Terror Defense No Al Qaida Terror

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Yemen

Squo solves yemen

Reform and gains against Al-Qaeda show Yemen’s peace and stability

MENA 15 (Middle East and North Africa policy paper) 2010 to 2015 government policy: peace and stability in the Middle East and North Africa Updated 8 May 2015 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/2010-to-2015-government-policy-peace-and-stability-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa/2010-to-2015-government-policy-peace-and-stability-in-the-middle-east-and-north-africa♥Tina

Yemen is undergoing a period of political transition following the signature in November 2011 of a Gulf Cooperation Council-brokered Initiative and UN transition plan by former President Saleh and the leaders of the main political parties in Yemen. This brought an end to months of political turmoil and committed Yemen to a two-year period of political transition. Under the Initiative, former President Saleh resigned from office and was succeeded by Abdo Rabbo Mansour Hadi following interim Presidential elections in February 2012. The process of political transition in Yemen is broadly on track but remains delicate and complex. Since his election President Hadi has demonstrated a commitment to tackling violent extremism in Yemen. In 2012 Yemeni security forces successfully regained territory held by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). AQAP represents a direct threat to the security of the United Kingdom and our interests overseas. We remain concerned about their continuing intent and capability to carry out attacks. We have seen a significant rise in the threat of kidnap, fuelled by successful ransom negotiations. An essential part of transition was start of the six-month National Dialogue Conference (NDC) on 18 March. The conference is paving the way for a new constitution. The final stage of transition will be full Presidential and Parliamentary elections in February 2014.

Iran

No Escalation

No Israeli lash-out

For now, however, the threat of an Israeli military attack has subsided for two reasons. First, Iran has already entered the zone of immunity. Since the facility at Qom became operational in February 2012, Israel’s military option is no longer of much value and Israel’s leaders know it. Second, the United States has launched a robust outreach effort to convince Jeru- salem that Washington has its back and that we will take military action if necessary to stop Iran. This reassurance campaign has included public statements from senior military officials, including at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) annual conference; private meetings with Israeli leaders; demonstrations of American military capabilities, in- cluding the MOP; and provision of military capabilities to Israel, including refueling tankers. 23 For now, therefore, the likelihood of an Israeli strike is low. If, however, Iran’s nuclear program crosses certain key red lines and if Israel’s leaders are convinced that the United States will not act, they might very well get desperate and destroy the parts of the nuclear program they can reach, knowing full well that they are only purchasing a minor delay in the program.

No regional escalation- Syria will keep out, and America could deescalate.

No escalation to great power war – Russia and China would just grumble a lot

A US strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would be likely to lead to anti- American sentiment in certain corners of the world. Many Western Eu- ropeans will decry Washington as a rogue superpower operating outside the bounds of international law. The Arab street will protest against American imperialism and what they perceive as poor treatment of Muslims (after Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, this would, after all, be the fourth American war against a Muslim country in fifteen years). US rela- tions with other great powers would temporarily sour. Moscow and Bei- jing would certainly protest America’s muscle flexing without an explicit UNSCR. The response would not be as severe as many observers might fear, however. While Arab governments might lodge formal diplomatic protests to satisfy their populations, behind closed doors they would be congratu- lating American officials for eliminating the Iranian nuclear threat. The opposition of the great powers would also be mixed. Russia would likely be a vocal opponent of a US attack, but it is incredibly unlikely that, apart from diplomatic protests, it would do anything to intervene in the conflict, to aid Iran, or to retaliate against the United States. China would likely remain mute. I have traveled to Beijing four times over the past several years to discuss this issue with Chinese academic experts and government officials, and I have received the same message each time. First, China would prefer peace and stability in the Middle East, so that they can continue to purchase fossil fuels from the region to keep “China Inc.” running smoothly. Second, China sees this as a con- flict primarily between Tehran and Washington, and they have interests in maintaining good relations with both sides. Third, and related, they have no intention of getting into the middle of the conflict. Finally, depending on the circumstances leading up to the attack, many countries around the world, including NATO and non-NATO allies, and other regional partners might fully support a US preventive strike and even laud the United States for taking necessary steps to defend interna- tional peace and security. In this and other areas, therefore, the American strategy for conducting the attack will help to shape the magnitude of the downside risks.

Stability

The American response would deter Iranian war-mongering, and no Hormuz closure.

Kroenig 2014; May 2014 Matthew; professor of political science at Georgetown University, former Stanton Nuclear Security Fel- low at the Council on Foreign Relations;, previously written on Iran in articles in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy online, the Washington Post, The American Interest, and USA Today; A Time to Attack, ISBN 978-1-137-27953-8 p 197-199♥Tina

