Iran claims its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, but the majority of the rest of the world questions this assertion. And for good reason: A thorough assessment of the evidence shows that Iran's end goal is a nuclear weapons capability, not nuclear energy.
Before we get into evidence, though, it is first important to distinguish a nuclear weapon from a nuclear weapons capability. This distinction may not sound substantial, but it has tremendous technical and policy implications. On the one hand, a nuclear weapon means the end goal of the Iranian program is to actually build a physical bomb, complete with explosives package, fissile material, and casing -- perhaps even mated to a delivery vehicle. This is a tangible result, something we can see and touch. On the other hand, a nuclear weapons capability means the end goal of the Iranian nuclear program is to stop one step short of building the physical bomb. The necessary components are in place, but no actual weapon has been produced.
Iran seeks the latter -- a weapons capability -- and as a result is pursuing a nuclear hedging strategy. That is, Iran is shortening the ramp-up time it would need to produce a working bomb, just in case it ever believes it needs one. And there is evidence that it has conducted significant research and development in this space: The November 2011 IAEA Board of Governors report includes a hefty annex that details the weapons-specific research and development Iran has conducted in recent years. While the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate has concluded that Iran has suspended its progress in this space, there is ample evidence to demonstrate that Iran's leaders are interested in developing the kinds of components, technologies and knowledge necessary to construct a nuclear weapon, not develop nuclear energy.
Yet Iran consistently claims that nuclear weapons are a "grave sin" in Islam, and that it is impossible for the Islamic Republic of Iran to produce such weapons of death and destruction. Further, Iran's argument goes, in order to have a peaceful nuclear power program it needs to domestically produce enriched uranium. But this is a flimsy argument. A 2007 Nonproliferation Review article demonstrates that until a country has between five and twenty nuclear energy reactors (each one at or above 1,000 megawatts), it doesn't have the economic justification to invest in domestic uranium enrichment, since this technological capability requires very substantial investments that span years and often decades to bring to fruition.
The economies of scale simply don't exist in the Iranian case: Iran only has one power-generating nuclear reactor, at Bushehr. This one facility took 35 years to build, and only with significant international assistance. It was connected to the Iranian power grid just recently, in September 2011, and will finally become fully operational this summer. Therefore, the claim by Iran that it intends to have seven operational reactors by 2025 seems dubious.
In addition, if Iran's end objective was to develop nuclear energy, not nuclear weapons, it would not be making some very suspicious moves in recent times. First, Iran has tripled its total uranium output, which suggests it is stockpiling this material for future use, and ostensibly not in a power program due to the considerations mentioned above. Second, Iran has increased its enrichment levels to 19.75 percent, which is well above the level needed for nuclear power purposes but just below the internationally defined threshold of what constitutes high enriched uranium (HEU), which is 20 percent. Remember, nuclear energy-generating reactors, including the one at Bushehr, typically need 3-5 percent enriched uranium, known as low-enriched uranium (LEU), and nothing more than that.
The explanation given by Iran for producing this 19.75 percent enriched uranium is that it intends to use it for the Tehran Research Reactor, which currently can accept uranium enriched to higher levels for research purposes and/or to create isotopes used in medical applications. But if this were indeed the case, Iran could and should have accepted any one of the three multilateral fuel supply arrangements proposed in the past five years. Yet it has rejected them all, insisting ad nauseam that it has the right to produce its own uranium -- and while this is legally true, Iran is not acting in good faith with respect to those rights.
When looking at the Iranian nuclear program, rhetoric does not match action on all counts. Iran's end goal is not nuclear energy, but a weapons capability. To be sure, this piece is not intended to advocate any kind of military action against Iran, but rather to provide an objective assessment of Iran's intentions. Only by taking a clear-eyed view of Iran can the international community move forward with Iran in dealing with its nuclear weapons ambitions.
Follow Rizwan Ladha on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rizwanladha
Juan Cole: Why Washington's Iran Policy Could Lead to Global Disaster
Joel Rubin: Five Principles for a Nuclear Deal With Iran
Melody Moezzi: Who Really Ought to Be Afraid of Iran?
Robert Naiman: A Contrarian Optimist Views the Upcoming Iran Nuclear Talks
Nuke power is cancer, disasters, expensive, slow to build and proliferation.
The IAEA is part of the military industrial complex from which it was spawned. No credibility.
Furthermore any first world nation has nuclear weapon capability.
Why SHOULDN'T Iran pursue nuke weapons capability. The USA toppled their democracy, continues to terrorize Iran and the middle east, and has threatened to attack Iran.
The USA is the bully in the world.
We spend more on war than the rest of the world combined.
54% of our F taxes go to wars past and present.
The USA tortures, wage wars or profit on lies, and assassinates 8000 "terrorists" and their friends and families by remote control drone. No due process, not declaration of war.
Meanwhile our people go homeless, without health care, and hungry.
Who are we to tell Iran what to do?
We are the largest military. That's what.
So of course Iran wants a few nukes, I would.
Counterintuitive as it may at first seem, maybe a balance of power is just what the middle east needs.
