Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program Isn’t Dead Yet

Key Points and Summary – Following US strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Russian official Dmitry Medvedev hinted that countries like Russia or North Korea might supply Iran with nuclear warheads directly.

-This threat should be met with a firm US response based on strategic brinksmanship.

-If Russia or its allies provide nuclear weapons to Iran, a state that has serially violated the Non-Proliferation Treaty, President Trump should make it clear that the United States will, in turn, provide nuclear weapons or station intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Russia’s own neighboring countries, such as Ukraine, Poland, or Kazakhstan, to re-establish deterrence.

The Iran Nuclear Threat Isn’t Gone Just Yet 

The Islamic Republic may have lost its prize nuclear facilities, but the delays caused by American handwringing mean that it very likely salvaged much of its enriched uranium. Iranian nuclear engineers could now likely reconstitute a nuclear weapon should they so choose.

Many American officials and their European counterparts hope to end the military conflict by getting Washington and Tehran to commit to a diplomatic process.

Some American officials might also exaggerate the impact of the strikes to please President Donald Trump or to justify their calls for a complete cessation of hostilities.

And while it is true that the destruction of Natanz and Fordow could have set the Iranian program back years, the assumptions behind such an estimate matter: Are analysts assuming a completely indigenous Iranian program or do they factor in the possibility that Iranian allies could help Iran rebuild core components of its program without reinventing the wheel?

Iran’s Allies Come to the Nuclear Rescue

As if on cue, Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of the Russian Federation’s Security Council, suggested, “A number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.”

Certainly, Russia might do so.

North Korea could as well.

Both countries have long supported the Islamic Republic.

Pakistan, too, despite Trump’s recent horse trading with Pakistani Army Chief Asim Munir, could also help Iran as Islamabad continues to play both sides of every issue. After all, it was rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan who helped then Islamic Republic launch its nuclear weapons program in the first place.

Even Turkey, a nuclear aspirant itself, might help Iran to some extent as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan tries to cut Israel and the United States down to size.

The Russia Problem 

Russia’s unease is understandable. After decades of U.S. weakness, Trump is restoring American deterrence in a way that will peel regional countries away from Russia and into the American orbit.

After all, as Al Qaeda founder Osama bin Laden once explained, “When people see a strong horse and a weak horse, by nature they will like the strong horse.” By destroying Fordow, Trump signals that Russia is the gelded pony.

Any Russian talk about international law is cynical, especially when suggesting the transfer of nuclear weapons to Iran. While partisans like to criticize Trump for walking away from President Barack Obama’s flawed 2015 nuclear deal, they ignore that the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action did not supplant the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty whose serial violations by Iran led then International Atomic Energy Agency to send the file to the United Nations Security Council in the first place.

Iranian nuclear weapons are illegal, full stop. If anything, Trump’s military action against facilities in Isfahan, Natanz, and Fordow did more to preserve the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty than decades of hapless diplomacy.

How Trump Should Respond 

Still, if Medvedev and President Vladimir Putin wish to play hardball, Trump should engage. Should Russia or its allies provide Iran with nuclear warheads, Trump should make clear that then United States will do likewise with Russia’s neighbors beginning with Ukraine.

If Poland does not want its own nuclear capability, Trump should begin negotiations to station intermediate-range nuclear weapons in the country. As Central Asian states like Kazakhstan reconsider their ties and fear that they could be the next victim of Russian aggression, they too might be willing to host American intermediate-range ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads.

America Has Nuclear Cards To Play

Diplomacy is not a 1970s-style “new games” exercise in which everyone wins; with Russia, it is about brinksmanship. For too long, American adversaries have become accustomed to playing poker with successive American administrations and outbluffing America’s full house with a pair of twos.

Putin and Medvedev essentially seek to see if they can continue that pattern, even under Trump. Just as Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei learned it is no longer business as usual with Trump in the White House, so too is it now necessary for Putin and Medvedev to learn the same lesson. They can implicitly threaten the United States, but it will be their own security that suffers if they seek to spoil U.S. efforts to remove Iran’s nuclear shadow from the Middle East.

About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin

Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. The views expressed are his own.

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