Iran's Nuclear Programme: A Case Study in Hedging?

Abstract:

This article examines Iranian proliferation behaviour through the lens of nuclear hedging. Defined as ‘nuclear latency with intent’, hedging is an area of proliferation behaviour that has not been fully explored. The Iranian case presents an outstanding example of the questions and types of evidence required to judge whether a nuclear programme is engaged in a hedging strategy. By examining a nuclear programme from three distinct angles – technical, narrative and diplomatic – key elements of strategic hedging can be identified. Applied to Iran, evidence supports a diagnosis of hedging. But this assessment is further complicated by Iran's domestic political context, which has engendered an approach that is as much ‘hedging by default’ as it is ‘hedging by design’. This approach allows Tehran to reconcile restraint with domestic consensus on nuclear advancement. In this regard, our analysis shows that international exposure of Iran's undeclared nuclear activities had an enormous impact on the direction of Iran's nuclear programme, placing important constraints on Iran's nuclear progress. The article argues that any solution to the Iranian nuclear challenge must be based on realistic goals. The international community should focus on containing Iranian advancements rather than rollback, with a view to restricting hedging to a low level of latency.

Introduction

In a recent article Jacques Hymans and Matthew Gratias assess the merits and validity of the different ‘red lines’ that various parties have sought to draw in the effort to cajole Iran into constraining, even rolling back, its nuclear programme and ambitions. In doing so, they pose the question, ‘at what specific stage in Iran's potential future nuclear development would it be prudent to begin assuming that the country had become, for all intents and purposes, a nuclear weapon state?’.¹ Hymans and Gratias focus their analysis on technical threshold issues discussing different options for Iran entering the ‘nuclear club’ – notably with ‘a bang’ (openly testing) or more opaquely akin to the Israeli model. While they note that, similar to Japan, ‘there is no inevitability about fissile stocks turning into bombs, even in the long run’, they do not dwell on this issue. However, it is this point that goes to the heart of the Iranian challenge. For as Hymans and Gratias acknowledge, ‘many analysts believe that Iran may not be intending to go any further toward the bomb than Japan has gone’, a non-nuclear weapon state (NNWS) party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) frequently characterized as a ‘nuclear hedger’.² Ariel Levite describes nuclear hedging as ‘a national strategy of maintaining, or at least appearing to maintain, a viable option for the relatively rapid acquisition of nuclear weapons, based on an indigenous technical capacity to produce them within a relatively short time frame ranging from several weeks to a few years’; it is a strategy that lies ‘between nuclear pursuit and nuclear rollback’.³

This article examines Iranian proliferation behaviour through this lens of nuclear hedging. While the specific term may not be used, many policy officials have made statements, or published reports, that characterize Tehran's nuclear strategy as one based on developing a hedging capability. While these characterizations have emanated primarily from the United States, they have also emerged from Israel, from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and even from Iran itself. Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, for example, noted the following about Iranian nuclear ambitions during a 2005 conversation with George Perkovich: ‘As long as we can enrich uranium and master the [nuclear] fuel cycle, we don't need anything else. Our neighbours will be able to draw the proper conclusions’.⁴

Similar statements have been made about Iran's nuclear behaviour by senior officials in the United States and elsewhere. In February 2011, for example, Director of National Intelligence, James R. Clapper, noted the following in a written statement to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence:

Iran's technical advancement … strengthens our assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so … We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that better position it to produce such weapons, should it chose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.⁵

What these statements illustrate is a widespread perception that the Iranian regime is engaged in a strategy based on hedging, hence the importance of grounding what has, up to this point, constituted an abstract theoretical concept and exploring how it may be identified in practice. For while the concept of nuclear hedging has been postulated by Levite, its nature has not been fully explored. Little attention has been given to the questions one needs to pose and the types of evidence required to judge whether a country might be engaged in a strategy of hedging. Moreover, the fact that the concept is regularly described in political and diplomatic discourse without mention of the specific term ‘hedging’ is perhaps indicative of a certain confusion with regard to the vocabulary used to describe proliferation behaviour. This vocabulary comprises a number of overlapping terms and concepts – hedging, latency and opacity are but three – that are frequently used interchangeably and without discrimination. An exploration of nuclear hedging and its characteristics will thus help policy officials to better understand the nature of nuclear hedging, how it may be distinguished from other concepts, how it applies to contemporary settings and, perhaps most important, what policy responses may be best suited to dealing with this type of proliferation behaviour.

In applying the concept to Iran, this article builds on Levite's work to offer a more nuanced approach to understanding hedging. We begin by considering nuclear hedging as it has been presented in the relatively limited literature published on the concept to date. The next section then problematizes hedging by examining its position in the wider work describing and conceptualizing proliferation behaviour. Building on this discussion, the article proposes an original framework for examining suspected cases through the lens of hedging and applies this to Iran. The position of NNWS parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty possessing or developing an advanced nuclear infrastructure is a complex one that is not easily defined. There are few certainties in the analysis of proliferation behaviour; the slightest change in a complex web of influencing factors can change the nature of a state's nuclear trajectory. This is certainly the case with nuclear hedging, the boundaries of which can never be fully delimited or tested, since the concept is largely characterized by intent. Furthermore, states that engage in such an approach are highly unlikely to overtly acknowledge it. Indeed, accurately gauging intent is invariably the most difficult issue for policy-makers and scholars alike when seeking to interpret nuclear behaviour. At the same time, however, we argue that the systematic analysis of certain indicators and evidence can point towards a strategy based on hedging. This approach involves applying three levels of analysis when examining proliferation behaviour from the ‘outside-in’:

• Evidence of opaque proliferation and moves towards nuclear ‘latency’

• Domestic political narratives constructed around nuclear activities and developments

• Diplomatic activity and outreach related to explaining and justifying nuclear behaviour

In applying this framework, we will argue that there are at present, and at least since 2003 when Iran reportedly suspended military specific work, indicators suggesting that the country's nuclear behaviour is consistent with a strategy based on hedging. More than this, we will argue that while Iran's future behaviour may change according to various influences, based on existing open source evidence it is not possible, at present, to infer that Iran's nuclear activities amount to anything more than a strategy based on hedging. We conclude by examining some of the policy implications of our arguments. In particular, we find that if there is to be a lasting diplomatic solution, Western powers must focus on containing Iranian nuclear progress rather than seeking reversal of the nuclear programme. For reasons we will set out below, it is not feasible to expect Iranian decision-makers to significantly roll back its nuclear capabilities. In this context, and somewhat paradoxically, we argue that to halt Iran's progress towards the bomb, the international community must acknowledge and accept the advances Iran has made in terms of its nuclear latency and recognize that Iran is engaged in a strategy based on hedging. The Geneva agreement of November 2013 constitutes a positive development in this regard, and on face value it appears to tacitly accept Iranian hedging at a low level of latency.⁶ But significant challenges remain in this context of course.

Hedging as a National Strategy

A 1972 study by George Quester was one of the first to identify and problematize the idea underlying hedging when he attempted to elucidate some of the conceptual problems associated with proliferation: ‘A nation may … wait “just short” of nuclear weapons, as the result of its full development of peaceful nuclear industry. Yet much will depend on how it waits’.⁷ The main contribution to defining the concept, however, came some 30 years later, when Levite described hedging:

Nuclear hedging refers to a national strategy of maintaining, or at least appearing to maintain, a viable option for the relatively rapid acquisition of nuclear weapons, based on an indigenous technical capacity to produce them within a relatively short time frame ranging from several weeks to a few years. In its most advanced form, nuclear hedging involves nuclear fuel-cycle facilities capable of producing fissionable materials (by way of uranium enrichment and/ or plutonium separation), as well as the scientific and engineering expertise both to support them and to package their final product into a nuclear explosive charge.⁸

Levite draws on the examples of Britain, Egypt and Sweden to illustrate the concept. However, like other commentators, he focuses primarily on the case of Japan as ‘the most salient example of nuclear hedging to date’: this case, he argues, ‘illustrates how a state signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a champion of non-proliferation and disarmament can legitimately maintain a nuclear fuel cycle capability and possess huge quantities of weapons-grade fissile material’.⁹ The perception being that, based on technical wherewithal, Japan has the capability and expertise ‘to go nuclear very quickly’.¹⁰ Moreover, Levite notes that Japanese government officials have regularly drawn attention to the fact that the country's three nuclear principles (no possession, production or import of nuclear weapons) could potentially change if its strategic partnership with the United States deteriorates and Japan feels it requires its own deterrent. Levite argues that the ‘greatest appeal’ of hedging ‘is the “latent” or “virtual” deterrence posture it generates toward nuclear weapons aspirants or potential aggressors, and the leverage it provides in reinforcing a state's coercive diplomacy strategy, particularly against the United States’.¹¹

In the context of Iranian nuclearization Robert Hunter highlights the so-called ‘Japan option’ which would imply that the Tehran regime might be working towards a position where it ‘would be capable of building the bomb in short order but would decide not to do so’ pending, of course, any alterations to its security or political environment.¹² But it is important to note that differences do exist over the extent to which Japan can be characterized as being directly engaged in a national strategy of hedging. Llewelyn Hughes, for example, argues that the Japanese case is an example of a more benign ‘institutional hedging’, whereby policy-makers have not adopted hedging as a truly national strategy; although they have ensured that ‘formal barriers to nuclearisation are surmountable’.¹³

Regardless of whether the Japan case should be characterized as ‘institutional’ hedging rather than truly ‘national’ hedging, the country's membership of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its development of a full fuel cycle are at the heart of the issue. As Levite argues, the Non-Proliferation Treaty has encouraged some states to ‘trade nuclear [weapons] development for nuclear hedging’.¹⁴ Facilitating this, he argues, are the ‘flexibility implicit in NPT definitions of proscribed activities, the narrow focus on International Atomic Energy (IAEA) safeguards as the core of its verification regime, and the NPT's provisions allowing members to engage in fuel-cycle activities’.¹⁵ Tokyo has clearly felt compelled to examine the weapons option in the past despite Japan's three non-nuclear principles. This has included a secret assessment prompted by a combination of China joining the nuclear club in the mid-1960s and concerns over America's security commitment to Japan, and a later assessment by the Japan Defense Agency in 1995 against the backdrop of the nuclear crisis in North Korea. Both assessments ultimately concluded that Japan should continue to rely on the American security guarantee and not pursue a national nuclear weapons capability.¹⁶ Importantly, Japan has remained in compliance with its IAEA safeguards, which took effect in 1977 after Tokyo ratified the NPT in 1976 having originally signed the Treaty in 1970. This is a significant point of departure from Iran, of course, which has been found in non-compliance with its IAEA safeguards obligations.