The third major option for Iranian military retaliation would be to wreak havoc in the Persian Gulf. Iran could harass or attack American warships or commercial traffic in the body of water and could even at- tempt to close the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway through which roughly 20 percent of the world’s traded oil flows. 38 To conduct such at- tacks, Iran could lay mines, conduct attacks from the shore with anti- ship missiles, and use its irregular IRGC navy, which maintains swarming fast-attack craft armed with machine guns and rockets, and Kilo-class and midget submarines. 39 Using such capabilities, Iran could send global oil prices soaring (a subject to which we will return below), and damage, if not sink, commercial vessels or US warships. It could also close the Strait, at least for a couple of weeks, before it would be reopened by American military power. 40 There is no doubt, however, that a large-scale use of force by Iran in the Persian Gulf would provoke a tough American response. The United States has already declared that if Iran attempts to close the Strait of Hor- muz, we will use force to reopen it. 41 The most likely outcome of such a conflict would be that, after two weeks of intense fighting, the Iranian navy would be at the bottom of the Persian Gulf, and the Strait of Hormuz would once again be safe for tanker traffic. In sum, in the worst-case scenario, Iran could launch hundreds of bal- listic missiles, some armed with chemical and biological weapons, at tar- gets in the Middle East, attempt to set off a wave of terror attacks against Israel and around the world, and close the Strait of Hormuz, leading to an intense, but short naval battle in the Persian Gulf. But, the more important question is not what could Iran do, but what would Iran do? The answer depends in part on the size of the US military operation against it. If the United States launched a massive attack on Iran and if Iran’s supreme leader believed, rightly or wrongly, that Washington was coming to downtown Tehran to overthrow his regime, he would have nothing left to lose and would therefore have no reason not to exercise his riskiest retaliatory options. If it meant the difference between losing his regime and his life, or possibly surviving to fight another day, it might even make sense to use chemical and biological weapons, close the Strait of Hormuz, and sponsor terror attacks on the US homeland. This is why it is never a good idea to put an opponent’s back against the wall in inter- national politics. If the United States conducted only a limited strike on Iran’s key nu- clear facilities, however, he would face a very different set of calculations. Indeed, it is important to understand that, in the event of a limited attack, Iran’s supreme leader would face his own strategic dilemma. On one hand, he would want to strike back hard at the aggressor to re-establish deter- rence internationally and save face domestically. On the other hand, he would not want to strike back too hard for fear of provoking an even larger war with the United States. Put yourself in the shoes of Iran’s supreme leader. Imagine that you woke up one morning to find out that your key nuclear facilities had been destroyed in an attack. You would have to do something. You would look like a wimp if you did nothing. But your primary goal is still regime sur- vival. In the aftermath of a limited attack, your regime and your military are still intact. The last thing you would want to do, therefore, is to pick a fight with the world’s only remaining superpower, the only state on Earth that could completely eviscerate your military and bring your regime to an end. As Karim Sadjadpour at the Carnegie Endowment of International Peace put it, “If they respond too little, they could lose face, and if they respond too much, they could lose their heads.” 42 In addition, as supreme leader, you would want to save back some mil- itary capabilities to deter and defend against future contingencies. If you shot off all of your ballistic missiles and picked a major naval battle with the United States that led to the destruction of your navy, you would be left completely and utterly defenseless. Moreover, you couldn’t really afford to close the Strait of Hormuz. You could certainly threaten to do so to send oil prices soaring and even harass and attack some ships passing through the area, but actually clos- ing the strait would be cutting off your nose to spite your face. First of all, you could only close the strait for a couple of weeks at most. Second, it would provoke a US response that would result in the destruction of your navy and coastal defenses. Third, if you closed the strait, you would be unable to export any of your own oil, so you would be cutting off a key export that contributes upward of 80 percent of all government revenues. 43 Fourth, you would be declaring war, not just on the United States, but on the entire world, which also depends on Middle Eastern oil. You would force every great power, including Russia and China, to align against you. For these reasons and others, it is almost certain that Iran’s supreme leader would aim for some kind of calibrated response. He would want to strike back, but not too hard. He would want to do enough to claim he had retaliated, but not so much that he would provoke a major war with the United States. Of course, it is always possible that he would misjudge and strike back too hard or not hard enough, but he would do his best to get it just right. By my estimate, therefore, Iran’s most likely retaliatory response might look something like this: four to five salvos (forty to fifty missiles) of con- ventionally armed ballistic missiles over the course of several days against military and civilian targets in the Middle East; several days of rocket at- tacks from Hamas and Hezbollah into Israel; sporadic Quds Force plots against American and Israeli soft targets around the world for months or even years after the attack; and the harassment of and attacks against navy and commercial vessels in the Persian Gulf, combined with empty threats to close the strait. 44

US engagement solves Iran stability

Feffer 15 John Feffer is the director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, 4-2, 2015“Iran: Deal or No Deal?” The Huffington Post, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-feffer/iran-deal-or-no-deal_b_6991910.html♥Tina

