IRAN AND THE NUCLEAR THRESHOLD

Abstract

This article clarifies and evaluates the intellectual underpinnings of the respective military red lines that Western leaders have drawn against Iran's developing nuclear program: (1) the red line of “no Iranian nuclear weapon”—the stance that has been embraced by President Barack Obama— and (2) the red line of “no Iranian nuclear weapons capability”—the stance that has been embraced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and many prominent American Iran hawks. We contend that the key intellectual divide between these stances is that the Netanyahu view implicitly assumes that a “significant quantity” (SQ) of highly enriched uranium is essentially equivalent to a bomb because an explosive nuclear test is technically unnecessary, whereas the Obama view implicitly assumes that if and when Iran gets to the point of being technically and psychologically ready to assemble a nuclear weapons arsenal, it will conduct a test. We show through theoretical and empirical analysis that the likelihood that Iran will choose an “Israeli-style” policy of creating an arsenal of untested but operational nuclear bombs is very low. Therefore, Obama's red line is more intellectually defensible than Netanyahu's.

Keywords:

• Iran
• Israel
• South Africa
• India
• Pakistan
• North Korea
• nuclear testing
• nuclear weapons capability

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors wish to thank two anonymous reviewers, Charles Glaser, Rhianna Tyson Kreger, Dinshaw Mistry, Alexander Montgomery, Vipin Narang, T.V. Paul, Benoît Pelopidas, and Brian Rathbun for their comments on previous versions of this paper.

Notes

1. For a range of positions, see Gideon Rose and Jonathan Tepperman, eds., Iran and the Bomb: Solving the Persian Puzzle (New York: Council on Foreign Relations/Foreign Affairs Publishing, 2012).

2. “Interview Transcript: President Obama with José Díaz-Balart,” NBCUniversal Press Centre online, September 12, 2012, <www.nbcuniversal.presscentre.com/content/detail.aspx?AddPreview=True&ReleaseID=12443&NewsAreaID=2&ClientID=12&attmtType=0&PreviewId=893,783,885,855,782,684,710,705,765,674,677,767,684,762,718,674,708,683,706,718,674>.

3. See, for example, Scott Pelley, “Panetta: Iran Will Not Be Allowed Nukes,” CBS News, December 19, 2011, <www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57345322/panetta-iran-will-not-be-allowed-nukes/>.

4. “Romney: US has 'moral imperative' to aid Israel in its defense against a nuclear Iran,” Fox News online, July 29, 2012, <www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/29/romney-would-back-israeli-strike-against-iran-senior-adviser-says >.

5. However, it might be noted that Romney's position was not entirely consistent over time. See, e.g., Josh Rogin, “Romney Changes His Red Lines on Iran in Rabbi Call,” Foreign Policy online, September 21, 2012, <http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/09/21/romney_changes_his_red_lines_on_iran_on_rabbi_call>.

6. Office of Senator Robert Menendez, “Supermajority of Senators Urge Increased Sanctions, Support for Iranian People, and Credible Military Coalition Against Iranian Threat,” December 20, 2012, <www.menendez.senate.gov/newsroom/press/supermajority-of-senators-urge-increased-sanctions-support-for-iranian-people-and-credible-military-coalition-against-iranian-threat>. Note that this letter did not precisely specify a military red line.

7. David Feith, “What Obama Isn't Saying About Iran,” Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2012, p. A11.

8. David Feith, “What Obama Isn't Saying About Iran,” Wall Street Journal, August 17, 2012, p. A11.

9. Julian Borger, “Israel's Red Line of Iran: 240 kg,” Guardian, November 1, 2012, <www.guardian.co.uk/world/julian-borger-global-security-blog/2012/nov/01/israel-iran-uranium-red-line>.

10. The precise numbers in this calculation can vary somewhat depending on one's technical assumptions. William C. Witt, Christina Walrond, David Albright, and Houston Wood, “Iran's Evolving Breakout Potential,” Institute for Science and International Security, October 8, 2012, <http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Irans_Evolving_Breakout_Potential.pdf>.