In some cases, including Iran and Iraq, Levite argues that this has allowed countries to pursue nuclear weapons and remain members of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Writing over a decade earlier at the end of the Cold War, Cohen and Frankel similarly noted that, while the NPT regime has ‘delegitimized nuclear weapons among nations’, ‘This does not mean that nations have lost interest in the acquisition of nuclear weapons, but rather that nations cannot voice this interest publicly in the international arena’.¹⁷

Problematizing Hedging

While Levite offers a broad and useful definition of hedging, the concept is problematic in terms of its position in the ‘vocabulary’ of proliferation behaviour and its application to individual cases. The vocabulary used to describe the proliferation behaviour (real or potential) of states – either possessing or moving towards an advanced nuclear infrastructure – encompasses a number of closely linked and overlapping terms.¹⁸ Latency and hedging, in particular, are very similar in terms of end-state since both refer, in general terms, to a country with an advanced nuclear infrastructure that has the potential to acquire nuclear weapons in a relatively short period of time. Indeed, these terms are frequently used interchangeably.

While there is debate around the nature and significance of latency, it would seem that latent proliferation is best described as a ‘physicalist approach to proliferation – a way to consider a state's distance from the bomb by reference to its physical capabilities, including its nuclear material stocks and fuel cycle status’.¹⁹ The important point to emphasize with latency is that, ‘Even if no conscious decision is made to embark on a weapons production program, the continued operation of a civilian nuclear program makes the effort required to produce a bomb, once a decision to do so is made, ever less demanding’.²⁰ Latency might therefore be described as an unavoidable corollary of a state's nuclear advancement, whatever its intentions. Moreover, the concept of latency encompasses countries with or without potential weapons aspirations – there is scope for countries to make ‘innocent progress towards the bomb’.²¹

At the same time, however, there is an important distinction to be made between these concepts. With nuclear hedging, there is no room for ‘innocent progress’ because it involves a deliberate strategy of developing the technical capacity to produce nuclear weapons so that, if a political decision to do so is taken, weaponization can proceed. While developing latency is thus a central element of hedging, it is the intent to facilitate a viable weapons option that moves a state from latency to the realm of hedging. In short, nuclear hedging is nuclear latency with intent.

For Levite national strategy is an integral element of his definition of hedging. But the application of the concept to a particular state's behaviour is problematic. In his work on strategy, Michael Howard writes that, ‘Any strategy, whether grand or petty, implies both an objective and the means to attain it’.²² And central to the idea of a national strategy is the ‘role of the political sphere as the source of strategic objectives’.²³ In other words, there is a need for a political decision to set the objective upon which subsequent efforts will be focused. However, the opacity inherent in nuclear proliferation, and any decisive move in the direction of acquisition for a NNWS party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty means that the public articulation or expression of hedging as a political objective outside the highest, and most closed and secretive, levels of state decision-making is impossible.

Cohen and Frankel sum up the secrecy that surrounds hedging, and indeed all of the terms associated with opaque proliferation: ‘The terms … are all predicated on different degrees of “distance” or “space” between the public and its leadership. This distance … allows the leadership of a country a room for manoeuvre and decision that at times entails keeping certain details secret from the public’.²⁴ Given this high level of secrecy, how can a strategy of hedging be identified? To truly ascertain whether a state is engaged in hedging, is it necessary to wait for information regarding decisions made at the highest levels to surface? Is hedging a concept best applied retrospectively? Are there indicators that we, as observers looking from the outside-in, can identify and analyse?

Reflective of these challenges to accurately assessing nuclear intentions is the frequent resort of commentators to debating timelines to acquisition. Perhaps inevitable in a complex analytical and theoretical context, timelines offer a means of positioning a state's nuclear programme in relation to the bomb. In the case of Iran there is a veritable obsession with the time it would take Iran to be potentially capable of producing one nuclear weapon. Conclusions – usually fiercely contested – regarding Iran's intentions are often drawn from the technical estimates regarding Tehran's proximity to the bomb.²⁵

But the question of timelines cannot be approached simplistically; both the technical and political elements must be considered. Stressing the importance of the manner in which a state positions itself below the nuclear threshold, Quester notes, for example, that ‘some states might elect to allow plutonium to accumulate first, before designing and building any models or prototypes of bombs; this would allow honest disclaimers that no “work on bombs” was underway’.²⁶ In this respect he emphasizes that ‘political capacities for violating treaties’ must be measured ‘as carefully as physical capabilities’.²⁷

It is clear then that hedging can occur at various states of latency. If we compare Japan and Iran the former sits at one extreme of the hedging spectrum in terms of potential capacity because of its significant stocks of separated plutonium, and latent long-range delivery capability based on a solid-fuel satellite launch vehicle. Iran is at the other end of the spectrum with a limited, albeit developing, latent capacity. In short, we must distinguish between hedging based on advanced latency that could lead to the speedy development of a relatively significant arsenal of deliverable warheads atop an advanced and proven rocket system, and hedging based on limited latency, with variations in between.

Finally, it is important to consider how hedging may be distinguished from a programme built around a deliberate and conscious decision to acquire weapons. At the state level, all forms of opaque proliferation overlap at certain points and hedging is no exception. Common factors indicating a move towards nuclear acquisition, whether this is the desired end point or not, include evidence of technical capability beyond that required for a civil nuclear programme, of undeclared activities or facilities, and of illicit procurement, to name but a few. In this context, can a strategy of hedging be distinguished from a calculated but intentionally circuitous path to the bomb?

In the case of North Korea, Mark Fitzpatrick notes that, ‘while the declared aspects of the programme have occasionally been static or frozen for periods of time, there has been a persistent and long-standing drive to obtain nuclear weapons’.²⁸ American suspicions over North Korea's programme were first expressed in a 1985 State Department Briefing Paper, which noted the construction of a reactor that, ‘could be used for the production of weapons-grade plutonium’ – ironically this was the year that North Korea signed the NPT.²⁹ However, while Pyongyang's intentions were a growing concern from the 1980s onwards, its drive for weapons only became apparent over time as various indicators emerged from the work on plutonium production in the late 1980s, to the exposure of a secret enrichment programme in 2002, to threats to withdraw from the NPT articulated first in 1993, and ultimately its actual withdrawal in 2003.³⁰ The pattern was confirmed beyond doubt in 2006 when Pyongyang conducted its first nuclear test.

The case of North Korea also raises an important point regarding the assessment of intent and the problems posed by this issue, characterized as it is by uncertainty. James Acton points out that although it seems ‘logical that a non-compliant state's intentions should be central to the debate over the international community's response’, there are numerous cases that illustrate ‘how difficult proving intent really is’.³¹ Assessments incorporating intent into the analysis rest on subjective interpretations of the implications of particular combinations of facts, evidence and indicators. Perceptions of intent are in the eye of the beholder and as such, there is ample opportunity for error. Yet while an element of uncertainty will inevitably permeate interpretations of intent, a systematic and multi-layered analysis of proliferation behaviour and its implications can help to shed light on a state's nuclear trajectory. Of course, such assessments may only hold fleeting value, made redundant by changing circumstances. That said, analyses that adopt a wide-ranging and nuanced approach, incorporating a range of indicators from technical evidence to cultural traits, can generate new insights into a complex and opaque political and strategic environment.

What then does all this mean in the context of Iran? Are there indicators that suggest Iran's proliferation behaviour is consistent with a strategy based on hedging? What evidence is there that the Iranian regime is focused on nuclear hedging rather than the deliberate and conscious development of a nuclear weapon?

Nuclear Hedging: Towards a Conceptual Framework

Based on the discussion thus far, there is a clear need for a conceptual framework within which the nuances of hedging can be explored. We argue that three interlinked and overlapping elements should form the main basis for such a framework: opaque proliferation and moves towards latency; the domestic nuclear narrative; and international diplomacy. Approached individually each element can provide insights regarding a state's proliferation behaviour; collectively, they comprise an interpretative web that can provide a more comprehensive perspective on a state's nuclear trajectory. Each of these elements is now explored in the context of Iranian proliferation behaviour. It should be noted that this framework does not claim to provide a definitive and all-encompassing analysis of nuclear hedging and its constituent elements. Rather, the framework seeks to advance current thinking on hedging by setting out a structured and conceptually robust approach to understanding how a strategy based on hedging may be identified in practice.

