So Iran is now a member of the nuclear club. What are the ramifications of this momentous news? I do not feel competent to discuss this subject in detail, but fortunately top nuclear experts met at a Council on Foreign Relations’ meeting in New York last week to discuss Iran’s nuclear development and production. Here is the
reproduced below. I worked closely with Poneman while in private practice and he most certainly is someone to take seriously on matters of nuclear proliferation. He currently is with the
, but formerly was the Senior Director for Nonproliferation and Export Controls at the NSC during the Clinton Administration. Poneman had this to say about Iran’s nuclear development:
“When we talk about creating facts on the ground, there are technical facts and there are political facts. And I will now engage in the speculation we’re all engaging in to say that if they are using this and it seems premature … perhaps they are using up that higher-quality material to create political facts on the ground, to inure the rest of the world to the fact that “We’re doing this now. You might as well get used to it. You got used to it with North Korea,” and to weaken the will of people who are trying to negotiate methods to stop them from doing any of this by saying, “Hey, sorry, we’re already past that post.”
At the same time, I do not know that whatever they’re doing in this small cascade with this relatively clean UF-6 disrupts the overall time line. And there, I do think that there’s a decent amount of consensus out there in the community, with one caveat, which I’ll come to in a second.
Whether Iran takes the pieces and parts of centrifuges they’ve already assembled and gets more and tries to build a clandestine facility outside of Natanz, beyond the view of any inspections that we have under either regular or additional protocol access, and, in fact, starts from scratch to create enough highly-enriched uranium to build a bomb, I think most people figure it would take them, from start to finish, building the centrifuges, encasing them in a plant, doing the cold test, running the hot test, running the cascades … it’s going to take about three years….
… I don’t think there’s that much disagreement anymore over those general time lines, but there is an earlier time line in which I believe, from a political perspective, the Iranians feel, in a relatively robust moment, they are witnessing a United States that is very much tied down in Iraq.
And it’s very difficult, I think, and it has been difficult … for us to muster the political will, in the U.N. Security Council or elsewhere, to truly confront the Iranians. And the test case, the first test case, was, in fact, the opening of this uranium conversion plant that we’re talking about that takes this material and turns it into the gas that you put into the centrifuge machines. And it is true that the world blinked when Iran took that step….
I think lurking in this whole proposal is a flawed premise … which is they have a right to this technology. They don’t. It distressed me that during the last presidential campaign, virtually the only issue on which the two candidates agreed was that there is this hole — this flaw — in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which gives some inalienable right to these technologies that you can use to build bombs. It is true that the Non-Proliferation Treaty guarantees the right to nuclear technology for peaceful purposes. Those words are in the treaty: “for peaceful purposes.”
You will also note the name of the treaty is the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And the front end of the treaty, the Articles I and II, say you can’t have nuclear weapons. It cannot be that Article IV, with the peaceful access right, trumps the purpose of the treaty and the fundamental premises in the first two articles.
And therefore, I’d go to Iran and say, no, you do not have a right to these initial cascades. You don’t have a right to this pilot-level activity. Why not? Because you’ve had 18 years of a clandestine program, hidden from the eyes of the world. You have pursued — we’ve been talking all about enrichment technologies. You’ve pursued those. You are building a heavy-water reactor, which is a reactor which goes the other route by taking the uranium 238 and allowing the neutrons to bombard it and turn that 238 into 239 plutonium, which is the other bomb fuel. You’ve separated some of that plutonium. You’re doing the conversion. You’ve lied to the IAEA. You’re still not cooperating with the IAEA. The burden of proof is now on you to establish why — not withstanding what I think is overwhelming evidence they are going down a bomb track — that you believe that this is a so-called peaceful program and, therefore, entitles you under Article IV to this technology.”
I do not feel competent to discuss this question in detail either, and I have some doubts as to whether or not Iran is really intent on becoming a nuclear power, but I still wonder why Iran garners so much attention while non-signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (India, Pakistan and Israel) are virtually ignored (I’m not saying we should turn a blind eye to Iran’s behavior). Similarly, the Bush Administration’s attempt to by-pass the treaty and upgrade this country’s nuclear weapons arsenal has garnered comparatively little scrutiny. Where was all this concern, for example, when Israel developed nuclear weapons? When other countries look at our behavior in this matter (inconsistent, hypocritical, self-serving, etc.) it makes it that much more difficult to wed political power to the exigencies of international law. I’m pasting material here I previously pasted below in Julian’s post if perchance some readers have missed it. In addition, one might look at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s website for interesting papers from a symposium held in February of this year in Santa Barbara, CA: ‘At the Nuclear Precipice: Nuclear Weapons and the Abandoment of International Law.’ U.S. Enters New Nuclear Age as Bush Seeks Funds for New Generation… Read more »
For yet another perspective a bit different from that found among experts gathered at the Council on Foreign Relations, please see the following interview found at Z-NET: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?itemid=10071 Foaad Khosmood: In the April 17 issue of New Yorker Magazine Seymour Hersh has an eye-opening piece that quotes Administration insiders who suggest nuclear war with Iran is a serious option. You had written back in October of 2005 that “The strategic decision by the United States to nuke Iran was probably made long ago.” What led you to that conclusion at that time? What do you think of the Hersh piece? Jorge Hirsch: Of course the Hersh piece is extremely useful in bringing this issue to the forefront of public attention. However already several months ago an analysis of the facts led me to the conviction that a deliberate decision had been made to use nuclear weapons against Iran. First, the US pursuit over several years to get an IAEA resolution against Iran, no matter how weak, which it finally achieved in September 2005. It didn’t make any sense as a diplomatic move if the goal was to exert pressure on Iran, in view of the clear dissent by Russia and… Read more »
>>I still wonder why Iran garners so much attention while non-signatories to the Non-Proliferation Treat (India, Pakistan and Israel) are virtually ignored < <
Come again? You can’t be that obtuse. Perhaps the rantings of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calling for Israel to be wiped off the map or claiming a halo surrounded him while he spoke at the U.N. are valid reasons for the attention and concern of someone commanding nuclear weapons. Nothing similar has spouted forth from Israel, India or Pakistan.