11. Israel previously tried to give itself even more cushion by threatening to act if Iran reached the “zone of immunity,” by which it meant the point after which Israeli air strikes could no longer knock out Iran's bomb-making capabilities in one clean blow. However, Israel did not follow through on these threats. Amos Harel, “Former Top IDF Officials Worry That Netanyahu Is Bent on Iran Strike,” Ha'aretz, July 27, 2012, <www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/former-top-idf-officials-worry-that-netanyahu-is-bent-on-an-iran-strike-1.454048>.

12. See, for example, Yoel Guzansky and Jonathan Schachter, “Iran's Japanese Nuclear Option: Arms Within Arm's Reach,” Jerusalem Post, August 22, 2011, <www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=234965>; and Brian Murphy, “AP Analysis: Iran Nuclear Denial Has Japanese Ring,” Guardian, September 1, 2012, <www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/10418753>.

13. The original definition of “opaque proliferation” was more complicated than this, but we believe that our simple definition captures the essence of the concept. See Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, “Opaque Nuclear Proliferation,” in Benjamin Frankel, ed. Opaque Nuclear Proliferation (London: Frank Cass, 1991), pp. 14–44.

14. David E. Sanger, “On Iran, Questions of Detection and Response Divide U.S. and Israel,” New York Times, March 6, 2012, <www.nytimes.com/2012/03/07/world/middleeast/on-iran-2-central-questions-divide-us-and-israel.html>.

15. “Tick-Tock Tehran,” Wall Street Journal, October 20, 2012, p. A12.

16. Sanger, “On Iran, Questions of Detection and Response Divide U.S. and Israel.”

17. Sanger, “On Iran, Questions of Detection and Response Divide U.S. and Israel.”. See also the White House Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney, August 10, 2012, <www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/08/10/press-briefing-press-secretary-jay-carney-81012>.

18. See Preparatory Commission for the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban-Treaty Organization, Annual Report 2011, <www.ctbto.org/publications/annual-reports>.

19. For instance, around December 1999, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) informed President Bill Clinton that it could no longer rule out the possibility that Iran already had nuclear weapons. This “sharp departure from its previous assessment of Iran's nuclear capacity,” in the words of New York Times reporters James Risen and Judith Miller, was not based on any new intelligence. Rather, it was based on a reconsideration of the importance of the CIA's inability to verify that Iran had not simply acquired a fissile material SQ by purchase in the former Soviet Union. James Risen and Judith Miller, “CIA Tells Clinton an Iranian A-Bomb Can't Be Ruled Out,” New York Times, January 17, 2000, <www.nytimes.com/2000/01/17/world/cia-tells-clinton-an-iranian-a-bomb-cant-be-ruled-out>.

20. On this point, see also S. Paul Kapur, Dangerous Deterrent: Nuclear Weapons Proliferation and Conflict in South Asia (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007), p. 8.

21. Of course, many observers are not assuaged by the presence of the IAEA in Iran, because they also have a low opinion of the abilities of international inspectors. But the value of the IAEA inspection system post-1991 was dramatically vindicated in the aftermath of the 2003 Iraq War. For the details of the IAEA's excellent performance in Iraq after 1991, see Gudrun Harrer, Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme: The International Atomic Energy Agency, 1991–1998 (forthcoming, 2013).

22. Micah Zenko, “Israel's Nuclear Weapons Program and Lessons for Iran,” Council on Foreign Relations blog post, March 5, 2012, <http://blogs.cfr.org/zenko/2012/03/05/israels-nuclear-weapons-program-and-lessons-for-iran/>. See also Micah Zenko, “Iran's Secret Nuclear Development Looks a Lot Like Israel's,” Atlantic, March 6, 2012, <www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/irans-secret-nuclear-development-looks-a-lot-like-israels/254037/>.

23. Christopher Ford, “Iran's Coming Nuclear ‘Opacity’,” remarks at an event sponsored by the National Defense University Foundation, Washington, DC, June 22, 2010, <www.newparadigmsforum.com/NPFtestsite/?p=326>.

