Iran’s Bomb - Paper Cuts Blog - NYTimes.com

 

Iran’s Bomb

By Barry Gewen

Photographs of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the late Ayatollah Khomeini and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad at a religious music shop in Qom, Iran (Shawn Baldwin for The New York Times)

Was there any more stupid controversy during the recent presidential campaign than the debate over whether we should talk to Iran or not? Things haven’t improved much since then. Tehran’s efforts to obtain the bomb may be one of the two or three most momentous foreign policy issues Barack Obama faces as he settles into the White House. It’s certainly one of the most pressing (within a few months Iran may have enough enriched uranium to produce one bomb). Yet it’s as if a blanket of silence has fallen over Washington’s commentariate. Very few of these writers are talking about Iran. What’s going on? Is the issue just too scary for us to contemplate?

Max Rodenbeck, the Mideast correspondent for The Economist, has very usefully broken through the virtual silence with a valuable survey of new books on Iran in the Jan. 15 issue of The New York Review of Books. It’s a good place to begin if you want to know what choices are available to us.

Rodenbeck reminds us that the Obama camp has said it would be “unacceptable” for Iran to become a nuclear power, and that bombing its nuclear facilities is an option that remains “on the table.” He also explains why the mullahs seem so intent on going nuclear despite such warnings. Living in a neighborhood of nuclear powers who are actual or potential enemies — India, Pakistan, Israel, Russia — they feel isolated and threatened. The bomb offers them protection. And it enhances the prestige of their regime, “providing much-needed proof of Iran’s return to glory.” Even ordinary Iranians, Rodenbeck writes, “demand to know why their ancient and proud country should be denied atomic bombs, if such dangerous parvenus as Israel and Pakistan can have them.”

Taking issue with many hawks who draw nightmare scenarios of a nuclear Iran, Rodenbeck plays down the danger that Iran would use the weapon against Israel or the United States. The regime is aggressive, even irrational, Rodenbeck says, but it is not suicidal. In this, he is joined by the Middle East expert Kenneth M. Pollack.

Rodenbeck and Pollack have serious disagreements: see Rodenbeck’s New York Times review of Pollack’s new book, “A Path Out of the Desert,” along with Pollack’s reply. But they agree on many things too. They both advise against trying to bomb the Iranian facilities, and for basically the same reason: it wouldn’t work. Bombing won’t stop Iran from going nuclear, only delay the prospect for a few years. At the same time, as Pollack writes in his book, an unprovoked American attack “would outrage the vast majority of Iranians (and most of the world) and cause them to rally around the worst elements in the regime, cementing hard-line control of the country and potentially producing an even more paranoid and aggressive Iranian regime.”

Pollack does say that a nuclear Iran would be a more confident, more assertive Iran, which could create problems even if neither the United States or Israel is directly threatened. But he is more reassuring about a far larger concern: “the fear that Iran might give nuclear weapons to terrorists tends to receive too much attention. Iran has possessed chemical and biological weapons since the end of the Iran-Iraq War,” he says, but it has never provided them to any of the extremist groups it supports.

So should we sleep more easily?

Not at all.

Even if Iran is trying to become a nuclear power for defensive rather than offensive purposes, Rodenbeck notes that many experts “fear an accelerated arms race in the region, with powers such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Egypt rushing to balance Iran’s strength with their own nuclear weapons.” Pollack is one of those experts. Iran could be the fatal tipping point toward uncontrolled nuclear proliferation, he suggests — and the more countries with nuclear weapons, the greater the chances that such arms will fall into the hands of terrorists. “This is purely statistical,” Pollack grimly observes.

Rodenbeck says that any attempt to prevent Iran from getting the bomb “is likely to prove futile.” And Pollack writes that “regime change in Iran is unlikely in the foreseeable future.” Both writers support talks between Tehran and Washington, but neither seems hopeful that talks would accomplish very much. That leaves sanctions, and it’s not clear that they would force a change either (though the Barack Obama adviser Dennis Ross makes a strong, or at least an impassioned, argument for them here.)

So if we can’t stop Iran from going nuclear, and we don’t have the power to change the regime, and negotiations and sanctions are likely to prove ineffectual, where does that leave us? Look in front of you. There’s a big rock in the road. Now look behind. That’s a hard place.

Iran’s Bomb - Paper Cuts Blog - NYTimes.com

Iran's Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Uranium Enrichment for Non-Specialists

 

Iran's Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Uranium Enrichment for Non-Specialists

By Nader Bagherzadeh, UC, Irvine

Introduction

The primary aim of this article is to explain Iran’s nuclear fuel cycle and the uranium based nuclear enrichment technology at the level of a non-specialist. Familiar and rudimentary examples are used so that interested readers can have a better understanding of this critical and controversial technology which is at the core of the contentious US-Iran relation.

