Worldwide Threat Assessment
Annual Threat Assessment
Director of National Intelligence
Selected extracts
Iran
Iran: Growing Authoritarianism and Efforts to Expand its Regional Influence
The Iranian Government faced a major political challenge last summer when a widespread perception of fraud during the June presidential election provoked large-scale popular demonstrations and infighting among regime elites. Conservative hardliners reacted by cracking down on protestors and regime opponents, and hardliners now are using the crisis and its aftermath to further consolidate their power. Despite Iran’s internal turmoil, we judge that Tehran’s foreign policy will remain relatively constant—driven by a consistent set of goals and that its efforts to expand its regional influence and ongoing support for terrorist and militant groups will continue to present a threat to many countries in the Middle East and to US interests.
Iran’s political crisis has widened splits in the country’s political elite and undercut the regime’s legitimacy. Although Iranian politics remain in flux, Supreme Leader Khamenei, President Ahmadi-Nejad, and their hardline conservative allies are likely to focus over the next year on consolidating their power.
• Strengthened conservative control will limit opportunities for reformers to participate in politics or organize opposition. The regime will work to marginalize opposition elites, disrupt or intimidate efforts to organize dissent, and use force to put down unrest.
Iran’s economic performance has been hurt by softening oil prices and longstanding Iranian policies that discourage the private sector and foreign investment, but the economy is not in crisis. Iran’s economy is heavily dependent on oil—hydrocarbons provide 80 percent of its foreign exchange revenue, making Tehran vulnerable to downturns in oil prices. Nonetheless, Iran maintains foreign currency reserves to hedge against a moderate fall in oil prices. International sanctions and pressure have aggravated Iran’s economic woes by disrupting and increasing the cost of international business, slowing some projects and programs, and contributing to Iran’s economic slowdown.
• Iran has made contingency plans for dealing with future additional international sanctions by identifying potential alternative suppliers of gasoline—including China and Venezuela. Tehran also has resorted to doing business with small, non-Western banks and dealing in non-US currency for many financial transactions. Iranian opposition press has reported the involvement of the Revolutionary Guard and Iranian intelligence in the smuggling of crude oil as a way of both skirting and profiting from sanctions. Despite these activities and Iran’s gasoline subsidy cuts, which could in part serve to mitigate some effects of the embargo, we nonetheless judge that sanctions will have a negative impact on Iran’s recovery from its current economic slowdown.
Iran’s overall approach to international affairs probably will remain relatively constant and will continue to be driven by longstanding priorities of preserving the Islamic regime, safeguarding Iran’s sovereignty, defending its nuclear ambitions, and expanding its influence in the region and the Islamic world. We judge Iran’s influence and ability to intervene in the region will remain significant and that it will continue to support terrorist and militant groups to further its influence and undermine the interests of Western and moderate regional states.
In Iraq, we expect Iran will focus on building long-term influence by trying to ensure the continued political dominance of its Shia allies, expand Iran’s political and economic ties to Iraq, and limit Washington’s influence. We assess Tehran continues to train, equip, and fund select Iraqi Shia militant groups.
In Afghanistan, Iran is providing political and economic support to the Karzai government, developing relationships with leaders across the political spectrum, and providing lethal aid to elements of the Taliban to block Western—especially US—entrenchment in the country. Tehran likely will continue to provide reconstruction, humanitarian, and economic initiatives intended to bolster Afghan stability. Iran also will seek to expand its influence at the expense of the United States and other competitors, and to work with Kabul on border security and counternarcotics initiatives.
In the Levant, Tehran is focused on building influence in Syria and Lebanon and expanding the capability of key allies. Tehran continues to support groups such as Hizballah, HAMAS, and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), which it views as integral to its efforts to challenge Israeli and Western influence in the Middle East.
• Hizballah is the largest recipient of Iranian financial aid, training, and weaponry, and Iran’s senior leadership has cited Hizballah as a model for other militant groups. Iran also provides training, weapons, and money to HAMAS to bolster the group’s ability and resolve to maintain its armed resistance to Israel and opposition to Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations.
Iranian WMD and Missile Program
The Iranian regime continues to flout UN Security Council restrictions on its nuclear program. There is a real risk that its nuclear program will prompt other countries in the Middle East to pursue nuclear options.
We continue to assess Iran is keeping open the option to develop nuclear weapons in part by developing various nuclear capabilities that bring it closer to being able to produce such weapons, should it choose to do so. We do not know, however, if Iran will eventually decide to build nuclear weapons.
I would like to draw your attention to two examples over the past year that illustrate some of the capabilities Iran is developing.
First, published information from the International Atomic Energy Agency indicates that the number of centrifuges installed at Iran’s enrichment plant at Natanz has grown significantly from about 3,000 centrifuges in late 2007 to over 8,000 currently installed. Iran has also stockpiled in that same time period approximately 1,800 kilograms of low-enriched uranium. However, according to the IAEA information, Iran also appears to be experiencing some problems at Natanz and is only operating about half of the installed centrifuges, constraining its overall ability to produce larger quantities of low-enriched uranium.
Second, Iran has been constructing—in secret until last September—a second uranium enrichment plant deep under a mountain near the city of Qom. It is unclear to us whether Iran's motivations for building this facility go beyond its publicly claimed intent to preserve enrichment know-how if attacked, but the existence of the facility and some of its design features raise our concerns. The facility is too small to produce regular fuel reloads for civilian nuclear power plants, but is large enough for weapons purposes if Iran opts configure it for highly enriched uranium production. It is worth noting that the small size of the facility and the security afforded the site by its construction under a mountain fit nicely with a strategy of keeping the option open to build a nuclear weapon at some future date, if Tehran ever decides to do so.
Iran’s technical advancement, particularly in uranium enrichment, strengthens our 2007 NIE assessment that Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity to eventually produce nuclear weapons, making the central issue its political will to do so. These advancements lead us to reaffirm our judgment from the 2007 NIE that Iran is technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon in the next few years, if it chooses to do so.
We judge Iran would likely choose missile delivery as its preferred method of delivering a nuclear weapon. Iran already has the largest inventory of ballistic missiles in the Middle East and it continues to expand the scale, reach and sophistication of its ballistic missile forces—many of which are inherently capable of carrying a nuclear payload.
We continue to judge Iran’s nuclear decisionmaking is guided by a cost-benefit approach, which offers the international community opportunities to influence Tehran. Iranian leaders undoubtedly consider Iran’s security, prestige and influence, as well as the international political and security environment, when making decisions about its nuclear program.
That is as far as I can go in discussing Iran’s nuclear program at the unclassified level. In my classified statement for the record, I have outlined in further detail the Intelligence Community’s judgments regarding Iranian nuclear-related activities, as well as its chemical and biological- weapons activities and refer you to that assessment.
Iran’s growing inventory of ballistic missiles and its acquisition and indigenous production of anti-ship cruise missiles (ASCMs) provide capabilities to enhance its power projection. Tehran views its conventionally armed missiles as an integral part of its strategy to deter—and if necessary retaliate against—forces in the region, including US forces. Its ballistic missiles are inherently capable of delivering WMD, and if so armed, would fit into this same strategy.