24. Quoted in Scott Peterson, “What Would Happen If Iran Actually Had the Bomb?” Business Insider, February 16, 2012, <http://articles.businessinsider.com/2012-02-16/news/31065974_1_nuclear-program-nuclear-weapons-nuclear-powers/2>.

25. Yaakov Katz, “Israel Fears Iran Will Copy Its Policy of Nuclear Ambiguity,” Jerusalem Post, March 10, 2011, <www.jpost.com/IranianThreat/News/Article.aspx?id=240286>.

26. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Peter Vincent Pry, “What If Iran Already Has the Bomb? Better to be Prepared than Surprised,” Washington Times, August 2, 2010, <www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/2/what-if-iran-already-has-the-bomb/print/>.

27. Rep. Roscoe G. Bartlett and Peter Vincent Pry, “What If Iran Already Has the Bomb? Better to be Prepared than Surprised,” Washington Times, August 2, 2010, <www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/aug/2/what-if-iran-already-has-the-bomb/print/>.

28. Jacques E.C. Hymans, “When Does a State Become a ‘Nuclear Weapon State’? An Exercise in Measurement Validation,” Nonproliferation Review 17 (March 2010), pp. 161–80.

29. See Dan Lindley, “What I Learned Since I Stopped Worrying and Studied the Movie: A Teaching Guide to Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove,” PS: Political Science & Politics 34 (September 2001), p. 663.

30. Ashley Tellis, India's Emerging Nuclear Posture: Between Recessed Deterrent and Ready Arsenal (SantaMonica, CA: RAND, 2001), pp. 198–99.

31. On this, see Hymans, “Why Does a State Become a ‘Nuclear Weapon State’?”

32. Jeffrey Park, “The North Korean Nuclear Test: What the Seismic Data Says,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists online, May 26, 2009, <http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-north-korean-nuclear-test-what-the-seismic-data-says>.

33. Jacques E.C. Hymans, “Veto Players, Nuclear Energy, and Nonproliferation: Domestic Institutional Barriers to a Japanese Nuclear Bomb,” International Security 36 (2011), pp. 154–89.

34. Avner Cohen, “Israel: A Sui Generis Proliferator,” in Muthiah Alagappa, ed., The Long Shadow: Nuclear Weapons and Security in 21st Century Asia (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008), pp. 241–68. We view Cohen's recent work as somewhat backpedaling from his earlier assertions that Israel's experience may serve as a model for later proliferant states.

35. This fear is expressed, for instance, in Leonard S. Spector, The Undeclared Bomb: The Spread of Nuclear Weapons 1987–1988 (Cambridge, MA: Ballinger Publishing Company, 1988), pp. 4–5.

36. The United States and the Soviet Union inducted their first nuclear weapons after secret tests. We consider that such tests fit the test/no test criterion.

37. The South African test was apparently carried out in combination with Israel, and Israel's involvement would seem to explain the continuing mystery surrounding that event. If Israel can be said to have tested a bomb in 1979, then by the test/no test metric, its period of nuclear opacity ended then. Helen E. Purkitt and Stephen F. Burgess, South Africa's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2005), pp. 51–52.

38. Some extremely low-yield tests or computer simulations could be kept secret, but such experiments are not comparable to full-yield tests, either in their technical validity or their political impact. In addition, they often require greater technological sophistication than today's proliferant states can muster. On this point, see Jonathan Medalia, “Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty: Issues and Arguments,” Congressional Research Service report RL34394 (updated March 12, 2008); Angela Charlton, “Computers Simulating Atomic Tests,” International Herald Tribune, October 18, 2006, <www.nytimes.com/2006/10/18/world/europe/18iht-tests.3201835.html>.

39. Musharraf quoted in Mark Fitzpatrick, Nuclear Black Markets: Pakistan, A.Q. Khan and the Rise of Proliferation Networks: A Net Assessment (London: International Institute for Strategic Studies, 2007), p. 32.

40. Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 278.

41. Feroz Hassan Khan, Eating Grass: The Making of the Pakistani Bomb (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), p. 278.

42. Jacqueline Shire, “A Nuanced Approach to Nuclear Weapons Analysis,” Nonproliferation Review 17 (2010), pp. 213–14.

43. But see the insightful discussion in Avner Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret: Israel's Bargain with the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), pp. 227–29.

44. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), p. 3.

45. Other important works on Israel's nuclear policy include Yair Evron, “Israel and the Atom: The Uses and Misuses of Ambiguity, 1957–1967,” Orbis 17 (Winter 1974), pp. 1326–43; Shai Feldman, Israeli Nuclear Deterrence: A Strategy for the 1980s (New York: Columbia University Press, 1982); Alan Dowty, “Going Public with the Bomb: The Israeli Calculus,” in Louis Rene Beres, ed., Security or Armageddon: Israel's Nuclear Strategy (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1986), pp. 15–28; Gerald M. Steinberg, “Deliberate Ambiguity: Evolution and Evaluation,” in Beres, ed., Security or Armageddon, pp. 29–44; Shlomo Aronson with Oded Bush, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East: Opacity, Theory, and Reality, 1960–1991—An Israeli Perspective (Albany: State University of New York, 1992); Yair Evron, Israel's Nuclear Dilemma (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994); Edwin S. Cochran, “Deliberate Ambiguity: An Analysis of Israel's Nuclear Strategy,” Journal of Strategic Studies 19 (September 1996), pp. 321–42; Yoel Cohen, The Whistleblower of Dimona: Israel, Vanunu, and the Bomb (New York: Holmes and Meir Publishers, 2003); and Michael Karpin, The Bomb in the Basement: How Israel Went Nuclear and What That Means for the World (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2006).

46. Evron, Israel's Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 61–62.

47. Avner Cohen, “Israel: A Sui Generis Proliferator,” p. 242. See also Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons, p. 211.

48. Yoel Cohen, Whistleblower of Dimona, p. 19; Evron, Israel's Nuclear Dilemma, pp. 5–10; Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 290–91; Avner Cohen, “Nuclear Arms in Crisis under Secrecy: Israel and the Lessons of the 1967 and 1973 Wars,” in Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James J. Wirtz, eds. Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Weapons (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), pp. 104–24.

49. For details on the impressive institutional infrastructure of Israel's nuclear opacity, see Avner Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret, pp. 88–120. On the Vanunu affair, see Yoel Cohen, The Whistleblower of Dimona.

50. Avner Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret, p. 48.

51. Avner Cohen, “Israel: A Sui Generis Proliferator,” p. 246.

52. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons, pp. 167–84.

53. Nasser was vocal in condemning—and threatening—Israel's nuclear program before it actually had the bomb, but his successors became quiet about it. It is unclear whether the key variable here was Nasser's demise or Israel's success. On the period to 1967, see Ariel E. Levite and Emily B. Landau, “Arab Perceptions of Israel's Nuclear Posture, 1960–1967,” Israeli Studies 1 (Spring 1996), pp. 39–40. On the period since 1967, see Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 243–58.

54. Aronson, The Politics and Strategy of Nuclear Weapons, p. 156.

55. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, p. 5.

56. Avner Cohen, Israel and the Bomb, pp. 5–6; Theodore B. Taylor, “Nuclear Tests and Nuclear Weapons,” in Benjamin Frankel, ed., Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications (London: Frank Cass, 1991), pp. 175–90; Evron, Israel's Nuclear Dilemma, p. 11; Cochran, “Deliberate Ambiguity: An Analysis of Israel's Nuclear Strategy,” p. 323–37.

57. Peter Pry, Israel's Nuclear Arsenal (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984), p. 12; Yoel Cohen, Whistleblower of Dimona, p. 12. A less reliable source claims that French nuclear assistance also included bomb designs, testing data, and even hands-on assistance in constructing its first bombs. See Steve Weissman and Herbert Krosney, The Islamic Bomb (New York: Times Books, 1981), pp. 113–14.

58. Leonard S. Spector, Nuclear Proliferation Today (New York: Vintage Books, 1984), p. 120.

59. Karpin, The Bomb in the Basement, pp. 80, 170. The crucial importance of having a strong indigenous nuclear program as the basis for nuclear weapons project efficiency is underscored in Jacques E.C. Hymans, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions: Scientists, Politicians, and Proliferation (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

60. The benefits of nuclear opacity for Israel are not uncontested. For an excellent critical analysis, see Zeev Maoz, “The Mixed Blessing of Israel's Nuclear Policy,” International Security 28 (Fall 2003), pp. 44–77.

61. Economist, “Iran's Nuclear Theology: Bombs and Truth,” May 19, 2012, <www.economist.com/node/21555541>.

62. Michael Eisenstadt and Mehdi Khalaji, “Nuclear Fatwa: Religion and Politics in Iran's Proliferation Strategy,” Policy Focus No. 115, Washington Institute for Near East Strategy, 2011, <www.washingtoninstitute.org/uploads/Documents/pubs/PolicyFocus115.pdf>.

63. “Top Cleric: Iran Has Right to ‘Special Weapons’,” CBS News online, June 14, 2010, <www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/06/14/world/main6581622.shtml>.

64. Farhad Pouladi, “Ahmadinejad insists Iran not seeking nuclear bomb,” Agence France-Presse, June 23, 2011.

65. Peter Jones, “Learning to Live with a Nuclear Iran,” Nonproliferation Review 19 (July 2012), p. 202.

66. Arang Keshavarzian, “Contestation Without Democracy: Elite Fragmentation in Iran,” in Marsha Pripstein Posusney and Michele Penner Angrist, eds., Authoritarianism in the Middle East: Regimes and Resistance (Boulder and London: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005), pp. 63–88; Houchang E. Chehabi, “The Political Regime of the Islamic Republic in Comparative Perspective,” Government and Opposition 36 (Winter 2001), pp. 48–70; Mehdi Moslem, Factional Politics in Post-Khomeini Iran (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002); Wilfried Buchta, Who Rules Iran? The Structure of Power in the Islamic Republic (Washington DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000).

67. Mehran Kamrava. “National Security Debates in Iran: Factionalism and Lost Opportunities,” Middle East Policy 24 (Summer 2007), p. 84.

68. Mehran Kamrava, “The 2009 Elections and Iran's Changing Political Landscape,” Orbis 54 (Summer 2010), pp. 400–12.

69. Thomas Erdbrink, “Iran's Supreme Leader Floats Proposal to Abolish Presidency,” Washington Post, October 25, 2011, <www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/irans-supreme-leader-floats-proposal-to-abolish-presidency/2011/10/25/gIQAsOUKGM_story.html>; see also Hooman Majd, The Ayatollahs’ Democracy: An Iranian Challenge (New York: W.W. Norton, 2010) and Kamrava, “The 2009 Elections and Iran‘s Changing Political Landscape.”

70. Kamrava, “The 2009 Elections and Iran's Changing Political Landscape,” p. 96.

71. Kenneth Katzman, “Iran Sanctions,” Congressional Research Service report RS20871, October 15, 2012, <www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS20871.pdf>.

72. Alexandra Bell and Benjamin Loehrke, “The Status of U.S. Nuclear Weapons in Turkey,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists online, November 23, 2009, <http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-status-of-us-nuclear-weapons-turkey>.

73. See, e.g., Dmitry Adamsky, “Why Israel Should Learn to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb,” Foreign Affairs online, March 31, 2012, <www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/137374/dmitry-adamsky/why-israel-should-learn-to-stop-worrying-and-love-the-bomb?page=show>.

74. An anonymous reviewer of this article suggested that the answer to this question is that Iran would want the world to think that it has more nuclear firepower than it actually does. In other words, Iran might try to bluff that it had a serious deterrent before that was really the case. This idea is plausible, but such a bluff could only work if the international community was relying on the SQ/no SQ metric of nuclear weapon state status. This is, therefore, yet another reason why the SQ/no SQ metric tends to be misleading.

75. For a general discussion of the technical value of nuclear testing, see Taylor, “Nuclear Tests and Nuclear Weapons,” in Frankel, ed., Opaque Nuclear Proliferation: Methodological and Policy Implications, pp. 175–90. For a specific discussion of implosion versus gun-type testing requirements in South Africa, the last country known to produce a gun-type device, see David Albright, “South Africa and the Affordable Bomb,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, July/August 1994, p. 46.

76. “Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” IAEA Board Report, 18 November 2011, GOV/2011/65, Annex p. 4. <www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iaeairan/iaea_reports.shtml>.

77. See Hymans, “Botching the Bomb.”

78. Avner Cohen, The Worst-Kept Secret, p. 228.

79. For a description of Chinese technical support to Pakistan, including bomb designs, see Khan, Eating Grass, pp. 81, 109, 152, 157, 171–75, 188, 238–42. For the Israeli-South Africa nuclear connection, see Peter Liberman, “Israel and the South African Bomb,” Nonproliferation Review 11 (Summer 2004), pp. 46–80.

80. Vipin Narang, “Pride and Prejudice and Prithvis: Strategic Weapons Behavior in South Asia,” in Scott D. Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), pp. 137–83.

81. Vipin Narang, “Pride and Prejudice and Prithvis: Strategic Weapons Behavior in South Asia,” in Scott D. Sagan, ed., Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009), p. 146. See also Feroz Hassan Khan, “Nuclear Signaling, Missiles, and Escalation Control in South Asia,” in Michael Krepon, Rodney Jones, and Ziad Haider, eds., Escalation Control and the Nuclear Option in South Asia (Washington, DC: Henry Stimson Center, 2004), pp. 75–100. On missile proliferation generally, see Dinshaw Mistry, Containing Missile Proliferation: Strategic Technology, Security Regimes, and International Cooperation in Arms Control (Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2003).

82. Narang, “Pride and Prejudice and Prithvis,” p. 146. See also Aaron Karp, Ballistic Missile Proliferation: The Politics and the Technics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 176.

83. Central Intelligence Agency, Directorate of Science and Technology, “Scientific and Technical Intelligence Report: Foreign Ballistic Missile and Space Developments in 1968,” September1969, marked “Secret” (approved for release December 2003), CIA-FMSAC-STIR/SC/69-13, p. 14. <www.foia.cia.gov/docs/DOC_0001028025/DOC_0001028025.pdf>.

84. Karp, Ballistic Missile Proliferation, p. 141, refers to an Israeli test in 1986, but this appears to be a typo, as the report Karp cites actually places the test in 1987: “Israel's Jericho IRBM Completes Long Range Test,” International Defense Review 7 (July 1987), pp. 857.

85. See Karp, Ballistic Missile Proliferation, p. 141.

86. See Karp, Ballistic Missile Proliferation, pp. 140–41.

87. Karpin, The Bomb in the Basement, p. 214.

88. Youval Azoulay, “Missile Test ‘Will Improve Deterrence’,” Ha'aretz, January 18, 2008, <www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/missile-test-will-improve-deterrence-1.237555>.

89. Dan Williams, “Israel Test-Fires Missile as Iran Debate Rages,” Reuters online, November 2, 2011, <www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/02/us-israel-missile-idUSTRE7A11BR20111102>.

90. Iran's early SLVs were based on its ballistic missile designs with scientific instrumentation packages replacing the warhead, and the US government has been very concerned about the potential military applications of Iran's space program. For a discussion of the historic connection between ballistic missiles and civilian space programs, see W. Seth Carus, Ballistic Missile Proliferation in the Third World: Threat and Response (New York: Praeger, 1990), p. 24.

91. Iran's early SLVs were based on its ballistic missile designs with scientific instrumentation packages replacing the warhead, and the US government has been very concerned about the potential military applications of Iran's space program. For a discussion of the historic connection between ballistic missiles and civilian space programs, see W. Seth Carus, Ballistic Missile Proliferation in the Third World: Threat and Response (New York: Praeger, 1990), pp. 96, 119.

92. See official website of the Iranian Space Agency, <www.isa.ir/index.php>.

93. William J. Broad, “Iran Reports Test of Craft Able to Carry Satellite,” New York Times, August 18, 2008, <www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/world/middleeast/18iran.html>.

94. For the text of the resolution, see <www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iaeairan/unsc_res1929-2010.pdf>.

95. IISS, Iran's Ballistic Missile Capabilities, pp. 45, 49.