In light of renewed tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, questions about nuclear nonproliferation, deterrence and global stability have become more urgent than ever. Dr. Jonathan Cristol is a foreign policy expert and an adjunct assistant professor of political science at Yeshiva University who writes and speaks widely on international security and nuclear diplomacy. In his Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) course, Cristol explores the political science behind these debates and applies them to real-world cases. Following the conclusion of the spring semester, recent developments — such as strikes on Iranian nuclear sites and stalled diplomatic negotiations — raised new urgency around the topics covered in class. To help unpack these issues, the YU Observer spoke with Dr. Cristol about what’s really happening, why it matters and how academic theory intersects with real-world policy.
There’s been a lot of debate about whether the recent Israeli and U.S. strikes on Iranian nuclear sites were truly effective. From your perspective, what would “effective” actually mean in this context? Was it mainly about deterrence, delaying progress or something else?
I’m going to interpret [this question] as being about the totality of the air campaign against Iran — not just the strikes on the nuclear sites at Fordow and Natanz.
I think “effective” would mean that the strikes achieved their goals — but of course, that’s difficult to assess, since we don’t know for sure what the goals were. We shouldn’t assume Israel and the U.S. had identical goals, though there was probably significant overlap. If the goal was to destroy Iran’s capacity to ever build nuclear weapons, then the goal was not achievable and it wasn’t achieved. If the goal was to change Iran’s cost-benefit analysis and deter them from developing nuclear weapons, then it was always going to be counterproductive — and almost certainly was.
But I’m not sure those were the only goals. In fact, I think the campaign was very effective, at least from Israel’s perspective. As for the U.S., I think the Department of Defense hoped to cause some damage and demonstrate that we could fly from the U.S., bomb these targets, and do so in a single, very long flight. (We did this in the Balkans in the 1990s too—but it’s still pretty freaking impressive.) So I think the U.S. strikes were about deterrence, delaying Iran’s progress, showing a willingness to act, and expressing solidarity with Israel — and I’d say they were successful in those respects. That said, I have no idea what the White House specifically hoped to achieve.
Do you think these strikes actually increased Iran’s motivation to pursue a nuclear weapon?
Yes, I think the strikes definitely increased Iran’s motivation to get a nuclear weapon. How else could they prevent Israel or the U.S. from doing this again in the future?
This kind of effect isn’t new. We saw something similar after Israel’s 1981 attack on Iraq’s nuclear reactor. That strike was, in one sense, tremendously successful since it destroyed the program, but more recent scholarship shows it was complicated. It eliminated internal disagreement about Iraq’s perceived need for nuclear weapons, and when Iraq reconstituted the program, they hid it much more effectively.
And I’d argue that Israel’s greatest achievement in this campaign had nothing to do with the nuclear program. It was the destruction of Iran’s entire air defense system, more than half of its ballistic missile launchers (and likely far more), and a large portion of its missile arsenal. A missile without a launcher is just a very large paperweight. Any setbacks to the nuclear program are just a bonus — because both Israel and the U.S. know they can carry out additional strikes in the future if needed. And Tehran knows that, too.
During a press conference this week, Trump insisted that Iran’s nuclear program has been “obliterated like nobody’s ever seen before,” while assessments from the IAEA, U.S. intelligence and Iranian officials suggest that the damage was significant, but may have only delayed Iran’s progress by a matter of months. Given the gap between these statements, how would you interpret the likely impact of the strikes on Iran’s nuclear program?
Obviously, Iran has an incentive to downplay the impact of the strikes; but U.S. intelligence is generally extraordinarily accurate in these assessments — even well-known cases of “intelligence failures” are often better categorized as “political failures,” though of course mistakes do happen. But when you combine U.S. intelligence with the IAEA, which also has an excellent track record, I think it is a pretty safe bet that Trump was being Trump and just saying stuff that he thought would sound good or that he wanted to be true.
Now, it’s important to note that the U.S. mission was a success — but that one day of U.S. air strikes was never going to be enough nor should anyone have expected it to be enough. So yes, I do think that it was delayed by months — but take my words literally… months could be 6 or could be 60 or 600 (but it’s not 600).