Opaque Proliferation and Moves towards Latency

The first element of the framework focuses primarily on capability – the essential foundation for assessing Iran through a hedging lens. Indeed, since the initial 2002 revelations regarding Iran's undeclared work on sensitive aspects of the fuel cycle, notably enrichment, enormous effort has been devoted to studying Iran's nuclear-related activities, and to what can be inferred with regard to intent, particularly as the regime has consistently espoused purely peaceful motives.

An ability to maintain opacity, or at least partial opacity, vis-à-vis intent, capability or both are central features of hedging, as are coherent efforts to achieve latency, likely through covert procurement of nuclear materials generally or specifically related to the most sensitive aspects, such as weaponization. It follows that by examining capability trends, the correlation of specific activities with stated political intentions and the maturity of a country's civil nuclear programme, as well as general levels of openness with regard to the nuclear sector, it should be possible to shed light on whether a country may be engaged in hedging. While this capability-focused element may not provide sufficient evidence of hedging in and of itself, when considered with the other two aspects of the framework, things become clearer. There is insufficient space to provide exhaustive analysis of all relevant technical issues so the focus is on providing key illustrations from the Iranian case.

At the heart of the hedging framework is the question of whether a country has developed a degree of latency through its nuclear activities and whether this is consistent with a coherent civil rationale? A directly related question is how far is a country from a latent weapons capability in physical terms? The answers primarily revolve around the status of a country's fuel cycle, its capability for producing weapons-usable fissile materials, stocks of fissile materials that could be further processed for weapons use, and the credibility of stated peaceful intent.³²

As already argued, hedging can occur at various states of latency and Iran already possesses a limited, albeit a developing, latent capacity. In this respect, most of the debate and conjecture about Iranian capacity, or latency, has revolved around the following types of questions: how much and what grade of fissile material has been produced; if existing stocks are used, or further processed, how many weapons could be produced from this; and if Iran continues to expand its capacity to produce fissile materials how will the pace and scope of that expansion influence its ability to produce weapons-usable materials?

In terms of fissile material production, Iran began feeding uranium hexafluoride (UF6) into its gas centrifuges for enrichment purposes for the first time at Natanz in February 2007.³³ Since then, Iran has focused on enriching uranium to two levels: up to five per cent of the isotope U-235 and 20 per cent U-235. Enrichment around the five per cent mark is suitable for light water reactor fuel similar to the material used at Iran's Bushehr nuclear power plant. Iran has justified 20 per cent on the need to refuel the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), which uses material enriched to this level for the production of radioisotopes for medical applications. While Iran's initial work on converting uranium for enrichment purposes and subsequently starting to enrich up to five per cent prompted major international concerns, its announcement in February 2010 that it had succeeded in enriching to 20 per cent raised concern to a new level; higher enrichment levels mean the material moves closer to being usable in weapons (90 per cent U-235) and, as noted by many observers, a great deal of the effort needed to get to 90 per cent has already been expended by the 20 per cent point.³⁴

It is informative to consider how IAEA data on Iran's nuclear activities has been interpreted with regard to latency. If we take the IAEA report to the Board of Governors in February 2013, it is worth noting that the figures provided regarding holdings and levels of enriched uranium prompted significant conjecture in terms of Iran's potential to produce weapons grade material.³⁵ One assessment drawing on data included in the report focused on the entire holdings of enriched uranium, projecting that ‘Iran's stockpile of low-enriched uranium is now sufficient, after further enrichment, to fuel approximately five nuclear warheads’.³⁶ However, a separate analysis focused purely on the 20 per cent factor assessing that, ‘Iran has less than enough 20 per cent low enriched uranium hexafluoride for one nuclear weapon, if further enriched to weapon-grade’, which takes into account the fact that 111 kg of the 20 per cent holdings has now been converted into research reactor fuel and sent to the TRR.³⁷ These examples demonstrate that it is not straightforward, at least at low levels of enriched uranium holdings, to establish exact projections of how many weapons could potentially be produced. But the overall point is clear: as a stockpile of enriched uranium grows a country's ability to produce the material required for weapons use also expands. Indeed, Israeli officials have ‘let it be known that their red line is an Iranian stockpile of 240 kilograms of 20 per cent enriched uranium’.³⁸ As Hymans and Gratias note, this figure ‘would place Iran within about one to two months of achieving a single [significant quantity] of weapon-grade, 90 per cent enriched uranium, if it wanted to achieve that objective, and if all the technical steps went according to plan’.³⁹

If the stated civil rationale for Iran's nuclear activities is taken into account, and juxtaposed with the country's known nuclear activities, this adds greater colour to considerations of potential hedging. In this respect, a key question arises: are the country's nuclear activities, and moves towards latency, compatible with a coherent civil rationale?

Despite official Iranian explanations and justifications since 2002, a question mark has been placed against whether all of the country's nuclear efforts, and the maturity of the programme, are compatible with the stated civil rationale. The most significant issue here involves the scale and speed of Iran's enrichment programme, which make little sense in terms of the stated rationale. While Iran has plans to expand its nuclear programme significantly – Tehran recently announced that 16 sites had been identified as suitable for the construction of new power plants over the next 15 years – only the Bushehr plant has been built to date and planned nuclear power plants are years away from being developed and becoming operational.⁴⁰ Moreover, Bushehr is Russian-built and uses Russian fuel. The puzzle here, then, is trying to understand why Iran needs to develop such an extensive enrichment infrastructure when the country's only power reactor does not require a domestic source of fuel, and ground has not been broken on any future power reactors. Given that a second plant – even if it did require Iranian-sourced fuel – would likely not come on line for 10–15 years, Iran's ambitious enrichment efforts do not align with the domestic nuclear power situation. In short, the scale and speed of Iran's enrichment programme make little economic or technical sense in terms of the stated rationale, thereby fuelling concerns about potential ulterior motives.

Moving beyond latency and coherency, it is also important to consider the question of transparency in the nuclear arena. In Iran concealment and covert development have featured as central elements of the country's nuclear modus operandi. In summer 2002, for example, it was exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of (NCRI), and not the Iranian government that first revealed the existence of the uranium enrichment facilities being constructed at Natanz, and the heavy water facility being built at Arak. Moreover some seven years later, in September 2009, the Iranian government informed the IAEA that it was building a uranium enrichment facility at Fordow. The existence of the facility was already known to Western intelligence agencies and Iran should have alerted the IAEA to its construction as soon as the decision was taken to build it, which was clearly not the case.

In addition to concealment, Iran has also sought to procure technology and materials for its nuclear programme covertly. One example is the Iranian firm Modern Industries Technique Company (MITEC), which is involved in the project to build the Arak heavy water reactor. MITEC has been identified as having participated in the covert procurement of valves for the reactor. Of the 1,767 valves being sought, 1,163 were reportedly received. The procurement involved front companies in Turkey and falsified end use documents to acquire the valves from Germany.⁴¹ There are many other examples of attempted and successful covert procurement by Iran. This type of activity is in violation of UN Security Council Resolutions demanding that Iran suspend work on sensitive nuclear activities including enrichment and the Arak project.

Concealment and covert development have increased the ambiguity surrounding Iran's nuclear programme and directly contributed to international anxiety regarding Tehran's true intentions. Seeking and examining evidence of such behaviour must therefore be a central element of gauging potential hedging behaviour.

Finally, moves towards latency must be examined for any indications of specifically military aspects. Is there evidence of a state acquiring or seeking to acquire the technology and know-how to design, assemble and manufacture nuclear weapons? And, related to this, is there evidence of military involvement in nuclear activities? On both counts evidence to this effect has come to light in the Iran case. In terms of weapons relevant technology, for example, Iran gained possession – via the infamous AQ Khan network – of a document describing the process for converting UF6 into uranium metal and machining it into hemispheres. While Iran claims it did not request this document from the illicit network, the process described is directly relevant to the manufacture of fissile cores for a nuclear weapon.⁴²

Moreover, the IAEA has acquired information identifying Iranian work on detonation including, ‘at least one full scale hemispherical, converging, explosively driven shock system that could be applicable to an implosion-type nuclear device’.⁴³ Iran refutes the weapons relevance of this work, claiming it is for civilian and conventional military uses. The problem here is that Iran has not supported its claims with any evidence and other examples of weapons relevant work exist.⁴⁴ On the issue of military involvement in the programme, the IAEA has gathered evidence indicating that military-related organizations in Iran have participated in procurement efforts for the alleged nuclear weapons-related projects and that defence companies have manufactured nuclear-related components including parts for gas centrifuges.⁴⁵ Importantly, the infamous 2007 American National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear programme assessed, with ‘high confidence’, that Iran ‘had halted its military, as opposed to ostensibly civil, nuclear activities in mid-to-late 2003’, thereby contradicting the previous NIE on the Iranian nuclear programme in 2005.⁴⁶ While this finding of the 2007 NIE was challenged at the time including by some intelligence organizations in Europe, it does appear to suggest that weaponization-related activities may have been suspended in 2003 potentially in response to international pressure and IAEA investigations.⁴⁷

Although these examples offer a mere snapshot of suspected military-specific nuclear activity in Iran, when considered alongside Iran's covert procurement, systematic concealment, growing latency and questionable civil nuclear rationale, they make Tehran's claims of purely civil intent difficult to believe. However, looking at capability alone is insufficient to shed any great light on whether a state is pursuing a hedging-based approach versus a deliberate and conscious effort to acquire weapons.

