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NATO Yale Model United Nations Korea May 17 - 19, 2013

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Table of Contents History of the Committee 3 Topic I: Iran on the Brink History 6

History of Iran’s Nuclear Program

11

Current Situation 12 Bloc Positions 33 Questions to Consider 35

Suggestions for Further Reading

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Topic II: Syria on Fire History 41 Current Situation 49 Bloc Positions 53 Questions to Consider 56

Suggestions for Further Research

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Glossary 59 Structure of the Committee 62 Notes 65

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History of the Committee

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, generally known as NATO, was founded in 1949 in the wake of World War II. Its members are bound by its treaty to principles of collective defense – in other words, if one member nation is attacked, all the other nations are legally obliged to assist it in its defense.

Envisioned as a way of unifying and protecting Europe, which had been the primary theater of the two greatest wars in history, NATO took some time to become more than a political affiliation. After the Korean War made the threat of military outbreak between communist and non-communist countries increasingly clear, NATO began to develop an increasingly sophisticated integrated military command structure, with its own admirals and generals formulating strategy from NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.

At its inception, NATO had three purposes; as Lord Ismay, NATO’s first Secretary General put it: “to keep the Russians out, the Americans in, and the Germans down.” For years, NATO served primarily as a way of containing the USSR’s influence in Europe – the Soviet Union knew that by attacking any NATO member or

seeking to expand its empire even into Europe’s smaller countries, it would be incurring the coordinated military response of all NATO’s members, including, most crucially, the United States. European members of the alliance relied on American commitment to the defense of Europe as a deterrent to Soviet expansionism, and the U.S. commitment to European security remains a core tenet of the transatlantic alliance today.

Hamburg, destroyed by bombing German Federal Archive

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The first members joined NATO at different levels of commitment. From very early in its history, NATO members had agreed that they should each contribute in proportion to their geographical position, military capabilities, population, and industrial capacity; as Europe’s economies struggled to recover from World War II, the founding members of the Alliance had ceded that military security could only be achieved in tandem with economic stability. The contributions that Iceland would make to NATO, for example, would never equal the dollar amount of the United States’ support.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, NATO has struggled to remain relevant in a world defined less by an American-Russian rivalry, and more by a looser framework of several different centers of power. Nonetheless, NATO has undertaken important military action in Bosnia and Yugoslavia to end ethnic violence and prevent genocide. More recently, it has pursued missions in Afghanistan and Libya, following what seems to be a new mandate to depose tyrants and authoritarian regimes throughout the world. It remains the world’s strongest and most sophisticated military alliance, and is likely to remain a crucial part of the world power structure for decades to come.

Mr. Dean Acheson (US Minister of Foreign Affairs) signs the NATO Treaty

The North Atlantic Treaty On April 4, 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty was signed in Washington, DC, bringing NATO into existence.

NATO’s twelve founding members – Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, United Kingdom, and the United States – saw a need for military security in Western Europe to serve as a basis for political and economic stability in the region in the aftermath of the Second World War in a generation.

Article 5 of the treaty laid out a mutual self-defense provision; the new Allies resolved that “an armed attack against one or more of them […] shall be considered an attack against them all.” Citing the “right of individual or collective self-defence” NATO 4

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recognized by Article 51 of United Nations Charter, Article 5 stipulated that, following an attack against a member or members of the alliance, each ally would respond with “such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force, to restore and maintain the security of the North Atlantic area.� Notably, this clause was never invoked against Soviet aggression during the Cold War. It was invoked for the first time following the September 11, 2001 attacks against the U.S. Pentagon and World Trade Center in Operation Eagle Assist.

Other articles of the treaty made noteworthy provisions for the peaceful cooperation between the allies. Whereas Article 3 called for cooperation in military preparedness, Article 2 called for political and economic contributions through the framework of the alliance.

Article 9 provided for the establishment of the North Atlantic Council, as well as all of its subsidiary bodies, which, today, include the NATO agencies, the Nuclear Panning Group, and the international staff.

The geographical scope of the treaty was revised on October 22, 1951 with the accession of Greece and Turkey; extending the Southern boundary

of protected allied territories to the Tropic of Cancer. New members of the Alliance are formally admitted through accession protocols, additions to the original treaty, which are ratified by all member states and deposited in U.S. government archives along with the original treaty.

NATO AWACS aircraft patrolled American skies

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Topic I: Iran on the Brink Topic History The Qajar Dynasty The Qajar dynasty ruled Persia—later to become Iran—from 1785 to 1794.

The Qajars were a Turkmen tribe that sought to gain power and political autonomy after the death of Mohamed Karim Khan Zand, the last ruler of the Zand Dynasty. Mohamed Karim Khan Zand died in 1779 and the leader of the Qajar dynasty, Agha Mohammed Khan, saw this as an opportunity to expand and consolidate his tribe’s power, which he was able to accomplish fully by 1794. The last living member of the Zand family, Lotf Ali Khan, was killed, thus marking the end of the Zand dynasty. Agha Mohammed Khan was officially crowned in 1796 as Shah. He was only able to officially rule as Shah for one year, as he was assassinated in 1797. Agha Mohammed Khan was succeeded by his nephew, Fath Ali Shah.

Leadership of the Qajar dynasty passed through a variety of leaders until it reached the Ahmad Shah, the last ruler of the Qajars. Ahmad Shah succeeded to the throne when he was just 11, and proved to be an

incompetent ruler. He was never truly able to preserve the country’s or his dynasty’s image and autonomy. Perhaps the biggest blow to his authority as ruler was the invasion of Iran by British, Ottoman, and Russian troops during World War I. This fact, combined with Britain trying to make Iran a protectorate in 1919, led to a strong nationalist backlash and his eventual removal as ruler in 1925. This gave the political space necessary for the leading political figure, Reza Khan, to take control.

The Pahlavi Dynasty In 1925, Reza Khan (who became Reza Shah Pahlavi), was voted in by the Majlis (the Iranian national assembly) and began the Pahlavi dynasty.

Reza Shah proved to have a strong nationalistic identity. In 1935, he officially changed the name from Persia to NATO 6

MUN Korea Iran, feeling that the name “Persia” only reflected one ethnic group of Iran and ignored the rest. Reza Shah also supported heavy modernization policies; he believed in a strong central government and an intense consolidation and improvements of infrastructure, Iranian industries, railroads, education, and healthcare. In this hope of modernization, he attempted to pursue a policy known as third power diplomacy in order to ensure Iran’s growth and continued autonomy and independence. Faced with the two major powers of the time, Great Britain and the USSR, Reza Shah sought out a third powerful party with which to ally. This third party was originally intended to be the United States but this policy failed. Eventually the Iranians sought out Germany because Germany did not have a history of imperialism in Iran and it was willing to provide capital, specialists, and infrastructure for modernization. The concept of the superiority of Aryanism, an idea promoted by Reza Shah in Iran, further added to the alliance between Germany and Iran.

Iran’s alliance with Germany proved to be problematic during World War II. Great Britain saw Iran as a threat due to its alliance with Germany, and ordered it to expel any

Germans from its land. Reza Shah refused. This eventually culminated in an invasion of Iran by the UK and the USSR. Great Britain and the USSR both saw value in the Trans-Iranian Railroad, viewing it as a means of transportation from the Gulf to Soviet territories. The UK and USSR took control of the railroad and arrested and exiled Reza Shah.

This was the first real, direct interaction between the United States and Iran, as the US—an ally of the UK and the USSR—sent in troops to help secure and maintain operations of the Iranian railroad. The Brits and Soviets allowed

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MUN Korea Reza Shah’s son, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, to succeed the throne, and they eventually withdrew their troops. The UK withdrew in 1943 while the USSR delayed this until 1946, causing further tensions between the USSR and the US, an ally of the UK.

The early years during Mohammed Reza Shah’s rule saw an opening-up of the political system, which led to more complications than before.

In 1944, for the first time in 20 years, the elections for the Majlis were legitimately competitive. Despite this fact, Mohammed Reza Shah went beyond his rights as constitutional monarch of Iran, and often imposed himself in matters that were outside of his sphere of influence. This became particularly apparent when the Majlis elected Mohammed Reza Shah’s political rival, Mohammad Mossadegh, as prime minister. Mossadegh’s call for nationalization of Iranian oil--previously the Angelo-Iranian oil company--threatened the West’s influence in Iran and, by extension, the base of Mohammed Reza Shah’s power. The Shah fled Iran and only returned when the United States and the United Kingdom staged a joint military coupe against Mossadegh and removed him from

power, thereby establishing Mohammad Reza Shah as an authoritarian ruler. Mohammad Reza Shah’s people did not overlook his weakness, and they perceived him to be beholden to the United States from then on. This disparity was further added to by the reforms that Mohammad Reza sought to implement.

In 1963, Mohammed Reza began a series of reforms known as The White Revolution. These reforms included land distribution programs, profit sharing for workers, nationalization of certain natural lands such as forests, expanding education, and improving political representation by giving more voice to farmers, and allowing women to vote. This White Revolution was met by severe public opposition and resulted in the arrest of several important political figures, including Ayatollah Khomeini. The clergy of Iran were particularly resentful of these reforms as they felt their power being taken away and their opinions to be held of less concern.

All of this political and public unrest would eventually lead to the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The Islamic Republic of Iran Ayatollah Khomeini returned from

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France in 1979 after being exiled by Mohammed Reza Shah for promoting revolutionary ideas and opposing his White Revolution. Mohammed Reza fled Iran as the revolution took hold. Under Khomeini’s control, Iran—which he renamed the Islamic Republic of Iran—because a theocratic state. During the revolution, students supporting the revolution took control of the United States embassy and held 52 Americans hostage, demanding that the United States release Mohammed Reza Shah, who was receiving medical treatment in the U.S., to face trial in Iran. This action was supported

by Khomeini and began the difficult relationship between the United States and the newly formed Islamic Republic.

In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran following border disputes over the ownership of the river that separated them, Shatt al Arab. Iraq felt that it was tricked into giving partial rights of the river to Iran. The river dispute was somewhat of a pretext, though; Ba’athist Iraq was afraid that the Iranian Revolution would inspire Iraq’s suppressed Shia majority to revolt.

The war lasted on until 1988, and both sides ultimately agreed to pre-war borders.

Khomeini believed in the creation of an Islamic utopia. He did not support the communism of the east or the capitalism of the west; rather, a theocracy based on Islamic principles. He did, however, create a political system that was divided between Islamic institutions and Republican institutions (hence the name, Islamic Republic). Khomeini also believed that the state must do everything in its power to promulgate Islam and that Iranian identity was no longer based on pre-Islamic Iran. This called for a push away from the Aryan identity that the Pahlavi dynasty promoted. These were all significant shifts away from the domestic and foreign policy pursued by

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Mohammed Reza Shah and his father.

In 1989, Khomeini died and was succeeded by Ali Khamenei, the then-president of Iran. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, speaker of the Majlis, was elected as the fourth president of the Islamic Republic. Rafsanjani was a Hojatoleslam, a Shia’ clergyman just below the rank of Ayatollah, and was Khomeini’s right hand man before and during the revolution. Rafsanjani was interested in reestablishing relations with nations that were cut off during the revolution. He tried to reach out to the Arab world, particularly Saudi Arabia.

Iran-Saudi Relations have vacillated over the past century. They established formal diplomatic relations in 1928 under the Pahlavi Dynasty. In 1968, when Great Britain announced it would withdraw from the Persian Gulf, Iran and Saudi Arabia took joint responsibility for the region’s security.

These were the friendliest years of Iranian-Saudi diplomacy, up until 1979.

Then came the Iranian Revolution, and Khomeini attacked the character and religious legitimacy of the Saudi regime. During the Iran-Iraq War, Saudi Arabia pledged $25 million USD to aid Iraq (under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni).