8- IAEA has not acted impartially on Iran and has always taken the side of Iran's enemies. As per IAEA's own documents they have done more inspection in Iran than anywhere else with almost all the inspectors being white westerners. Never an Iranian inspector under IAEA has visited France or Germany for inspections. IAEA regularly "leaks" Iran's secret information and helps Iran's enemies to kill Iranian scientists.
9- Iran has been denied its right to freely buy nuclear reactors and equipment as a member state since 33 years now. NPT calls for all member states to help each other with their nuclear needs, this has not happened in Iran's case.
6- Iran in 1970's had invested in Rössing uranium mine, the world's third largest Uranium mine and to this day owns 15% of the mine with government of Namibia holding 3%, South Africa holding 10% of shares and the Anglo-Australian corporation Rio Tinto having 69% of the shares. But as is the case, Iran still has not received a single gram of Uranium or any of the profits of the mine due to western pressures. Almost all of the Uranium taken out of this partly owned Iranian mine goes to US and EU. ..
Contd...
4- Iran had paid Germany in 1976 to build two nuclear power reactors for Bushehr plant which Germans never completed despite Germans being under obligation to complete under IAEA rules and NPT mandate which calls for nations with nuclear technology to help NPT members with all their needs. Germans never returned the money and Iranians had to literally beg the Russians for the technology. Russians took advantage and got maximum benefits from both Iranians and western countries by procrastinating the project. Finally the project which was supposed to be finished by Russians in 1999, is to become fully operational in 2012, that is 13 years later. ..
Contd...
I suggest the author fact check his article please. What I write above is well documented and fact.
http://www.iranaffairs.com/iran_affairs/2011/12/more-international-support-for-irans-nuclear-program.html
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/India-with-NAM-in-slamming-IAEA-report-on-Iran/682728
What Vanunu? What Palestinians?
1) "..doesn't have the economic justification to invest in domestic uranium enrichment.."
This assumes that the ONLY factor involved in such decisions is economic. For example, Iran purchased weapons from Russia that Russia then refused to deliver. I can't even remember if they ever got their money back. So a political consideration is how sensible it would be for Iranians to rely on outside supply that could be cut off any moment.
2) "...one facility took 35 years to build.....the claim by Iran that it intends to have seven operational reactors by 2025 seems dubious..."
Uranium has a shelf life measured in millions of years.
3) "...if this were indeed the case, Iran could and should have accepted any one of the three multilateral fuel supply arrangements proposed in the past five years..."
SHOULD? Bit of a bias there. But again considering Iran has found that external supplies can be cut off why should it have let its nuclear program become such a hostage to fortune?
4)"...it has rejected them all, insisting...that it has the right to produce its own uranium -- and while this is legally true, Iran is not acting in good faith with respect to those rights."
Exactly how is insisting on its legal rights not acting in good faith?
5) "..an objective assessment of Iran's intentions.."
Is something this opinion piece most definitely was not.
You can't threaten |r@n with sanctions and war to give up it's "Speculated" weapons program.....
Coz that would be beyond Chutzpah...
I totally agree. This is the war party speaking and it is trying to appear reasonable.
What should also be explained is the following:
1. Achieving nuclear weapons capability takes many years and lots of money, mainly because enriching uranium is a tedious, capital intensive process. However, the process is accelerated considerably when more centrifuges are operated (Iran has increased the number of centrifuges) and as the uranium concentration is increased (because the amount needed to be centifuged decreases).
2. Achieving nuclear weapons can't be hidden, because the huge facilities needed to house uranium enrichment centrifuges are detectable from the air and from satellites.
3. Once nuclear weapons capability is achieved, a nuclear bomb can be built secretly (no large facilities are needed, it can be done in a cave if needed), in a matter of months. The mullahs' regime has already developed delivery vehicles (long-range missiles) capable to deliver a bomb at least as far as Western Europe.
4. The enrichment process is vulnerable to attack from the air, because the centrifuge facilities are visible and can be destroyed. Once enough enriched uranium has been produced, preventing the mullahs' regime from actually making bombs would take a full-blown invasion and occupation.
5. Based on the current stock levels of enriched uranium, the mullahs' regime is between 6 months and 2 years away from achieving nuclear weapons capability. To be on the safe side, it needs to be stopped either peacefully or militarily within the next 3 months.
The 3 months horizon is based on the assumption of 6 moths to nuclear weapon capability, but takes into consideration the potential errors resulting from imprecise intelligence. Obama's statement that the "window for diplomacy is shrinking" supports this assessment. Politicians don't use such terms when they have years to decide.
Iran with a nuke means no more US invasions of Iran, that's a good thing to those of us with children. Why should we threaten our own economic health just to keep Iran weak and vulnerable? Is it so we can remain the only power that meddles in the Middle East, or to keep Israel as the supreme military power? How does that help us at all?