For those of us in the United States who believe that principled diplomatic engagement with Iran is the path to peace and stability in the Middle East -- a majority of the population, according to polls, but not necessarily a majority of Congress -- the answer is an unambiguous yes. If negotiators agree on the details of a preliminary agreement, then this deal will be a historic step forward. After all, this is more than just a nuclear agreement. It's more than just a way to usher Iran back into the international community. It's more even than a foundation stone for regional peace and stability (an aspiration that seems to become ever more elusive each day). The deal that negotiators are going down to the wire to hammer out ultimately represents a referendum on the Obama administration's overall foreign policy. On one side are those who favor long, patient, and often frustrating negotiations. On the other side are those who favor conflict, rollback, and even war. "We won't buy the same horse twice," opponents of negotiations with North Korea would often say when facing the prospect of Pyongyang offering once again to freeze its nuclear program in exchange for some package deal. When it comes to the Middle East, the horseshoe is on the other foot. We bought the warhorse once already with the disastrous campaign in Iraq. And that's exactly what the opponents of the Iran deal are offering again by portraying Iran as Nazi Germany and any Western leader that shrinks from attacking this evil entity as a latter-day Chamberlain figure. It's the argument of the full-page ad, recent op-eds by John Bolton in The New York Times and Joshua Muravchik in The Washington Post, the current Israeli government, a range of well-funded organizations in the United States, and a large number of congressional representatives that follow their lead. Fortunately, virtually the whole world is against them. The Devil and the Details The news out of Switzerland is that the negotiations between the P5+1 (the UN Security Council members plus Germany) and Iran have been extended by one day to reach a compromise. This would not be the final agreement. At best, it would be the outline of a framework agreement. Further negotiations would fill in the details before all sides would sign a final agreement by June 30. According to news accounts, disagreements remain over what Iran will retain under the terms of the deal. And some of these details may not be worked out in full until June. Two of the major sticking points have to do with centrifuges and stockpiles. To enrich uranium, Iran constructed approximately 18,000 centrifuges. The Iranian negotiators have argued that they need to retain a part of this complex for research and development, to generate medical isotopes, and so on. The original U.S. position was that Iran should get rid of them all. The compromise position has been 6,000 centrifuges, down from an estimated 10,000 that are currently in operation. Bomb-grade uranium requires enrichment to at least 90 percent. Iran had managed to accumulate a stockpile of enriched uranium in the 20-percent range. The agreement will probably set a ceiling on enrichment in the range of 5 percent. Iran also initially indicated it was willing to reduce its 17,000 pounds of material and relocate some of it outside the country, most likely to Russia. The stockpile could then be converted into fuel for a civilian nuclear energy program and shipped back to Iran for that purpose. The two sides haven't yet worked out an agreement on this issue. There has been much talk about "break-out" time. This is the time it would take for Iran to acquire enough highly enriched uranium to make one bomb. Negotiators have been talking about a one-year period for "break-out." This figure is misleading, however. It doesn't take into account weaponizing, testing, and miniaturizing for the purposes of constructing a warhead for a missile. In reality, any freeze on Iranian nuclear capabilities would extend by several years the date by which Iran could have a hypothetical nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it if it chose to pursue one. Moreover, it appears that Iran is now willing to consider an agreement for 15 years, a compromise from its initial position of only five years. Another sticking point is what Iran gets for its willingness to freeze and roll back its program. Tehran wants oil and financial sanctions lifted immediately. The United States favors phasing sanctions out and maintaining a "snap back" option so that sanctions go back into force if Iran is found to be out of compliance. Opponents of a deal have emphasized that Iran is an untrustworthy actor: the devil who speaks sweet words but plans bitter actions. Iran, they argue, has concealed its nuclear program in the past. It has not come clean with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). It has not abided by previous agreements. Iran has indeed concealed its program in the past. Just as other countries have done, like Israel for example, which still refuses to confirm its nuclear status. But it's critical to point out as well that, according to U.S. intelligence estimates in 2007, Iran abandoned its plan to pursue a nuclear weapon in 2003, and no evidence has emerged since then to suggest otherwise. However, Iran has continued with its nuclear program for purposes permitted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The current deal is being pursued not because the world trusts Iran on these issues, but because it doesn't trust Iran. Any nuclear deal will increase the level of scrutiny, inspections, and verification protocols. As for Iran's compliance with agreements in the past, it has abided by the 2013 interim agreement. As former National Security Council staffer Gary Sick points out, Iran also held to the Algiers Accord that ended the 1979 hostage standoff. Only through additional engagement with the IAEA will we obtain more information about the questions that remain unanswered about Iran's nuclear program in the past. The War Party Which brings us back to that full-page ad. It would be sensible to ignore such a screed if its arguments were not so commonplace in the public discourse, particularly among members of Congress. The organization behind the ad, the World Values Network, is an initiative of Orthodox rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has received funding from hardline neo-con billionaire Sheldon Adelson. It's been pushing the "Iran is Nazi" meme for some time, and Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu echoed this theme in his address to Congress earlier this year, where both Adelson and Boteach applauded from the front of the House gallery. But if the Iranian government were so intent on exterminating the world's Jews, which the ad maintains, it would probably have started already with the 10,000 or so Jews who live in Iran, the largest community in the Middle East outside of Israel. But the Jewish community in Iran is not under threat of death. Although the community does experience some discrimination, it also practices its religion freely. The ad goes on to make four demands. The first three involve adding elements to a nuclear agreement that have nothing to do with nuclear issues: end threats against Israel, stop terrorism, cease stoning of women and hanging of gays. I'd like to see progress on those issues, but in this context they are non-starters, designed simply to push negotiations off the rails. If an agreement on the nuclear question can be reached, then the United States and other countries can start to raise these issues and others, either as part of another set of negotiations or normalization talks. The fourth demand, to reject a deal that involves a "potentially catastrophic one-year-weapons-breakout period," is at least germane to the nuclear talks. But it too is a non-starter. The bottom line is that if Iran wants to pursue a nuclear weapons program, it will do so, just as Israel did, out of perceived national interest. If we stop negotiations -- or pursue the chimera of a "better deal" -- Iran will have the option of pushing for breakout as soon as it can. What's potentially catastrophic, in other words, is not to bring Iran into the web of verification protocols. Iran has influence throughout the Middle East. But it does not control five Middle Eastern capitals. This has been a popular right-wing meme, which Tom Cotton (R-AR) repeated when he appeared on Face the Nation and ticked off Tehran, Beirut, Baghdad, Damascus, and Sanaa. Iran certainly has influence in these places, but that does not amount to control. Given its close relationship with Saudi Arabia and other Gulf States, not to mention Egypt and Turkey, the United States could use the nuclear negotiations with Iran as a first step toward bridging the divide between Shiites and Sunnis in the region. No one expects that an agreement will trigger an immediate transformation inside Iran any more than the arms control agreements with the Soviet Union in the 1970s turned that country into a Scandinavian paradise. But a nuclear agreement will definitely strengthen the hands of reformers inside Iran. And as in the 1970s, the stakes are high and the choice is clear. We either talk ourselves away from the precipice, or we plunge headlong over it.

