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A New Spin on Iran’s Nuclear Threat
The neo-cons, some of the reporters from major US newspapers, and a number of non-proliferation experts are now spinning a new story about the potential threat of Iran’s uranium enrichment capability. According to the story, sometime in 2009, Iran will have enough Low Enriched Uranium (LEU), which may then be used as a seed for further refinement to bomb grade level, commonly referred to as High Enriched Uranium (HEU). The allegations have technical and logical flaws that are not discussed by the highly biased US media.
Centrifuges at the Natanz facility in Iran are not set up for efficient enrichment to the level of 90% (LEU has the purity of about 5% and is only used to fuel reactors for generating electricity, but HEU has to be enriched to the 90% level necessary for bomb making purposes.). Pipes have to be redesigned and new connections have to be made to get the cascades ready for efficient refinement to the level of bomb grade uranium. Moreover, the LEU product is under the strict control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Any change in the cascades’ configuration or tap into the accumulated LEU would be immediately noticed by the IAEA cameras, sensors and frequent inspections. The re-piping efforts would take months to finish and the US decision makers would have ample time to get the world community to support drastic measures to stop such illegal activity.
Of course Iran could opt to use the existing cascades without any modifications, by employing batch processing. This is a very inefficient and time consuming method which would be noticed immediately by the IAEA. Batch processing would take the 5% product currently stored under the control of the IAEA and run it through the existing cascades. The 5% fuel would then produce a 20% product, and if the 20% product were used as the feed, it would refine the uranium to the 60% purity level. It would require yet another process of refinement through the existing setup of the centrifuges to produce bomb-grade fuel at the requisite 90% purity level.
The latest unofficial report on the Natanz facility is that currently there are 5000 centrifuges running smoothly without any major technical problems. It is reported that an additional 1000 centrifuges are scheduled to go online sometime in January of 2009. Once all the 6000 units are working, the Iranians can enrich about 4-5 Kg of LEU per day. Given that Iran has so far accumulated 700 Kg of LEU, it will soon have (by April of this year or perhaps even sooner) close to 1000 Kg of LEU.
Recall that, in order to produce weapons grade fuel, roughly 30 Kg of LEU are needed to yield about 1 Kg of HEU. A typical uranium bomb has 25 Kg or more of HEU material.
The basis of the story spun in the US media is to declare the 1000 Kg LEU milestone as a point-of-no-return for Iran’s enrichment activity. This is an arbitrary and flawed argument, because Natanz is a safeguarded facility and any deviations will be noticed immediately. Even if Iran were to initiate the illicit enrichment of uranium to the level of 90%, the spin masters claim that it would embolden Iran to threaten Israel, which already allegedly possesses more than 200 nuclear weapons!
Having 1000 Kg of LEU does not increase Iran’s deterrence vis-à-vis hegemony aspirations of Israel in the Middle East. First of all, even if Iran breaks its international agreements under IAEA and produces 25 Kg of HEU, detonating this material, although easier than plutonium, is not an easy task. Moreover, this will be designated as a nuclear device and not a bomb, going from a device which is considered a laboratory prototype to a bomb requires sophisticated technologies that Iran does not have.
Even the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE; November 2007) disagrees with the notion that the theocratic leaders of Iran will take chances with their nuclear aspirations: They are not in the business of committing suicide for the sake of helping the Palestinian people.
The war propaganda machine cntinues to make sure that Obama will be tough on Iran and continue the failed Bush policy of Zero Enrichment. Iran has made its position clear to all the interlocutors in recent months that have contacted the government directly or indirectly: Zero Enrichment is not acceptable and is considered a redline position for Iran that they will not cross at any cost.
The team which president Obama has selected for dealing with Iran includes Dennis Ross, who has a long history of full support for Israel’s positions in the Middle East. His one-sided position during Clinton’s Arab-Israeli peace process was so noticeable that one Arab observer said that "[Ross] listened to what Israel wanted and then tried to sell it to the Arabs.”
Iranian politicians are very familiar with Clinton’s team: Indyk, Miller, Kurtzer, and Ross. By selecting such a biased team to negotiate with Iran, Obama has taken the wrong step, giving more ammunition to the hardliners in Iran to torpedo negotiations with the representatives of the US government.
If Obama is serious about engaging Iran to resolve many of the lingering differences between the two governments, two important issues must be tackled. First and foremost, the threat of military action would be a violation of Article 2 Paragraph 4 of UN Charter. A constitutional scholar like Obama surely knows the illegality of a military strike on Iran, but in many of their public discussions both Obama and Clinton have kept this illegal option on the table in order to appease Israel.
Second, the zero enrichment requirement cannot be the starting point for real negotiations. Enforcing the confidence building measures that the IAEA has already established for member countries should be the focal point in negotiating with Iran.
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