Rafsanjani also tried to rebuild relationships with the Western world as well as Russia. Russia became Iran’s main military supplier. Iran also allied with European powers such as Germany and France and, slightly, the United Kingdom. In 1995, however, the United States placed a total ban on trade with Iran. Rafsanjani served as president until 1997, fulfilling the limit of two terms in office.

Hajatoleslam Mohammad Khatami was elected next as president.

Khatami pursued democratic reform and modernization. His democratic reform program seems to be dying today due to conservative opposition.

He tried establishing connections with America but failed originally. However, after the attacks of September 11, Khatami saw a perfect opportunity to increase relations with the United States. Iran actually ended up helping the United States a great deal with their invasion into Afghanistan, and the relationship seemed to be improving. This was ruined, however,

by George Bush’s Axis of Evil speech.

Doubts about the U.S.’s intentions grew. After 2003, Iran tried negotiating with the U.S. and was willing to suspend Iranian nuclear enrichment as well as adopt a neutral stance

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towards Israel. Americans simply did not show up to the negotiation table and, in 2003, the nuclear program began to accelerate.

domestic legitimacy that comes with having nuclear weapons. There was also the very obvious reason of defense against other countries, particularly Israel, in case of an all out war. The third reason was economic. If Iran could shift to nuclear energy, they could stop relying on oil domestically and begin to ship more oil out. Since oil is sold cheaper in

Iran than it is outside of Iran, this would mean more oil for a higher price.

Iran, however, has been unwilling to comply with a variety of restrictions imposed on it by the NPT and the IAEA thus far. As such, we as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization are tasked with the job of examining and responding to this situation.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

History of Iran’s Nuclear Program

Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in 2005.

He pursued a hardcore conservative foreign policy. He shifted most of the economic relations from the West to the East. Under his leadership, Iran’s relationship with the rest of the Arab world is largely deteriorating while there is an expansion of relations with China and Russia.

Rafsanjani also pursued a hard nuclear program for a variety of reasons. One reason was the prestige and

On December 8, 1953, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower delivered a speech to the UN General Assembly known as “Atoms for Peace.” The speech was part of an orchestrated media campaign, a propaganda component of George Kennan’s Cold War containment doctrine. It functioned as the tipping point for international focus on peaceful uses of atomic energy, and the United States then launched an Atoms for Peace program, under which the first nuclear reactors in

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Iran and Pakistan were built. The United States, along with Western European governments, continued to participate in Iran’s nuclear program until the Iranian Revolution in 1979. At that point, one reactor at the Bushehr facility was 50% complete and one was 85% complete. During the Iran-Iraq war, the facility was damaged in an airstrike, halting the nuclear program.

Early in the 1990s, Russia formed a joint research organization with Iran that provided Iran with Russian nuclear experts and technical information. That partnership grew in 1995, when Iran signed a contract with Russia’s Ministry of Atomic Energy gy to resume work on the partially complete Bushehr plant.

In 2003, members of Mohammad Khatami’s government made a confidential proposal for a grand bargain through Swiss diplomatic channels. Such a bargain would offer full transparency of Iran’s nuclear program and withdrawal of support for Hamas and Hezbollah in exchange for security assurances from the United States and normalization of diplomatic relations. The Bush administration did not respond to the offer, doubting its authenticity. In the mid 2000s, Iran flirted with temporary suspensions

of the program under IAEA pressure.

Resuming again at full speed, President Ahmadinejad announced in 2006 that the country had successfully enriched uranium.

Current Situation The international community formally recognizes five states – the United States, China, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom – as legitimate treaty-bound possessors of nuclear weapons. Three other states – India, Israel, and Pakistan – administer nuclear enrichment and weaponization programs, formally outside the framework of treaty law, with some limited supervision from international regulators. The isolated pariah state of North Korea has been pursuing clandestine weaponization for decades and is believed to have enriched enough uranium to produce roughly 10 small warheads.1 And the Islamic Republic of Iran is widely understood to be engaged in its own undeclared and unsupervised weaponization program.

Legal Background: The NPT On July 1, 1968, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons was concluded in London, Washington, and Moscow by representatives

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of the United States, Great Britain, the USSR, and several dozen smaller signatories. The treaty (commonly known as the NPT) outlines the basic responsibilities, rights, and obligations of states with regard to the management of nuclear resources and the prevention of large-scale weapons proliferation. The NPT entered into force in 1970 and has since remained open, meaning that any state wishing to adhere to its conditions may sign it, ratify it, or decide to accede to it at any time. Of the world’s 193, 190 states have signed the NPT, making it one of the most broadly applicable treaties and by far the most broadly applicable disarmament agreement, in the world.

(The non-signatories are India, Israel, and Pakistan.) Iran ratified the treaty on May 3, 1970, under the shah, and remained a party in good standing during the 1979 revolution

Shoshana Kelly “Critical Issues Forum Benchmark Two.” Critical Issues Forum 3/29/10

and throughout the birth and political maturation of the Islamic Republic.

The NPT was negotiated within an international context dominated by the efforts of the United States and the Soviet Union to challenge, contain, engage, and balance each other. The treaty is therefore concerned primarily with the development, transfer, and use of technology conducive to the production of the kinds of catastrophically powerful strategic nuclear weapons that the superpowers would have found useful; in some ways, it’s a treaty for a simpler world, in which only the five nations that operated active, mature, and highly secure weapons programs could access global flows of nuclear resources and technical knowledge. The language of the NPT emphasizes the origin and exchange of volatile technologies and their movement from place to place. The treaty seeks to cut at its nodal points the emerging global nuclear distribution network, to persuade both buyers and sellers to remove themselves from this most dangerous marketplace, and to formalize a broad-based international commitment to complete nuclear disarmament as the ultimate goal of multilateral engagement.

Article I of the NPT contains

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its core provision: the commitment of States Parties not to transfer nuclear weapons, the control of nuclear weapons, or any “assist[ance]” in the development of nuclear weapons to “any recipient whatsoever,” especially a non-nuclear-weapon state. (The treaty draws a bright line between the five trusted and recognized Nuclear Weapons States, all of which had active nuclear programs in 1968, and the 185 other signatories, which did not.) It is widely believed – especially in the United States and in Israel -- that a nuclear Iran, with its ties to terrorist groups and violently repressive regimes throughout the Middle East, would violate this first and most basic rule of responsible nuclear stewardship.

Article II of the NPT contains one of the foundational principles of the case against Iran. This clause specifies that “each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes not to receive the transfer from any transferor whatsoever of nuclear weapons…or of control over such weapons…directly or indirectly; not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the

manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” If Iran does intend to weaponize, then it is in violation of its treaty obligations. If Iran has sought, does seek, has received, or does receive material nuclear assistance with the intent of weaponizing the products of that assistance, then it is in violation of its treaty obligations. And if Iran intends to transfer or does currently transfer any products of any weaponization research it conducts or may have conducted, then it is in violation of its treaty obligations.

In Iran’s supposed violations of Article III of the treaty, foes of the country’s nuclear program find some of the clearest and most convincing evidence for their suspicions.

This article stipulates that non-nuclear-weapon-state signatories shall “accept safeguards…in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agency’s safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfillment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons.” Effectively, this clause obligates non-nuclear-weapon states to engage

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openly and honestly with regulatory agencies and inspectors, to allow those agencies and inspectors free and complete access to nuclear facilities, and otherwise to work to facilitate the implementation of agreed anti-weaponization safeguards. Iran is not in compliance with these requirements; technically, this non-compliance could be enough to expel Iran from the treaty’s protective ambit.

Article IV is also crucially important, as it forms the basis of the Iranian legal challenge to the international community’s efforts to sanction, contain, and isolate the country. This article underlines “the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination…” and specifies that “all the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.” Iran has always insisted that it seeks only to develop peaceful nuclear applications – to further scientific understanding, to obtain medically useful materials for its people, and to find safer and more reliable ways of providing its

communities with power. All of these activities are, of course, protected and encouraged under Article IV of the NPT. The problem lies in the dual-use nature of the resources Iran seeks to exploit; the same raw inputs can be used to produce both uranium bomb cores and medical isotopes. If the international community cannot decisively prove Iran to be in violation of its NPT obligations in some way, then the recent efforts to deny the country access to nuclear technology are discriminatory and technically illegitimate.

The remaining articles of the NPT complicate this theoretical picture even further. Article V emphasizes the legitimacy of free and open nuclear-scientific exchange that allows all other countries to share in and benefit from the progress made in one country. This principle has interesting implications for the Iranian case – do the recent efforts to deny centrifuge components and other dual-use nuclear technologies to the Iranian government contravene Article V? Article VI enshrines the States Parties’ commitment to nuclear disarmament and to the “cessation of the nuclear arms race.” This last phrase is most readily understood in a Cold War context, but to the extent that weaponization by

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Israel has influenced or may be influencing Iran’s calculations, and to the extent that Iranian weaponization could encourage the country’s neighbors in the Gulf to consider arming themselves, the definition and implications of the phrase “arms race” in the Iranian context are worth considering.

Articles VII and VIII are procedural articles, pertaining to jurisdiction and amendment rules. Article IX designates the governments of the United States, Great Britain, and the USSR (now Russia) as “depositary governments,” formal guardians and administrators of the treaty. It’s worth noting here that Iran likes to portray itself as a victim of Western coercion and prejudice, a righteous outlier punished for its refusal to submit to a system designed and controlled by the Western powers. Iran has not yet challenged the legitimacy of the NPT on these grounds, or questioned the usefulness of its own role as a signatory, but the idea has influenced the Iranian nuclear discourse in subtler and more pervasive ways. Finally, Article X outlines the procedures to be followed by states wishing to withdraw from the treaty. The only state so far to withdraw from the NPT has been North Korea, abruptly, in 2003. The option is, however, open to Iran as it is to all

signatories, and a withdrawal would be a relatively easy, low-cost, high-impact way for Iran to respond to any unfavorable change in the current uneasy balance of power.

Technical Background: The Nuclear Fuel Cycle The exceptionalist strain in Iranian political thought has interesting implications for the size, nature, and rate of progress of the country’s enrichment programs. Even before the imposition of sanctions, Iran’s particular political neuroses made productive cross-border technical exchange rather difficult.

Given their credentials as visionary guardians of the religious revolution, and as courageous fighters against Western exploitation, Iranian leaders have a powerful incentive to develop a nuclear program that relies relatively minimally on outside help. Partly for reasons of nationalism, and partly because clandestine uranium weaponization would be impossible otherwise, Iran seeks to control every step of the nuclear fuel cycle, from the mining of raw input fuel to the design of the missiles that might carry it.

1. The cycle begins with the extraction of uranium ore from the mines in which it is naturally found. Iran has a complex of NATO 16

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Iran has a complex of such mines, at Saghand in the center of the country, which is estimated to contain about 1.58 million metric tons of uranium ore, or 842 metric tons of fuel-usable uranium.

2. The mined ore is then milled into a fine powder known as yellowcake. Iran has a milling facility, at Ardakan in the south, with an estimated annual output of 50 metric tons of uranium.

3. The milled yellowcake is chemically converted to an intermediate substance known as uranium hexafluoride (UF6).

4. The UF6 is enriched through a process of gas centrifugation.

This increases the concentration of fuel-usable U-235 contained in the material.

5. During the process of fuel fabrication, enriched UF6 is chemically stabilized, powdered, and packed into fuel rods. The details of the fuel-fabrication process differ slightly depending on the composition of the input material; it is also possible to react a fuel-usable

mixture of uranium and plutonium oxide (PuO2). Iran has reactors capable of weaponizing both types of fuel.

Design Decisions & Current Capabilities Regardless of whether they plan to use enriched end products as fuel for civilian power generation or as inputs for warheads, Iranian nuclear planners have a wide range of technical options available to them. The choices they make can provide diplomats and policymakers with a window into the regime’s thinking on end uses, enrichment timeframes, and the distribution of financial and political resources among different areas of the country’s nuclear program.

Plant Design • Pressurized light-water reactors are relatively easy to build, partly because they can’t easily be used to weaponize uranium and therefore arouse much less suspicion in countries capable of providing assistance in their design and construction. Iran has a complete pressurized-water reactor complex, built at Bushehr in the 1990s with Russian assistance, which it now uses for power generation. Assuming Iran

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needed to weaponize rapidly, Bushehr and its products could theoretically be incorporated into the bomb-production process, but this would be technically difficult and very expensive. If Iran’s nuclear planners want to build a bomb, they have easier options.

• Heavy-water reactors breed bombgrade plutonium from intermediate-stage uranium mixtures. Iran has a heavy-water research reactor at Arak, with the potential to generate 40 megawatts of power, and smaller heavy-water facilities at Isfahan.

Though its plutonium portfolio remains relatively limited in scope, Iran’s construction and use of such facilities may indicate a desire to widen the range of its available nuclear options.

• U-235 enrichment plants are the workhorses of the Iranian program, capable ultimately of refining uranium-based fuel to the high concentrations required for weaponization.

Major facilities include the plants at Natanz, constructed to hold an estimated 50,000 centrifuges and currently said to contain about 9,000 in 54 cascades, and at Fordow, beneath a mountain near Qom, which may contain up to 3,000 centrifuges in 16 cascades.

Enrichment Thresholds • 2-5% enriched uranium, known as low-enriched uranium or LEU, is usable commercially for the generation of power in plants like Bushehr. LEU can be fed into centrifuge cascades and enriched to higher concentrations, but, left alone, it is not militarily useful. Iran has an estimated 5,451 kilograms of LEU on hand – a fact which the international community might be able to use to its advantage.

Iran has shown some openness in the past to proposals involving the enrichment of its LEU to higher levels at safer and more open facilities outside the country and the subsequent return of that fuel to Iran in usable but un-weaponizable form.

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• 20% enriched uranium is the most refined fissile substance Iran possesses. It is usable legitimately in research reactors and for the production of medical isotopes. Though this level is quite a long way from bomb-grade, enrichment processes do not progress in linear fashion, and 20%-U-235 can be weaponized much more quickly than LEU. • 90% enriched uranium, known as high-enriched uranium or HEU, is bomb-grade. This substance is expensive and time-consuming to produce and is useful only in weapons. To the best of our knowledge, Iran has no HEU, and enrichment to this level – which implies high and sustained levels of visible activity at all points along the nuclear supply chain -- would be hard to hide.

Weaponization & Delivery Platforms • Bomb design: In order to create any kind of militarily useful nuclear weapon, Iran would have to design some sort of delivery system that would pair an HEU (or plutonium) bomb core with the explosive charge needed to set it off. U.S. intelligence estimates suggest that Iran has conducted research, at a military facility near Parchin, into the kinds of high-

explosive technologies that could be used in the creation of nuclear bombs.

• Missiles: If Iran did manage to make a bomb, it would likely plan to install and deliver that bomb aboard one of its missiles. Over the past two decades, in response to Iraqi aggression and Western intervention in the Middle East, the Iranian military has implemented a fairly impressive missile-development program; it now has access to a wide range of ballistic bomb-delivery options, including the extended-range Shahab-3 and the Ashura, both of which can travel about 1,200 miles, and a number of shorter-range surface-to-surface missiles, including the Fateh-110, with a range of about 120 miles. The larger missiles could

Uranium Enrichment. United States Army Signal Corps Officer Candidate School Association.

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carry warheads to Israel and parts of southern and Eastern Europe; even the smaller ones, launched from well-chosen positions, could ignite regional conflict.

Estimates of Breakout Capability The phrase breakout capability refers to the ability of the Iranian regime and military to produce a nuclear bomb once they have definitively decided to do so. The phrase breakout time refers to the period of time between such a decision and the completion of a usable bomb. If we assume what may be the worst-case scenario – that Iran decides, tomorrow, that it must have a nuclear weapon as soon as possible, and that it will optimize all of its production processes and facilities to ensure the fastest possible construction of such a weapon – then we may be looking at a breakout time of well under a year; it could take as little as four months for Iran to enrich enough uranium for one bomb. This estimate assumes, however, that Iran takes drastic action to mobilize facilities that are currently under international monitoring agreements or are otherwise ill-suited to weaponization – probably an unwise and unlikely choice in all but the most extreme circumstances.

Assuming more rational behavior,

“Iranian Ballistic Missile Program.” World of Defense. May 22, 2011.

then, the shortest estimates put Iran’s breakout timeframe at about a year.

There are, however, many moving parts to this puzzle, many technical and political factors that could influence the weaponization timetable in unpredictable ways. Policymakers’ choices could shorten or extend it: well-crafted sanctions could crimp the regime’s ability to spend on ambitious enrichment programs, while a badly timed military strike could bolster the position of Iran’s nuclear hardliners.

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Less formal efforts to slow weaponization could succeed, or they could backfire: Iran could find a way around international attempts to deny it the technology its programs require. Iran could take steps to secure its computer systems against the kinds of cybersabotage that have worked in the recent

past. Iran could claim a patch of moral high ground, or enjoy the reaffirmed loyalty of its embattled nuclear professionals, in response to successful or attempted assassinations of its scientists and technicians.

Our estimates could, of course, rely on incorrect assumptions about

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the skill of those scientists and technicians, who could be better or worse than we think they are and whose work could be more or less subject than we think it is to political influence and interference.

Domestic factors could further alter the timeframe: a resurgent popular protest movement, for example, would likely divert resources and attention from the country’s nuclear efforts. Key figures in a potential nuclear escalation could die, fall out of favor, or change their minds. An economic collapse could render extravagant military investment unsustainable in the short term and unimaginable in the medium and long terms.

Regional politics, too, could influence Iran’s calculations. Israeli aggression – some kind of attack on Iran, its people, or its nuclear facilities -- is the most obvious scenario, but there are others. The Arab Spring could change the balance of ideological forces in the Middle East in ways that would make a nuclear bomb more or less strategically valuable. Something could go very wrong in Afghanistan, Pakistan, or Iraq, necessitating a change in American military policy that could make Iran feel more or less secure in its regional position. The Gulf monarchies could even decide to

develop their own enrichment programs in an attempt to balance Iran’s.

The point is that even our best estimates aren’t really estimates at all: Iranian political society is too closed, our understanding of the country’s technical capabilities is too patchy, and there are too many uncertainties in the timeframe calculations for them to serve as reliable bases for the development of policy.

No one – not NATO, not Israel or the United States or Saudi Arabia or the U.N. Security Council or anyone else – can make Iran forget how to enrich uranium. Every country in the world has its own breakout timeframe, and the ultimate goal of nonproliferation efforts is essentially to extend that timeframe out beyond all of our own lifetimes. We can’t know what Iran plans on doing twenty years from now, or five years, or even six months from now – so we have to engage with the country today, to try to influence Iran’s strategic calculus and to try to shape its choices as we see them today.

Goals, Endgames & Consequences Any assessment of Iran’s breakout capability depends crucially on the nature of the hoped-for weapon and on the plans Iranian leaders have for that weapon.

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It’s one thing to assume, as in scenario described earlier, that Iran simply wants one bomb that it will keep on hand in order to intimidate its neighbors and enemies and backstop its regional strategic posture. Such a weapon, once developed, would likely be kept in a secure laboratory, in an inert but quickly usable state, close at hand in order to ensure the credibility and effectiveness of Iranian nuclear threats. This bomb would not, necessarily, ever be used, but it would be accessible in the short term and probably fairly dangerous in the long term.

It’s quite another thing to assume that Iran wants a usable weapon for a specific mission or for some concrete short-term military purpose.

This would imply a slightly different timetable, skewed by the desperation and single-mindedness that would have to drive Iran’s leaders toward a plan likely to result in massive retaliation and the outbreak of regional war.

Finally, we could assume that Iran has bigger plans even than the development or use of a single weapon. The country could hope to build the kind of diverse, multi-weapon arsenal that would maximize its deterrent credibility and permanently change the balance of power in the Middle East. The breakout timeframe

would be very long and could, in some ways, be harder to disrupt, as it would imply sustained financial investment and political focus in the medium and long terms. In this scenario, shortterm attempts to cut certain links in the nuclear supply chain would have little impact on the country’s broader plans and could actually accelerate development in other weaponization areas.

Most security and intelligence experts believe that the Iranian nuclear goal boils down minimally to a desire to reserve the ability to weaponize in response to some future threat.8 (Some analysts suggest, given the total absence of HEU from its stockpiles, that Iran’s intentions have been catastrophically misunderstood and that it has only peaceful uses in mind for its LEU and its medium-enriched U-235.

This is a possibility, but it seems unlikely given Iran’s choice to enrich in secret, its deliberate thwarting of IAEA safeguards, and its attempts to obtain nuclear material through various illicit channels.) The problem with this consensus, from a policy standpoint, is that it tells us very little about Iran’s timeframe, technical plans, or the probable responses of stakeholder countries. A stockpile of LEU, harmless in the short term and weaponizable only with difficulty, still grants NATO 23

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Iran at least a minimal long-term weaponization capability – could efforts to guarantee its supply of LEU be enough to satisfy the regime? The 20%-U-235 is more threatening, since it implies an enhanced ability to weaponize and a much greater degree of nuclear risk, but is itself not strategically dangerous; could Israel be persuaded to accept an Iran that enriches uranium to 20% purity under strict and verifiable safeguards, and would Iran ever be willing to agree to those safeguards?

A potential consequence of enrichment to any level would be the development of rival nuclear programs in neighboring countries, any of which could decide at any point that the risk represented by an unchallenged Iranian nuclear program is no longer strategically tolerable. Even before we have concrete evidence of Iranian weaponization, the logic of the regional security dilemmas could induce non-nuclear Middle Eastern regimes to explore enrichment, just in case.

If Iran does manage to weaponize, any plans for its containment could be significantly complicated by the likely development of rival weapons: Prince Turki al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia has said that his country “cannot live in a situation where Iran has nuclear weapons and we don’t. It’s as simple as that…if Iran develops a nuclear

weapon, that will be unacceptable to us and we will have to follow suit.”

Weaponization on any timetable would have dramatic ramifications for the global nonproliferation regime.

North Korea withdrew from the NPT before accelerating its development program; if Iran does not, then the treaty will be seen as effectively worthless. Iran could use its newly acquired technical expertise, and its newly manufactured resources, to aid wouldbe proliferators around the world, from renegade states to terrorist factions. There are further concerns that, even where there has been no deliberate transfer of information or materiel, those resources could be vulnerable to theft, diversion or misuse.

Options for Policymakers Engagement with the Iranian regime is a complicated proposition. The regime is opaque, multifaceted, internally conflicted, and unpredictable.

The idiosyncrasies of Iranian history and political culture dictate a certain confrontational mode of dealing with the West, a certain, fairly limited range of diplomatic responses, and a certain, fairly limited range of outcomes acceptable to the regime. Iran’s calculations of cost and benefit, its ideas of short-term and long-term gain, are unique in the world and make the NATO 24

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elaboration of effective coercive and persuasive policies a uniquely challenging diplomatic project. NATO benefits from a privileged position within the international community; the alliance’s military and diplomatic resources are enormous and its basic structural characteristics make it a natural forum for multilateral consultation and policy development.

Sanctions Sanctions are a favorite tool of policymakers who wish to turn to coercive measures but are wary of making or acting on overt threats. In the cases of would-be nuclear proliferators like Iran, sanctions have an additional benefit: they can materially impact the progress of nuclear enrichment programs by disrupting the flow of investment and of necessary technological inputs.

Sanctions are implemented at many levels and under many circumstances. Some types of sanctions are imposed at the national level: Country A may decide to pass a law forbidding its banks to do business with certain sensitive companies in Country B. Other sanctions are developed internationally for international application; many types of diplomatic sanctions fit into this category. NATO’s

particular value to a global sanctioning strategy rests on the alliance’s ability to facilitate coordination of national-level sanctions among its 28 members.

The easiest sanctions to implement are those that target problematic individuals, companies or organizations. Many Iranian politicians and business leaders own overseas assets that could be seized or frozen relatively easily; Iranian banks and large companies do much of their business in open global markets to which their access could be restricted; and the nuclear program itself depends on raw-material import flows that could be cut off or sharply curtailed. The country’s oil industry is a soft spot for the regime and would be a good sector to target: the IMF estimates that energy products will account for 78% of total Iranian exports this year.10 The members of the European Union, previously Iran’s sixth-largest partner in energy trade, plan to stop all imports of oil from the country beginning this July, but this embargo is contentious and could yet be strengthened or extended.

Diplomatic sanctions are another possibility. Relations with the United States are already exceptionally poor, and bilateral interaction fairly

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minimal, but relations with Russia, China, Syria and other prominent friends of the regime could be restricted and the country’s isolation deepened.

Financial and diplomatic sanctions have been the tools of choice for anti-proliferation policymakers in recent years, but there are less traditional options as well. It might be worthwhile to consider sanctions that target the country’s profitable shipping and transport sectors, as well as valuable basic industries like mining and commercial manufacturing.

Well-crafted sanctions are likely, in the short term, to have substantial nonproliferation value. They could impact enrichment directly, by starving the program of the raw inputs and technological resources it needs, and indirectly, by weakening the Iranian economy so that substantial nuclear investments become less and less sustainable. Their value in the longer term is less clear; if policymakers cast their net too wide, they could plunge families into poverty, destabilize the Iranian political situation, and contribute to a sense of siege upon which the regime could play in seeking its people’s trust.

According to the U.S. State Department, the goals of sanctions are:

“(1) to block the transfer of weapons, components, technology and dual-use items to Iran’s prohibited nuclear and missile programs; (2) to target select sectors of the Iranian economy relevant to its proliferation activities; and (3) to induce Iran to engage constructively, through discussions with the United States, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Russia in the ‘E3+3 process,’ to fulfill its nonproliferation obligations.”

Iran’s deputy oil minister, Ahmad Qalebani, acknowledged that domestic petroleum production is declining because of dwindling foreign investment due to the sanctions.

According to U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns, Iran may be losing as much as $60 billion annually in energy investment. The U.S. has employed a near-total economic embargo on Iran. But economic sanctions are merely a means, and the desired end—a positive change in Iran’s behavior and action with regard to its nuclear program—is not economic in nature; thus, the economic sanctions also have noneconomic effects that contribute to this end. Most notably, they have helped to delegitimize the presidency of Ahmadinejad; he has been summoned to explain his actions to parliament and there have been

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two rounds of protests in the last four years.

Sabotage Western intelligence agencies have long pursued strategies of technology denial and disruption as a way of thwarting proliferators’ ambitions.

The CIA has, in the past, introduced faulty centrifuge components into the Iranian supply chain and targeted the electrical grids that power the country’s enrichment and fuel-fabrication plants. In 2008, the United States and Israel took their sabotage efforts up a notch, infecting the computer systems at the Natanz plant with a predatory bit of computer code that shut down about 1,000 centrifuges by causing their rotors to spin out of control.11 The cybersabotage program was, at the time, highly classified, though Iran had its suspicions about Israel, and made them public. It is likely that the cyberdefenses of the plants at Natanz and Fordow have since been upgraded. NATO countries have access to some of the best software-design resources available, and computer attacks remain a relatively low-risk, high-impact way to slow Iran’s progress toward weaponization.

Another, slightly more difficult, form of sabotage involves the

assassination of Iranian nuclear professionals. Though these efforts have technically succeeded on at least four occasions in the recent past, they are not recommended – valuable senior officials are too well protected and the managers, engineers, and physicists below them are too easily replaced. In addition, this strategy raises a number of ethical and moral complications: many NATO members are unlikely to be particularly comfortable with acts of covert extrajudicial violence perpetrated on foreign soil, and the Iranian regime could attempt to claim the moral high ground in response to what some hardline security officials consider acts of war.

The line between effective sabotage efforts and dangerous acts of violent escalation turns out to be surprisingly fine – NATO has access to extensive covert resources, but it should be very careful in deciding how, and whether, to deploy them.

Like sanctions, sabotage can have a dramatically positive initial impact, but the picture becomes more muddled over time, making long-term nonproliferation value much harder to determine.

Espionage & Regime Change Western intelligence agencies are quite

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active in Iran – spies in the employ of the NATO countries gather valuable information on the regime’s political priorities and decision-making processes, work to encourage groups seeking to challenge the regime, and explore potential targets of scientific and industrial sabotage. NATO could choose to step up these efforts, or to orient them more precisely toward the country’s nuclear program. An advantage of a potential large-scale drive toward weaponization is that it would involve thousands of people, at various levels of Iran’s scientific, political and economic hierarchies, at a dozen different facilities around the country.

As the nuclear operation gets larger, it’s going to get leakier and harder to control, especially if the regime is materially, financially and politically weakened – by sanctions or by other kinds of international responses.

Regime change is a difficult proposition. Aside from the questions it raises about sovereignty and popular choice, it’s not necessarily an intuitive choice in the Iranian context. The Islamic Republic is a deep state, with substantial constituencies of support and a fierce self-protective instinct – if the regime’s basic goal is to cling to power at all costs, then efforts to uproot it could lead to some very

aggressive and highly undesirable behavior. Fomenting rebellion can be a nasty process; popular support for violence – even anti-regime violence -- cannot reliably be counted on. And many NATO countries are unlikely to support such a policy in the absence of a more obvious escalation of hostilities; the anti-Iran coalition is fragile enough already. This is not to say that the regime cannot effectively be weakened over the medium and long terms – in many ways, its grip on power looks unsustainably tenuous and its many failings look easy to exploit. Policymakers must determine how much of Iran’s bellicosity is linked to the inherent nature of its current government, and how far they’re willing to go to weaken that government.

Military Strikes In public and in private, openly and anonymously, Israeli policymakers are rather fond of threatening Iran. Israel considers Iran’s nuclear program a threat to its existence, and it isn’t hard to see why: Iranian leaders have publicly declared, on numerous occasions, that they do not and will not recognize Israel’s right to exist, and they have threatened violence against the Israeli state and its people. Though it is unlikely that Iran, having developed

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a nuclear weapon, will immediately deploy it against Israel, the existence of such a weapon represents, for Israeli military planners, an intolerably dramatic increase in the eventual risk that the country will be attacked.

There is fairly conclusive evidence that Israel’s 2007 strike on a Syrian research reactor effectively destroyed that country’s nascent nuclear program, and the Israeli military had a similar success in Iraq in 1981.

It’s easy to see why policymakers are tempted to execute a similar operation against Iran, and urgently, before the completion of the Fordow enrichment plant, deep underground, renders the heart of the Iranian nuclear program untouchable by all but the biggest bunker-busting American bombs.

The consequences of an Israeli strike are difficult to predict. The risk of substantial Iranian retaliation is not negligible – the country has a wide array of militarily useful missiles, as well as deep ties to dangerous proxy groups, and the design of its naval forces indicates a worrisome bent toward asymmetric strategies in the Persian Gulf and the Strait of Hormuz.

That said, it would not be in Iran’s interest to start a regional war – the United States might not be willing to bomb Iran’s reactors on Israel’s behalf,

but it certainly couldn’t ignore a largescale attack on a country to whose existence it is emotionally and formally committed and with whose military it enjoys a close and highly productive friendship of long standing.

If Iran is unlikely to retaliate with massive force against an Israeli attack, it is still going to have to find a way to save face with its own people.

One possible sequence of responses, outlined by the scholar Matthew Kroenig, involves stepped-up rocket attacks from Iranian proxies Hamas and Hezbollah, the deployment of a handful of the country’s larger missiles against Israeli population centers or nuclear facilities, and aggressive behavior by Iranian naval forces, up to and including an attempt to close the Strait of Hormuz to commercial shipping traffic.

Israel is not a member of NATO, but it has close relationships with all of the NATO countries, and the alliance’s policymakers have a good deal of leverage and influence in Jerusalem. An Israeli strike is one possible response – potentially catastrophic, potentially highly effective – to an escalating problem that intimately concerns both Israel and NATO; policymakers must decide whether the benefits of such a strike

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outweigh the costs.

Another, more remote, possibility is a strike by a NATO member, probably (but not necessarily) the United States. The U.S.’s cost-benefit analysis is, in some ways, more complicated than Israel’s – it involves different factors and leads to different conclusions. Before acting, the U.S. would need ironclad proof of Iran’s intention imminently to weaponize (whereas Israel has incentive to act on suspicion alone). It would need to decide that all nonviolent avenues of engagement have been completely exhausted, and that a strike would be the only effective option available to the international community. It would have to have secured the diplomatic support of NATO and UNSC members, many of whom would argue against such an attack in the strongest possible terms, before it chose to carry out an operation that could plunge one of the most volatile regions in the world into a complicated irregular war.

An American attack would probably be much larger than an Israeli one, and much harder for the Iranian regime to respond to with the relatively minimal reputation-preserving measures it would likely have planned in case of Israeli aggression.

Iran could encourage violence against U.S. interests and personnel throughout the Middle East, attempt to coordinate some sort of economically disastrous oil boycott against the U.S. and its allies, directly attack U.S. warships and military installations within the range of its missiles, and even plan to carry out retaliatory terrorist operations in the West.

The nonproliferation value of military strikes is difficult to determine – its calculation, after all, depends crucially on whether Iran is willing to tolerate short-term setbacks to its enrichment program. If it is willing, then a strike is likely to be, at best, minimally useful, and at worst, catastrophically counterproductive.

If Iran’s timeframe is shorter, then a strike may persuade it that the

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short-term cost of continuing to enrich outweighs benefits realizable only in the medium or long term. If Iran makes such a calculation, then it will put its nuclear program on hold.

Diplomatic Engagement Most of the international response to Iran’s nuclear misbehavior has come in the form of diplomatic censure and efforts to reach some sort of negotiated settlement. This course of action presents only minimal risk and could potentially yield an optimal outcome: a settlement that freezes Iran’s enrichment program while preserving a pattern of nonviolent engagement and a climate of cordial negotiation. It also relies almost entirely on the Iranian will to cooperate and on the so-called “soft power” of the countries at the table. Some analysts claim that the time for discussion is past; others, that we just have to find the right things to say to the ayatollah’s negotiators.

Ideally, policymakers can find a way of framing the situation for Iran so that it comes to see the benefit of cooperation and decides to make real concessions going forward. The failure of past attempts at engagement suggests that this is unlikely – but even if such a diplomatic breakthrough never materializes, negotiations still have

enormous value. They strengthen the anti-weaponization coalition and reinforce the value of nonproliferation as an international goal. They send a powerful message to the moderate, well-educated, and broadly pro-democratic Iranian population: your intransigent leaders are failing you and embarrassing you on the largest of stages.

They signal the Iranian opposition and the country’s future leaders that the international community is willing to talk if they are willing to listen, to deal fairly if they are willing to engage honestly, and to reaffirm Iran’s sovereignty and legitimate rights if they are willing to accept verifiable confidence-building measures.

An interesting diplomatic option to consider would be some kind of fuel exchange program, in which Iran is permitted to enrich its uranium ore to LEU, most of which it can then use in relatively safe civilian power plants like Bushehr. What it doesn’t use for power generation, Iran can give to a more trustworthy nuclear state for enrichment to the higher levels required for scientific research and isotope production, and then use for those purposes, in a chemically safer form, in its own reactors. In the 1990s, the United States designed, and Iran accepted, a similar program in

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response to the acceleration of construction efforts at the Bushehr site: Russia agreed to provide and retrieve the uranium fuel that would be used at the plant, meaning that Iran had no real need to develop any of the more ominous capabilities – such as mining, conversion, or enrichment – implicated in the other stages of the nuclear fuel cycle.15 In the current context, such a sweeping deal may be unlikely, but fuel exchange could offer a way of restoring and building confidence by providing for the temporary removal and permanent reprocessing of the 20%-U-235 that has elicited so much concern among Iran’s negotiating partners.

Any good and workable settlement would probably have to combine “carrots” and “sticks.” The sticks are the easy part – the international community has a wide array of smart sanctions at its disposal, which it could use in combination or in sequence to tilt Iran’s national-interest calculations toward the desired outcome. The carrots are a little less obvious. Some of the more onerous, less effective sanctions could be changed or lifted, in consultation with Iranian negotiators.

Friendlier diplomatic exchanges could take place. NATO members could offer trade concessions, scientific

assistance, humanitarian aid, and formal guarantees in treaty law of Iran’s rights as a sovereign nation, all in exchange for meaningful cooperation on fuel exchange and IAEA safeguards.

Opinion polls in Iran are unreliable but do suggest that the country’s people want nuclear power, not nuclear weapons, and that popular opinion has proven somewhat resistant to the regime’s attempts to link enrichment rights to the Iranian sovereign identity. Ayatollah Khamenei himself has criticized nuclear weapons as barbaric and un-Islamic, amoral tools of dirty warfare that make no distinction between soldiers and civilians. He could be lying, of course, but it’s an odd lie for the ayatollah to tell his people if he plans imminently to weaponize or to use any weapon he might create.

Regardless of the motivation behind it, the presence of such an idea in the Iranian political discourse is encouraging. The fluid, complicated domestic context – especially after the pro-democracy demonstrations of 2009 and especially in the context of the deepening rift between Khamenei and his chosen president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – could actually help to move negotiations forward.16 There are hardliners in the regime, but we don’t have to talk to them.

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NATO includes some of the most powerful countries in the world. We can talk to the Iranian people, we can talk to the decision-makers who might listen, and we can work to widen and strengthen the global coalition for nonproliferation.

Saeed Jalili Iran’s Chief Negotiator. Reuters

Bloc Positions The United States considers Iranian weaponization a threat to its vital national interest, and the possibility of such weaponization, a source of instability, uncertainty and violence in a region that already has plenty of all three. The country has taken the lead in all recent efforts to negotiate with the regime and has played a substantial role in the development and implementation of technology denial, sanctions, and covert sabotage programs.

American leaders have committed themselves publicly, on multiple occasions, to the assistance of Israel and to its protection from Iranian nuclear threat. Effectively, this has made the United States the most hardline of the major NATO negotiating powers; it has loudly ruled out, at every opportunity, the possibility of containing a nuclear Iran – which means that at some point it will have to act against an Iran engaged in nuclear enrichment. What remain to be seen are the dimensions that action will take.

The United States has vulnerabilities in the Middle East that many of its NATO coalition partners lack. It has bases and personnel scattered across the region, in easy reach of Iran’s missiles and proxies. While other NATO members have substantially contributed to the military effort in Afghanistan, their interests in the country and in its stability are much less significant.

The U.S. is also enormously concerned about the stability of the global oil supply. It has good relations with many of the other major oil producers and hopes to persuade them to compensate in the event of disruptions or price spikes.

The European Union embraces a general community of interests and

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shared priorities with regard to the Iranian question, but some divisions do exist. The countries at the Union’s core – especially France and Germany, which plan to participate in the coming round of negotiations as members of the P5+1 – generally favor a pragmatic, incremental diplomatic approach that reaffirms the validity of the nonproliferation norm.

They tend to question the wisdom and the legitimacy of violent, non-diplomatic methods, and the linkage of their interests with Israel’s is much less explicit than the connections the United States has made. Their time horizons are probably a bit longer, and their view of the Iranian problem probably a bit more distant and broadly strategic. They are more dependent than the United States on the importation of Iranian oil, but these are rich countries, committed to the sanctions regimes they’ve helped devise, and they’re willing to buy from other sources.

The United Kingdom, on the other hand, has a particularly close military relationship with the United States. In some ways, the U.S. may have more leverage over Britain than it has over France, and it may pull the U.K. farther in the direction of its own shorter timetable and narrower range of options.

The peripheral EU countries are much less involved in the international effort to halt Iran’s enrichment program.

They are also much more heavily dependent than the core countries on Iranian oil exports, and on gas supplies from staunchly non-interventionist Russia. They will go along with the broader EU efforts, but their economies are weaker and they are likely to seek waivers from some of the more draconian measures.

Turkey has been hoping to play a more active role in Iranian nuclear negotiations, most usefully as a sort of bridge between Iran and the West.

It’s not a particularly powerful NATO member, but it does plan to host the first round of talks in Istanbul this April.

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Questions to Consider Keep in mind these questions: • To what extent are individual members of the international community willing to tolerate the basic uncertainties regarding the Iranian decision to weaponize? Is it necessary to assume that Iran’s intentions are malign, that it plans to take the most dangerously offensive posture possible, or are there other, less extreme, ways of conceptualizing the threat?

• What are the ultimate goals of diplomatic engagement with Iran on the nuclear issue? How can negotiators move past the sticking points that ended past discussions? Is the international community asking the wrong questions? How can we reframe our diplomatic objectives? Is there any common ground to be found, and how can we build on it?

• To what extent is it necessary to achieve universal or near-universal international consensus on the way forward in Iran? Which nations could act as spoilers? Why would they do so and what could be done to secure their cooperation? What would be the shape of a potential anti-nuclear coalition, and how would the differences among its members be managed? Should we worry about the differences between individual national conceptions of sovereignty and state power? To what extent are nations willing to go to bat for these ideals, and how will that willingness influence the course of negotiations?

• What would be the potential impact of sanctions on the Iranian people and on the people of the region more generally? How could members of the regime act to subvert sanctions imposed on them individually, and how could the international community further limit their options for evasion? Should sanctions be broadbased or narrowly targeted? Which are likely to be more effective in the short term?

The long term? How long would sanctions continue, and under what circumstances would they be lifted?

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• Is there scope for technical engagement with Iran’s scientists and engineers? How independent are these individuals likely to be, and how empowered to participate in the development of nuclear policy? Is talking to scientists a better strategy than talking to politicians? What is the role of the International Atomic Energy Agency in bringing Iran’s nuclear professionals to the table? How can the Agency’s resources best be leveraged to influence Iran’s behavior?

• How should NATO talk to Israel? Must all of Israel’s concerns be acknowledged or is there room for differences between NATO’s position and Israel’s? Are there ways of engaging politically with Israeli leaders to coordinate the use of particular kinds of rhetoric and the release of particular kinds of information? What are Israel’s strike capabilities, under what circumstances is the country likely to make use of them, and how can NATO make sure it participates in the discussion of strike options?

• What are the best ways of engaging with an explicitly anti-colonialist and theocratic regime? How close is the connection between the regime and the nuclear program? If the connection is close, what is the value of each of the regime change options discussed above? Is there sufficient international support to sustain a policy implicitly or explicitly geared toward regime change, and if not, how can we go about shoring up that support? If we can’t negotiate with the regime, who else in Iran would we prefer to talk to?

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Suggestions for Further Reading Iran’s Nuclear Program: Iran: The Nuclear Challenge. By Ray Takeyh et al. (Council on Foreign Relations, 91 pp.) A series of excellent, plain-English summaries of some of the major elements of the international response to the weaponization problem. The sections on regime change, containment, and military strikes are particularly worth reading.

The Age of Deception: Nuclear Diplomacy in Treacherous Times. By Mohamed ElBaradei. (Bloomsbury, 352 pp.) A former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency discusses his work in the Islamic Republic and elsewhere.

A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran. By Trita Parsi. (Yale University Press, 304 pp.) An exploration of recent twists and turns in one of the world’s most crucial bilateral relationships.

The Twilight War: The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran. By David Crist. (Penguin, 656 pp.) A deeper, wider-angle discussion of the U.S.-Iranian relationship, with a focus on the events of the late twentieth century.

Confront and Conceal: Obama’s Secret Wars and Surprising Use of American Power. By David Sanger. (Crown, 496 pp.) The most complete discussion currently available of the design and execution of the largest cybersabotage program ever directed against the Iranian nuclear program.

Recommended Articles from The Economist:

• “Dollar Power.” June 21, 2012.

• “Sticks Now, Carrots Later.” May 29, 2012.

• “Bombs and Truth.” May 17, 2012.

• “Ever-Resilient But Maybe More Malleable.” May 3, 2012.

• “Nuclear Angst.” March 26, 2012.

• “For Such a Time As This.” March 8, 2012.

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• “Wink or Blink.” March 8, 2012.

• “Smart Concrete.” March 3, 2012.

• “Tough Talk, No Strategy.” March 3, 2012.

• “Threats of Aggression Are the New Deterrence.” February 28, 2012.

• “Stalled.” February 23, 2012.

• “Bombing Iran.” February 23, 2012.

• “From Half-Hearted to Harsh.” February 23, 2012.

• “Cloud Computing.” February 23, 2012.

• “Up in the Air.” February 23, 2012.

• “Closer to Takeoff.” February 9, 2012.

• “Having It Both Ways.” January 26, 2012.

Recommended Articles from Foreign Affairs:

• “How to Engage Iran.” By Hossein Mousavian. February 9, 2012.

• “Why Obama Should Take Out Iran’s Nuclear Program.” By Eric S. Edel man et. al. November 9, 2011.

• “Iran and Saudi Arabia Square Off.” By Mohsen M. Milani. October 11, 2011.

• “Exposing the Nutrients.” By Emmanuele Ottolenghi. October 19, 2010.

• “The Root of all Fears.” By Ariel Ilan Roth. November 24, 2009.

Iranian History, Culture, and Domestic Politics: A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind. By Michael Axworthy. (Basic Books, 341 pp.) Deep background (stretching all the way back to the Achaemenids) on the extraordinary political and historical context unique to Iran. Axworthy advances a number of interesting and highly relevant theories regarding Iranian ideas of empire, exceptionalism, autocracy, and rebellion.

All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror. By Stephen Kinzer. (John Wiley & Sons, 288 pp.) Details the 1953 CIA conspiracy

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to overthrow Muhammad Mossadegh. Meant to safeguard U.S. interests in the country, the results were disastrous and have shaped U.S.-Iranian relations ever since.

The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge. By Hooman Majd. (Norton, 282 pp.) A clever, snappily written introduction to Iranian domestic politics, during the Green Revolution and after.

Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran – A Journey Behind the Headlines. By Scott Peterson. (Simon and Schuster, 752 pp.) An American journalist reflects on Iran’s revolutions and describes his travels in the country.

The Iran Primer: Power, Politics, and U.S. Policy. Edited by Robin Wright. (U.S. Institute of Peace Press, 300 pp.) A collection of fifty brief articles on Iranian foreign policy and on the recent history of negotiations with the country – additional references include post-1979 timelines and lists of major political figures.

The Shia Revival: How Conflicts Within Islam Will Shape the Future. By Vali Nasr. (Norton, 304 pp.) An exploration of the theological and philosophical roots of the modern Iranian state. The writer draws additional material from the experiences of Shi’a peoples and nations throughout the Middle East.

Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. By Peter Chelkowski and Hamid Dabashi. (New York University, 230 pp.) An exposé on the propaganda techniques of the 1979 Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War, such as postage stamps, agitprop plays, and political posters.

Recommended Articles from The Economist:

• “What Happened?” June 21, 2012.

• “The Sword and the Word.” May 10, 2012.

• “Same Old Sneers.” May 3, 2012.

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• “Non-Nuclear Families.” April 19, 2012.

• “Keeping It to Themselves.” March 29, 2012.

• “A Sad Old City.” January 19, 2012.

Recommended Articles from Foreign Affairs:

• “The Struggle to Succeed Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani.” By Paul McGeough.

