#WTH Iran won't give up its nukes

It's just not who they are

Let’s start with Iran itself. The Middle East is my region, and I hold the Iranian people in very high regard. When camels lazed in the sun on the Arabian Peninsula, the Persians were leading a grand civilization. And though the greatness of Persia is now history, the Iranian people remain intellectually and culturally sophisticated, and even inside the Islamist extremist regime fashioned by Ayatollah Khomeini, there are bright stars who have too often put their European and American interlocutors to shame.

For these and other reasons, I have been shocked by the ineptness, incompetence, and downright stupidity of the Iranian government in managing its relationship with the rest of the world. I have some theories as to why this is, and far from a digression into nerdly musings on Persian history, developing a better understanding of how this regime thinks and makes decisions will tell us a lot about the coming weeks and months.

Without indulging in a scholarly plunge into the history that spawned the Islamic Republic (and no, it wasn’t the CIA, it wasn’t just the Shah, and it wasn’t even only Jimmy Carter at fault), most Iran watchers agree that this is a deeply ideological regime. Since the end of the Cold War, we in America have thought little about ideology — at least not in the grand sense of Communism or Islamism. But absent an understanding of the centrality of Islamist ideology to the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI), we cannot begin to predict their choices.

Khomeini himself gave the game away: “I have said time and time again that to build a society on the basis of the principles of Islam is an ideological choice, not just a religious one. Islam in fact is an ideology, in which religion represents one aspect.” The centrality of Islamist ideology is enshrined in the IRI constitution, and infuses every aspect of governance. This excellent deep dive explains Khomeinist ideology well, and outlines the critical role that hostility to the United States plays:

Both leaders of the Islamic Republic, Khomeini and Khamenei, exhibit an unwavering ideological commitment with little difference in outlook. A recent survey by Radio Farda of Khamenei’s speeches in 2023 found that he used the term "enemy" no fewer than 373 times and mentioned "U.S." 299 times, without a single reference to Russia or China. On average, "enemy" appeared seven times per speech. In Khamenei’s rhetoric, resistance against the "enemy"—however vague—has become a foundational pillar of his ideology.

Ideology inside the Iranian government is not the luxury that denizens of New York and San Francisco understand. It is intrinsic to the thinking and worldview of Iranian decision-makers. Remember, this regime has reigned for 46 years now. Most of the country, and certainly its entire political echelon grew up in, were educated by, and sign up to Khomeini’s mix of Shi’a supremacist theocracy, the imperative to export the revolution, and the all-encompassing anti-imperialism that defines the relationship not just with the United States and Israel, but with almost all of Europe and the Middle East. This ideology is their reality, and as Hannah Arendt wrote so incisively decades ago, “Just as terror, even in its pre-total, merely tyrannical form ruins all relationships between men, so the self-compulsion of ideological thinking ruins all relationships with reality.”

This is our partner in the Iran nuclear deal.

Comprehending that Iran is not the country too many inside the U.S. government believe it to be dictates a completely different approach to Tehran. And weird as it may seem, it is Donald Trump who best understands how to speak the language the Iranian regime understands. He is not interested in the hand-waving and gesturing, or the one-step-forward/two-steps-back minuet at which diplomats excel. He has one question: Are you doing what I ask?

For more than three decades, the Tehran regime has worked inexorably towards a nuclear weapons capability. These semantics are critical: We do not know if Iran wants a nuclear weapon or weapons. We know that Iran wants to be able to have such a weapon at a time of its choosing. This distinction is critical. If you hear that the intelligence community doesn’t believe that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has “made the decision to go for a weapon,” all that means is that they don’t think he’s decided to take the parts and put them together. If you ask them, does he want Iran to be able to assemble those parts when he makes a decision, the answer is yes.

How do we know this? Because with each passing month, Iran moves closer to the necessary elements of a nuclear weapon. Fissile material? Yep. Weapons design? Yep. Detonation experiments? Yep. Uranium metals? Yep. Miniaturization? Yep. Delivery at distance? Yep. That’s it, folks. And allow me to add, if the North Koreans and Pakistanis can do it, it’s just not that hard. This ain’t the Manhattan Project.