Undoubtedly among many issues that Iran and US do not agree on, Iran’s desire to develop a nuclear enrichment technology and have a nascent enrichment facility in the city of Natanz is at the top of that list. Most certainly Iran’s access and mastering of this technology will impact the hegemony of US in that part of the world more than any other issue. If US were to embark on yet another illegal and immoral war in the Middle East, no other issue is more important than Iran’s stubbornness to exercise its rights under established international agreements.

Bush administration’s decision to make suspension of enrichment activity as a precondition for any future diplomatic discussions with Iran, except for Iraq related security discussions, speaks for the importance of this issue. By domestically developing and acquiring this highly sophisticated industry, Iran’s position to be a technologically advanced nation in the Middle East will be established, at least in the area of nuclear fuel cycle.

Figure 1. Iran’s Nuclear Technology (see large image)

Uranium Fuel

The purity or level of enriched uranium (U-235) needed for running a nuclear reactor, such as Iran’s Bushehr power plant, is about 5%. This is called Low Enriched Uranium (LEU) but for making a nuclear weapon the U-235 material has to be enriched and purified to the level of 90% or more, commonly referred to as Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). The uranium found in nature has very little light weight uranium, and it is mostly the heavier uranium (U-238 isotope). Thus, one has to find ways of separating the heavy isotopes from lighter ones. There are various techniques to accomplish this separation task such as using lasers, specialized filters (diffusion), or using magnetic fields, but the gas centrifuge method discussed later is considered the best approach economically.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle

The nuclear fuel cycle consists of four major steps to process natural occurring uranium ore from mines into fuel rods useable for a nuclear power plant. These four steps are: (1) uranium mining and production of yellow cake, (2) conversion, (3) enrichment, and (4) fuel manufacturing.

1- Uranium Mining and Making Yellow Cake:

In this step uranium ore, which is mined, is crushed and processed into a yellowish colored powder that is radioactive and contains uranium oxide in the form of U₃O₈. Uranium in this form is 99.3% U-238 and 0.7% U-235 isotopes. The latter is what is usually needed for a standard modern nuclear reactor, although reactors based on the natural occurring uranium (U-238) also do exist, but these are generally less safe and have the potential of proliferation because of their weapon grade plutonium byproduct. It is believed that Iran has yellow cake processing fully established in Saghand and Gachin, near its uranium mine facilities.

Figure 2. Yellow cake

2- Uranium Conversion:

For the most reliable and cost effective enrichment techniques, it is customary to use uranium in gaseous form, because the yellow cake cannot directly be enriched. After several steps yellow cake is chemically processed and converted into a gaseous form called the uranium hexafluoride gas (UF₆) --this conversion takes place at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) of Isfahan. UF₆ has the unique property of having the lowest melting point of any uranium compound; making it a perfect choice as uranium feed for gaseous centrifuge machines. This means it is easier to produce uranium based gaseous feed for a centrifuge using UF₆ than other compounds, such as UF₄ which has a melting point 10 times higher than UF₆. The gas produced in this facility is stored in containers for delivery to the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). The most economical method for enrichment is to spin the UF₆ gas and collect the light weight UF₆ molecules and repeat the process until the desired purity is achieved. It is important that the injected UF₆ into the centrifuge is of the highest purity; otherwise it can disturb the enrichment process. Initially Western media reported that the UF₆ from UCF contained heavy metals such as molybdenum and therefore was of inferior quality for any kind of enrichment, but this was rejected by the Iranian officials. Even in its pure form, UF₆ is a very corrosive material that has to be kept in optimal temperature; otherwise it can corrode the pipes or clog the pipes if the temperature is lower than the expected norm.

3- Enrichment (Centrifuge Technique):

The enrichment process is to separate heavier uranium (U-238) isotopes from lighter ones (U-235). The number designation is directly related to the weight of the atom, meaning U-238 is heavier than U-235. As it turns out the light uranium atoms are better suited for fueling a nuclear reactor to generate electricity. In order to separate these isotopes, the UF₆ should be fed into a series of centrifuge machines. A centrifuge is designed to turn at a very high speed; in some designs it could reach higher than the speed of sound. Centrifuge operation can best be described as the way a dryer works in the laundry room. By spinning around, a standard dryer “separates” water molecules from clothes. The same centrifugal forces when applied at very high speeds enable separation of U-238 molecules of UF₆ from U-235 molecules.

