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November 13, 2004

Iran Heading Towards Conflict

Topics: Middle East News and Perspectives

The Iran Nuclear issue is not going away and Iran is determined to have a nuclear weapon. Hysience has previously reported on Iran's determination to develop nuclear weapons (Iran PMs cried "Death to America" after voting to continue their nuclear program!). For an update on the growing problem we can look to Jane's Intelligence Reports, as reported on 11 November:
       
" The risk of a confrontation between Iran and the international community is set to escalate as it becomes likely that the Islamic Republic will soon possess its own nuclear weapon. JID's nuclear expert reviews the evidence and warns of a hardening attitude in Washington"

Back in September 2004, the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) reported that Iran was intending to convert 37 tonnes of milled uranium oxide ('yellowcake') into uranium hexafluoride, the 'feed' material for centrifuges that gets made into highly enriched uranium (HEU). This is viewed to be too small a quantity for a civilian programme but would provide enough material for around five nuclear weapons.

In undertaking the yellowcake conversion, Iran is going further in breaching the arrangement it made with the EU in October 2003 when it announced that it would suspend enrichment activities, shortly after which it decided to resume assembling centrifuges. Amid calls by the US to refer Iran to the UN Security Council, the EU member states have opted to allow Iran a final opportunity to come to a negotiated solution before supporting Washington's demands for tough sanctions.

The IAEA's resolution called on Iran to suspend all enrichment-related activities immediately and reconsider its decision to construct a heavy-water research reactor at Arak. Tehran has insisted that the Arak reactor would be used solely for research and the production of radioisotopes for medical and industrial purposes. Experts point out that such a reactor would also provide the means to produce plutonium without the need to enrich uranium.

In June 2004, Iran cut the IAEA seals on its existing centrifuge components and began assembling centrifuges from existing component stock. Other outstanding issues involve the origin of uranium contamination found at various locations; the completeness of Iran's declaration about the acquisition of advanced P2 gas centrifuges; establishing that undeclared enrichment has not taken place at other locations and confirming that no undeclared HEU has already been imported."

Then there is the column in the Weekly Standard by Henry Sokolski, From the November 22, 2004 issue: Rethink nuclear nonproliferation, before it's too late: 

"AS THE UNITED STATES and its allies give Tehran its fifth chance in nearly two years to suspend activities that could bring it within weeks of having enough enriched uranium for a large arsenal, the question arises: Isn't there a better way to prevent states from getting nuclear weapons? The answer is yes, but only if we and our partners are willing to be much more aggressive in adapting existing nonproliferation efforts to today's threats.

The key problem is that our current policy concedes too much. Iran, for instance, asserts that it has the right under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to come within weeks of building a bomb, and we do not publicly contest this. Instead, Britain, France, and Germany, in their latest one-last-chance offer, are pleading with Tehran not to exercise the right it claims. In exchange for an Iranian pledge to suspend certain nuclear fuel-making activities, the three propose to guarantee Tehran not only a supply of fresh light-water-reactor fuel for its just-completed power reactor at Bushehr, but also more such reactors and improved trade relations as well.

If this sounds like an invitation to nuclear mischief, it is. First, the fuel that the European Three would guarantee could itself be used to accelerate the making of a bomb. Fresh, lightly enriched light-water-reactor fuel is far closer to being bomb grade than is natural uranium. If Iran were to seize the fuel and divert it--as it probably could without IAEA inspectors' immediate knowledge--Iran could reduce five-fold the level of effort it would need to make bomb-grade material: With the centrifuges Iran admits having, it could make a bomb's worth of fuel in roughly nine weeks as opposed to a year. This suggests that the IAEA's current cycle of inspections at Bushehr--once every three months--is woefully inadequate.

Second, so long as Iran and other aspiring bomb-makers have a right to pursue all the activities necessary to get them within days of a bomb, they will have the upper hand in negotiations. Certainly, with Iran's enrichment facilities in place and its right to operate them uncontested, Tehran could suspend enrichment operations--as it has just agreed to do--and yet be free to resume them any time it wants. The worry now is that Iran will simply buy time with the European Three, to push for permission to exercise its right to enrich while building up its covert capabilities to do so.

This, in essence, is the fatal flaw in our approach to nonproliferation: We and our partners are still much more willing to defend the right to make nuclear weapons-usable materials than we are to read the rules so as to deny it.

This needs to change. Certainly, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which was negotiated in 1968, qualifies the right of non-weapons states to develop nuclear energy: They may not use nuclear-energy technology to make nuclear arms. This is forbidden by the treaty's stricture against non-weapons states' acquiring the bomb."

So where is all this taking us? While the UN and Europe sleep and the U.S. has been fighting the war on terror, Iran continues to move toward more terrible weapons of war for the terrorists. Whatever the outcome the fact that a terrorist state has been allowed to come so far in developing a nuclear arsenal is ........ . Well, we will let you finish the sentence. Comments are invited!

Posted by Hyscience at November 13, 2004 9:17 PM

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