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It appears increasingly likely that the Bushadministration’s diplomatic approach to Iran willfail to prevent Iran from going nuclear and thatthe United States will have to decide whether touse military force to attempt to delay Iran’s acqui-sition of a nuclear weapons capability. Some ana-lysts have already been promoting air strikesagainst Iran, and the Bush administration haspointed out repeatedly that the military option is“on the table.” This paper examines the optionsavailable to the United States in the face of a prospective final diplomatic collapse.Evaluating the two ultimate options—military action on the one hand and acceptance and deter-rence on the other—reveals that neither course isattractive. However, the evidence strongly suggeststhat the disadvantages of using military actionwould outweigh those of acceptance and deter-rence. Attacking Iran’s nuclear program wouldpose several problems: U.S. intelligence seems likely to be even poorer on Iran than it was on Iraq; Iranhas hardened and buried many nuclear facilities ina way that would make them difficult to destroy;Iran could respond in such a way that the UnitedStates would feel forced to escalate to full-blownregime change; and there would be a host of unin-tended consequences inside and outside Iran. A policy of acceptance and deterrence is also anunattractive prospect. Iran would likely be embold-ened by the acquisition of a bomb and could desta-bilize the region and inject more problems into analready bleak prospect for peace between theIsraelis and Palestinians. Still, given the costs of themilitary option, the only compelling rationale forstarting a war with Iran would be if there weregood reason to believe that the Iranian leadershipis fundamentally undeterrable. But available evi-dence indicates that Iran is deterrable and wouldbe particularly so if faced with the devastatingrepercussions that would result from the use of a nuclear weapon. Therefore, the United Statesshould begin taking steps immediately to preparefor a policy of deterrence should an Iranian bombcome online in the future. As undesirable as such a situation would be, it appears less costly than strik-ing Iran.
The Bottom Line on Iran
The Costs and Benefits of Preventive Warversus Deterrence
by Justin Logan
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________
 Justin Logan is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
Executive Summary 
No. 583December 4, 2006
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Introduction
On May 31, 2006, Secretary of StateCondoleezza Rice held a press conference inthe ornate Benjamin Franklin Room at theState Department to announce that theUnited States would be open to joining theEuropean Union Three (EU3) negotiations onIran’s nuclear program. This new approachrepresented a significant shift away fromWashington’s previous attempts to pressureand isolate Iran and increased the chances fora peaceful solution to the conflict over Iran’snuclear program.Still, even Washington’s new approach tothe Iran issue has a good chance of failing.President Bush added a potential “poisonpill” precondition—that the Iranians suspenduranium enrichment before talks could takeplace.
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For its part, Iran irritated Washingtonand the international community by waitingto reply months, rather than weeks, after hav-ing received the offer. Ultimately, Iranresponded by saying that it was willing toenter talks, but not under any preconditions,defying the U.S.-led demand for Iran to sus-pend uranium enrichment before it would beallowed to enter into talks. At the time of thiswriting the United States is continuing topressure its allies to sign on to a restrictivesanctions package against Iran, with seem-ingly little success.More broadly, unless Washington offers toput security guarantees and overall diplomaticand economic normalization on the negotiatingtable—a so-called “grand bargain” approach—itis unlikely that Iran will decide that the benefitsof a diplomatic deal will outweigh the costs.
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Given the likelihood of failure, then, it is worthevaluating America’s options should the negoti-ating process fail to yield fruit.The debate in Washington today includesmany different policy proposals. Should theadministration attempt to engineer regimechange through internal subversion of thegovernment in Tehran? Should the UnitedStates agree to negotiate without precondi-tions with Iran, offering it a grand bargain?Can UN sanctions change the behavior of theregime in Tehran, or possibly cause its ouster?This paper does not examine the diplomat-ic options currently being explored.
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Instead, itfocuses on the options that will be left to theUnited States if and when any nonmilitary strategy fails. It is thus an attempt to get to the“bottom line” with respect to the stand-off between the United States and Iran, and it asksthe ultimate question: Would it be better touse military force in an attempt to stymieIran’s nuclear program or to accept the even-tual Iranian acquisition of a nuclear weaponand prepare for a policy of deterrence?It is important to acknowledge at the out-set that the United States has no “good”options with respect to the Iranian nuclearprogram. Any strategy will have significantdownsides for the United States, and weshould not expect to find a silver bullet thatwill make the Iran problem go away. Instead,we should seek to craft a realistic policy designed to minimize the damage to U.S.national interests that results from the con-flict with Iran.
The Preventive War Option
One possible approach to the Iranianquestion is starting a war in an attempt todelay Iran’s acquiring a nuclear capability. Itis important to emphasize that this optiondoes not involve eliminating Iran’s potentialto develop a nuclear weapon. Experts agreethat Iran’s nuclear infrastructure is far toodiffuse to make that feasible, and even opti-mistic scenarios offered by pro-war commen-tators have estimated that military strikescould delay Iran’s nuclear program by rough-ly three years—a time frame within whichsome have argued that we could work tooverthrow the government in Tehran.
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Othercommentators have argued that air strikesshould be coupled with a campaign of inter-nal destabilization, utilizing dissident groupsto both disrupt the nuclear program andchange the regime at the same time.
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Of course, initiating military action againstIran’s nuclear program would be an act of war,
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The United Stateshas no “good”options withrespect to theIranian nuclearprogram.
 
and the Iranian government would react by defending itself. As will be discussed below,Iran’s strategy of defense against a U.S. attackcould involve further destabilizing Iraq, in par-ticular the southern Shi’a region; convention-al or possibly chemical or biological attacksagainst either U.S. personnel in the region oragainst Israel; the use of mines or civilianboats to covertly attack oil tankers in the Straitof Hormuz, similar to the attack against theUSS
Cole
; and a long, protracted guerrilla warshould the conflict escalate to regime changeand involve U.S. personnel on the ground inIran. These possibilities must be factored intoany decision about whether to start a war withIran. It is worth, then, looking systematically at the possible results of the military option.
Problem #1: Worse Intelligence Than Iraq?
The U.S. government appears to know very little about Iran’s nuclear program. It is quitedifficult to gather effective intelligence on a country with which America has not had com-mercial or diplomatic relations for more thantwo decades, and a successful attack against a nuclear program as dispersed and effectively hidden as Iran’s apparently is would require very good intelligence. In 2002 the UnitedStates learned of startling advances in Iran’snuclear program after revelations regardingthe Natanz enrichment facility and the Arakheavy water reactor were made very publicly by the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq’s (MEK’s) politicalarm, the National Council of Resistance inIran (NCRI).
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Given that these facilities wouldrank high on any list of potential targets inIran, we must understand that the Iranianleadership knows that we know about them. Are Natanz and Arak still the key sites tostrike in order to damage Iran’s nuclear pro-gram? If so, the Iranians would be leavingthemselves vulnerable to just the sort of U.S.air strikes that they fear. It is far more likely that the leadership in Tehran has taken intoaccount that those locations would be firston a list of U.S. aim points and has adjustedtheir programs accordingly, by either diversi-fying the locations even further than they were or by relocating nuclear activity.
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In addition to the inherent difficulty of gathering information about a country withwhich we have had nearly no diplomatic oreconomic engagement for 27 years, there is rea-son to fear that what little intelligence we dohave is of poor quality. According to JamesRisen of the
 New York Times
, the entire CentralIntelligence Agency network inside Iran was“rolled up” in 2004 when a CIA operative acci-dentally sent a full roster of U.S. assets insideIran to an Iranian double agent. This, accord-ing to Risen, left the CIA “virtually blind inIran.”
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Even before the “roll-up,” a presidentialcommission concluded in 2004 that the U.S.intelligence community had “disturbingly lit-tle” information on Iran’s nuclear activities.
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That assessment was echoed in August2006 in a report for the House PermanentSelect Committee on Intelligence. Thatreport noted that “American intelligenceagencies do not know nearly enough aboutIran’s nuclear weapons program.”
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Further,the report argued:Improving intelligence collection andanalysis to better understand andcounter Iranian influence and inten-tions is vital to our national security.The Intelligence Community lacks theability to acquire essential informationnecessary to make judgments on theseessential topics, which have been recog-nized as essential to U.S. national secu-rity for many, many years.
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Some neoconservatives loudly criticize theCIA for its pre–Iraq war failings, and disdainits capability to assess the Iranian program. Atthe same time, though, they seem to assumethat the intelligence we—or they—possess onthe Iranian nuclear program is good enoughto make striking Iran’s nuclear programsremarkably easy. On March 5, 2006, during a presentation to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Pentagon adviser RichardPerle presented the option thus:I trust we know where [the Iraniannuclear facilities] are. If we don’t know 
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A presidentialcommissionconcluded in2004 that theU.S. intelligencecommunity had“disturbingly little” informa-tion on Iran’snuclear activities.
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