On December 3, 2007, the U.S. National Intelligence Council released a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), entitled “Iran: Nuclear Intentions and Capabilities.” The most significant conclusion of the unclassified publicly-released version of the document stated that the Council had determined “with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” and that the “halt lasted at least several years.” For purposes of this NIE, “nuclear weapons program” was carefully defined to include “Iran’s nuclear weapon design and weaponization work and covert uranium conversion-related and uranium-enrichment-related work,” but not Iran’s declared civil uranium enrichment activities. [1] The 2007 NIE represented a clear departure from the 2005 NIE, which that had assessed with “high confidence that Iran currently is determined to develop nuclear weapons.” [2] Internationally, the groundbreaking report had a wide-ranging impact, triggering extensive commentary from political circles in Tehran and other Middle Eastern states, as well as from China and Russia.

Iranian Response
While the NIE was universally hailed as a positive development in Iran, individual reactions tended to differ in slant and context along party lines, as Iranian officials sought to capitalize on the NIE for themselves, as well as for their respective factions. In general, all conservative factions, including both hard-liners and more moderate, traditional conservatives, celebrated the report, seeing it as vindication of Iran’s long-standing assertions that its nuclear program was focused exclusively on peaceful activities. Many also coupled the upbeat assessment with criticism of current U.S. policy toward Iran and calls for a reversal, complaining that Iran had been abused at the hands of the West. Traditional conservatives did, however, maintain a general distinction from the hard-liners associated with President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, insofar as the former took a pragmatic stance, focusing on the new development as offering prospects for improving Iran’s economic circumstances. For their part, reformists, comprising a third faction in Iranian politics, generally shared the widely held view that the NIE was a positive development. However, they sought to use the vindication it provided to tar the Iranian current government for engaging in a confrontation with the West that was unnecessary, since fully complying with the demands of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the crux of the dispute – would not have exposed improper activities.

Conservatives
Ahmadinejad himself vociferously hailed the report as a victory for the Iranian nation, all the while warning his audience to remain cautious and vigilant despite the apparent de-escalation of the ongoing confrontation with the West over Iran’s nuclear activities. Ahmadinejad argued that the NIE was merely a means for the United States to avoid a conflict with Iran at a time when U.S. forces were already engaged in military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Speaking on an Iranian television news program on December 5, he stated: “On its face, the report that they publicized yesterday is aimed at solving the American administration’s problem – to allow the American administration to get past and extricate itself from the problems and the impasse in which it is caught. In fact, however, it is a declaration of the victory of the Iranian nation in the nuclear affair in the face of all the world powers.” [3] Ahmadinejad continued this theme during a December 5 address in Ilam Province, in northwestern Iran, as part of his series of televised speeches in the various Iranian provinces. In that speech, he said that the report amounted to “the greatest victory in Iran’s history in this century.” [4] In the aftermath of the NIE’s release, Ahmadinejad also parlayed the vindication it offered into justification for a vast expansion of the Iranian nuclear program, including the construction of additional uranium enrichment facilities and an increase in the number of uranium enrichment centrifuges from the current 3,000 units to 50,000. [5]

Ahmadinejad’s rejoicing was echoed by his hard-line conservative brethren and affiliated media. These groups proclaimed Iran’s innocent intentions and said that the NIE vindicated Iran’s credibility; they also harshly criticized the United States and called for a shift in U.S. policy, if not an outright apology. Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham said that American claims about an Iranian nuclear weapons program were “mere lies,” and the United States should “pay the price” for its accusations. [6] He suggested that a public apology was in order, an opinion seconded by Elham Aminzadeh, a parliamentarian on the assembly’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, who thought an apology was appropriate since Washington’s accusations contributed to a state of “psychological warfare.” Also widespread in governmental and diplomatic circles were calls for the UN Security Council to remand the case of Iran’s nuclear program to the IAEA or even end consideration of the matter altogether. [7] In particular, Iran’s ambassador to France, Ali Ahani, called for Iran’s case to be withdrawn from the UN Security Council in light of the “peaceful nature” of Iran’s nuclear program, even going so far as to dismiss the NIE’s assertion that Iran had previously pursued a nuclear weapon program that was abandoned in 2003. [8]

Among the traditional, more moderate conservatives, Ali Larijani, a key aide to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i and former chief Iranian nuclear negotiator, was particularly vocal, touting the NIE as an opportunity to reduce tension between the United States and Iran. Implicitly highlighting his achievements as the former nuclear chief negotiator – perhaps with implied criticism of the hard-liners who forced him out – Larijani told the Islamic Republic News Agency on December 11, “We shall not take an extreme position. The nuclear issue is in a good position, and we can achieve some results.” [9] Larijani was joined by fellow moderate-leaning conservative Foreign Minister Manuchehr Mottaki in depicting the report as a vindication of the policy of “cooperation” with the IAEA followed by Larijani’s negotiating team. [10]

