 enrichment remain between today and a deployed weapon.
Israel and various westerners assume these things now. The degree of change with proof at the ground truth level is unsure. It would probably force other nations to end cooperation; Iran is apparently preparing to go things alone. It would probably reinforce the trade restrictions. The Israeli anti-attack party is weakened.
Debates here would be a little less interesting.
A lot of sacred cows of how hard it is to make compact-er deliverable fission weapons are staked through the heart, decapitated, and buried at the crossroads. The R265 revalations should have done that already. There seem to be a few ostriches, however. If we weren’t a couple of decades into the test ban, a US265 demo would be useful on this point, but will never happen now.
Mark Lincoln | May 26, 2012
Now, from the people who brought you the Mobile Biological Warfare Laboratory and Saddam’s other WMD... Son of Jumbo!
yousaf | May 26, 2012
I ought to have been more careful in my wording above and less strident — sometimes one is in a rush and fed up with poor reporting: I said that the IAEA is politically tainted, whereas what I should have said is that I happen to believe the accusations being made that the IAEA DG is somewhat biased.
For support of my impression, there are a couple of articles by Julian Borger at the Guardian — e.g. one titled “Nuclear watchdog chief accused of pro-western bias over Iran” and another “Nuclear Wikileaks: Cables show cosy US relationship with IAEA chief” and one, e.g. at CSMonitor titled, “WikiLeaks cable portrays IAEA chief as ‘in US court’ on Iran nuclear program”
Also, I tend to agree with Bob Kelley when he says that the IAEA Office of the Directorate is currently acting unprofessionally:
e.g.
‘ “The Agency is wrong. There are lots of applications for EBWs,” says Kelley. “To be wrong on this point, and then to try to misdirect opinion shows a bias towards their desired outcome…. That is unprofessional.” ‘
Dan Joyner | May 26, 2012
You know, I’m just going to come out and say this. If I were in charge in Iran, I would be sorely, sorely tempted to just withdraw from the NPT and from the IAEA. I mean, I’m a big believer that the NPT is a grand bargain, a quid pro quo, between nws and nnws. And if I am sitting in Iran, I don’t see that I have gotten anything good out of NPT membership for a very long time. It has exclusively been a source of trouble for the Iranian government and people, as it and the IAEA system has been used constantly as a political instrument by the West to harass and to harm Iran. And it gives Iran’s detractors the grotesquely unreasonable pretext for casting as evil the precise activities that the detractors themselves have engaged in. I remember I was recently at a meeting in which an Israeli academic was going on about how evil Iran’s nuclear program is, and it was like I was in the twighlight zone. It takes the most profound cognitive disconnect for Israel, and for the nws western states, to make such normative claims about activities that they themselves engage in. So why does Iran stay in the NPT? I know the conventional answer is that if they pull out, that will be taken as a sign that they are planning nuclear breakout, and that Israel would attack the next day. But isn’t that where we pretty much are now anyway? I mean, what does Iran really have to lose at this point? Assuming that they have not yet manufactured a nuclear weapon and are not currently in breach of the treaty, if they were simply to make a statement to the effect that they don’t intend to have nuclear weapons, but NPT membership is simply not in their national interest, that would seem pretty reasonable to me. I know the UNSC would meet the next day and command them to re-join the NPT, just like they did with NK, but in my view that act would be ultra vires the UNSC’s authority and legally void. And again, it’s not like the UNSC could be any more against Iran than it already is. So why not remove the ridiculous source of hypocritical condemnation by the West in legal terms, and just set yourself on par with India and Pakistan and Israel?
yousaf | May 26, 2012
Dan,
you make a great point, and as I happen to agree with you I will leave it to others to attempt to answer. However, I believe the standard answer is something along the lines that an NPT withdrawal would somehow justify a military attack in violation of the UN Charter and in specific violation of UNSCR 487.
Anyway, I would like to mention a point about clandestine nuclear (power/fuel-cycle) activity in Iran.
The standard narrative is that Iran has been sneaky for very long so that there is a big trust-deficit. However, a careful examination of the history — in this case done by Mark Hibbs — reveals a more nuanced story.
It turns out that Iran, in 1983, went directly and in a non-clandestine way to the IAEA and said that, per its NPT rights, it would like IAEA help in setting up a nuclear fuel cycle pilot plant.
The IAEA was receptive to this move and was going to go ahead and help Iran out, per NPT letter and spirit.
However, when USG personnel caught wind of this, they intervened in the normal functioning of the IAEA to stop the IAEA in its tracks. [Sound familiar?]
Only then did Iran say “Funk dat!” and go about doing clandestine work.
For Mark Hibbs’ excellent reporting on this in Nuclear Fuel (2003) see — “U.S. in 1983 stopped IAEA from helping Iran make UF6″
by Mark Hibbs, Bonn
Nuclear Fuel August 4, 2003 Vol. 28, No. 16; Pg. 12
which can be found at:
Jeffrey | May 26, 2012
Please take this conversation someplace else.
Anon | May 27, 2012
Oh heavens! Yes, a totally relevant conversation about IAEA bias and internal political maneuverings …
John Schilling | May 27, 2012
I don’t see why it matters all that much whether Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons work at Parchin before or after 2003. A later stop date would suggest a somewhat higher degree of deception and dishonesty, but still no more than usual for virtually any nation engaged in this sort of diplomatic maneuvering and in any event the sort of thing we would have to agree to forgive if there is to be any progress in negotiations.
The more substantial difference is whether Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons work before or after it designed a deliverable nuclear weapon. Weapons development and fissile-material production are largely separate activities, and it is possible for one to be all but completed before the other even starts.
If a workable design came out of the Parchin work years ago, and that is unfortunately quite plausible, then where Iran is concerned all of our non-proliferation eggs are in the single basket of enrichment safeguards. The actual manufacture of the remaining components of a weapon can be conducted by Iran’s conventional munitions industry, beyond reach of any practical safeguards, and breakout would consist mostly of just acquiring a sufficient quantity of HEU plus a few weeks to fabricate the pit and perform qualification testing.
Possibly faster if there are Oompa-Loompas involved; even with the musical interludes those little guys get the job done fast…
Barmak | May 27, 2012
John Schilling writes:
“I don’t see why it matters all that much whether Iran stopped its nuclear-weapons work at Parchin before or after 2003″
It matters because IAEA has never found any evidence of Iran’s nuclear weapons program. If they find something at Parchin, it would be very significant.
On the other hand, if IAEA doesn’t find anything, it won’t matter. It won’t stop anybody from making baseless claims about Iran’s nuclear weapons program. One can always argue that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are known unknowns… as Donald Rumsfeld would say.
It matters if IAEA finds something. It doesn’t matter if IAEA doesn’t find anything. That’s how it works.
Anon | May 28, 2012
Indeed, there are many holes in the CSAs — but that is what was agreed to. It is indeed very bad that the IAEA cannot go into any nation and do what it wants.
Per Parchin, however, you need lose little sleep as Bob Kelley an ex-IAEA inspector has weighed in rather authoritatively:
Amy | May 28, 2012
Yes, it would be good to re-negotiate the NPT and all international SA’s so that the IAEA will be endowed with more policing powers than it so far has.
However, at the moment, the NPT is limited, as are the SA’s.
There is the Additional Protocol which helps do what you suggest, but it is totally voluntary.
The legal mandate of the IAEA is rather limited, absent an AP: