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Atomic Ayatollahs: Explaining Iran’s post-revolutionary nuclear path

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Abstract

Iran is generally considered to be seeking nuclear weapons, a view based on the country’s adoption in the mid-1980s of an increasingly covert nuclear acquisition strategy combining clandestine activity with a rise in sensitive assistance from states and black market providers. Why Iran chose an uncompromising nuclear path under the global radar remains contentious. This article re-examines changes in Iran’s nuclear behavior since 1985 and argues that the change of course toward secrecy was influenced by factors other than a possible nuclear weapons aspiration. Important but sometimes neglected explanatory factors include the isolation of post-revolutionary Iran from the international nuclear marketplace and the move toward stricter export controls in the international non-proliferation regime. By emphasizing these factors, this article aims to create a more nuanced understanding of a crucial phase in Iran’s nuclear past while providing alternative explanations that challenge the prevailing Western view of Iranian nuclear weapons ambitions.

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Notes

  1. IAEA,‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, GOV/2003/75, p. 10.

  2. ‘Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments’, Department of State, August 2005, p. 80.

  3. Financial Times, 30 July, 1979.

  4. Letter from G. Wynn, United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority, to Alston (1980).

  5. Letter to United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority from Sahabi (1980).

  6. I start in 1976, 3 years before the Iranian revolution, to get a foundation to compare Iran’s nuclear behavior before the revolution, and throughout the 1980s and 1990s. See Appendix A for nuclear assistance to Iran from 1976 to 1979, and Appendix B for nuclear assistance to Iran from 1979 to 2002.

  7. Kroenig’s definition of sensitive includes only the enrichment of uranium and plutonium reprocessing and omits the rest of the nuclear fuel cycle. Other aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, such as uranium mining and assistance related to fuel fabrication, could benefit nuclear weapons development.

  8. IAEA, ‘Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran’, GOV/2003/75, p. 9.

  9. David Patrikarakos, author, personal interview, 28 February, 2013.

  10. Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Art. 3, § 5, 13.

  11. Leaders with an oppositional nationalist identity perceive their nations as being naturally in a hostile relationship with other states, and perceive themselves as superior or at least equal to their nuclear enemies, according to Hymans (2006).

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer for her support and advice in this research, as well as Sébastien Miraglia for his helpful comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies, Oslo, N-0104, Norway

    Seline Høiseth

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Appendices

Appendix A

Table A1

Table A1 Nuclear assistance to Iran (1976−1979)
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Appendix B

Table B1

Table B1 Nuclear assistance to Iran (1979−2002)
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Høiseth, S. Atomic Ayatollahs: Explaining Iran’s post-revolutionary nuclear path. Int Polit 52, 523–548 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1057/ip.2015.26

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