So why, many ask, does Iran constantly engage in dialogue to dial back what it likes to call its “peaceful nuclear program?” And the answer is actually simple: Iran wishes sanctions to be lifted. Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khamenei have been disastrous economic stewards, and the country is a basket case. Our friends in Tehran looked at the 1990s and the denouement of Iraq’s nuclear weapons program — yes, it had one — and understood that a just-in-time nuclear weapon was far better than a bomb, at least until such a time as Iran’s leaders dictated a break-out. A dispersed program that does not necessarily add up to weaponization is what is needed to confound the International Atomic Energy Agency and Western governments. Better still, they remember the debacle of the WMD search in Iraq, and have successfully used that model to frighten those who suggest Iran is well on its way to nukes.

If you wonder at Iran’s advances on nuclear weapons research and enrichment, check out David Albright’s work at the Institute for Science and International Security. David is no conservative, and he’s no neo-con either. He’s just a scientific researcher who understands what the evidence suggests.

Now, let’s come back to the big bang. Iran has had no intention of giving up its ability to break out at a time of its choosing, not with the JCPOA, not ever. If you doubt that, check out the specialties of the nuclear scientists Israel eliminated on June 12 (these are all quotes from FDD’s great work):

• Tehranchi supervised planning for the construction of critical nuclear weapon components and nuclear device design. He also managed Amad Plan “Project 3/30,” which conducted nuclear explosives testing.

• The United States sanctioned Borji in 2019, with the U.S. Treasury Department describing him as “an explosives and metals expert for SPND’s Shahid Karimi Group who has assisted SPND’s efforts to procure equipment used for containing explosions.” The Shahid Karimi Group “works on missile and explosives-related projects,” Treasury said.

• The Treasury Department specifically noted [Abbasi-Davani’s] contribution to the development of Iran’s uranium enrichment processes and expertise in nuclear isotope separation.

• Motalebizadeh was sanctioned by the United States in 2019 […] and is believed to have participated in high-explosive work.

• Asgari [was] sanctioned in 2019 [for, among other sanctionable activities], “overseeing projects focused on explosives and exploding bridge-wire (EBW) detonators.”

The list goes on. Needless to say, these guys weren’t researching medical isotopes or nuclear power and electric grids.

When Donald Trump laid down his 60 day deadline for progress in nuclear disarmament talks with Iran, the regime brought nothing new to the table. Iran’s negotiators have always been able to get the best of Americans, and Steve Witkoff, Trump’s hapless problem-solver, looked to be an even bigger boob than Biden or Obama’s desperate peacemakers. In addition, it’s important to understand that Iran’s number one goal in these talks was delay: The failsafe snapback mechanism of the Iran nuclear deal expires in October. Tehran needed to get past a moment when Europe could simply call for international sanctions to be reimposed.

Incredibly perhaps, even after Israel began its bombing campaign, Khamenei and co believed that Israel’s strikes might actually help them in staving off yet more censure and sanctions. How did they think it would work? As with October 7, at heart an Iranian attack on Israel, Tehran believed that the world would eventually turn on the Jewish state and tire of the conflict.

Much as Iran’s leaders believed firmly that judicial reform protests in Israel in 2022/3 were signs of Israel’s imminent collapse, they also believe now that Netanyahu is as hated in Washington as he is by the United Nations and Tehran. They calculated that the return to the table last week would be a chance for a new chance at their old playbook. Iran’s negotiators reckoned they could bring their same game and get the same results — sanctions relief, yet more inspections, time — even if Israel was bombing their key nuclear sites.

What Iran’s leaders fail to understand that Bibi’s popularity is not the issue; it is their nuclear weapons program that is the problem. And in Donald Trump, they finally met a leader who was on to their game plan.

So, what happens now? If the Iranians were as smart as I suggested at the outset, they would cry uncle and agree to inspections, relinquishing enrichment (for the moment), accepting a regional nuclear agreement, and more. They would understand that the world’s focus will inevitably falter, and that then, they could safely return to status quo ante. Instead, however, they are trapped in their ideological mire, and cannot accept the need to bend the knee to Washington, and by extension — at least in their minds — to Israel.

Perhaps the regime will fall, though it seems a slim likelihood. Perhaps Ayatollah Khamenei will crawl out from his bunker and beg for peace. Ditto. More likely, Iran will seek to reconstitute that which it lost over the last 21 months — its proxies, its allies, its weapons, and its pride. This is the worst possible choice for Tehran, and dooms the Iranian people to yet another cycle of violence down the road.

But for the moment, we can thank America’s incredible armed forces and its commander-in-chief that the danger of a fanatical regime armed with nuclear weapons has receded.