The second option was multilateral diplomacy conducted with both carrots and sticks. We could join the Europeans in offering Iran a package of incentives in return for abandoning its suspect nuclear activities. If the regime refused to cooperate, the coalition would then impose tough sanctions on Iran individually and through the UN. The sanctions would make it harder for Iran to obtain technology needed for a weapon, slowing the bomb clock. They would also make it harder for Ahmadinejad to fulfill his economic promises, which would strengthen the country’s reform movement.
The final option was a military strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities. This goal would be to stop the bomb clock, at least temporarily. It was uncertain what the impact on the reform clock would be. Some thought destroying the regime’s prized project would embolden the opposition; others worried that a foreign military operation would stir up Iranian nationalism and unite the people against us. I directed the Pentagon to study what would be necessary for a strike. Military action would always be on the table, but it would be my last resort.
I discussed the options with the national security team extensively in the spring of 2006. I consulted closely with Vladimir Putin, Angela Merkel, and Tony Blair. They assured me they would support strong sanctions if Iran did not change its behavior. In May, Condi announced that we would join the Europeans in negotiating with Iran, but only if the regime verifiably suspended its enrichment. She then worked with the UN Security Council to set a deadline for Iran’s response: August 31. The summer passed, and the answer never came.
The next challenge was to develop effective sanctions. There wasn’t much America could do on our own. We had sanctioned Iran heavily for decades. I directed the Treasury Department to work with its European counterparts to make it harder for Iranian banks and businesses to move money. We also designated the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organization, which allowed us to freeze their assets. Our partners in the diplomatic coalition imposed new sanctions of their own. And we worked with the UN Security Council to pass Resolutions 1737 and 1747, which banned Iranian arms exports, froze key Iranian assets, and prohibited any country from providing Iran with nuclear weapons–related equipment.
Persuading the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese to agree on the sanctions was a diplomatic achievement. But every member faced the temptation to split off and take commercial advantage. I frequently reminded our partners about the dangers of a nuclear-armed Iran. In October 2007, a reporter asked me about Iran at a press conference. “I’ve told people that if you’re interested in avoiding World War Three,” I said, “it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.”
My reference to World War III produced near hysteria. Protestors showed up outside my speeches with signs that read, “Keep Us Out of Iran.” Journalists authored breathless, gossip-laden stories portraying America on the brink of war. They all missed the point. I wasn’t looking to start a war. I was trying to hold our coalition together to avoid one.
In November 2007, the intelligence community produced a National Intelligence Estimate on Iran’s nuclear program. It confirmed that, as we suspected, Iran had operated a secret nuclear weapons program in defiance of its treaty obligations. It also reported that, in 2003, Iran had suspended its covert effort to design a warhead— considered by some to be the least challenging part of building a weapon. Despite the fact that Iran was testing missiles that could be used as a delivery system and had announced its resumption of uranium enrichment, the NIE opened with an eye-popping declaration: “We judge with high confidence that in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”
The NIE’s conclusion was so stunning that I felt certain it would immediately leak to the press. As much as I disliked the idea, I decided to declassify the key findings so that we could shape the news stories with the facts. The backlash was immediate. Ahmadinejad hailed the NIE as “a great victory.” Momentum for new sanctions faded among the Europeans, Russians, and Chinese. As
In January 2008, I took a trip to the Middle East, where I tried to reassure leaders that we remained committed to dealing with Iran. Israel and our Arab allies found themselves in a rare moment of unity. Both were deeply concerned about Iran and furious with the United States over the NIE. In Saudi Arabia, I met with King Abdullah and members of the Sudairi Seven, the influential full brothers of the late King Fahd.
“Your Majesty, may I begin the meeting?” I asked. “I’m confident every one of you believes I wrote the NIE as a way to avoid taking action against Iran.”
No one said a word. The Saudis were too polite to confirm their suspicion aloud.
“You have to understand our system,” I said. “The NIE was produced independently by our intelligence community. I am as angry about it as you are.”
The NIE didn’t just undermine diplomacy. It also tied my hands on the military side. There were many reasons I was concerned about undertaking a military strike on Iran, including its uncertain effectiveness and the serious problems it would create for Iraq’s fragile young democracy. But after the NIE, how could I possibly explain using the military to destroy the nuclear facilities of a country the intelligence community said had no active nuclear weapons program?
I don’t know why the NIE was written the way it was. I wondered if the intelligence community was trying so hard to avoid repeating its mistake on Iraq that it had underestimated the threat from Iran. I certainly hoped intelligence analysts weren’t trying to influence policy. Whatever the explanation, the NIE had a big impact—and not a good one.
I spent much of 2008 working to rebuild the diplomatic coalition against Iran. In March, we were able to get another round of UN sanctions, which banned countries from trading with Iran in dual-use technologies that could be employed in a nuclear weapons program. We also expanded our missile defense shield, including a new system based in Poland and the Czech Republic to protect Europe from an Iranian launch.
At the same time, I worked to speed the reform clock by meeting with Iranian dissidents, calling for the release of political prisoners, funding Iranian civil-society activists, and using radio and Internet technology to broadcast pro-freedom messages into Iran. We also explored a wide variety of intelligence programs and financial measures that could slow the pace or increase the cost of Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
I regret that I ended my presidency with the Iranian issue unresolved. I did hand my successor an Iranian regime more isolated from the world and more heavily sanctioned than it had ever been. I was confident that the success of the surge and the emergence of a free Iraq on Iran’s border would inspire Iranian dissidents and help catalyze change. I was pleased to see the Iranian freedom movement express itself in nationwide demonstrations after Ahmadinejad’s fraudulent reelection in June 2009. In the faces of those brave protesters, I believe we saw the future of Iran. If America and the world stand with them while keeping the pressure on the Iranian regime, I am hopeful the government and its policies will change. But one thing is for certain: The United States should never allow Iran to threaten the world with a nuclear bomb.
Iran was not the only nation endangering the freedom agenda by seeking nuclear weapons. In the spring of 2007, I received a highly classified report from a foreign intelligence partner. We pored over photographs of a suspicious, well-hidden building in the eastern desert of Syria.
The structure bore a striking resemblance to the nuclear facility at Yongbyon, North Korea. We concluded that the structure contained a gas-cooled, graphite-moderated reactor capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. Since North Korea was the only country that had built a reactor of that model in the past thirty-five years, our strong suspicion was that we had just caught Syria red-handed trying to develop a nuclear weapons capability with North Korean help.
That was certainly the conclusion of Prime Minister Olmert. “George, I’m asking you to bomb the compound,” he said in a phone call shortly after I received the report.
“Thank you for raising this matter,” I told the prime minister. “Give me some time to look at the intelligence and I’ll give you an answer.”
I convened the national security team for a series of intense discussions. As a military matter, the bombing mission would be straightforward. The Air Force could destroy the target, no sweat. But bombing a sovereign country with no warning or announced justification would create severe blowback.
A second option would be a covert raid. We studied the idea seriously, but the CIA and the military concluded that it would be too risky to slip a team into and out of Syria with enough explosives to blow up the facility.
The third option was to brief our allies on the intelligence, jointly expose the facility, and demand that Syria shutter and dismantle it under the supervision of the IAEA. With the regime’s duplicity exposed, we could use our