No Nuclear Weapons

No centrifuge acquisition – media reports are a hoax

Butt, 13 Research Professor at James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, 2-20, Yousaf- Former Scientist at Federation of American Scientists, Physicist at High-Energy Astrophysics Division at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, , “Iran centrifuge magnet story technically questionable” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/op-eds/iran-centrifuge-magnet-story-technically-questionable♥Tina

Last week, the Washington Post reported that "purchase orders obtained by nuclear researchers show an attempt by Iranian agents to buy 100,000 … ring-shaped magnets" and that such "highly specialized magnets used in centrifuge machines … [are] a sign that the country may be planning a major expansion of its nuclear program." As evidence, the Post's Joby Warrick cited a report authored by David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security PDF (ISIS); dated Feb. 13, the report says that an Iranian firm, Jahan Tech Rooyan Pars Co., made an inquiry "posted on a Chinese commercial website … to buy 100,000 ring magnets." As Warrick goes on to explain: "it is unclear whether the attempt succeeded." There are serious deficiencies in both the Washington Post story and the assertions in the ISIS report. Given that issues of war and peace may hang on the veracity of such claims, the assertions warrant careful scrutiny. The magnets in question have many uses besides centrifuges and are not only, as Warrick describes them, "highly specialized magnets used in centrifuge machines." Such ceramic ring magnets are everyday items and have been used in loudspeakers, for example, for more than half a century. The ISIS report neglects to explain the many other applications for such ceramic ring magnets and jumps to the conclusion that the inquiry is surely related to Iran's nuclear program. Why ISIS does not offer alternate and more plausible applications of these unspecialized magnets is a puzzle. Such magnets are used in a variety of electronic equipment. For instance, one vendor outlines some of the various possible uses in speakers, direct current brushless motors, and magnetic resonance imaging equipment. This is not the first time ring magnets have surfaced in allegations related to centrifuge applications. Almost exactly a decade ago, as the United States was preparing to invade Iraq, then-director of the International Atomic Energy Agency Mohamed ElBaradei said that reports regarding similar ring magnets in Iraq were unrelated to centrifuges: With respect to reports about Iraq's efforts to import high-strength permanent magnets -- or to achieve the capability for producing such magnets -- for use in a centrifuge enrichment programme, I should note that, since 1998, Iraq has purchased high-strength magnets for various uses. Iraq has declared inventories of magnets of twelve different designs. The IAEA has verified that previously acquired magnets have been used for missile guidance systems, industrial machinery, electricity meters, and field telephones. Through visits to research and production sites, reviews of engineering drawings and analyses of sample magnets, IAEA experts familiar with the use of such magnets in centrifuge enrichment have verified that none of the magnets that Iraq has declared could be used directly for a centrifuge magnetic bearing. Robert Kelley, a nuclear engineer and former IAEA chief inspector and deputy leader of the agency's Iraq Action Team, told me last week that, between 2002 and 2003, his group "tracked similar ring magnets that Iraq was trying to procure (openly in insecure channels) and found they were for field telephones …. We got started with an ‘intelligence tip' and ran it to ground. Nothing whatsoever to do with centrifuges." The Iraq Survey Group also weighed in on this issue, saying PDF it "has not uncovered information indicating that the magnet production capability being pursued by Iraq beginning in 2000 was intended to support a gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program. … The declared use of the magnet production lines were for production of ring magnets in the Saham Saddam Missile and for ﬁeld telephones." A pair of ring magnets is used in the top suspension bearing of the IR-1 gas centrifuges. As others have already noted, it seems to make little sense to order ceramic magnets that are, as ISIS describes, "almost exactly" the right dimensions. If one is intending to purchase 100,000 ceramic ring magnets for critical high-speed centrifuge applications, why not order them exactly the right size? Ceramics are almost impossible to machine due to their brittle nature and are generally ordered to the precise specifications desired. Albright's suggestion in the ISIS report PDF that "some minor re-design would be necessary of the top end cap and top magnetic bearing of the IR-1 [centrifuge] design but these are seen as fairly trivial" could be correct. But why would a purchaser wish to redesign, re-machine, and re-test tens of thousands of centrifuges, instead of ordering the correctly sized part in the first place? Although ISIS redacted measurements in the English translation of the inquiry to purchase the 100,000 magnets, it did not redact them from the original shown on the last page of the ISIS report PDF. The original clearly states that the magnets have "BHmax Min 3MGo"; MGo is shorthand for mega-Gauss Oersted, a measure of the magnetic energy stored in the magnets. (B and H are, respectively, the magnetic flux density and the magnetic field strength.) This value is substantially less than the 10 MGo trigger level