In class, you talked about how countries like North Korea and Pakistan developed nuclear weapons despite international pressure. North Korea withdrew from the Non- Proliferation Treaty in 2003 and has since tested multiple nuclear weapons. Pakistan developed its arsenal outside the treaty system in the 1990s, largely in response to regional tensions with India. Do you see any parallels between those cases and Iran?
As surprising as it seems, Pakistan is not the best comparison, because at the time the U.S. had a very close relationship with Pakistan and not so much with India so while we did impose sanctions (on Pakistan and India) we still had a good relationship.
North Korea (DPRK) is a very different case, but not only are they similar, they are also sort of linked. People should remember (or know) that North Korean pilots flew the Egyptian fighters in the Yom Kippur War. Iran’s ballistic missiles are based on DPRK designs. DPRK is assisting Iran with its submarine program. And of course DPRK trained Hezbollah and Hamas in tunnel construction (and North Korean weapons were found in Hamas tunnels in Gaza).
In a very sad and emotional parallel, which I have trouble even discussing in class — North Korea holds South Korean and Japanese hostages. The North kidnapped thousands of South Koreans after active fighting ended and the estimates of how many remain alive in the North vary so much that I’m reluctant to cite any one number as definitive. Japan recognizes 17 ‘abductees’ taken by DPRK in raids on Japan, of whom 5 have been returned, 8 are dead, and 8+5 does not total 17.
The issue of hostages held by the North barely ever makes the news here — but it is very much an issue in Japan and Korea. At every official meeting between Japan and the U.S., Japan requests U.S. assistance in this matter — but there’s little we can do… in part because of the nukes!
In class, you explored a major debate about whether or not nuclear proliferation can actually promote global stability. Political Scientist Kenneth Waltz famously argued that when more countries, even adversarial ones like Iran, acquire nuclear weapons, the fear of mutual destruction forces states to act more cautiously, reducing the risk of large-scale war. Others argue that allowing states like Iran to go nuclear is inherently dangerous and destabilizing. How do you see Waltz’s theory applying, or not applying, to Iran’s situation today?
I simultaneously agree and disagree with Waltz regarding Iran. I agree with his basic premise that an Iranian nuclear weapon would make an all-out, regional war less likely. But I disagree that it would be stabilizing.
In the Jewish community I always hear people say that if Iran gets a nuclear weapon, they will nuke Israel. In my other two “homes” — the IR (International Relations) community and the “defense establishment,” nobody thinks that. Literally nobody. Including me.
But a nuclear Iran is a significant threat. Not because of the nukes per se, but because of what they would allow the state to do. Earlier I listed some of the things that North Korea has done — and that’s only a partial list. They’ve sent commando teams into the South, they’ve shot down passenger planes, they fire missiles over Japan. In a famous incident called “the Korean axe murder incident” DPRK soldiers crossed the DMZ and murdered two American servicemen using … as you might guess … axes. Not all of these were after the DPRK had their own nukes — but they were after China agreed to defend them in the event of a U.S. attack— so what could we do about it?
Now imagine a nuclear Iran — essentially free to do whatever it wants in the region using conventional weapons without fear of a regime-threatening reprisal. That may seem like less of a big deal now that Iran’s proxies are significantly weakened — but my point is, who cares about the proxies if you have nukes? You don’t necessarily need to maintain that distance because the nuclear weapons guarantee your survival anyway.
This is a long way of saying —Waltz isn’t wrong when it comes to the “stability” part of the “stability-instability paradox,” but in my view he seriously underestimates the “instability” Iranian nukes would create, and so I think his theory is correct —- but we should act as if it is incorrect.
You’ve mentioned that regime change is unlikely to reduce Iran’s nuclear ambitions given the long-standing nature of the program across different governments. How do you see the different factions within Iran influencing the country’s nuclear policy and its willingness to engage in diplomacy?
You are correct. I did indeed say that; but I’m going to walk it back a little bit. It is a fact that Iran’s program predates the Islamic Republic — and I think the nuclear ambition will still be there after the Islamic Republic — but a future regime may not be as ambitious and be perfectly happy to give up that ambition as part of some future agreement.
This interview has been edited for length and/or clarity.
Photo Caption: Jonathan Cristol
Photo Credit: Jonathan Cristol