The Domestic Nuclear Narrative

The second element of the framework involves understanding the narrative around a nuclear programme: the manner in which the state's nuclear activities are represented by decision-makers and the political elite more broadly. By analysing representations of nuclear – both civil and military – projected by those in power, and exploring how these reflect and feed into broader perceptions of national identity, sovereignty and place in the international arena, we can learn much about the role and political function of a state's nuclear programme. This, in turn, can shed light on the direction the programme is taking. Key questions in this respect include: What significance is attached to nuclear technology and advancement? What shape has political rhetoric on nuclear weapons taken? How coherent are the national debate (if any) and government discourse on nuclear weapons and civil nuclear issues? What is the influence of domestic politics and power rivalries on the nuclear narrative?

Since the revelations regarding its undeclared activities in 2002, Iran has consistently defended its peaceful nuclear aims in the face of widespread international condemnation. Officially at least, the regime has not deviated from this position and at home and abroad, the Iranian nuclear narrative has sought to portray Iran as a victim in a hostile international community. Domestically, successive governments have used the nuclear issue as a rallying point for nationalist sentiment to shore up the regime.

The narrative presents Tehran's defiance over its nuclear activities as part of a legitimate and righteous struggle comprising three principal strands. These strands are closely linked and often overlapping, constructed according to a logic derived from Tehran's continued insistence on its peaceful intentions. First, the narrative presents international opposition to the Iranian nuclear programme in terms of a denial of technology. Tehran has made much of the need to exploit nuclear energy in order to satisfy the growing demand for electricity. In 2004, reports claimed that Iran hoped to generate 7,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity from nuclear.⁴⁸ By 2007, this figure had risen to 20,000 MW.⁴⁹

The potential economic benefits of a nuclear programme have also been emphasized: ‘every country equipped with a complete fuel cycle will be able to stand on its feet in securing energy and not be forced to become dependent and give advantages. Countries with a nuclear fuel cycle will export energy around the world in the future gaining a very high income by doing so’.⁵⁰ In this context, international efforts to slow down or reverse Iran's nuclear trajectory by blocking the procurement of nuclear materials and expertise are portrayed as an attempt to deny Iran the technology it needs to advance its nuclear programme and reap the associated energy and economic benefits. According to Seyed Hossein Mousavian, former head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran's supreme National Security Council and spokesman for Tehran's nuclear negotiating team, ‘Tehran … contends that the main reason for the current standoff is to keep Iran dependent on the industrial powers and to impede the country's economic and industrial progress’.⁵¹ Tehran's position has been firm in this regard: attempts to curb Iran's technological advancement will be resisted.

Second, attempts to impede the progress of Iran's nuclear programme are portrayed as a denial of rights. As a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran is entitled to develop nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Article IV of the treaty refers to the ‘inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes’.⁵² This point forms the mainstay of the Iranian narrative. Western powers are portrayed as discriminatory by Iran – during his time in office President Ahmadinejad spoke of ‘attempts to impose an apartheid regime on access to peaceful nuclear energy’ – with Iran positioned as a victim: ‘It is obvious that the West and the anti-revolutionary forces do not want Iran to possess this valuable technology even at a peaceful level. It is also obvious that not only but no other country can forego the rights of its nation and sign an agreement to that effect. Such a thing cannot happen’.⁵³ Iran's defiant stance is presented as a struggle to secure Iran's fundamental rights and is linked to the Islamic Republic's identity as a sovereign nation-state. In a 2004 statement, former President Rafsanjani summed up this argument: ‘Iran … is defending its right, its nation and its revolution; saying: I would like to use my right within the framework of the IAEA regulations and would like nothing more than that’.⁵⁴ Questions over Iran's nuclear intentions and the continued refusal to allow the IAEA full access to Iranian nuclear facilities have been largely side-lined, with political discourse in Iran focusing on the international community's impingement on the country's rights.

This notion of Western powers attempting to deny Iran its sovereign right to develop a civil nuclear programme, and in particular to enrich uranium, aligns with the worldview that has dominated Iranian politics and society since the 1979 Revolution. From its very establishment, the Islamic Republic was characterized by its desire for independence, in stark contrast to the submissive relationship between the Shah and the United States. Moreover, early and prolonged experience of invasion and external interference fostered a deep suspicion of foreigners' intentions and a strong belief in self-reliance as the only way to guarantee the survival of the revolutionary regime. In this respect Chubin claims that, ‘although tempered over the last quarter of a century, Iranian leaders still believe that Iran constitutes a role model for others in creating an Islamic revolution and siding with the oppressed against global arrogance and an unjust international order’.⁵⁵ According to this perspective, opposition to the nuclear programme is portrayed by Tehran as simply another effort to undermine Iran's independence by Western powers.

Third, the narrative presents international opposition to Iran's nuclear activities as a denial of status. Throughout Iran's history, the country's leaders ‘have believed that Iran's size, historical importance and self-professed cultural superiority merit a significant role for the country in the region’.⁵⁶ In this context, Iran suffers from a sense of ‘status discrepancy’ that is based on the gap between the leading regional and global role Iran imagines for itself and the reality of its limited influence.⁵⁷ The Iranian nuclear programme is used by the regime as a means of reversing this status discrepancy, providing the Islamic Republic with a vehicle for the projection of international influence and status. Scientific advancement is associated with modernity in Iran and there is powerful symbolism associated with mastering the technical demands of nuclear science. Consequently, advancements in the nuclear programme have been announced amid much publicity and fanfare. In 2010, Ahmadinejad announced that Iran had enriched uranium to 19.75 per cent U-235 on the anniversary of the revolution, thereby indicating the strength of the political link between the nuclear programme and nationalist self-perceptions of greatness.⁵⁸

Constantly renewed and reinforced by political and media discourse, the narrative continues to serve as a valuable political and strategic tool for the regime in Tehran, giving domestic legitimacy to nuclear activities that now extend far beyond the requirements of a purely civil nuclear programme. Yet, the broader narrative around the nuclear programme does not, on its own, signify a strategy of hedging. We must also consider how this narrative fits with and influences domestic political perspectives. Commentators often assume a politically homogeneous Iran and this has an important impact on perceptions regarding Iran's nuclear aspirations. However, this assumption is reductive and does not paint an accurate picture of what is in fact a volatile domestic political environment. For while Iran's actions on the international stage may appear clear, concerted and fixed on moving towards nuclear weapons, the domestic arena presents a much more fragmented political landscape, characterized by factionalism.

Authority in Iran is shared between the Supreme Leader, the president, the clergy, the army, the Revolutionary Guard, the Majlis, and other groups and, consequently, the domestic political environment in Iran constitutes a labyrinth of conflicting ideas, beliefs, aspirations and goals. Indeed Peter Jones argues that the political system ‘is not so much the process by which Iran is governed as a playing field upon which factions and groupings compete for power and patronage’.⁵⁹ The landscape is fluid and dynamic and ‘factional alignment does not necessarily mean political alliance; the two are often at odds’.⁶⁰ So despite the popular belief that decision-making in the Iranian political arena is framed by consensus, nothing could be further from the truth.

Paradoxically, within this combative context, the highly controversial nuclear programme has provoked relatively little disagreement. As already discussed, this is largely due to the way in which the nuclear programme has been represented by the regime in Tehran, positioned within a nationalist framework and linked to national advancement and sovereign rights. And nuclear nationalism has had powerful official support within Iran: ‘for many years, the Supreme Council for National Security … effectively prevented the publication of any questioning of the country's negotiating position on the nuclear issue’.⁶¹

This position has been reinforced in recent years. Chubin credits Ahmadinejad with the large-scale politicization of the nuclear issue from 2005 onwards: ‘by raising the issue during his provincial tours [and] sloganeering about Iran's “nuclear rights” … he followed a brand of nuclear populism that would at once reduce the scope for eventual compromise and inflate the issue to a near-existential one’.⁶² The direction and pace of the nuclear programme have rarely been challenged and even the more questionable aspects of Iran's nuclear activities have provoked little criticism. Consequently, the nuclear issue sits outside the parameters of normal political opposition in Iran, protected by this self-censorship that permeates the political sphere and crosses factional lines.

It is important to note, however, that while there is a strong consensus on preserving the country's rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, and on developing peaceful nuclear applications, there is no evidence of consensus on developing a military programme. Certainly, there are voices of dissent; some senior religious and political figures have expressed interest in nuclear weapons.⁶³ However, this constituency of interest represents the minority; the political consensus in Iran is around civil nuclear advancement and Iran's rights, not an Iranian bomb.

In this context, any deviation from the peaceful nuclear narrative would leave the regime open to attack domestically. Indeed, despite Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's support for Ahmadinejad's provocative nuclear policy, the United States' 2011 National Intelligence Estimate reportedly noted the existence of an ‘increasingly heated debate’ in Iran ‘over whether to move further toward developing nuclear weapons’.⁶⁴ According to the 2011 NIE, there are divergences within the regime, with some officials anxious that economic difficulties, triggered in part by economic sanctions, could feed domestic opposition. This discord can only have increased as the Iranian economy has deteriorated as a result of international sanctions imposed on Iran.

Viewed in this light, it might be argued that hedging is the only possible strategy for a regime that, on one hand, appears to have taken steps down the nuclear weapons path, yet on the other, is bound by the constraints of its own efforts to imbue the country's civil nuclear programme with nationalist sentiment and to use this as a source of political capital. Viewed in this light, Iran's behaviour is now as much hedging by default as it is hedging by design. It is the only approach that allows the regime to reconcile any potential moves towards nuclear weapons with the consensus on nuclear advancement that the broader nuclear narrative has facilitated.

Moreover, the regime's actions have, in many ways, facilitated what Llewelyn Hughes describes as institutional hedging. While much has been made of the Supreme Leader Khamenei's fatwa against nuclear weapons – in 2012, Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani, head of the Iranian judiciary, stated that ‘the fatwa that the Supreme Leader has issued is the best guarantee that Iran will never seek to produce nuclear weapons’ – this religious edict has never been published and has raised many concerns.⁶⁵ Ali Ansari, for example, writes that, ‘although Ayatollah Khamenei's pronouncements are both encouraging and intriguing, it is not at all clear that they amount to an unqualified binding religious ruling’.⁶⁶ Drawing on the fatwa issued against Salman Rushdie by Ayatollah Khomeini, Ansari points out that, when the need arose, Iranian officials performed ‘semantic acrobatics’ in seeking to argue that the decree was a religious opinion rather than a fatwa and therefore not binding. Simply put, the religious decree has no legislative basis and leaves significant room for manoeuvre.

In 2012 Iran's then Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi claimed that Iran was willing to make the fatwa ‘a legally binding, official document in the UN’, but this claim did not translate into action.⁶⁷ Furthermore, even the Supreme Leader has appeared to waver in his public stance at times. In a recent statement published on his personal website, Ayatollah Khamenei said: ‘We believe that nuclear weapons must be eliminated. We don't want to build atomic weapons. But if we didn't believe so and intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could stop us’.⁶⁸ In sum, the decision-making freedom of the Supreme Leader and the lack of any formal barriers to the acquisition of nuclear weapons mean that, in institutional terms, the route to the bomb remains open. Indeed, beyond the trademark defiance of the Iranian regime, Khamenei's statement seemed to reflect the spirit of nuclear hedging even if he did not mention the term.

International Diplomacy

The final element of the framework is the diplomatic behaviour of states in question from the point at which international concerns are raised about the state's activities in the technical realm. In assessing a state's international diplomacy as a potential indicator of hedging, attention must be given to how the state seeks to justify its technical activities, particularly once it comes under investigation for potential NPT non-compliance. How does the state interact with the international community? What evidence is there of the state seeking to head off, or deflect political pressure on the nuclear issue? An analysis of bilateral and multilateral engagement allows us to chart the general trajectory of a state's diplomacy and gain insights into what this might mean regarding nuclear intentions. A key assumption here is that the state in question will be a NNWS party to the NPT – only four states remain outside the treaty and all four have joined the ‘nuclear club’: Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea.

In the past decade, the pattern established by Iranian diplomacy has seen negotiations used as a diplomatic smokescreen, aimed at both dissipating international pressure and buying time to advance its nuclear capabilities. Tehran has engaged in what may be termed ‘cat and mouse diplomacy’ with those external players – principally the UN Security Council permanent members and Germany (P5+1) – that have sought a suspension of Iran's sensitive nuclear work, greater transparency and full cooperation with the IAEA: agreeing to talks but then pulling out, reneging on agreements and proposing alternative approaches that are more favourable to the Iranian position.

This interpretation differs, of course, from the Iranian perspective according to which Western powers have never been serious about finding a mutually acceptable solution to the nuclear challenge. In June 2013, the Supreme Leader claimed that reaching ‘a solution to the nuclear impasse with the West would be “easy” if the United States and its allies are serious about seeking a deal’.⁶⁹ This perspective forms part of the broader nuclear narrative discussed above and, unsurprisingly, places the blame for diplomatic failure on the shoulders of Western powers, particularly the United States. It is important to note that there is at least some truth to this claim. There have been a number of missed opportunities in the context of the Iranian nuclear challenge, most notably in 2003 when Tehran approached Washington via the Swiss Ambassador in Tehran to explore the possibility of opening negotiations. The regime expressed a willingness to discuss ‘a so-called ‘grand bargain’” that would address the full array of issues of interest to Washington in return for security guarantees and the lifting of American sanctions (among other things)’ in an overture that was quickly dismissed by the Bush administration.⁷⁰

On balance, however, while missed opportunities do offer some challenge to the Western rhetoric of Iranian defiance, it is uncertain whether Tehran ever intended to reach a negotiated settlement short of achieving some degree of mastery of all elements of the nuclear fuel cycle. From the failed agreements of 2003 and 2004 when Tehran reneged on its commitment to suspend enrichment–related activities, to the breakdown of talks with the P5+1 in 2006, to the unfulfilled promise of a fuel swap in 2009, to the fruitless negotiations of 2012 and 2013 (prior to the Geneva interim agreement), Iran's diplomatic track record constitutes a series of failed negotiations, reneged agreements and above all, intransigence. On the whole, Tehran's diplomatic approach to the nuclear issue has been characterized by a reluctance to make any concessions with regard to the capability and advancement of its nuclear programme. And the strategy has proved effective. The further Iran progresses with its nuclear programme, the less likely Tehran is to give up its capabilities. While it may have been possible in 2003 to envisage an Iran without enrichment capabilities, this is certainly no longer the case.

Furthermore, Iran's diplomacy appears underpinned by broader strategic objectives. These objectives feed into Iran's efforts to stall for time, and on a larger scale they aim to muddy the diplomatic waters and reframe debate and action on Iran's nuclear programme in a context that is less conducive to concerted and prolonged international opposition to its activities. Crucially, these strategic diplomatic objectives mirror, and indeed reinforce, the priorities of the nuclear narrative.

First, Iran has attempted to dissipate international pressure by exploiting its status as a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty to offset the controversy caused by its defiance and to shift debate towards broader questions of rights and entitlements under the treaty. By focusing on these divisive issues, Tehran has attempted to submerge the specific debate over Iran's nuclear activities in the long-running debate on the nature of the NPT and the role of the treaty in perpetuating inequalities in international power relations. Particularly, Iran has ‘sought to establish the principle of the right to enrichment and to demonstrate that this right is irreversible in that Iran has mastered the full fuel cycle and cannot unlearn it’.⁷¹ Tehran has sought to use this rights-based argument to gain support by exploiting the concerns of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) with regard to the divide separating NWS and NNWS under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Iran's narrative of victimization has resounded with many non-aligned members who have been generally sympathetic to Iran's cause and have, for the most part, tended to support Iran's nuclear defiance.

Iran's rights-based argument has proved difficult to oppose, primarily because Iran has succeeded in merging issues of treaty non-compliance with the more fundamental question of the right to access fuel cycle technology. Nothing in the Non-Proliferation Treaty prohibits a state from developing indigenous fuel cycle capabilities or stockpiling fissile materials. However, the NPT grants states the right of access to nuclear technology only ‘so long as their nuclear activities are exclusively peaceful’, a condition that is fulfilled by adherence to IAEA safeguards.⁷² After violating its safeguards obligations, Iran was found to be in non-compliance and was referred to the United Nations Security Council. The Council has passed a number of legally binding resolutions but, crucially, Iran ‘dismisses the legal validity of its case being sent to the Security Council in the first place’.⁷³ The Iranian crisis, then, stems from issues of non-compliance and is not a question of rights, but Iran has sought to make it such since this affords Tehran room for manoeuvre and gives legitimacy to its defiance. And while the credibility of its claims to peaceful nuclear aspirations have been undermined by technical evidence, the absence of a ‘smoking gun’ means that Tehran can continue to argue that its nuclear efforts are towards purely peaceful ends.

Second, Iran has pursued closer ties with China and Russia as a means of offsetting the diplomatic and economic weight of the United States, the leading advocate for more forceful measures against Iran over the past decade. In China and Russia, Iran has found ‘strategic partners willing to accept its nefarious activities and willing to deal with it on a quid pro quo basis’.⁷⁴ In historical terms, Iran's relations with these countries have been complex and often problematic. Beijing's close ties with the Shah rankled the leadership of the Islamic Republic for many years while the ‘[revolutionary] slogan – “neither East nor West” – reflected Iran's continued ideological and practical disputes with the Soviet Union’.⁷⁵ Over the past few decades, however, shared interests and strategic objectives have brought Tehran closer to both Beijing and Moscow.

Iran's turn to the East has been extremely valuable to Tehran's nuclear diplomacy. Cultivating Chinese and Russian relations has allowed Iran to mitigate the effects of American economic and political pressure, ‘while developing Tehran's lagging energy, security, and nuclear infrastructure and technology’.⁷⁶ These relationships have also undermined the broader international response to Iran's defiance, creating division within the P5+1 and the IAEA Board of Governors. Indeed, the ‘lack of unanimity within the Security Council … can be attributed to China's and Russia's strategic relations with Iran’.⁷⁷ Of course, there are two faces to the coin. From a Chinese perspective, Iran has much to offer. Beyond its significant oil and gas reserves, Iran provides a market for Chinese exports and, more importantly, serves as leverage for Beijing against the United States. Russia is similarly attracted by Iran's economic potential and views Iran as a means of expanding its interests in the Middle East.

In general terms, then, by tapping into more deeply rooted, perennial issues such as East-West power relations and the controversy that surrounds the inequalities inherent in the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran has managed to broaden the debate beyond the specificities of the Iranian nuclear programme and place significant obstacles in the way of concerted political action against its programme.