Also from this traditional conservative camp came a sharp critique of Ahmadinejad’s response to the NIE. On December 12, Ahmad Tavakkoli, a senior member of the Majlis (the Iranian parliment), sent an open letter to President Ahmadinejad, published in the reformist daily E’temad, citing Ahmadinejad’s reaction “expressing boundless joy” as one of “some incidents [that have] taken place in the foreign policy sphere where the role or reaction of the government or yourself […] deserves to be criticized and reviewed.” While acknowledging that the NIE is “to [Iran’s] benefit,” Tavakkoli openly castigated the president for his lack of appreciation of the subtleties of the situation, such as the disconcerting accusation that Iran had pursued a military, nuclear program until the fall of 2003, the flippancy he demonstrated by declaring the NIE Iran’s “greatest victory in the last century,” and his lack of consideration that such displays of unrestrained euphoria risk increasing the credibility of U.S. intelligence reports. [11]

Reformists
While the conservatives focused on Iran’s perceived gains from the NIE, the liberal opposition seized the opportunity to step up pressure on the ruling conservatives to adopt a less dogmatic and more pragmatic perspective. The E’temad published an article stating that the findings of the NIE are a prelude for significant future deals between Iran and the United States and that economic and diplomatic pressures would force Tehran to resort to dialogue in order to reach a solution to the nuclear standoff. [12] Moreover, in the week following the release of the NIE, Iran’s main reformist party called for a “broad moderate front” to contest the country’s March 2008 legislative elections. In a statement quoted by the Mehr news agency, the Islamic Iran Participation Front warned that, with the consequences of Ahmadinejad’s government being “two unprecedented UN Security Council resolutions against Iran,” the country risks “war and isolation” under his leadership and it was therefore “necessary” to form “a substantial front of reformers based on the interests and security of the country to avoid war and isolation.” [13]

Khamene’i
Supreme Leader Khamene’i, the ultimate authority on Iranian foreign policy – and consequently on nuclear issues – is commonly viewed as a traditional conservative without either strong or formal alignment. This was reflected in the striking silence on the NIE that he and the media associated with him initially maintained. It was noted that Khamene’i “chose not to take the opportunity to speak about the NIE” on December 5, “despite having the opportunity to do so” at a previously scheduled speech. [14] The conservative daily newspapers Keyhan and Resalat, connected to the clerics allied with Khamene’i, for example, did not publish editorials or commentaries on the NIE; instead the newspapers kept to factual content. [15] When Khamene’i did eventually speak, in early January, he remained noncommittal on the question of vindication. He avoided commenting on the NIE directly, instead stating that Iran should continue to produce nuclear energy to meet the growing demands for electricity over the next 20 years and thanking God that the United States had failed to thwart the civilian nuclear program. Moreover, he raised the prospect that he might support a resumption in relations between the United States and Iran someday, albeit not at the present time, because currently “it has no benefit for [the] Iranian nation.” [16]

Continuing Divisions in Tehran
The divergent responses to the NIE from the three principal factions in Iranian politics indicate that internal discord over Ahmadinejad’s hard-line approach to the nuclear issue continues in Tehran, a trend that has been building gradually during the president’s tenure. Nonetheless, it has been noted that, despite Ahmadinejad’s growing unpopularity for his failure to fix Iran’s significant economic woes, he has been consistently buoyed along by the “rally round the flag” effect induced by the threat of a war with the West and the tendency of the Iranian public to support the political status quo in such circumstances. [17]

This trend appeared to weaken in late December, when a sudden spike in inflation provoked “fierce criticism” of Ahmadinejad from across the political spectrum. One commentator noted that “now he is being challenged for his failure to meet those promises [to bring oil revenues to every family, eradicate poverty, improve living standards and tackle unemployment].” [18] In early January 2008, the widening rift between Ahmadinejad and Khamene’i became increasingly evident. [19] Saeed Leylaz, an economic and political analyst, noted: “Now that Iran is not under the threat of a military attack, all contradictions within the establishment are surfacing.” He continued, “The biggest mistake that Americans have constantly made toward Iran was adopting radical approaches, which provided the ground for radicals in the country to take control.” [20]

International Responses
Other foreign reactions to the NIE varied according to institutional and regional perspectives.

IAEA
IAEA Director General, Mohammad ElBaradei issued a formal response on December 4, the day after the NIE’s release, which stated: “The Estimate tallies with the Agency’s consistent statements over the last few years that, although Iran still needs to clarify some important aspects of its past and present nuclear activities, the Agency has no concrete evidence of an ongoing nuclear weapons program or undeclared nuclear facilities in Iran.” [21] The NIE, ElBaradei continued, “gives me a sigh of relief because it is consistent with our assessment.” [22] At a news conference in Brazil, he added that the NIE offered Iran an opportunity to find a solution to its nuclear standoff: “It opens a window of opportunity for Iran now because Iran obviously has been somewhat vindicated in saying they have not been working on a weapons program at least for the last few years.”

Hans Blix, former director general of the IAEA, noted that the NIE’s assurances that Iran stopped work on a nuclear weapons program in 2003 even surpassed those of the IAEA: “The IAEA doesn’t say there is nothing. They simply say we have not seen any evidence of it,” he said. “Proving the negative is very difficult if at all possible.” He ascribed the NIE’s release to the American intelligence community’s aversion to repeating its overstatement of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction capabilities, which underpinned the U.S. justification for the invasion of Iraq. “The intelligence services got a lot of blame” because “they had exaggerated what they saw,” he said. “This time they do not want to carry the responsibility.” [23] Many other commentators shared this view. [24]

Europe
In Europe, the NIE apparently produced little change in the stance of Britain, France, and Germany, key U.S. allies, who had taken the lead on negotiations with Iran over suspending sensitive aspects of its nuclear program. These states continued to insist, along with Washington, that Tehran’s uranium enrichment program – even if not accompanied by clandestine work on nuclear weapons – remains a serious threat that merits further international action. [25] Specifically, all three countries announced their intention to continue efforts to impose additional sanctions on Iran. In a press conference at the Elysée Palace, French President Nicolas Sarkozy declared, “The threat exists…notwithstanding the latest elements, everyone is fully conscious of the fact that there is a will among the Iranian leaders to
obtain nuclear weapons…. I don’t see why we should renounce sanctions…. What made Iran budge so far has been sanctions and firmness.” [26] German Chancellor Angela Merkel offered a similar assessment. Implicitly referring to Germany’s support for expanded UN sanctions, she said, “I think that we are in a process and that Iran continues to pose a danger.” [27] In a like vein, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, referring to Iran’s behavior that triggered UN action, declared that “defiance remains the case today.” [28]

Israel
Israel, whose annihilation had been urged by Amadinejad, reacted to the NIE with skepticism and anxiety that occasionally approached anger. Strategic Affairs Minister Avigdor Lieberman called the report “irrelevant” and said the Iranians “had succeeded in hiding much of their nuclear progress from the Americans,” while Defense Minister Ehud Barak declared: “We cannot allow ourselves to rest just because of an intelligence report from the other side of the earth.” [29] After the report’s release, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert bluntly stated that Israel “does not accept the bottom line of” the NIE, namely that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. He declared that Israel would “continue its efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear program.” [30] He cited a definitional difference as to when a potentially nuclear state becomes a threat, which the Jerusalem Post ascribed to the difference in U.S. and Israel’s “realities”:

The U.S. is not convinced that Iran as a “nuclear threshold state” is a threat to global security. Even as a nuclear threshold state, Iran could reach a modus vivendi with the rest of the world on issues of key importance: keeping the Straits of Hormuz open, keeping the price of oil down and ensuring stability with Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel’s position, on the other hand, is that Iran as a nuclear threshold state is already a threat to its [Israel’s] security and regional stability, even before it makes a decision to assemble a bomb. [31]

Following the shipments, in early January 2008, Heshmatollah Falahat Pisheh, a member of the Iranian parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, declared that the world had come to terms with Iran as a nuclear country.

Conclusion
Virtually all observers appear to agree that the NIE has made it impossible for the United States to muster the political support necessary for military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Indeed, many believe that the NIE’s conclusion that Iran stopped pursuing a nuclear weapons program may pave the way for direct negotiations between Iran and the United States. Moreover, on December 23, 2007, senior U.S. officials offered a markedly upbeat assessment of a second issue that has deeply divided the two countries: in an on-the-record interview, the State Department’s Iraq coordinator, David Satterfield, declared that Iran had decided “at the most senior levels” to restrain Shi’ite militias in Iraq and that road-side bomb attacks against U.S. forces, among other acts of violence attributed to these groups, had significantly declined. [48] Seen in conjunction with the release of the NIE, Satterfield’s comments, which were echoed by U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker, reinforced the impression that the United States was ready for increased engagement with Tehran. If so, this may not be well received in all quarters.

More generally, the release of the December NIE declaring that Iran had ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 jolted all the involved parties and forced them to reevaluate the foundations for their respective positions on the Iranian nuclear program. It is not yet clear however, how many key factors will realign. Among other questions are:

• Will Ahmadinejad’s government suffer or benefit from the NIE, as Iran’s March parliamentary elections unfold?
• Will European and Israeli support for a tough Iran strategy endure?
• Will China and Russia further entrench themselves with Iran commercially and financially?
• Will the United States, with a presidential election race underway, change its policy on Iran? And,
• Will Iran follow through with its January 13 agreement with the IAEA to resolve all outstanding questions regarding its nuclear activities?

Although these outcomes are uncertain, few can doubt that the diplomatic playing field will look very different in the months ahead than it did before the NIE was released.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi and Khalid Hilal – Independent Consultants – and Deborah Berman – Monterey Institute James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies