CIAO DATE: 07/02

The Military Balance in the Gulf: 2001-2002 Part III Weapons of Mass Destruction

Iranian Force Developments

As is the case with North Korea, experts differ over the seriousness of the Iranian threat. Most experts believe that Iran continues to pursue the development of long-range missiles, and of nuclear and biological warheads. Much will depend heavily on whether President Khatami and the more moderate elements in Iran's leadership can consolidate power and rein in Iran's hard-line extremists, as well as on Iran's perception of the threat the US poses once it is ready to deploy and the cost of that deployment. This creates an extremely uncertain political climate.

On the one hand, one must be careful about either assuming that Iran's "moderates" will win, or that "moderation" will mean that Iran will not continue to proliferate. The details of Iran's effort to proliferate is described in detail Table III.6, and it is clear that Iran has a long history of efforts to acquire very long-range missile technology that can be used in designing ICBMs as well as efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. It is also clear that efforts to downplay or minimize the Iranian threat have to ignore a wide range of historical evidence that Iran has evolved a sophisticated program involving major efforts at deception and using dual-use technology.

On the other hand, one must be extremely careful about assuming that Iran's hostility to Iraq and Israel, and concern with Pakistan, will be translated into the deployment of ICBM forces capable of delivering nuclear or biological weapons against the American homeland. Most of Iran's most visible missile and weapons of mass destruction programs are now directed at regional threats like Iraq, and at achieving regional influence. Iran cannot ignore the fact that India and Pakistan are becoming nuclear powers with missiles that can strike at any target in the region.

Even Iran's "moderate" leadership may have concluded, however, that proliferation is the only way to give Iran political and strategic credibility as a major power in the region and to offset US power projection capabilities and the strength of any US-Southern Gulf coalition. The more hostile elements in the Iranian regime may also have concluded that some kind of threat to the American Homeland would give it critical leverage in limiting US freedom of action in the region. Even a neutral or non-hostile regime might conclude that the possession of strong regional strike capabilities with long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction could hold US power projection forces, bases, and allied territory hostage in the region, and that developing a limit strike capability against the US would help deter any US strikes on such a regional capability.

The practical problem is that the US cannot possibly predict the character of an Iranian regime over the next 10-25 years, nor can it predict that Iranian regimes will share the risk perceptions of the US or act as "rational bargainers" from an American perspective. This means there is no way to predict what kind of threat Iran may or may not develop against the US homeland.

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