At first glance, Iran's international diplomacy would appear to suggest a deliberate and coherent strategy of hedging. Yet while Iran's diplomatic manoeuvring has undoubtedly sought to buy time for the nuclear programme to advance, the approach here cannot be divorced from the domestic political situation. As the constraining effects of Iran's nuclear nationalism have gained momentum, it has become increasingly difficult for the regime to reverse its diplomatic trajectory. The failure of the fuel-swap agreement in 2009 is a prime example of how the hyper-politicized nature of the nuclear programme in Iranian politics has influenced Iran's international diplomacy. In October 2009, Tehran agreed in principle to an American proposal for a fuel-swap that would see Iran send a significant portion of its stockpile of low enriched uranium (LEU) to Russia and France for conversion into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).⁷⁸ However, while the deal held a number of benefits for Iran, Tehran reneged on the agreement and refused to accept the draft technical agreement that was negotiated later that month at the IAEA. This reversal was, in large part, due to the domestic political response; the deal ‘was attacked by Ahmadinejad's rivals across the political spectrum’.⁷⁹

Ultimately, Tehran's interactions with the international community are consistent with a strategy based on nuclear hedging. However, Iran's diplomacy has not been the coherent and unified approach that many assume it to be. Cast as a rallying point for Iranian nationalism, the nuclear programme has gained an organic momentum that has constrained the regime's room for diplomatic manoeuvre. As mentioned above, this may be better described as hedging by default since Tehran is now bound to a hedging approach, as much through circumstance as through design. This is not to suggest that Iran's nuclear trajectory has outstripped the regime's intentions or aspirations, rather the situation highlights the complexity of nuclear hedging in practice. The regime in Tehran is, in many ways, a victim of its own success. Having constructed the nuclear programme as a potent source of political capital, Tehran has bound itself to the programme's advancement.

The surprise election of Hassan Rouhani as president in June 2013 has added another twist to the nuclear saga. A centrist politician Rouhani campaigned on a reformist platform and, in his inauguration speech claimed this ‘is a victory for wisdom, moderation and maturity … over extremism’.⁸⁰ Rouhani is an experienced statesman previously serving as Chief Nuclear Negotiator and National Security Advisor to two presidents, with ‘a mandate for change and a disposition towards pragmatism which provide a ray of hope’ amidst international tensions over the nuclear programme.⁸¹ In his inauguration remarks, the president specifically alluded to reducing tensions with the West: ‘we will improve our national and regional security. Transparency is the key to open a new chapter in mutual trust’.⁸² Then, in his first speech at the United Nations, he declared a willingness to ‘remove any and all reasonable concerns about Iran's peaceful nuclear program’.⁸³

Moreover, the more conciliatory approach of the Rouhani administration – with the support of the Supreme Leader – has translated into direct action. In November 2013, the P5+1 and Iran agreed a Joint Plan of Action following a series of talks in Geneva. Under the terms of this six month interim agreement, Iran agreed to halt key aspects of its nuclear programme, including enriching uranium to over five per cent U-235 and stopping construction work on certain aspects of the Arak heavy water reactor which, when operational, would provide Iran with a potential source of plutonium and another route to the bomb.⁸⁴ In return, Iran received limited relief from sanctions. Ultimately all these measures are reversible, as American and Iranian officials have openly acknowledged. However the agreement aims to build confidence and create the diplomatic space required to negotiate a more lasting solution, so in this context the Joint Plan of Action has been widely lauded as a positive development.

Yet while the agreement reached in Geneva relieved some of the pressure on Iran and bought time for the diplomatic process to advance, it also served as an implicit acknowledgement by the P5+1 of Iranian hedging at a low level of latency. Iranian diplomacy has for many years focused on forcing the international community to acknowledge and accept its enrichment programme. Under the Joint Plan of Action this has been achieved, even if enrichment has been limited to five per cent U-235. Moreover, with this precedent set, it is highly unlikely that further rollback of Iran's enrichment capability will form part of any future agreement.

Somewhat paradoxically, then, while President Rouhani has adopted a more tempered approach to the nuclear challenge, his tenure is also likely to offer yet another illustration of the political self-censorship that crosses the political divide on nuclear issues and provides further evidence to support the idea of an Iranian nuclear strategy based on hedging. For although Rouhani supports reform on a number of issues – during his presidential campaign he spoke of ‘helping to free political prisoners, of guaranteeing civil rights and a return of “dignity to the nation”’ – he is a regime-insider who ‘fully supports the nuclear programme’.⁸⁵ Fitzpatrick writes that, ‘like all successful Iranian politicians, he talks about it in terms of technological achievement and national sovereignty’. Indeed, Fitzpatrick goes further saying that this veteran of foreign affairs and security issues ‘undoubtedly also sees it as an important security hedge’.⁸⁶ Moreover, Rouhani is well aware of domestic political sensitivities. In the weeks leading up to his election, political hardliners ‘warned him against associating with dissidents involved in the 2009 street protests. Mr. Rouhani has been careful to keep a politically acceptable distance from such dissidents’.⁸⁷ It is unlikely, then, that Rouhani would risk attack by being seen to capitulate to Western powers on the nuclear programme, arguably Iran's most politicized national issue and one that has, for many years, been represented as a source of Iranian advancement and pride. For these reasons, it is unlikely he will order any further significant rollback of the nuclear programme.

Understanding and Living with Nuclear Hedging

In general terms, the opacity that characterizes nuclear proliferation means that it is extremely difficult to accurately categorize proliferation behaviour because strategic decisions related to nuclear developments are highly secretive and limited to small groups of decision-makers. This said, by adopting a more holistic approach to analysing a state's nuclear activities, it is possible to identify indicators and evidence that might point towards a particular approach and help shed light on intent. The framework briefly outlined here provides for a more nuanced understanding of the concept of nuclear hedging and its complexities. It also provides useful insights relevant to potential policy approaches to proliferation challenges.

We argue that by examining a state's nuclear programme from three distinct angles – technical, narrative and diplomatic – it is possible to identify the key elements of a hedging strategy. By applying this approach to Iran it is clear that significant evidence exists to suggest the presence of a strategy based on hedging: from the continued failure to comply with international obligations, to the speed and nature of technical advances, to the diplomatic efforts to delay action and obfuscate the issues at stake.

Crucially, however, we also find that Tehran's approach is as much ‘hedging by default’ as it is ‘hedging by design’, a situation resulting from the particular historical, cultural and political context within which the nuclear programme is situated. Furthermore, we argue that this conclusion is the only one that can be logically drawn from the open source evidence currently available, particularly in the period since 2003 when Iran first agreed to suspend enrichment and the regime reportedly, according to the 2007 NIE, halted weapons specific work. Importantly, we do not claim that Iran will not attempt to cross the nuclear threshold in due course; we simply argue that there is no evidence as yet to indicate that this is the currently desired end-point of the programme. What, then, are the policy implications of our conclusion that Iran is engaged in a strategy based on nuclear hedging?

International Exposure

Broadly speaking, it is clear that exposure of Iran's undeclared and military-related nuclear activities, and the resultant international pressure, has placed barriers in the way of progress towards the bomb. At first glance this statement may appear to be a truism. However, a little discussed outcome of this exposure and pressure has been the effect of the publicity generated around the 2002 revelations regarding Iran's undeclared nuclear activities. Previously the preserve of a relatively small, elite group of decision-makers, these revelations thrust the nuclear issue into the domestic political arena in Iran and opened it up to broader political scrutiny for the first time. This created significant domestic barriers to the bomb since the Iranian regime was no longer able to move forward with the nuclear programme in the covert manner that characterized its approach pre-2002. Suddenly, under the international spotlight, the regime was forced to fully engage with a peaceful nuclear narrative at the domestic level to secure necessary political support in a notoriously factional environment.

There were benefits to this approach. International opposition to Iran's nuclear activities was portrayed as an attempt to put a halt to Iran's legitimate advances in the civil nuclear field and, on a larger scale, Iranian progress. Domestically, the nuclear issue quickly became one of sovereign rights and victimization, aligning neatly with the anti-Americanism that has been a prominent feature of the Islamic Republic's political landscape since 1979. Engaging with a peaceful nuclear narrative allowed the theocracy in Tehran to use the nuclear issue as a rallying point for a powerful form of nationalism that served as political capital for the regime. However, there have been other important consequences.

The consensus around civil nuclear does not extend to weapons and the regime has thus been bound to nuclear advancement in a situation that we have described as ‘hedging by default’. By investing the nuclear programme with such importance and linking it directly to Iran's rights and advancement as a nation state to develop peaceful applications of nuclear energy, the regime has placed itself on a trajectory that is difficult to reverse or even alter. Politically, the same arguments that garnered support for the regime in recent years are now forcing continued technical progress in the face of intense international opposition. Having invested so much in nuclear nationalism, the regime cannot afford to be seen to capitulate to international pressure. In this context, and somewhat paradoxically, the crippling economic sanctions that have been imposed upon Iran have contributed to the process. The Iranian nuclear programme is at the centre of a destructive spiral that sees coercive measures feeding into the nuclear nationalism that frames nuclear advancement. Continuing down this path will see Iran further advance its level of nuclear latency, moving ever closer to the bomb.

Clearly, then, international exposure of Iran's undeclared nuclear activities has had an enormous impact on the country's nuclear trajectory, both in terms of how the programme has been represented and in terms of the shift to hedging by default. The analysis here also highlights the critical importance of understanding cultural context and domestic political environment when seeking to understand nuclear decision-making. But what does this mean in terms of future action? How should the international community deal with the Iranian nuclear challenge?

Setting Realistic Goals

If there is to be a lasting diplomatic solution to the current situation it must be based on realistic and achievable goals. First, the goal must be to contain Iranian nuclear progress rather than to seek reversal. It is not feasible to expect decision-makers in Tehran to risk the domestic political backlash of agreeing to a significant rollback of its existing capability. A more realistic goal is to focus on containing Iranian advancements and to restrict Iran's hedging to a low level of latency. Such an approach entails an implicit acceptance of nuclear hedging in the Iranian context. This will not be palatable to all parties, particularly Israel, but to expect anything else may be overly optimistic. Of course, the limits of what constitutes a low level of latency are open to debate; there are a number of issues to be considered, from enrichment levels to stocks of fissile material. In principle, however, this would involve keeping Iran some way away from a credible breakout capability, but at the same time allowing Tehran to retain its programme in some form.

The trade-off here would come in the form of greater transparency and increased oversight regarding Iran's nuclear activities over a consistent period. The Iranian Parliament would, for example, have to ratify and fully implement the Additional Protocol to its IAEA safeguards agreement, with IAEA inspectors being provided with all necessary access and support to verify declared activities and rule out any further undeclared work. This idea of comprehensive oversight as part of a trade-off for enrichment is not new. However, it assumes new significance when considered in the cultural and political context that our hedging framework provides.

Of course, success in this context will require a relationship between Iran and the West which allows the two sides to understand each other's goals and objectives and calibrate their understandings of acceptable behaviour as the situation develops. In this regard, the recent Joint Plan of Action agreed in Geneva constitutes a step in the right direction. The agreement effectively recognizes that Iran will retain its enrichment capability in some shape or form going forward and, consequently, implicitly accepts Iranian hedging at a low level of latency. Whether this position will be sustained on a more permanent basis remains to be seen as hard-line opponents of the Iranian nuclear programme, particularly in the United States and Israel, have objected loudly to the interim agreement.

Saving Face for a Non-proliferation Breakthrough?

The time appears ripe for making progress given that President Rouhani has signalled his eagerness to reduce international pressure and to engage in a more positive relationship with the outside world, including the United States, on priority issues such as the nuclear programme. Indeed, this desire appears to have translated into action with the recent Geneva agreement. Any lasting solution to the Iranian nuclear challenge, however, will hinge on the ability of the Iranian regime to ‘save face’. Stella Ting-Toomey describes ‘face maintenance’, as the ‘desire to project an image of strength and capability, or conversely, to avoid projecting an image of incapability, weakness, or foolishness’.⁸⁸ This is particularly important in Iran where the domestic political scene sees various power centres competing for influence at each other's expense and frequently in the public eye. In the nuclear context, however, this desire becomes a need that underpins political survival. The nuclear programme enjoys support across the political spectrum in Iran and past experience has shown that any move that might be perceived as a loss is sure to invite political attack. Consequently, a lasting settlement to the nuclear programme must align with the domestic nuclear narrative. In short, Iran's nuclear negotiators must be able to claim a victory for an agreement to be endorsed domestically.

This was achieved with the Joint Plan of Action – undoubtedly helped by Israel's vociferous criticism of the deal – but the interim deal is but one step towards a more permanent solution, and significant further compromises will need to made if a lasting settlement is to be reached. Moreover, the sensitivities around the presentation of any deal were highlighted when the Iranian foreign ministry criticized a fact sheet explaining the deal published on the White House website soon after the agreement. The fact sheet, which laid emphasis on the concessions made by Iran, was described by a Foreign Ministry spokesperson as a ‘one-sided interpretation’ of the text agreed in Geneva.⁸⁹

This is not to say that Tehran should not be held to account for its non-compliance to date, and not be made to accept deeper oversight of its nuclear activities. But it is clear that ignoring the domestic political constraints that Iranian leaders, particularly the more moderate ones, must operate within is a recipe for failure. One only has to remember how the failed efforts of an earlier moderate, President Khatami, to normalize relations with the United States in 2003 – because he was rebuffed by the Bush administration – were capitalized upon by hard-line conservatives to undermine his position. This was followed two years later by the election of hard-liner President Ahmadinejad.

Interpreting Strategic Signals

While viewed by many as a positive development, the 2013 Geneva agreement has had its critics of course. Politically and ideologically motivated for the most part, these commentators have raised concerns that Rouhani is, as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu put it, a ‘wolf in sheep's clothing’, and that the interim agreement shrouds yet another delay tactic on the part of an Iran determined to acquire the bomb.⁹⁰ However, this perspective fails to consider the recent technical developments (or lack thereof) and what these mean in the context of the agreement. In June 2013, reports highlighted the fact that Iran was converting some of it 20 per cent enriched uranium into an oxide form not suitable for use in a nuclear weapons programme. Moreover, it was noted that this move ensured that Iran kept its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 per cent U-235 below the much-publicized Israeli ‘red line’.⁹¹ More recently, an IAEA Board of Governors report made public in November 2013 revealed that Iran had not expanded its enrichment capacity in the months after President Rouhani took up office.⁹²

From our perspective, these technical developments constitute a form of signalling that supports the notion of an Iranian strategy based on hedging. With such importance attached to the civil nuclear narrative by the Iranian administration, and so much attention focused on the country's nuclear programme, nuclear hedging becomes a perilous form of brinkmanship. Miscalculation here could result in damaging fallout for Iran's leadership at the domestic, regional and wider international level, both in diplomatic and military terms. At present, Iran's nuclear activities go beyond what is strictly necessary for a civil nuclear programme. Yet the programme has not advanced to the point where the civil rationale no longer holds any credibility. The question for decision-makers in Tehran, then, is at what point should latency – moves towards a nuclear infrastructure that offers the possibility of acquiring nuclear weapons – be capped?

Unprecedented economic sanctions are crippling Iran's oil-based economy and having a tangible impact at ground level. Furthermore, the threat of an Israeli military strike continues to loom. The leadership in Tehran cannot be sure how much more progress on the nuclear programme Israel will be prepared to accept. On a larger scale, long-term international isolation does not align with Iran's self-perceived role as a regional and even global power.

Viewed in this light, it seems the damaging effects of defiance and continued advancement now outweigh the benefits. This is surely evident to President Rouhani, a moderate with a reputation for pragmatism. Iran has already achieved a low level of latency and, given the advanced nature of the nuclear programme, it is not realistic for the P5+1 to expect significant rollback as part of any lasting agreement. Rouhani thus has an opportunity to maintain much of Iran's existing capability – allowing him to ‘sell’ an agreement at home – while beginning to rehabilitate the country's international image. In this context, it might be argued that rather than changing Iran's strategic objectives, Rouhani feels that the country has largely achieved them.

Notes

1. Jacques E.C. Hymans and Matthew S. Gratias, ‘Iran and the Nuclear Threshold’, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2013), p.13.

2. Ibid., p.16.

3. Ariel Levite, ‘Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited’, International Security, Vol. 27, No. 3 (2002), pp.59–69.

4. Cited in Robert S. Litwak, ‘Living with Ambiguity: Nuclear Deals with Iran and North Korea’, Survival, Vol. 50, No. 1 (2008), p.114.

5. James R. Clapper, ‘Statement on the Record on the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Community for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’, 16 February 2011, p.4, http://intelligence.senate.gov/110216/dni.pdf. [emphasis added].

6. ‘Joint Plan of Action’, Geneva, 24 November 2013, via the European External Action Service, http://eeas.europa.eu/statements/docs/2013/131124_03_en.pdf.

7. George H. Quester, ‘Some Conceptual Problems in Nuclear Proliferation’, The American Political Science Review, Vol. 66, No. 2 (1972), p.493.

8. Levite, ‘Never Say Never Again’ (note 3), p.69.

9. Ibid., p.71.

10. Ibid.

11. Ibid., p.72.

12. Robert E. Hunter, ‘Rethinking Iran’, Survival, Vol. 52, No. 5 (2010), p.140.

13. Llewelyn Hughes, ‘Why Japan Will Not Go Nuclear (Yet): International and Domestic Constraints on the Nuclearization of Japan’, International Security, Vol. 31, No. 4 (2007), p.93. It is also worth considering the opinions of Toshi Yoshihara and James R. Holmes, ‘Thinking About the Unthinkable: Tokyo's Nuclear Option’, Naval War College Review, Vol. 62, No. 3 (2009), pp.59–78.

14. Levite, ‘Never Say Never Again’ (note 3), p.73.

15. Ibid.

16. Emma Chanlett-Avery and Mary Beth Nikitin, ‘Japan's Nuclear Future: Policy Debate, Prospects, and US Interests’, CRS Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, 19 February 2009, p.2. See also: Yuri Kase, ‘The Costs and Benefits of Japan's Nuclearization: An Insight into the 1968–70 Internal Report’, Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (2001), pp.55–68.

17. Avner Cohen and Benjamin Frankel, ‘Opaque Nuclear Proliferation’, Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3 (1990), p.16.

18. It is worth noting that attempts to compare and contrast the different terms and concepts used to describe proliferation behaviour are made more complex by the fact that many of these represent what W.B. Gallie terms ‘essentially contested concepts’. That is to say, ‘when we examine the different uses of these terms and the characteristic arguments in which they figure we soon see that there is no one clearly definable general use of any of them which can be set up as the correct or standard use’. The concepts used to describe proliferation behaviour are often evaluative concepts that are legitimately interpreted in fundamentally different ways and therefore not reducible to a single, all-encompassing definition. See Walter B. Gallie, ‘Essentially Contested Concepts’, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Vol. 56 (1956) pp.167–198.

19. Avner Cohen and Joseph F. Pilat, ‘Assessing Virtual Nuclear Arsenals’, Survival, Vol. 40, No. 1 (1998), p.129.

20. Cohen and Frankel, ‘Opaque Nuclear Proliferation’ (note 17), p.20.

21. Quester, ‘Some Conceptual Problems in Nuclear Proliferation’ (note 7), p.491.

22. Michael Howard, ‘Grand Strategy in the Twentieth Century’, Defence Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2001), p.2.

23. Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), p.xviii.

