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic (New York: Times Books, 2006), pp. 152–53.
7. “Interview with Muhammad Reza Khatami,” La Repubblica, March 4, 2006.
8. Takeyh, Hidden Iran, pp. 208–211.
9. Quoted in ibid., p. 211.
10. “Israeli Paper Publishes Interview with Vice President Ebtekar,” BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, February 3, 1998.
11. Ervand Abrahamian, Iran: Between Two Revolutions (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 269; Fakhreddin Azimi, “Unseating Mosaddeq: The Configuration and Role of Domestic Forces,” in Mark J. Gasiorowski and Malcolm Byrne, eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the Coup of 1953 in Iran (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2004), pp. 51–52; Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2001), p. 151; Stephen Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2003), pp. 136–37.
12. Azimi, “Unseating Mosaddeq,” pp. 30–31, 78–82; James A. Bill, The Eagle and the Lion: The Tragedy of American-Iranian Relations (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1988), pp. 90–91; Daniel, The History of Iran, pp. 153–154; Mark J. Gasiorowski, “The 1953 Coup d’Etat in Iran,” in Gasiorowski and Byrne, eds., Mohammad Mosaddeq and the Coup of 1953 in Iran, pp. 248–66; Mark J. Gasiorowski, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1991), pp. 72–73; Richard Helms, A Look over My Shoulder: A Life in the Central Intelligence Agency (New York: Random House, 2003), pp. 182–87; Kinzer, All the Shah’s Men, pp. 162–63.
13. Said Arjomand, The Turban for the Crown: The Islamic Revolution in Iran (New York: Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 131–32; Bill, The Eagle and the Lion, pp. 253–56; Zbigniew Brzezinski, Power and Principle: Memoirs of the National Security Adviser, 1977–1981, rev. ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1985), pp. 382–93; General Robert E. Huyser, Mission to Tehran (New York: Harper & Row, 1986), esp. pp. 18, 275–90; Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 160–61; Barry Rubin, Paved with Good Intentions: The American Experience and Iran (New York: Penguin, 1981), pp. 226–27; Gary Sick, All Fall Down: America’s Fateful Encounter with Iran (London: Tauris, 1985), pp. 138–87; Sepehr Zabih, “Iran’s Policy Toward the Persian Gulf,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 7, No. 3 (July 1976): 43–54, 93–111.
14. Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 69–71.
15. Ibid., p. 71.
16. As quoted in Tom Barry, “Iran Freedom and Regime Change Politics,” New York Times, May 19, 2006, available at http://rightweb.irc-online.org/rw/3277.html.
17. Negar Azimi, “Hard Realities of Soft Power,” New York Times, June 24, 2007.
18. Suzanne Maloney, “Fear and Loathing in Tehran,” National Interest, No. 91 (September/October 2007).
19. Robin Wright, “On Guard over U.S. Funds, Pro-Democracy Program Leads Tehran to Scrutinize Activists,” Washington Post, April 28, 2007.
20. Azimi, “Hard Realities.”
21. Wright, “On Guard over U.S. Funds.”
22. The best unclassified sources at present are Daniel Byman, Deadly Connections: States That Sponsor Terrorism (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. 79–110, esp. p. 85; Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America’s War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), pp. 112–31; Timothy Naftali, Blindspot: The Secret History of American Counterterrorism (New York: Basic Books, 2005), pp. 248–51, 260–61; and the grand jury indictment against thirteen members of Saudi Hizballah filed by the U.S. government in Alexandria, Virginia. The indictment in particular provides an excellent overview of the operational elements of the attack, and is available at http://news.findlaw.com/cnn/docs/khobar/khobarindict61901.pdf, accessed July 26, 2004. The 9/11 Commission also found that the evidence of Iran behind the Khobar Towers bombing was “strong.” See Report of the 9/11 Commission: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks upon the United States (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004), p. 60. Also see Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 282–84.
23. Lolita C. Baldor, “U.S. Blaming Iran for Persian Gulf Cyberattacks,” Associated Press, October 12, 2012; Dan De Luce, “Cyber War on Iran Has Only Just Begun,” Agence France-Presse, July 13, 2012; Siobhan Gorman and Julian Barnes, “Iran Blamed for Cyberattacks,” Wall Street Journal, October 13–14, 2012, p. A1; Nicole Perlroth, “In Cyberattack on Saudi Firm, U.S. Sees Iran Firing Back,” New York Times, October 27, 2012; David E. Sanger and Eric Schmitt, “Rise Is Seen in Cyberattacks Targeting U.S. Infrastructure,” New York Times, July 26, 2012.
24. Charlie Savage and Scott Shane, “U.S. Accuses Iranians of Plotting to Kill Saudi Envoy,” New York Times, October 11, 2011; Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 562–66; Benjamin Weiser, “Man Pleads Guilty in Plot to Murder a Saudi Envoy,” New York Times, October 17, 2012.
25. For instance, see Jamsheed K. Choksy, “Are the Mullahs Losing Their Grip?” World Affairs 175, No. 1 (May/June 2012): 17–24.
26. Charles Kurzman, The Unthinkable Revolution in Iran (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 121–22.
27. See for instance, Crist, The Twilight War, p. 552; Nazila Fathi, “Relatives of Kurds Executed in Iran Are Denied the Remains, and 2 Are Arrested,” New York Times, May 11, 2010; Michael Rubin, “Domestic Threats to Iranian Stability: Khuzistan and Baluchistan,” Middle East Forum, November 13, 2005, available at http://www.meforum.org/788/domestic-threats-to-iranian-stability-khuzistan.
28. See Crist, The Twilight War, pp., 404–415; Pollack, The Persian Puzzle, pp. 282–86, 298–302.
29. See Crist, The Twilight War, pp. 82–83, 372–79, 556.
30. Much of the following section draws heavily from Kenneth M. Pollack and Ray Takeyh, “Doubling Down on Tehran,” Washington Quarterly 34, No. 4 (Fall 2011): 7–21.
31. Peter James Spielmann, “UN Report Finds Iran’s Crackdown Expanding,” Associated Press, October 11, 2012.
32. “Why They Left: Stories of Iranian Activists in Exile,” Human Rights Watch, December 13, 2012, available at http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/iran1212webwcover_0_0.pdf, p. 1.
33. “EU Expands Sanctions Against Iran,” Associated Press, October 11, 2011.
34. Meghan L. O’Sullivan, Shrewd Sanctions: Statecraft and State Sponsors of Terrorism (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2002), pp. 291–92.