4- Fuel Manufacturing:

The final step in the fuel cycle is to take the enriched UF₆ and create the uranium oxide UO₂. This means that the fluoride has to be removed from the UF₆ molecules and uranium oxide has to be turned into a metal shaped tablet (similar to a hockey puck in shape and color). These tablets will be stacked in fuel rod tubes made out of zirconium alloy. Although Iran is one of the few countries that claims to have a working zirconium plant, the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP) in Isfahan is not complete and it is planned to be finished within a year. Clearly unless Natanz enrichment facility is fully operational at the industrial level producing tons of enriched uranium, it is not urgent to have FMP completed.

Figure 3. Uranium Fuel Cycle (http://www.uic.com.au/nfc.htm)

Gas Centrifuge– A complex and challenging technology [1-3]

By far using gas centrifuge technology for enriching uranium is the most complicated step in the uranium fuel cycle, and as such we steer the rest of this article to better explain this crucial and key step in the process.

A measure of how good a uranium enrichment centrifuge operates (its “efficiency” factor) is defined by an engineering concept and a term called Separative Work Unit (SWU) which means the amount of enriched uranium separated from the input mix. Its units are usually in Kg or tons referring to the amount of mass produced. The higher the SWU for a centrifuge design, the better and more efficient it is for enriching uranium gas and it is a function of certain features in the design and operation of the centrifuge machine. For instance, the centrifuge design that Iran has acquired for the Natanz plant from A Q Khan--the nuclear technology broker from Pakistan-- is purported to have efficiency (i.e., SWU) of about 2. The exact number has not been publicly announced. A commercial design developed by the European firm URENCO is reported to be about 40, and the US latest deign is expected to be 300 or more. This efficiency is directly related to the maximum speed that a centrifuge can spin as well as the height of the centrifuge. The speed has a major impact on the performance of the centrifuge, for instance, if the speed of the centrifuge is doubled the efficiency will go up by a factor of 16. This intuitively implies that using our dryer example for comparison, if the dryer spins twice as fast as before its ability to dry clothes will increase 16 fold. Thus, it is desirable to design a centrifuge that can spin as fast as possible.

The types of centrifuges utilized in Natanz are mentioned to spin at the rate of about 64,000 revolutions per minute (RPM), or 350 m/s. This is a little over the speed of sound (344 m/s), but the latest designs from Europe are expected to have a speed of 90,000 RPM or more (500 m/s), an increase of about 50%. To appreciate the speed requirement, let us use the car engine for comparison. A typical car engine has a turning speed of about 8000 RPM, when the gas pedal is fully pressed down. So a Natanz centrifuge spins 8 times faster than that. Another difference is that these centrifuge machines have to operate non-stop for months or longer to purify uranium gas, but one can not expect to run the car engine for more than a few seconds at that speed before it overheats. This clearly explains the technological challenges and the complexity of the design for centrifuge in order to maintain operation for months without any interruptions

The maximum spinning speed of a centrifuge depends directly on the strength and inversely related on the weight of the material used to make its major moving parts. The most advanced designs should have the strongest material with the lightest possible weight. For instance, the earlier designs from 30 years ago, similar to what Iran has in Natanz, are based on Aluminum. This metal is very light as it has been used for airplanes, but the strength is not as good as certain steel alloy (maraging) which is relatively heavier, however, the ratio of strength to weight which decides on the maximum speed is in favor of this type of steel. Hence, the second generation centrifuge systems have relied on this technology. The picture below shows a diagram for a typical centrifuge. The light blue circles denote the movement of light uranium molecules needed for fuel. By heating up the bottom of this machine the process of separation is enhanced. The dark blue are the heavier molecules that are not contributing to the fuel enrichment process.

Figure 4. Gas Centrifuge

Even better than maraging steel for centrifuge design is carbon fiber. This has the highest strength with the least weight among alternative designs. The most advanced designs use this technology, such as the ones used for US models. Except for US and some European countries, no other country has the technology to reach this level of sophistication for centrifuge design. In this article we have only focused on the turning speed of a centrifuge machine, there are other important parameters, but none have the impact on improving performance as the centrifugal speed does, except for the length of centrifuge and temperature of the UF₆ gas spinning inside. Requiring centrifuges to spin at very high speed when it is very tall has major engineering issues related to stability and maintaining balance. The efficiency of a centrifuge directly increases with increase in the height of the design as well with decrease in gas temperature. Both of these methods are very difficult to manage because the height will impact the stability of the design and the lower gas temperature will add to the problems associated with clogging of the pipes.