May 23, 2012.

• “Sanctions Are Only a Stop-Gap.” By Patrick Clawson.

• “The Case for Regime Change in Iran.” By Jamie M. Fly and Gary Schmitt.

January 17, 2012.

• “The European Union’s Counterproductive Iran Sanctions.” By Rory Miller.

February 23, 2012.

• “Time To Attack Iran.” By Matthew Kroenig. January/February 2012.

• “Al Qaeda in Iran.” By Seth G. Jones. January 29, 2012.

• “Obama’s Counterproductive Iran Sanctions.” By Suzanne Maloney. January

5, 2012.

• “Why Obama Should Highlight Iran’s Human Rights Abuses.” By Sarah

Morgan and Andrew Apostolou. November 7, 2011.

• “The War Over Containing Iran.” By Dima Adamsky et al. March/April 2011.

• “The Dangers of a Nuclear Iran.” By Eric S. Edelman et al. January/February 2011.

• “How Iran Keeps Assad in Power in Syria.” By Geneive Abdo. August 25, 2011.

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Topic II: Syria on Fire Topic History Post Independence Syria gained independence from France in 1946 and experienced a series of military governments that were very short-lived. During this time, the Syrian leadership—Sunni and upper class—inherited most of the political power. This was partially because they had more privileged access to education along with the fact that they gained political and administrative experience during the process of organizing against the French before the revolution. They also were able to secure power due to their wealth from land ownership. They were therefore in the best position to pursue clientelistic state capture and redistribute goods to patrons in exchange for support.

The policy during this time was defined by the fact that the leading class was comprised of Sunni, secular

land owners. There were, however, oppositional groups. One was led by Shukri Al Quwatli and the other by Hisham al Atasi. Syria experienced three military coupes from 1946-1955.

By 1955, Shukri al Quwatli was able to regain power and reinstate himself as president, and along with it any form of democracy was killed.

Two of the major parties that tried to unseat the Sunnis in power were the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and, more importantly, the Ba’ath party. The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood was an offspring of the original Muslim Brotherhood founded in Egypt. The Ba’ath (renaissance) Party was established by two schoolteachers – Salah al Din al Bitar and Michel Aflaq. Ba’athism promoted a form of Pan Arabism. This gave precedence to being Arab rather than being Muslim. A common history, a common language, and a territorial affiliation to the Middle East united the Ba’ath party. Ba’athism also had a clear aim of creating an Arab state – it viewed the division of Arab nations as a European plot to prevent them from uniting together and regaining historical predominance. Ba’athism promoted anti imperialism and social equality.

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Eventually, in 1963, the Ba’ath party took control and Amin al-Hafez became president. Then in 1966, there was an internal coup against the Ba’ath leadership, which overthrew Amin al Hafez and led to the arrest of Salah al Din al Bitar amd Nichel Aflaq. Hafez al-Assad became the minister of defense.

In 1967, Israel launched a preemptive attack on Syria, Jordan, and Egypt, expecting an attack by the three countries. In this war, known as the Six Day War, Syria lost the Golan Heights to Israel.

backing off during the war, an event that earned Egypt’s president, Anwar Sadat, resentment from Hafez al Assad. The war, however, led to the elevation of Assad’s position within Syria. This was the first time that the Arabs were able to inflict severe losses on Israel. It was deemed a military defeat but Assad became in fact stronger because of it. Syria signed a disengagement agreement in 1974 and then set out to gain some sort of strategic equality with Israel.

Hafez al Assad Hafez al Assad became president in 1970 after overthrowing the former president, Nur al-Din al-Atasi, and imprisoning Salah Jadid, the chief of staff of the armed forces. He then passed a law that no longer required the president to be Muslim, which lead to a series of protests. These protests were brutally crushed by the army, beginning a trend that lasted until the present day. Assad’s army was built with Soviet aid.

Egypt and Syria once again went to war with Israel in 1973, and Syria was unable to retake the Golan Heights. This is partially due to Egypt

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The Islamic Revolution in Iran saw a stirring of many Muslim movements within Syria, particularly the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood. These groups led several protests and riots in Aleppo, Homs, and Hama. Assad tried to compensate, and he overplayed his commitment to Islam in order to appease some of these groups. Yet this did not stop him from ruthlessly crushing any protests against his regime. In 1982, Assad completely dismantled a protest organized by the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama, leading to 20,000 casualties of his own citizens and the partial destruction of the city.

Relations with Iran were then complicated as Assad decided to support Iran in the Iran-Iraq war simply because of the rivalry between the Ba’ath party of Syria and the Ba’ath party of Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein.

This rivalry also played a large part of foreign policy during the Persian Gulf War when Assad decided to assist the US-led alliance against Iraq, bettering relations with Western governments.

In 1998, Assad cultivated closer ties with Iraq due to Israel’s growing partnership with Turkey. Assad created a form of mutual deterrence with Israel and made it explicitly clear that any action against Syria would result in a

severe counterattack.

Syria and Bashar al-Assad Understanding the Syrian uprising requires knowledge of the country’s diverse demographics. Along religious lines, Syria is 74% Sunni Muslim, 15% Shia Muslim, 7% Christian and 4% Druze. A sub-division of the Shia, the Alawites, tend to dominate the highest echelons of the political and military spheres (President Assad, his regime, and top brass are Alawites.) Economically, there is a great divide between a growing upper-middle class and a super-rich class, with rural pockets of immense poverty resulting from Assad’s economic liberalization. Demographically, Syria is especially bottom heavy: 49% of its population is 20 years or younger.

The persistent theme of political repression, in addition to national diversity, adds to the understanding of the recent uprising. For forty years, Syria has lived under an Assad regime. When Bashar al-Assad came to power in 2000, he ushered in an era of economic liberalization and quickly received the backing of business leaders. But freer markets did not translate into political freedom.

The president maintained his father’s political repressiveness such that his changes to Syria were superficial at best – Syria remained a police state. “Assad had, NATO 43

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with rhetoric alone, convinced so many people from outside Syria that he would carry out substantive reform, when the fact is that the structure of his regime internally makes reform quite difficult,” notes Michael Reynolds, a professor of Near East Studies at Princeton.

In 2000, Hafez Al Assad died and was succeeded by his son, Bashar al Assad. Bashar was not meant to succeed his father, but was forced to do so when Bashar’s older brother, Basil, died in a car accident. Bashar’s succession led to the reforming of the Muslim Brotherhood in 2001. Bashar continued the staunch anti protest policy of his father, detaining many pro reform activists and arresting any who showed opposition.

Syria and Turkey Relations with Turkey improved for a few years, beginning with Bashar’s visit to Turkey in 2004, marking him as the first Syrian president to ever do so.

These relations deteriorated with the uprisings in 2011. Turkey’s role will be particularly critical to Syria’s future considering their long, contentious history. As Professor Reynolds notes, “Decades of hostility between Turkey and Syria have revolved around three pivotal issues: territorial disputes over

the Hatay Province, water rights, and Syrian support for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, the PKK.” Such tension nearly escalated into war in 1998, when Turkey threatened to invade Syria for harboring the leader of the PKK, Abdullah Ocalan.

When the AKP (center-right the Justice and Development Party) ascended to power in Turkey in 2002, though, relations changed 180 degrees. With Assad’s visit to Turkey in 2004 and Turkey’s implementation of the “Zero Problems with Neighbors” policy, cordial relations approached their strongest level ever.

Unprecedented cooperation became a reality as Syria and Turkey initiated visa-free travel, cooperated on trade relations, and introduced the 2009 Strategic Cooperation Council. Turkish Prime Minister Davutoglu even emphasized that the two nations shared a common culture, a common past and a common future. Suddenly, a new power bloc appeared to be in the making with Turkish-Syrian relations as the centerpiece.

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But declining relations were as precipitous as their improvement. At the start of the recent protests, the Turkish government began to withdraw support from Assad to maintain its populist image. Now Turkish leaders are only meeting with opposition representatives.

Still, Turkey is placed in a precarious position. It must balance both internal stability and pan-Arab relations, which will constrain its support for the Syrian opposition. Of utmost importance for Turkey is preventing another PKK outpost, yet taking swift action could threaten domestic stability by igniting a Sunni-Shia rift.

Turkey must also consider the Iranian reaction; the Iran-Turkey relationship has been historically fragile and experts have long speculated the possibility of a falling out between Turkey and Iran over Syria. However, the evidence points against a Syrian rift causing a break in their relations.

Turkey needs Iranian cooperation in their fight against the PKK, particularly PJAK (The Party of Free Life of Kurdistan), the Iranian arm.

Syria and the United States Syria’s relationship with the United States deteriorated quickly due to Syria’s foreign policy behavior. In 2002,

Syria was included in the President George W. Bush’s “Axis of Evil.” Tensions exacerbated as Syria denied the US’s allegations that it was building chemical weapons and helping fugitive Iraqis while also allowing militants into Iraq. The US imposed economic sanctions on Syria for allegedly supporting terrorism in 2004. Tensions with the US increased even further after the killing of the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The UN led an investigation and implicated Syrian involvement in the death. Syria eventually withdrew from Lebanon in April of 2005. In 2006, even more conflicts between the US and Syria arose when four gunmen opened fire on the US embassy and attempted to detonate a car bomb.

Syria and the World From 2006 onwards, Syrian relations with the rest of the world seemed to be changing. In 2006, Iraq and Syria restored diplomatic relations, a previously unheard of feat. In 2007, the European Union restarted its diplomatic dialogue with Syria. Also in 2007, US House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi met with President Assad, which was then followed

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Syria, Walid Muallem.

Syrian relations with Israel deteriorated slightly after an Israeli strike against a site in Northern Syria that allegedly housed a nuclear reactor. The US accused North Korea of aiding the Syrians in the creation of this nuclear reactor.

In 2010, the US posted an ambassador to Syria after a five-year interruption. The US then renewed sanctions against Syria a few months later for allegedly supporting terrorist groups as well as seeking nuclear weapons.

In 2008, relations with the French improved as Bashar met with French President Nicolas Sarkozy. This event marked the end of the closing of dialogue between Syria and the West following the assassination of Rafik Hariri in Lebanon. Assad even met with the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman. This began diplomatic ties between the two countries. Syria and Iraq both recalled their envoys in 2009 over a conflict but restored their ties again in 2010.

Rise of the “Thowra� (Revolution) After decades of political repression, the Syrian pot has boiled over. There is not a defining moment that marks the point of no return. Rather, the events

in Syria over the past months have comprised a series of gradual yet chaotic shifts with no clear direction.

Syria has an uncertain future. What started as an eruption of fury, born from decades of tension, may drag into years of crippling civil war. One thing, however, is clear: a resolution will not come shortly, and it will not come cleanly.

While tumult and uncertainty characterize most of the nations embroiled in the Arab Spring, an all-consuming cesspool of violence may describe the situation in Syria. The Syrian uprising carries such a stigma because the regime has been largely successful. The military has remained loyal, the regime has managed to keep protestors divided and unarmed, and the nation is shrouded in a near media blackout.

Moreover, world powers like China and Russia continue to sustain the

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regime economically despite harsh Western sanctions.

While scores are murdered daily by an oppressive regime, the international community treats the uprising like a pawn in a political chess match; Syria demonstrates a collision of regional geopolitical and economic interests. As the international community continues their political game, millions of Syrians suffer from international inaction. The Syrian revolt illuminates the harsh reality that, in much of the world today, human rights are subservient to economic interests in practice. Unfortunately, change for the opposition may only come at the barrel of a gun.

The following provides a large-brushstroke overview of both decisive events and illuminating the cultural and the major moments in the Syrian uprising, highlighting geographic diversity of the uprising: March 2011 - Day of Rage in Southern City of Daraa. Several civilians are killed by security forces in this day of protest.

May 2011 – Government tanks roll into the cities of Daraa, Banyas, Homs and Damascus.

April 2011 – Assad ends emergency rule, but it does little to quell the growing protest movement.

July 2011 – A more defined opposition begins to form – primarily across the border in Istanbul – which forms the early workings of what is soon to become the Syrian National Council.

August 2011 – Western leaders, including president Barack Obama, call for Assad to step down.

October 2011 – Syrian National Council organizes and claims to have formed a unified front for the uprising.

October 2011 – Russia and China double-veto the resolution proposed in the Security Council.

November 2011 – The Arab League approves sanctions against Syria.

December 2011 – Death toll surpasses 5,000. The Syrian National Council refers to this number as the 5,000 martyrs.

December 2011 – Arab League observers arrive in Syria. Two bombs detonate outside government buildings

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in Damascus, killing 44. The regime accuses terrorists – the same who they claim are responsible for the unrest around the nation – while the rebels assert that the regime was responsible for these attacks.

January 2012 – The Arab League suspends its monitoring mission as a result of the violence.

February 2012 – Double veto in the UN Security Council. Homs is under intense government siege. The US closes its embassy. North American, European, and Arab officials recognize the Syrian National Council as the legitimate representative of citizens.

March 2012 – The Syrian army recaptures most of the northern rebel stronghold of Idlib. UN Envoy Kofi Annan plans a negotiated end to the conflict that is supported by Syria and China.

April 2012 – Syrian military forces were supposed to withdraw from villages and towns, but there is no progress.

May 2012 – 108 people are killed in the Houla Massacre, most of them “summarily executed” by the pro-government Shahiba.

June 2012 – The UN suspends its observer mission. Dozens of military personnel defect to Turkey overnight.

July 2012 – The head of the Arab League called for the fragmented Syrian opposition to unite. The International Committee of the Red Cross now considers the conflict a civil war.

Syria threatens to use chemical and biological weapons in the case of a foreign attack.

August 2012 – Kofi Annan resigns as Special Envoy, citing the Syrian government’s intransigence, the growing militancy of the rebels, and the divided Security Council. Prime Minister Riad Hijab defects.

October 2012 – Turkey’s parliament authorizes military operations against Syria after Syria killed five civilians in a Turkish border town.

November 2012 – 11,000 Syrian flee in 24 hours. Israeli tanks strike a Syrian artillery launcher after a stray morter shell flew into Israel.

December 2012 – Barack Obama labels a rebel group with alleged ties to al Qaeda a terrorist organization. Russia’s foreign minister says Syria’s president

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has no intention of stepping down and can’t be persuaded to do so.

January 2013 – Syrian rebels free 48 Iranians held captive since August in exchange for the release of more than 2,000 detainees in the first major prisoner swap of the civil war.

Current Situation The conflict has been escalating for the past two years with the Assad regime becoming increasingly confrontational against the rebels after offering a series of concessions on political issues. The changing of the constitution and granting concession to Sunnis were steps in the right direction that were followed immediately afterwards by heavy-handed repression. Heavy weaponry is being used in civilian areas, and the government is accused of using disproportionate force to bring defecting regions under

its control. Criticism from western governments of the Assad regime has been steadily growing while both Russia and China are still backing the Syrian regime and refuse to allow any resolution authorizing action from going forward in the Security Council.

The figure below shows the situation on the ground with the respective positions of the two fighting forces as of February 2012. The green dots show the cities controlled by the pro-Assad forces, brown dots show the cities controlled by the rebels and the blue dots show the contested areas.

We will look at the main military actors of the current conflict on the ground.

Syrian Armed Forces

The Syrian armed forces have been heavily segregated by ethnic affiliations for a long time and the president is the commander in chief. Most

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of the senior positions and commanding officers have come overwhelmingly from the Alawite clan while most of the junior fighters are Sunni. Out of 200,000 caareer soliders, 140,000 are Alawite even though Alawites comprise just 12% of the general population. The elite forces are almost exclusively Alawite. This ensures that the army is closely allied with Alawite causes. From the start of the uprising, the army had been hit hard by defections of Sunni soldiers with many fleeing to Turkey where the leadership of the Free Syrian Army is based.

The main supplier of the Syrian army was the USSR in the past and Russia today. Russia currently supplies Syria with $162 million in annual arms sales, $550 million for combat training jets, and $4 billion in defense contracts. Russia also maintains a naval base in the Tartus, which is its only naval presence in the Middle East.

China as well has served as a major impediment with regards to an international attempt to pacify the situation in Syria. China is currently Syria’s second largest importer with over $2.2 billion in annual imports. Lately, Iran and North Korea have also become significant suppliers of military equipment for the Syrian Armed Forces.

General Security Directorate The General Security Directorate (GSD) is under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior and is responsible for suppressing internal dissent.

It is presently headed by the Sunni Ali Mamluk and is divided into three areas consisting of Internal Security, External Security and Palestinian Affairs Division. The Internal Security Division monitors the population while the External Security Division focuses on external threats and the Palestinian division focuses on the activities of Palestinian groups in Syria.

Expectedly, the GSD has come under heavy criticism from western countries for human rights abuses that it has committed while trying to quell protests around the country.

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Political Security Directorate Also currently headed by a Sunni, Deeb Zaitoun, this agency is primarily responsible for intelligence work and running the detention centers in the country. It is one of Assad’s primary tools for the control and suppression of the media and monitoring political activities around the country. It has also been criticized by western countries for violations of human rights.

Shabiha These refer to armed groups, which operate with impunity in the country and are loyal to Bashar Al-Assad and his Alawite sect. Established by his cousin, they have gone on to occupy a prominent role in the uprising by functioning as Assad’s primary weapon of suppressing dissent apart from the armed forces.

The Shabiha have often operated like thugs throughout the country and have become a nuisance for more

than one government in the past.

Starting as smuggling gangs, The Shabiha often got out of control of the official government. Hafez Al-Assad instructed his son, Basil Assad to bring them under control. After that, Bashar Al-Assad also had to contend with these groups and he seemed to have gotten rid of them before the start of the civil war.

In the present war, the Shabiha have been accused of mass atrocities with complicit approval of the government. From observations on the ground, it has been concluded that after villages are shelled, the shabiha move into villages to carry out a campaign of ethnic cleansing. They’ve also been accused of systematic rape and pillaging from Sunni neighborhoods.

The main finger has been pointed at powerful Alawite businessmen and government officials who seem to be paying Shabiha fighters to carry out the repression of the Syrian people.

The numerical strength of the Shabiha is estimated to be anywhere between 10,000-20,000 members.

Free Syrian Army With an estimated 40,000 fighters, the Free Syrian Army is the main opposing group to the government forces.

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unarmed protestors and were summarily executed by the government.

Formed by deserters from the Syrian Army on July 29th, 2011 and headed

by Colonel Riad Al-Asaad, the Free Syrian Army has been increasing in its strength due to the continuous defection of soldiers from the Syrian Army.

Much of the leadership of the Free Syrian army is now based in the Hatay Province of Turkey and Riad has asserted that the only goal of the group is the removal of Bashar Al-Assad.

One of the major challenges facing the Free Syrian army is that it is severely under resourced compared to the Syrian Army and does not have the ability to occupy and hold cities for long against their much better armed opponents. The FSA is the official armed wing of the opposition movement and is now being given considerable support in terms of tactical and logistical advice from western governments. It strategy has mainly been hitand-run attacks on the Army because of its technological inferiority.

Syrian Liberation Army Mainly based in the Idlib province, the Syrian Liberation Army is an insurgent group that has been fighting the Assad regime in Idlib. It is severely constrained by resources but has been

fighting valiantly against the Assad regime. Due to the lack of resources, the Syrian Liberation army has relied mainly on using roadside bombings to counter the stronger Syrian Army.

Liwaa Al-Umma Formed by an Irish-Libya, Mahdi Al-Harati, the Liwaa Al-Umma (Banner of the Nation) is a much smaller force than either the Free Syrian Army or the Syrian Liberation Army with approximately 6000 members. Its main contribution to the war is the foreign military expertise that it brings with its foreign membership. The force comprises ex-members of the Tripoli Brigade which was trained by Qatari Special Forces during the Libyan revolution.

Iran Iran has refused to budge from its position supporting the Assad regime

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and has been providing it with weapons and logistical support over the past few years. The support is mainly thought to be due to the sectarian split in the Middle East with an aggressive power contest between Sunni and Shiite factions. Evidence of that can also be seen in the Bahrain protests, which were ruthlessly crushed by foreign intervention by the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is a collective of Sunni monarchs in the Middle East.

Syria is in the unique position of being predominantly Sunni country that is ruled by Shiites. The Alawite clan has had uncontested control of the country for more than five decades and Iran has firmly backed the regime in this conflict while severely criticizing Arab countries in the earlier Bahraini episode. A similar response can be observed from the Sunni monarchs who have repeatedly called for the resignation of Bashar Al-Assad for human rights abuses while having fought alongside the Bahraini security apparatus against reformers over there.

Iranian citizens have been targeted by opposition groups with kidnappings all over the country as Iran ratcheted up its support for the Assad regime. The Revolutionary Guard has increased its technical and personnel support to the Syrian Army and the

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has denounced the movement as having an “American and Israeli” hand behind it.

Bloc Positions USA Under the Obama administration, the USA has consistently called for the removal of Bashar Al-Assad as the only sustainable solution to the crisis. “We have consistently said that President Assad must lead a democratic transition or get out of the way. He has not led. For the sake of the Syrian people, the time has come for President Assad to step aside,” Mr. Obama said on the 18th of August 2011. Administration officials have argued that the human rights abuses of the Syrian regime should not be tolerated by the international community and effective assistance should be provided to the rebels who are fighting government forces.

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President Obama has also placed severe sanctions on the government in Damascus by freezing all its assets in the US, banning any oil imports from Syria and prohibiting any American citizens from having any dealing with the government in Damascus with Executive Orders 13315, 13224, 13382, 13338, 13399, 13441, and 13460 which are administered by the US treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control. Syria has been placed on the list of states sponsoring terrorism and is ineligible to receive most forms of US aid and to purchase any US weaponry. This has diplomatically isolated the government of Bashar Al-Assad.

The US recalled Ambassador Robert Ford from his post in Damascus after rising concerns about his safety. The US embassy was repeatedly attacked by pro-Assad mobs and the government failed to protect embassy officials and diplomatic property. The Syrian chargé d’affaires was given 72 hours to leave after the Houla massacre on May 25, 2012 which was severely criticized by the administration.

The US has ratcheted up its support for revolutionary fighters and has been providing tactical support for the last few months. The Free Syrian Army, Syrian Liberation Army and the Liwaa Al-Umma have been receiving

assistance from several western governments to effectively distribute their weapons and plan their operations against the government. Latest administration statements on Syria indicate that President Obama seems to have escalated the support which the US has been providing to the revolutionaries through the CIA. The US has also indicated that the use of chemical weapons would cross a red line. So far, Bashar Al-Assad has remained insisted that he is not considering using chemical weapons.

European Union

The position of the European Union has closely mirrored that of the United States on the Syrian uprising. President Obama’s call for Bashar Al-Assad to step down on the 18th of August, 2011 was coordinated with a number of European countries. Angela Merkel of Germany, Mr. Francois Hollande (previously, Sarkozy) of France, and David Cameroon of Great Britain have presented a united front with the US on this issue and have repeatedly insisted that the time for Bashar Al-Assad to leave has come.

The European Union has also placed broad-based sanctions on the Bashar Al-Assad’s regime and economic activities with the latter have

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been severely curtailed. The EU has recognized and supports the Syrian National Council. A number of European countries, including France have cut diplomatic ties with Syria while the rest are discussing whether to take that extreme measure. Syria has preemptively started to withdraw its ambassadors from the Europe in anticipation of the expulsion.

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Questions to Consider Keep in mind these questions: • How do we balance the concerns regarding national sovereignty with the need to effectively combat human rights abuses around the world? How does NATO and its member countries respond to the frequent accusation by other developing countries that NATO is more interested in promoting the geo-political agenda of its member countries instead of protecting and promoting human rights around the world.

• When does the state cease to become the protector of its population and when is it appropriate for international institutions to consider an intervention? The Syrian conflict has led to considerable grey areas with regard to application of international humanitarian law on the ground. The progression of the conflict over the last few months has generally left people revisiting the role of the state and the international community in protecting the population of the country.

• When is it appropriate to characterize an armed conflict as a civil war? The recent declaration of the conflict as civil war comes with its own set of consequences with regards to international law. Countries must look into the process of evolving armed conflict and design appropriate responded.

• How do we decide on the paradigm for cooperation between international (UN) and regional (NATO) organizations when it comes to tackling a particular problem? Past test cases which have ended well have been defined by multilateralism while failed cases have been unilateral. Countries must seek greater cooperation between international institutions to effectively protect humanitarian law around the world.

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• How can NATO constructively engage with actors on the ground to bring an end to the conflict? Should NATO assist rebel groups on the ground despite the expectation of retaliation from opposing countries? If yes, then what form should this assistance take.

• How will the perception of NATO’s role in any possible action shape any possible retaliation by Syria’s allies? With the sensitive political climate and the divisive debate in the Security Council, any bold maneuvers by the group are likely to be countered by Syria’s allies. These must be taken into active consideration while designing policies.

• How do regional tensions such as the Sunni-Shiite divide shape the dynamics of the Syrian conflict? Middle Eastern politics must be discussed and its intricacies analyzed to find a more successful way of rescuing the people of Syria.

• What repercussions will the possible destabilization of Syria have on its neighboring countries, especially Turkey which is a NATO member? The destabilization of Syria is likely to have great repercussions for its neighbors including greater violence and a mass exodus of refugees. A solution must be found to assist Syrian refugees fleeing to other countries and assistance must be provided to countries where they are fleeing to enable them to cope with the heavy emigration.

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Suggestions for Further Reading Books The Decline of Arab Unity: The Rise and Fall of the United Arab Republic

by Elie Podeh Commanding Syria: Bashar al-Asad and the First Years in Power by Eyal Zisser Israel and Syria: The Military Balance and Prospects of War by Anthony Cordesman Minorities in the Middle East: A History of Struggle and Self Expression

by Mordechai Nisan Syria: The Fall of the House of Assad by David Lesch In the Lion’s Den: An Eyewitness Account of Washington’s Battle with Syria

by Andrew Tabler Online

• http://www.mashpedia.com/Syrian_civil_war

• http://www.un.org/apps/news/infocusRel.asp?infocusID=146&Body=Syr

ia&Body1=

• http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/index.htm

• http://www.policymic.com/articles/21336/syria-civil-war-why-the-fall-of assad-could-be-the-worst-possible-outcome

• http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg76271/pdf/CHRG 112shrg76271.pdf

• http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112hhrg74473/pdf/CHRG 112hhrg74473.pdf Video • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4CDQciS0kE

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Glossary • Atoms for Peace - a speech given by President Dwight Eisenhower of the U.S. to the U.N that emphasized peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Launched the Atoms for Peace program, under which the first nuclear reactors in Iran and Pakistan were built.

• Axis of Evil - a term initially used by U.S. President George Bush to describe governments that aid terrorism or seek weapons of mass destruction.

• Ayatollah - high ranking title given to clerics.

• Clergy - formal religious leadership.

• Breakout Time - the period of time in between the decision to produce a nuclear weapon and the actual completion of that weapon.

• Hamas - an offshoot of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas is based o0n the principles of Islamic Fundamentalism. Currently govern the Gaza Strip. Designated a terrorist organization by multiple countries.

• Hezbollah - militant and political party in Lebanon. Receives support from Iran and Syria.

• International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nucleAr energy and inhibit its use for any military purposes.

• Iranian Exceptionalism - negates the present world order and emphasizes the superiority of the Iranian civilization.

• Islamic Republic - a political institution that is divided between Islamic institutions and Republican institution

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• Iranian Revolution of 1979 - a civil resistance campaign overthrew Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavia of the Pahlavi Dynasty (who was supported by the US) and replaced him with Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, creating the Islamic republic.

• North Atlantic Treaty - the 1949 treaty that gave birth to NATO. • Persia - the name of “Iran” before 1935.

• Sanctions - penalties, often economic, imposed by one country on another country.

• Shia Islam - Followers of Mohammad’s son-in-law and cousin Ali, who they consider divinely appointed as the rightful successor to Mohammad and the first imam. Shias have a majority in Iran.

• Sunni Islam - largest branch of Islam. Believe that the first four caliphs rightfully took Mohammad’s place as the leader of the Muslims.

• Supreme Leader of Iran - highest ranking political and religious authority.

• Theocracy - a form of government in which a deity is officially recognized as the civil ruler. Official policy is guided by religious principles.

• White Revolution, The - a bloodless series of reforms in 1963 by the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

• Shia Islam - Followers of Mohammad’s son-in-law and cousin Ali, who they consider divinely appointed as the rightful successor to Mohammad and the first imam. Shias have a majority in Iran.

• Alawites - a mystical religious group, a type of Shia Islam, centered in Syria. Persecuted in Syria until 1970 when the Assad family came to power.

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• Ba’athism - an Arab nationalist ideology that promotes the creation of an Arab nation through the leadership of a vanguard party.

• Clientelism - exchange of goods and services between patron and client in exchange for political support.

• Free Syrian Army - the main armed opposition in Syria composed of defected Syrian Armed Forces personnel and volunteers.

• General Security Directorate - under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior. Is responsible for suppressing internal dissent.

• Liwaa Al-Umma - a paramilitary opposition group with foreign expertise. Now under control of the Free Syrian Army.

• Muslim Brotherhood of Syria - a dominant force in the opposition with moderate stated political positions.

• Police State - the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the population.

• Political Security Directorate - responsible for running detention centers.

• Shabiha - thuggish armed groups loyal to Bashar al-Assad • Six Days War - war in 1967 in which Israel launched preemptive strikes on Egypt and also fought Syria and Jordan. Israel won decisive land war within six days, taking control of the Gaza Strip, the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights.

• Syrian Armed Forces - military forces of Syria.

• Syrian Liberation Army - an armed insurgent group fighting in the Idlib province. Renamed the Idlib Martyrs’ Brigade in June of 2012.

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Structure of the Committee Delegates to NATO represent the interests of the alliance’s 28 member states on a number of political, scientific, and military committees. NATO’s diplomatic and defensive resources are substantial: the alliance embraces some of the wealthiest and most powerful countries in the world. It serves as a major forum for discussion, debate, and strategic coordination among nations with interests, embassies, and military bases across the globe. Though the organization was conceived and founded as a military alliance, under a treaty containing the classical elements of collective defense and technical military cooperation, the challenges of recent missions in Afghanistan and elsewhere have broadened NATO’s focus and engaged the members more deeply in questions of governance and political stability.

Though NATO has access to tens of thousands of soldiers, the alliance does not maintain a standing military force – the troop contributions required of individual member countries are determined in the context of specific missions. Statistics gathered during Operation Unified Protector (2011), which precipitated the downfall of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi in Libya, indicate that, of the eight NATO members participating directly in airstrikes on Libyan targets, France flew fully 33% of all sorties, the United States flew about 16%, the UK about 12%, and Denmark, Canada, Italy, and Norway flew 10% each.

Delegates to NATO have a number of tactical options with regard to the Syrian conflict and the Iranian nuclear challenge. In Syria, they could design and carry out a mission similar to the one described above – involving the imposition of a no-fly zone (which implies attacks on Syrian air forces) and/or airstrikes intended to destroy facilities valuable to the Assad regime; however, any NATO action need not mirror the operations executed in Libya. Similarly, In the context of the Iranian nuclear problem, delegates could act together to outline and impose sanctions to be applied by national governments across the 28-member bloc; however, delegates have a full portfolio in their response to these two situations and may act in any manner befitting the organization. They could even work to coordinate their actions in the U.N. and to shape an international consensus on the appropriate response to the Syrian and Iranian provocations.

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Structure of Debate Modified Parliamentary Procedure: We will use parliamentary procedure as a starting point, but expect a significant number of moderated and un-moderated caucuses. During the conference, we may make certain adjustments to regular parliamentary procedure in order to achieve better and fuller debate.

Goal The ultimate goal of this NATO simulation is to pass one resolution on each topic that the committee has chosen to address. Resolution writing in this committee will not deviate in any way from traditional resolution format. For more information regarding resolution writing, you will be able to consult the Delegate Guide during the conference.

In addition to writing resolutions, delegates will be able to write and pass communiqués, which announce a unilateral or collective position or action on any relevant issue. Communiqués effectively function as directives to a home government or to several governments; thus, they represent unilateral action on the part of an individual state, or multilateral action of a group of states that are part of NATO, as opposed to the NATO as a whole. Communiqués will not be written in resolution format, but in numbered paragraph form, with each paragraph outlining the specific position or action that a government or governments are taking. Given that all delegates in the simulation will represent every nation’s foreign minister, communiqués will certainly have an impact on the course of the simulation. We may also have other, NATO-specific actions delegates may undertake, which will be explained at the conference Voting Procedure Though NATO generally operates by consensus, for the sake of a smoother debate, we will make the requirement for substantive actions passed by this committee 2/3 of voting members, abstentions not included. This should be a realistic way of simulating events, because when those numbers of NATO members have agreed to action, the others can generally be pressured into agreement. All members will be required to vote on procedural matters, with no abstentions.

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Other Communication The NATO simulation will involve interaction with home governments and other international actors and institutions. All foreign ministers will have significant opportunity to seek specific information or feedback from their national governments. In addition, representatives from international institutions will be available to present reports and address the questions and needs of the committee.

Countries

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Notes

“Nuclear Weapons: Who Has What at a Glance.” Arms Control Association. August 2012. http://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/Nuclearweaponswhohaswhat

“Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.” United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs, 20 July 2012. http://www.un.org/disarmament/WMD/Nuclear/NPT.shtml

“Stages of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle.” Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 20 July 2012. http://www.nrc.gov/materials/fuel-cycle-fac/stages-fuel-cycle.html

Ray Takeyh. “Introduction: What Do We Know?” Iran: The Nuclear Challenge, edited by Robert Blackwill.

Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

“Annual Report on Military Power of Iran.” Department of Defense. via Ali Gharib, “Pentagon Report: Iran Military Posture Aimed At ‘Forcing A Diplomatic Solution to Hostilities.’” ThinkProgress.org, July 11, 2012. http://thinkprogress.org/security/2012/07/11/514813/pentagon-report-iran-force-diplomatic-solution/

Richard N. Haass. “Foreword.” Iran: The Nuclear Challenge, edited by Robert Blackwill. Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

Associated Press. “Prince Hints Saudi Arabia May Join Nuclear Arms Race.” The New York Times, December 6, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/07/world/middleeast/saudi-arabia-may-seek-nuclear-weapons-prince-says. html?_r=1

Andrew Torchia. “Analysis: Iran economy could limp along under sanctions.” Reuters, February 6, 2012. http:// www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/06/us-iran-sanctions-idUSTRE8150MH20120206

David Sanger. “Obama Order Sped Up Wave of Cyberattacks Against Iran.” The New York Times, June 1, 2012. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all

Matthew Kroenig. “Assessing Israel’s Military Option.” Iran: The Nuclear Challenge, edited by Robert Blackwill.

Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

Robert D. Blackwill. “A U.S. Attack on Iran.” Iran: The Nuclear Challenge. Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

Richard A. Falkenrath. “Prospects for a Negotiated Outcome.” Iran: The Nuclear Challenge, edited by Robert Blackwill. Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

Takeyh, ibid.

Elliott Abrams. “Regime Change.” Iran: The Nuclear Challenge, edited by Robert Blackwill. Council on Foreign Relations, 2011.

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