given for centrifuge applications in Annex 3 of the Notifications of Exports to Iraq mandated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1051 (1996). Although magnets with an energy product of 3 MGO could be consistent with applications in suspension bearings of the older IR-1 centrifuges, they are also consistent with a host of other applications. Curiously, the inquiry to the China-based company that is shown on the last page of the ISIS report PDF is very casual and overt. The alleged inquiry states, "Dear Sir We are a great factory in south of Iran and for our new project we need 100.000 pcs Ferrite Barium strontium ring magnet . … we would like buy from you [sic] company. We should be glad if you supply this magnet for us." Presumably, an attempt to source 100,000 parts related to Iran's controversial and often secretive nuclear program would not be conducted quite so openly. Not only would such an overt attempt at sourcing the ring magnets be inconsistent with the secrecy surrounding Iran's nuclear program; it would also be at odds with procurement best-practices, for several reasons. First, such a large order would likely drive up the market price and perhaps even signal to the supplier to choke off the supply, in hopes of obtaining a better price later. Also, before indicating that such a huge order may be in the works, a serious engineering operation would likely obtain a few sample magnets to formally qualify them. Such an order would, more reasonably, be directed to the manufacturer or direct supplier (in this case, apparently, a rather small Indian firm, Ferrito Plastronics), rather than to a Chinese middleman. Obtaining 100,000 ceramic ring magnets without sample qualification would be highly risky and unprofessional. It would be inconsistent with Iran's generally excellent record in systems management and engineering PDF involving a range of technologies and industries. Both the Washington Post story and the ISIS report on which it is based repeatedly call the inquiry a "purchase order" or "order." This is a mischaracterization. The evidence presented (Figures 3 and 4 in the ISIS report) merely shows a web inquiry as to whether the supplier has any interest in discussing the question further. There is no mention of money, delivery dates, or letters of credit. All of these items would be part of a formal purchase order. The apparent manufacturer or supplier of the magnets in question, Ferrito Plastronics, is evidently a "tiny firm in a dark alley in Chennai's electronic spare parts hub on Meeran Sahib Street." According to the Times of India, "the Chennai firm does supply magnets. But these, avers company proprietor Bala Subramanian, are the ones used in loudspeakers, coils, and medical equipment. Besides these, there are decorative magnets for fridges." The proprietor states that his monthly turnover is slightly less than $2,000. Such a firm would seem unlikely to be the optimal source for 100,000 high-quality centrifuge ring magnets. Although the purpose of the alleged inquiry is subject to interpretation, it seems unlikely to be related to Iran's nuclear program. Assuming that the request to buy 100,000 magnets is genuine, it would be consistent with, for instance, an Iranian loudspeaker company interested in obtaining such ceramic ring magnets. That is just one possible hypothesis, of course, but it seems a better explanation of the alleged inquiry than the suggestion of an overt attempt by Iran's nuclear program to source 100,000 of the wrong-sized ceramic ring magnets from a tiny Indian company via a Chinese middleman. It is worth noting that the best Western intelligence concludes that no nuclear weapons work is going on in Iran right now, and that Iran is not an imminent nuclear threat. James Clapper, the US director of national intelligence, has confirmed PDF that he has "a high level of confidence" that no nuclear weaponization work is underway in Iran. Outgoing Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has also weighed in: "Are [Iranians] trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No." And in an interview for a 2011 article in the New Yorker, ElBaradei said PDF that he did not see "a shred of evidence" that Iran was pursuing the bomb after 2003, adding, "I don't believe Iran is a clear and present danger. All I see is the hype about the threat posed by Iran." Given these expert assessments, reporters and editors should raise the bar for the evidence underpinning stories of alleged Iranian nuclear weapons-related work. This Washington Post article is the second in about three months to make serious unsubstantiated claims regarding Iran's nuclear program. In the previous story, the Associated Press used flimsy evidence to suggest that Iran may be working on a nuclear bomb. Clearly, the media reporting on Iran's controversial nuclear program have a duty to do a better job of vetting evidence and sources. Similarly, non-governmental organizations that are supposed to supply unbiased expert advice should strive to provide professional analyses that lay out all possible explanations and do not jump to unwarranted conclusions. We have all been witness to what may happen when a fictional threat is spun up over non-existent weapons of mass destruction -- the result isn't pretty. When news reports cast thin evidence in hyperbolic terms, the public is invited to run rampant with speculation about Iran's nuclear program. At a time when military action is apparently being seriously contemplated, the international community needs to look past trivialities, focus on the facts, and find realistic opportunities for ending the Iranian nuclear standoff.