In order to improve the throughput of enriched uranium production, it is common to cascade centrifuge machines. The uranium feed (N_F) into a centrifuge machine after spinning results into two outputs. One is called tail assay (N_T) or the depleted uranium and the other one is called the product (N_P). The product contains the enriched uranium which is used for making the fuel for a reactor.

Figure 5. Centrifuge Operation

In order to establish a cascade, the tail output becomes the feed for the next centrifuge machine. Using our dryer example, although this is not commonly done, but one could use two dryers to handle a very large load. This can be done by taking not fully dried clothes from the first dryer, after it was running for a while, and transfer them to the second dryer. Then, load the first dryer, that is now empty with a fresh set of wet clothes in order to dry them again for a while before transferring to the second dryer, and the process continues until all the work is done. This approach will effectively improve the throughput of the enrichment process.

The product delivery rate for Natanz centrifuge machines is estimated to be about 12%. This means if one feeds 80 grams of uranium to 164-cacacded machines, the product is 10 grams per hour of low enriched uranium (LEU) with appropriate purity for a reactor. If the 164-cascade machines work for 12 months without any interruptions, it needs 700Kg of feed and will produce 87 Kg of product per year.

Generating Fuel for a Light Water Reactor (LWR)

A LWR’s function is to split the light uranium isotopes (U-235) in a controlled manner to generate heat and produce the necessary energy to boil water and subsequently spin the turbines that generate electricity. The amount of energy produced has to be under strict control at all times. If this energy is released too fast, it may result in a melt down and other calamities that are quite dangerous. In order to produce fuel for a nuclear reactor such as the Bushehr LWR, Iran’s Natanz enrichment facility is designed to have 164 cascaded centrifuge machines as the basic unit of enrichment. It is reported that so far 8 164-cascaded systems are installed and working for fuel enrichment, adding up to 1312 centrifuges, in preparation for 18 164-cascaded modules. The final goal for this facility is to have 18 modules with the total capacity of 53136 centrifuges, in order to provide for the annual fuel requirements of at least one power plant per year when fully operational. Using our previous calculations, when fully completed, Natanz could produce around 30 tons of LEU annually.

Conclusion

Iran has been actively pursuing a uranium fuel cycle technology to provide domestically produced LEU for future nuclear power plants. The process of fuel enrichment is complicated and requires numerous high technology steps. Ostensibly, Iran has mastered almost all of these steps and is in the process of producing fuel at the industrial level.

References:

1. David Albright Testimony to Congress (March 15, 2007)

2. Uranium Enrichment, Urenco Publication (www.urenco.de)

3. Would Air Strike Work? Oxford Research Group, (March 2007

Iran's Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Uranium Enrichment for Non-Specialists

A New Spin on Iran's Nuclear Threat

 

A New Spin on Iran's Nuclear Threat

By Nader Bagherzadeh

Iran's Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Uranium Enrichment for Non-Specialists

By Nader Bagherzadeh

The primary aim of this article is to explain Iran's nuclear fuel cycle and the uranium based nuclear enrichment technology at the level of a non-specialist. Familiar and rudimentary examples are used so that interested readers can have a better understanding of this critical and controversial technology which is at the core of the contentious US-Iran relation.

Yellow Cake

The neo-cons, some of the reporters from major US newspapers, and a number of nonproliferation 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). 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 and it is only good for bomb making purposes.

This allegation has technical and logical flaws that are not discussed by the highly biased and ignorant US media.  Centrifuges at the Natanz facility in Iran are not set up for efficient enrichment to the level of 90%.  Pipes have to be redesigned and new connections have to be made to get the cascades ready for efficient refinement to the level of 90% for bomb grade uranium.  Moreover, the LEU product is under the strict control of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).  Any change in the cascades' configuration or tap into the accumulated LEU would be noticed by the IAEA cameras, sensors and frequent inspections within minutes.  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 also be immediately noticed by the IAEA.  Batch processing means taking the 5% product currently stored under the control of the IAEA and run it through the existing cascades one more time.  5% fuel would produce a 20% product, and if the 20% product was used as the feed, it would refine the uranium to the 60% purity level. One additional refinement through the existing setup of the centrifuges with the 60% feed would produce bomb grade fuel at the requisite 90% purity.

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, they can enrich about 4-5 Kg of LEU per day.  Given that Iran has so far accumulated 700 Kg of LEU.  It will 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 base 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.  Let's assume hypothetically that Iran embarks on an illegal activity and relinquishes its obligations under the current safeguard agreement and initiates illicit enrichment of purifying uranium to the level of 90%.  The spin masters are saying that this emboldens Iran to threaten Israel which allegedly has 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.

