The absence of a universal consensus in the international community on the Iranian unconventional challenge stems from the mastery of the rulers in Tehran in concealing their own intentions, dispositions, and actions -- thereby dividing their perceived adversaries in their efforts to arrive at common policies and actions.
More specifically, one reason that Iran is successful in undermining a workable political, economic, and military strategy to deal effectively with the nuclear challenge is the fact that since the revolution in 1979 its leadership has brilliantly understood the lessons of history in developing their statecraft both internally and externally. The ayatollahs and currently President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have applied the "best practices" of statesmen provided by Sun Tzu, the legendary strategist of the 4th Century B.C. who asserted that "the acme of skill is not winning a hundred victories in a hundred battles, but to subdue the armies of the enemy without fighting." This means that Tehran's ambition to become a nuclear nation must be based on deception and developed in the "shadows."
This calculated approach to gain hegemony in the region and beyond must be seen against the background of the complex relationship between Shiite theology; apocalyptic visions that see universal chaos in preparation for the return of the Hidden Imam, and nonreligious political decision-making such as the motivations for Iran's security policies, including terrorism sponsorship and nuclear program development.
After all, the Shiite-Sunni and Persian-Arab tensions and conflicts only underscore one segment of the nature of the Iranian challenge to the entire international community. Better understanding of the extent of the religious, political, and military roles of Ahmadinejad and the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as other individuals operating within the government structure, is an important element in crafting a coherent and realistic strategy in coping with Tehran's threats to the Middle East and other regions.
A review of Iran's ability to deceive the international community as to its nuclear program clearly indicates Tehran's "modus operandi" of deception in buying time until it achieves its unconventional goal.
Consider, for example, the situation in late 2004. Before then-President Khatami agreed to a complete halt in Iran's recently discovered "civilian" uranium enrichment and reprocessing activities, it prolonged negotiations in 2003 and 2004 with countries of the European Union until the Uranium Conversion Facility at Esfahan could be completed.
Iran's method of operation was to not accept suspension in any areas where it had technical problems to be ironed out. Completing and testing the conversion facility would put Iran in a position to convert uranium ore into gas feed for its Natanz centrifuge enrichment plant, should that be restarted at some time in the future.
So, when Ahmadinejad finally ended the suspension in early 2006, Iran was in a position to start stockpiling what has now grown to several hundred of tons feed for the centrifuge enrichment plant at Natanz, and could concentrate on the technically more difficult problem of building centrifuges and getting them to operate at high speed for a prolonged period of time.
Even though the National Intelligence Estimate issued earlier this month states with "high confidence" that Iran's secret military program to develop a nuclear weapon was halted in the fall of 2003, there are still details about that program or related nuclear activities that the International Atomic Energy Agency requests relevant responses to. The IAEA is hindered by the general lack of transparency and Iran's refusal to adhere to the Additional Protocol that it signed in 2003 to allow for a broadened scope of inspections.
Iran is now building new centrifuge machines at a rate of about 200 per month for Natanz, or maybe twice that number, to also populate a parallel secret centrifuge facility in anticipation of renewing its military program. If 3,000 or more centrifuge machines at Natanz can be brought into successful full-time operation under the watchful eyes of the IAEA, the goal might be to accumulate large quantities of low-enriched uranium suitable for power reactor fuel. That could signal a suspension of uranium enrichment, which the United States demands before it will consider talking to Iran about normalizing relations.
In that situation, should Iran not like the way negotiations with the United States and other countries are going, it could expel the IAEA inspectors from Natanz and rearrange the centrifuge cascades there (or use the parallel secret facility) to further enrich the stock of fuel-grade uranium to weapons-grade levels in just a few months.
Iran may be able to acquire a nuclear bomb in this way by 2010, or perhaps earlier. It may not be a sophisticated compact design deliverable on a ballistic missile, but it could reek horrendous consequences if, for instance, it were sent by freighter into the port of Ashdod or Haifa in Israel, concealed under a shipment of pistachio nuts, which Israel continues to import from Iran.
In summary, both Iranian terrorism in general and the nuclear threat in particular carry the potential of crossing "red-lines" in the foreseeable future. Tragically, Tehran's extraordinary art of deceit for almost 30 years does not bode well for the decades to come.
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Yonah Alexander is director of the International Center for Terrorism Studies at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies and is a contributing editor to Middle East Times. Milton Hoenig is a nuclear physicist consultant in Washington DC. Both co-authored several books including, "Super Terrorism: Biological, Chemical and Nuclear," and most recently, "The New Iranian Leadership: Ahmadinejad, Terrorism, Nuclear Ambition and the Middle East." (Praeger, 2008)