The State Department on March 8, 2006, listed the reasons why a “nuclear-armed Iran is intolerable.” Weblink here: http://www.state.gov/t/us/rm/63121.htm
And let’s not forget that the U.S. embassy, U.S. sovereign soil, in Iran is effectively still “captured territory” that has not been returned nearly 27 years later.
Finally, Seymour Hersh has a disquieting habit of playing hard and loose with the actual facts. He’s essentially now a partisan shill, having abdicating any pretense to objective journalism long ago. I have no doubt that unfortunately the West will unfortunately suffer one or two nuclear explosions on its soil before the one-worlders are steam-rolled into obscurity.
Somewhat tangential to this discussion is the relationship between Iran and Israel. UC Hastings recently had a panel discussion on the topic which can be found here: http://www.iraniantruth.com/?p=160
Dear H. Tuttle, Perhaps I am ‘that obtuse.’ Consider the following (in addition to the other material I provided above): Did you read William Langewiesche’s article, ‘The Wrath of Khan: How A.Q. Khan make Pakistan a nuclear power–and showed that the spread of atomic weapons can’t be stopped,’ in The Atlantic Monthly, November 2005? When was the last time Iran invaded anyone? The crisis over Kashmiri Muslim demands for autonomy in the state of Jammu and Kashmir has not been resolved (although there’s been some hopeful signs on the horizon). Recall that ‘Zionism grounded its preemptive right to establish a Jewish state in Palestine—a right that, allegedly, superseded the aspirations of the indigenous population—in the Jewish people’s supposedly unique claim to that land’ [….] Zionism’s claim to the whole of Palestine not only precluded a modus vivendi based on partition with the indigenous Arab population, it called into question any Arab presence in Palestine. This was especially so, given that, in practice, the Zionist discourse on Palestine merged with a Zionist discourse on a Jewish polity. Both these discourses posited that (1) to “normalize” their conditions, Jews needed to relocate to a state (polity/territorial unit) that “belonged” to them, and… Read more »
Dear Nema,
I don’t think it is tangential to the discussion. Thanks so much for your link. Very interesting.
Mr. O’Donnell, your list of articles and discussion of Khan’s network is impressive. I have neither time, nor inclination to read every one of the articles, track down their original sources, and weigh the morass in some sort of existential scale. While you ask “[w]hen was the last time Iran invaded anyone?” That isn’t the question on the table. I did notice, however, that you completely ignored the point that Iran’s current president has called directly for the total destruction of another nearby country and that Iran is an active sponsor of terrorist organizations, and a direct backer of several such groups, including Hezbollah, who would have little compunction against using such weapons against Israel, the U.S. or the West. Your long tangent regarding Israel is essentially diversionary and immaterial — does any reputable world leader believe it will supply a nuke to terrorists? That’s the ony question on the table in my mind with regards to Iran’s current and future pursuit of nuclearized weapons, not Israel’s past actions. While Pakistan’s proliferation via Khan remains deeply troubling, as does North Korean’s actions, to posit that stopping Iran’s attainment of nuclear weapons should be anything less than a top priority on… Read more »
Dear H. Tuttle, Iran does not have nuclear weapons. This nation’s response and thinly veiled threats are disproportionate to the threat, now or in the near future, assuming, that is, that Iran really wants nuclear weapons (the evidence here is thin to non-existent). It does no good for me to express my abhorrence at Mahmoud Ahmadinedjad’s anti-Israel statements. I do believe, however, his views are not shared by a majority of Iranians and that such deplorable rhetoric arises as a direct reaction to the perception that the country is being bullied by Anglo-European powers (I trust you’re well-versed in Iranian history and politics). Russia is rightly concerned that ‘excessive pressure on Iran may impel it to opt out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty altogether, and end even the much-reduced access that inspectors now have to Iranian site’ (Christopher de Bellaigue in NYRB; I suggest you read his article in the April 27th issue for why the U.S. has a dangerously skewed perception of this Islamic Republic). Our primary concern should be the behavior of nations currently armed with nuclear weapons, as well as with North Korea, given its withdrawal from the treaty and the possibility it possesses a nuclear device.… Read more »