Econ Collapse Inevitable

Iran’s economy is safe- sanctions are essentially useless

Harris 15 Kevan Harris Ph. D and a sociologist and associate director of the Center for Iran and Persian Gulf Studies at Princeton University April 23 2015 http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/04/23/irans-political-economy-under-and-after-the-sanctions/♥Tina

That new market smell is in the air. Tehran’s hotel ballrooms are filling up with visiting delegations of European and American investors who hear tea-fueled assurances of long-term profits before shuttling off to the tourist sights in Shiraz and Isfahan. The London-based asset management firm Charlemagne Capital recently announced a partnership with Iran’s Turquoise Partners, an equity fund that invests in the Tehran Stock Exchange. If Charlemagne is knocking at the door, what’s next? Alexander the Great LLC? As a nuclear deal with Iran moves closer to realization, foreign business is exploring how to cash in. Yet all of this attention is not as new as we think. While sanctions most severely affected the economy after 2011, Iran’s neighbors in Asia never fully cut off economic ties, no matter how much U.S. arm-twisting occurred behind closed doors. Turkey and Iran recently implemented a tariff-reduction agreement to increase cross-border trade. Chinese cellphones pour over the border along with Pakistani cigarettes and Korean washing machines. Iraq’s southern cities are being reconstructed with Iranian steel and cement. The Emirati conglomerate Majid al-Futtain operates a garish hypermarket in Tehran’s western suburbs. During trips to Iran between 2011 and 2013, even with European capital flight, I’ve run into Indian petrochemical executives in Ahvaz, Chinese construction honchos in Yazd and Russian mining magnates in Tabriz. Even with the cordon sanitaire of sanctions, then, Iran’s market autarky was overstated. One of the ironies of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad era (2005-2013) was that the polarizing president opened the borders to consumer imports at the same time his government pumped unprecedented levels of cash into the economy. In 2006, my Turkish tailor in downtown Tehran asked me to bring a hard-to-get premium brand olive oil from Istanbul for his wife’s beauty routine. In 2011, I could pick up the same olive oil at any Tehran corner bodega. According to Iran’s Central Bank, the absolute value of imports of goods and services, controlling for inflation, rose every year from 2005 to 2011 and then finally began to shrink, but even in 2012/13 the total value was higher than a decade prior. This wasn’t necessarily healthy for the economy, however, and the giddy bubble of consumption and speculation made the ensuing crash and recession over the past three years all the more painful. Faced with expulsion from global financial markets, an embargo of oil exports and a run on the currency, the Ahmadinejad government countered international pressure with tactical bluster rather than coherent strategy, while his allies went to defeat at the polls.

Iran’s economy is screwed inevitably- US/EU sanctions

The Economist 15 Foreign businesses are looking beyond falling oil prices and a limping economy Mar 7th 2015 http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21645738-foreign-businesses-are-looking-beyond-falling-oil-prices-and-limping♥Tina

American and European energy and banking sanctions continue to hammer business. The optimism that a nuclear deal would soon see sanctions lifted has largely evaporated. Domestic investment has stalled. Several state-owned banks are said to be close to collapse. Efforts to circumvent sanctions have made an already corrupt country worse: Transparency International, a Berlin-based anti-corruption lobby, ranks Iran a lowly 136th out of 175 countries in its index for 2014. Foreign business visitors continue to pop in for tea, but the numbers have dropped sharply in the past quarter, according to a European airline manager in the capital. Other indicators also suggest that hope is fading: the Tehran stock exchange slipped 21% last year after surging by 131% in 2013. Almost the only bright spot is tourism, with numbers up by 35%, according to the government’s latest figures. Mr Rohani has placed much store on the nuclear talks, but his officials seem to be hedging their bets. Until recently many said they wanted to do less business with China—which has happily kept on buying oil—saying it makes shoddy goods, breaks its promises and lacks Western technology. Now such criticism is rarer. American officials, for their part, are diligently tightening the screws. When a large delegation of French businessmen returned from Tehran last year, many were warned by the American embassy in Paris that they should tread carefully and not sign preliminary contracts in Iran if they wanted to retain access to American financial markets. A group of Germans received a similar warning a few months later. The thought of having their dollars frozen under American banking sanctions, or of being locked out of America’s capital markets altogether, has cooled enthusiasm for doing business in Iran.

No Prolif

No cascading proliferation

Esfandiary and Tabatabai 15 Dina Esfandiary and Ariane Tabatabai April 28 Why an Iran deal won’t lead to nuclear proliferation http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/monkey-cage/wp/2015/04/28/why-an-iran-deal-wont-lead-to-nuclear-proliferation// Dina Esfandiary is a McArthur Fellow in the Centre for Science and Security Studies at King’s College London. Ariane Tabatabai is a visiting assistant professor in the Security Studies Program at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a columnist for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. ♥Tina