In. Addition to your points I have to mention the following:
1- Iran can produce 10X electricity for less than 1% of cost of nuke plants with the excess natural gas it flares everyday
2- Iran neither has the power grid nor the capacity/demand for more electricty, has been the #1 exporter of electricity in ME (to Turkey, UAE, Pakistan, Afghainstan, Armenia, Turkmenistan) since Shah time
3- the stock pile of near 20% (the actual quantity may be many times more than what's been reported since most of the operations are denied IAEA access) is already enough for 3 bombs and enough for 200 years of research and medical isotope.
4- mullahs are Islamist, not Iranian nationalist. To think they care about Iran's tech progress and national interest is naive, they only care about things that'd make them [regime leaders] money or help their Islamis ambitions of exporting barbaric Islamic revolution abroad, a nuclear bomb will make them untouchable and Bahrain (not Israel) will be the 1st country to be invades/bombed by mullahs (they won't use nukes, the nukes will only serve as insurance to avoid retaliation)
No, it does not -- what a stupid thing to say. It involves building a gas-based power station or converting to gas an oil-based existing power station. Both situations are widely encountered around the world.
>>>"... and that the IAEA inspectors do have access to the locations for both spot checks and extensive auditing."
Only according to mullahs' regime & its supporters. NOT according to the inspectors themselves:
" When IAEA inspectors visited Iran last week, Iranian officials twice refused an IAEA request to visit a key research facility where some of the alleged experiments were said to have occurred."
www.theisraelproject.org/site/apps/nlnet/content3.aspx?c=ewJXKcOUJlIaG&b=7712195&ct=11635861¬oc=1
http://web.archive.org/web/20050305211339/http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/HUG251987.htm
2- You provide no citation for this false claim about Iran's powergrid. Iran's powergrid has significantly expanded since the shah's time, and in fact it was the shah that started Iran's nuclear program in the first place.
3- The IAEA has specifically said that it has monitored all of Iran's fissile material, and no amount of 20% enriched uranium can ever be used for a bomb.
4- Blatherings that make no sense.
Completely incorrect. The only parts of the world asking this question are Western states and their Arab client-regimes in the Gulf.
The reality is that the rest of the world is minding its own business, while also looking at us arrogant Westerners dictate their experience of international politics. All the so-called nuclear issues are coming out of Western states and from Western sources.
do you think when iran gets a bomb or three they will use them against a pacific island nation? how about an impoverished african nation? any reason for iran to bomb them?
if the islamists who control iran succeed and get a bomb will they use it? against who?
They offer to sell Iran reactor fuel if Iran first gives up the right to make their own fuel. Note that the entire developing world has sided with Iran in rejecting this.
The ME atomic arms race will not begin with Iran. it already started with Israel.
None of your articles have discussed Israel's undeclared arsenal, which is the elephant in the room and arguably the most dangerous stockpile on the planet today due to the number of conflicts it is in and plans to be in.
The better question would have been, why would Iran want nukes for? And if your answer is that they're crazy mullahs who want to wipe Israel off the map, then you are a disappointment.
Iran may very well be aiming for "capability". Geo-politically, it makes perfect sense because nuclear countries are threatening her and have wanted regime change since forever.
My reading is that being in a US university, there are "disincentives" for writing about Israel. If so, IM me privately and I promise not to tell anybody.
Iran has plans to build 20 reactors. Case closed, do some research before posting nonsense please.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/iran_9-27.html
My point, which you are helping reinforce, was exactly this: That Iran PLANS to build more reactors (7 by 2025, to be exact), and yet has only managed to successfully construct one. And that one reactor took 35 years to build.
I am being objective here: I don't see how Iran can build six more reactors in the next 13 years, based on its current trajectory. I welcome your objective, fact-based response.
Why are you not accusing Argentina of building a nuclear weapon? It has an enrichment facility and only has two reactors? Ditto for Brazil. Germany enriches and only has 9 reactors. Netherlands only has 1 reactor, yet has enrichment capability. Pakistan only has 3 reactors and has enrichment capability.
Make the yellow cake, Iran did it.
Make a Uranium fluoride on industrial scale, Iran did it.
Build a heavy water reactor, Iran did it.
Enrich to 20%,Iran did it.
Making rods for Tehran reactor, Iran did it.
Making a site immune to conventional attack, Iran did it.
All of these things are only in nuclear technology field. Iran has accomplished thousands of other feats in biotechnology, nanotech, stealth technology, radar, solar power, hydro power, Space technology, etc that were impossible according to the West all under sanctions.
Get use to Iran being able to accomplish things and get use to the idea that West does not have a monopoly in technology, "sir".
So if Iran says that she is going to build 20 reactors and West says that Iran does not have the capacity to do it, I assume that Iran will show West that "Yes she can"!
Iran says it's producing 20 more nuclear power plants with 1000 MW power production capacity, as well. "
http://engforum.pravda.ru/index.php?/topic/247951-iran-building-20-more-nuclear-plants/
May i suggest you watch this. Particularly at around 7.50minutes. It is eye opening.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0xLpWWtizM&context=C4c4cd8cADvjVQa1PpcFPeBucn_gluP91sHgENdBFH87IFGWtDgsY=