24. Cohen and Frankel, ‘Opaque Nuclear Proliferation’ (note 7), p.35.

25. See Fredrik Dahl, ‘Experts Argue over Iran Nuclear Bomb Timeline’, Reuters, 7 December 2011; Greg Jones, ‘Earliest Date Possible for Iran's First Bomb, February 2012′, Non-proliferation Policy Education Centre, 6 December 2011, http://npolicy.org/article.php?aid=1124&rid=4; David Albright and Jacqueline Shire, ‘Iran's Growing Weapons Capability and Its Impact on Negotiations’, Arms Control Today, December 2009.

26. Quester, ‘Some Conceptual Problems in Nuclear Proliferation’ (note 7), p.493.

27. Ibid., p. 497.

28. Mark Fitzpatrick (ed.), North Korean Security Challenges: A Net Assessment (London: International Institute of Strategic Studies and Routledge, 2011), p.93.

29. Jeffrey T. Richelson, Spying on the Bomb: American Nuclear Intelligence from Nazi Germany to Iran and North Korea (New York: Norton, 2006), p.347.

30. David E. Sanger, ‘West Knew of North Korea Nuclear Development’, New York Times, 13 March 1993.

31. James M. Acton, ‘The Problem with Nuclear Mind Reading’, Survival, Vol. 51, No. 1 (2009), pp.120–4.

32. Latency can also be gauged by examining capabilities related to the non-fissile material aspects of weapons production such as relevant high explosives, as well as a suitable means of delivery such as a ballistic missile.

33. Wyn Q. Bowen and Jonathan Brewer, ‘Iran's Nuclear Challenge: Nine Years and Counting’, International Affairs, Vol. 87, No. 4 (2011), p.926.

34. See, for example, Graham T. Allison, ‘How Close Is Iran to Exploding Its First Nuclear Bomb?’, Scientific American, No. 30, May 2012, www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=how-close-iran-first-nuclear-bomb.

35. Director General, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and Relevant Provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, Report to the Board of Governors, IAEA, GOV/2013/6, 21 February 2013, pp.3–7.

36. See: ‘Iran's Nuclear Timetable’, Iran Watch, 23 February 2013, http://www.iranwatch.org/ourpubs/articles/iranucleartimetable.html.

37. David Albright, Christina Walrond, Andrea Stricker, and Robert Avagyan, ‘ISIS Analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report’, Institute for Science and International Security, 21 February 2013.

38. Hymans and Gratias, ‘Iran and the Nuclear Threshold’ (note 1), p.15.

39. Ibid. A significant quantity refers to the amount of highly enriched uranium required for one nuclear weapon.

40. ‘Iran Discovers more Uranium Ore and Chooses Sites for New Nuclear Plants’, The Guardian, 23 February 2013.

41. Daniel Salisbury, ‘MITEC's Procurement of Valves for Arak Heavy Water Reactor’, Project Alpha, King's College London, 20 June 2013.

42. Bowen and Brewer, ‘Iran's Nuclear Challenge’ (note 33), pp.929–31.

43. Ibid.

44. Ibid.

45. Ibid.

46. Wyn Bowen and Michael Goodman, ‘Nuclear Reaction: The Intelligence on Iran's Nuclear Capabilities’, Jane's Intelligence Review, Vol. 20, No. 3 (2008), pp.2–5.

47. Bowen and Brewer, ‘Iran's Nuclear Challenge’ (note 33), p.931.

48. ‘Iran Experts say Nuclear Power Necessary for Electricity Generation’, Vision of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Network 1, 13 June 2004, accessed via BBC Monitoring.

49. ‘Top Nuclear Official Interviewed Live on Iran's Esfahan TV – Interview with Dr Hoseyn Faqihian’, Esfahan Provincial Television, 11 April 2007, accessed via BBC Monitoring.

50. ‘Why does West oppose Iran's nuclear fuel cycle?’ Afarinesh, 14 May 2005, accessed via BBC Monitoring.

51. Syed Hossein Mousavian, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012), p.195.

52. Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, 5 March 1970, Article IV.

53. President Ahmadinejad cited in Elton L. Daniel, The History of Iran (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2012), p.276; and Hashemi Rafsanjani cited in ‘Ex-president says Iran not Seeking War, Ready to Negotiate’, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran, 29 April 2005, accessed via BBC Monitoring.

54. Hashemi Rafsanjani cited in ‘Rafsanjani says Iran could refer IAEA to International Court’, Voice of the Islamic Republic of Tehran, 17 September 2004, accessed via BBC Monitoring.

55. Shahram Chubin, Iran's Nuclear Ambitions (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), p.20.

56. Daniel Byman, Shahram Chubin, Anoushiravan Ehteshami, and Jerrold D. Green, Iran's Security Policy in the Post-Revolutionary Era (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2001), p.9.

57. Chubin, Iran's Nuclear Ambitions (note 55), p.14.

58. Michael Slackman, ‘Iran Boasts of Capacity to Make Bomb Fuel’, New York Times, 11 February 2010.

59. Peter Jones, ‘Learning to Live with a Nuclear Iran’, The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 19, No. 2 (2012), p.199.

60. Peter Jones, ‘Succession and the Supreme Leader in Iran’, Survival, Vol. 53, No. 6 (2011), p.108.

61. Evaleila Pesaran, Iran's Struggle for Economic Independence: Reform and Counter-Reform in the Post-Revolutionary Era (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2011), p.185.

62. Shahram Chubin, ‘The Domestic Politics of the Nuclear Question in Iran’, in Joachim Krause (ed.), Iran's Nuclear Programme: Strategic Implications (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2011), p.103.

63. For insights into the debate on nuclear weapons in Iran see Farideh Farhi, ‘“Atomic Energy Is Our Assured Right”: Nuclear Policy and the Shaping of Iranian Public Opinion’, in Judith S. Yaphe (ed.), Nuclear Politics in Iran (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 2010), pp.3–18.

64. Adam Entous, ‘US Spies: Iran Split on Nuclear Program’, Wall Street Journal, 17 February 2011.

65. ‘Leader's Fatwa Guarantees Iran not Seeking Nuclear Weapons – Judiciary Head’, Mehr News Agency (Tehran), 11 April 2012, accessed via BBC Monitoring.

66. Ali Ansari, ‘Iran: A Nuclear “Fatwa”?’, Chatham House Expert Comment, 28 September 2012.

67. Seyed Hossein Mousavian, ‘Globalising Iran's Fatwa Against Nuclear Weapons’, Survival, Vol. 55, No. 2 (2013), p.147.

68. ‘Iran's Ayatollah Khamenei Denies Wanting to Develop Nuclear Weapons’, The Guardian, 16 February 2013.

69. ‘Iran's Supreme Leader: Nuclear Solution ‘Easy’ if West is Serious’, Haaretz, 27 June 2013.

70. Steven E. Miller, ‘Proliferation Gamesmanship: Iran and the Politics of Nuclear Confrontation’, Syracuse Law Review, Vol. 57 (2007), p.591.

71. Chubin, Iran's Nuclear Ambitions (note 55), p.73.

72. George Perkovich, Dealing with Iran: The Power of Legitimacy (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009).

73. Ibid.

74. Sanam Vakil, ‘Iran: Balancing East against West’, The Washington Quarterly, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2006), p.51.

75. Ray Takeyh, Guardian's of the Revolution: Iran and the world in the age of the Ayatollahs (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), p.147.

76. Vakil, ‘Iran: Balancing East against West’ (note 74), p. 62.

77. Stephen Blank, ‘Beyond the Reset Policy: Current Dilemmas of U.S.–Russia Relations’, Comparative Strategy, Vol. 29, No. 4 (2010), p.358.

78. Iran had contacted the International Atomic Energy Agency in June 2009 to request assistance in obtaining replacement fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor.

79. Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘Iran: The Fragile Promise of the Fuel-Swap Plan’, Survival, Vol. 52, No. 3 (2010), p.73.

80. ‘Hassan Rouhani Wins Iran Presidential Election’, BBC News, 15 June 2013.

81. Mark Fitzpatrick, ‘Reinforce Rowhani's Mandate for Change’, Survival, Vol. 55, No. 4 (2013), p.31.

82. ‘Profile: Hassan Rouhani’, BBC News, 4 August 2013.

83. ‘Full text of Hasan Rouhani's Speech at the UN’, The Times of Israel, 25 September 2013.

84. For an insightful analysis of the Joint Plan of Action see James M. Acton, Why the Iranian Nuclear Agreement is a Good Deal (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 26 November 2013).

85. Ibid; and Fitzpatrick, ‘Reinforce Rowhani's Mandate for Change’ (note 81), p.31.

86. Ibid.

87. ‘Profile: Hassan Rouhani’, BBC News, 4 August 2013.

88. Stella Ting-Toomey and Mark Cole, ‘Intergroup Diplomatic Communication: A Face-Negotiation Perspective’, in Felipe Korzenny and Stella Ting-Toomey (eds), Communicating for Peace: Diplomacy and Negotiation (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1990), p.80.

89. ‘Iran Strongly Rejects Text of Geneva Agreement Released by White House’, Fars News Agency, 26 November 2013.

90. John Reed, ‘Netanyahu Brands Rouhani “Wolf in Sheep's Clothing”’, The Financial Times, 1 October 2013.

91. ‘Iran Staying Clear of Israel's Red Line’, Jerusalem Post, 5 June 2013.

92. See Director General, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement and relevant provisions of Security Council Resolutions in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, Report to the Board of Governors, IAEA, GOV/2013/56, 13 November 2013.