Those who invoke the proliferation cascade theory often confuse both the cause and the actual result. Would a nuclear agreement with Iran or nuclear-armed Iran cause a cascade? Does the regional spread of civilian nuclear programs count as a proliferation cascade, or is it restricted to the spread of the bomb? On their own, civilian nuclear programs are not a threat. They are permitted under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) are pursuing or exploring nuclear power to address growing energy demands – needs that have been growing irrespective of Iran’s nuclear program or plans. But developing nuclear power is neither easy, nor cheap. There are a number of technical, legal and political hurdles regional states need to overcome. Should they do so, then the fear is that aspects of their civilian nuclear programs will pave the way for the bomb. But that, too, is implausible. First, the entire region, except for nuclear-armed Israel, is party to the NPT. This means that they’ve already legally given up the nuclear weapon option. Moreover, nuclear weapon states can’t legally provide them nuclear weapons either. Second, many countries have safeguards agreements and some, the additional protocol, in place. This means that their programs are under close International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) scrutiny. None of these states have expressed an interest in reprocessing, which closes the plutonium path to the bomb. Some have even foregone enrichment, which blocks the uranium path to the bomb. That’s the case for the UAE. But some states, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, want to reserve “the right” to enrich. Riyadh went further and stated it wanted whatever Iran got out of the negotiations, including enrichment. Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan and the UAE are all dependent on foreign suppliers and expertise for their programs. They lack the human capacity for the programs. Foreign involvement makes it difficult, though not impossible, to covertly develop a nuclear weapon. This means that suppliers also need to do their due diligence and ensure that buyers use their equipment for purely peaceful purposes. One explanation as to why Tehran went so far in developing its indigenous nuclear technology, including enrichment, is that international suppliers weren’t as involved and reliable after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Following the revolution, Iran’s original suppliers, the United States, France and Germany, dumped the country, which then looked East. It went to Pakistan, including the illicit nuclear procurement network led by Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan, Russia and China. But Iran’s government believed it could not rely on any of these partners. Without a strong involvement in its program by foreign suppliers committed to nonproliferation, Iran was able to pursue indigenous nuclear technology. This diminished the international community’s leverage on Tehran. The Iranian context, however, is different from other countries in the region, which depend on the West and U.S. allies for their nuclear programs. Today’s nuclear newcomers must comply with certain international requirements for their programs to be completed by these suppliers. This means that suppliers can and should try to limit the further proliferation of enrichment and reprocessing. But technical constraints aside, there are political obstacles to the proliferation cascade theory. Countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia are dependent on Western allies for their security. Washington can leverage this influence to stop them from going nuclear. The United States showed its willingness to do just that in 1988, when it learned that Riyadh purchased Chinese missiles and it threatened to block the sale of military equipment. A final agreement on the Iranian nuclear program would be a win for the region. A regional proliferation cascade is an unlikely result. There are too many barriers to it. It is time to remove the cascade assumption from the policy equation. Most importantly, killing a diplomatic process and negotiated deal for the sake of yet another ill-founded “domino theory” would be a grave mistake.

No Iran prolif – security estimates overblown

Hymans, 13 Professor IR USC, 2/18/13, Jacques, “Iran Is Still Botching the Bomb” Foreign Affairs, http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139013/jacques-e-c-hymans/iran-is-still-botching-the-bomb♥Tina

At the end of January, Israeli intelligence officials quietly indicated that they have downgraded their assessments of Iran's ability to build a nuclear bomb. This is surprising because less than six months ago, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu warned from the tribune of the United Nations that the Iranian nuclear D-Day might come as early as 2013. Now, Israel believes that Iran will not have its first nuclear device before 2015 or 2016. The news comes as a great relief. But it also raises questions. This was a serious intelligence failure, one that has led some of Israel's own officials to wonder aloud, "Did we cry wolf too early?" Indeed, Israel has consistently overestimated Iran's nuclear program for decades. In 1992, then Foreign Minister Shimon Peres announced that Iran was on pace to have the bomb by 1999. Israel's many subsequent estimates have become increasingly frenzied but have been consistently wrong. U.S. intelligence agencies have been only slightly less alarmist, and they, too, have had to extend their timelines repeatedly. Overestimating Iran's nuclear potential might not seem like a big problem. However, similar, unfounded fears were the basis for President George W. Bush's preemptive attack against Iraq and its nonexistent weapons of mass destruction. Israel and the United States need to make sure that this kind of human and foreign policy disaster does not happen again. What explains Israel's most recent intelligence failure? Israeli officials have suggested that Iran decided to downshift its nuclear program in response to international sanctions and Israel's hawkish posture. But that theory falls apart when judged against Tehran's own recent aggressiveness. In the past few months, Iran has blocked the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from gaining access to suspect facilities, stalled on diplomatic meetings, and announced a "successful" space shot and the intention to build higher-quality centrifuges. These are not the actions of a state that is purposely slowing down its nuclear program. Even more to the point, if Tehran were really intent on curbing its nuclear work, an explicit announcement of the new policy could be highly beneficial for the country: many states would praise it, sanctions might be lifted, and an Israeli or U.S. military attack would become much less likely. But Iran has not advertised the downshift, and its only modest concession of late has been to convert some of its 20 percent enriched uranium to reactor fuel. It is doubtful that the Iranians would decide to slow down their nuclear program without asking for anything in return. A second hypothesis is that Israeli intelligence estimates have been manipulated for political purposes. This possibility is hard to verify, but it cannot be dismissed out of hand. Preventing the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran is Netanyahu's signature foreign policy stance, and he had an acute interest in keeping the anti-Iran pot boiling in the run-up to last month's parliamentary elections, which he nearly lost. Now, with the elections over, perhaps Israeli intelligence officials feel freer to convey a more honest assessment of Iran's status. This theory of pre-election spin is not very satisfying, however, because it fails to explain why Israeli governments of all political orientations have been making exaggerated claims about Iran for 20 years -- to say nothing of the United States' own overly dire predictions. The most plausible reason for the consistent pattern of overstatement is that Israeli and U.S. models of Iranian proliferation are flawed. Sure enough, Israeli officials have acknowledged that they did not anticipate the high number of technical problems Iranian scientists have run into recently. Some of those mishaps may have been the product of Israeli or U.S. efforts at sabotage. For instance, the 2010 Stuxnet computer virus attack on Iran's nuclear facilities reportedly went well. But the long-term impact of such operations is usually small -- or nonexistent: the IAEA and other reputable sources have dismissed the highly publicized claims of a major recent explosion at Iran's Fordow uranium-enrichment plant, for instance. Rather than being hampered by James Bond exploits, Iran's nuclear program has probably suffered much more from Keystone Kops-like blunders: mistaken technical choices and poor implementation by the Iranian nuclear establishment. There is ample reason to believe that such slipups have been the main cause of Iran's extremely slow pace of nuclear progress all along. The country is rife with other botched projects, especially in the chaotic public sector. It is unlikely that the Iranian nuclear program is immune to these problems. This is not a knock against the quality of Iranian scientists and engineers, but rather against the organizational structures in which they are trapped. In such an environment, where top-down mismanagement and political agendas are abundant, even easy technical steps often lead to dead ends and pitfalls. Iran is not the only state with a dysfunctional nuclear weapons program. As I argued in a 2012 Foreign Affairs article, since the 1970s, most states seeking entry into the nuclear weapons club have run their weapons programs poorly, leading to a marked slowdown in global proliferation. The cause of this mismanagement is the poor quality of the would-be proliferator's state institutions. Libya and North Korea are two classic examples. Libya essentially made no progress, even after 30 years of trying. North Korea has gotten somewhere -- but only after 50 years, and with many high-profile embarrassments along the way. Iran, whose nuclear weapons drive began in the mid-1980s, seems to be following a similar trajectory. Considering Iran in the broader context of the proliferation slowdown, it becomes clear that the technical problems it has encountered are more than unpredictable accidents -- they are structurally determined. Since U.S. and Israeli intelligence services have failed to appreciate the weakness of Iran's nuclear weapons program, they have not adjusted their analytical models accordingly. Thus, there is reason to be skeptical about Israel's updated estimate of an Iranian bomb in the next two or three years. The new date is probably just the product of another ad hoc readjustment, but what is needed is a fundamental rethinking. As the little shepherd boy learned, crying wolf too early and too often destroys one's credibility and leaves one vulnerable and alone. In order to rebuild public trust in their analysis, Jerusalem and Washington need to explain the assumptions on which their scary estimates are based, provide alternative estimates that are also consistent with the data they have gathered, and give a clear indication of the chance that their estimates are wrong and will have to be revised again. The Iranian nuclear effort is highly provocative. The potential for war is real. That is why Israel and the United States need to avoid peddling unrealistic, worse-than-worst-case scenarios.

No prolif – international institutions solve

Jenkins 14 (Graham W. Jenkins is a research assistant at the Institute for Defense Analyses. “Failure to Ignite: the Absence of Cascading to Nuclear Proliferation.”) jsk

There are far too many variables associated with a national nuclear program to cite just one as the explanation for a lack of regional proliferation. But several commonalities at least point to possible ways ahead for the Middle East (with the extremely important caveat of assuming that East Asia continues along its present trajectory).

First and foremost is the extension of the US nuclear umbrella, coupled with strong security assurances and a physical commitment to the security of the country in question. The US ties to Japan (US Forces Japan), South Korea (US Forces Korea), and Turkey (NATO) are a highly visible and reassuring sign of commitment and extended deterrence. It is telling that even in the wake of heightened tensions with North Korea, South Koreans are clamoring for the reintroduction of US nonstrategic nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. Such ties can help improve a country’s sense of security to a point where it will feel secure even without nuclear weapons.

Second is the international nonproliferation regime. It is thanks to the diligent efforts of the IAEA and other intergovernmental organizations that clandestine nuclear programs such as Iran’s—or even South Korea’s—have been detected. In the case of South Korea, its earlier 1970s-era program was not halted by the IAEA because the NPT had not yet brought the agency into being. As the safeguards regime in Korea grew stronger, down went the likelihood of an undetected program. The Additional Protocol compounded that. Couple with pressure from international stakeholders and global opinion, those programs can be halted before they develop into further proliferation. Of course, as experience with North Korea and Iran has shown, the existing safeguards regime is by no means perfect. Its chief purpose is to detect violations, not to punish them. But that is where the international community—and a shared global sense of responsibility—can come into play, through either negotiations or the application of appropriate nonproliferation measures.

Third is the international community more generally. Greater economic integration into the global system serves the practical purpose of tying a country’s fortunes to that of the world at-large. The destabilizing prospect of nuclear weapons would jeopardize that economic prosperity. The United States has deep ties and close relations with South Korea, Japan, and turkey, and is a participant in many of the same global organizations with them (e.g., NATO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the Development Assistance Committee). Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is relatively isolated. The only international organization (other than the United Nations) to which all four countries and the United States belong is the Group of 20. In addition to the practical benefits, membership in these groups and participation in international trade and development serve a normalizing role, easing tensions and promoting cooperation among otherwise fiercely competitive nations. Granted, it is a small sample size, but it is telling that the two countries whose nuclear programs are assumed to be catalysts for cascading regional proliferation are absent from virtually all international forums. Those that have not embarked on crash programs have significant ties with the world at large. And the international community should ensure that other potential proliferators are just as connected.

It is a merciful reality that, seven decades after splitting the atom, only 10 nations have successfully developed nuclear weapons (with one of the 10 later renouncing its arsenal and program). The past will not determine the future, but if it is in any way a guide, it will indeed be possible to prevent most proliferation in its early stages—and avoid the consequences of regional nuclear arms races.

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