Let's assume that Iran passes all these difficult hurdles and with the help of their talented engineers develop a miniaturized and deliverable bomb, does anyone in the right mind believe that Iran could threaten Israel with their only bomb?  Even the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November 2007 disagrees with the notion that theocratic leaders of Iran take chances with their nuclear aspirations: They are not in the business of committing suicide for the sake of helping the Palestinian people.

The entire negative propaganda machine is making sure that Obama will be tough on Iran and will 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-elect 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 "… he 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 these 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 a military action is an illegal choice and a violation of Article 2 Paragraph 4 of UN Charter.  It should not be on the table.  A constitutional scholar such as Obama should know that and respect it, but so far in many of their public discussions Obama and Clinton have kept this illegal option on the table to appease Israel.  Second, the zero enrichment requirement cannot be the starting point for the negotiations.  Instead, how to enforce additional confidence building measures that the IAEA has established for member countries should be the focal point.

A New Spin on Iran's Nuclear Threat

Everything You Needed Know about Iran but the Mass Media, the Republicans and Hillary Clinton Wouldn't Tell You | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet

 

Just a month ago, while Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and President George W. Bush met in Washington for the last time as heads of state and continued their relentless bellicose rhetoric toward Iran, I and three activists from the United States were in Iran as citizen diplomats talking with Iranians on their views of a new American presidential administration and their hopes for their country.

We went to Iran with no illusions. We knew well the history of United States involvement in Iran. We knew of Iranian support for organizations U.S. administrations have labeled terrorist groups. And we were very familiar with international concerns about Iran's nuclear-enrichment program and human-rights record.

We wanted to talk with members of the Iranian government as well as with ordinary Iranians. We ended up meeting with officials in the Iranian president's office and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and with two female members of the Iranian Parliament (Majles). We also spoke with businesspersons, members of nongovernmental organizations, writers, filmmakers and university students and faculty.

Writing about the concerns of the Iranians we met leaves one open to comments of being one-sided, not speaking with enough Iranians to provide the "real" voices and of picking and choosing voices to record. I acknowledge the possible criticism in advance but believe our discussions are worthy of presentation to those who have not been so fortunate to have traveled to Iran to see and hear for themselves. So here goes.

Iranians Want Peace, Not War

Codepink Women for Peace co-founders Jodie Evans and Medea Benjamin, Fellowship of Reconciliation Iran Program Director Laila Zand and I were reminded in virtually every conversation that Iranians want peace with the United States. Not one person in Iran told us that, first, she believed her country would begin a war with the United States or any other country, including Israel, and second, that if the United States initiated military actions against Iran, that those actions would resolve problems in Iran or with the United States.

They reminded us that, unlike the United States, which has invaded and occupied Iran's neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan, Iran has not attacked any country in the last 200 years. They reminded us that Iran was the victim of an eight-year war in the 1980s, when Iraq invaded Iran and the United States and European countries provided Iraq with military equipment, intelligence and chemical weapons that were used at least 50 times against Iranian civilians and military forces. We learned that during that war, the Revolution's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khomeini had mandated that it would be against Islamic precepts to bomb Iraqi cities or use chemical or unconventional weapons on Iraq -- and Iranian military forces complied.

Most Iranians Have Issues With Their Government, as Most Americans Have Issues With Theirs

Iran is a country with a population of about 70 million (two-and-one-half times as many people as Iraq) and a geographic area about the size of Alaska (four times as large as Iraq). Tehran, the nation's capital, has 7.5 million people in the urban area and 15 million in surrounding areas. It is a modern city with a beautiful subway and cosmopolitan shops, as well as a huge traditional bazaar and an incredible number of cars, trucks and motorcycles. Tehran and Iran have recovered from the Iraq war that ended 20 years ago and are holding up remarkably well to U.S. and international sanctions.

Most Iranians with whom we talked openly said they have issues with many aspects of their government. Many said the Iranian people share a common dislike with Americans -- dislike of their respective governments -- noting that Bush's and the U.S. Congress' approval ratings with the American people are extremely low, as is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ratings, particularly in urban areas. But, they strongly said they do not want outside interference in the internal political events of their country and definitely do not want a political system and government installed by invasion and occupation. Their democracy, even with its flaws, is better than a U.S.-enforced democracy, they said.

America's best policy would be to treat Iran with respect and not with threats of military action. Any attempt to overthrow the Iranian government would be met with stiff opposition, even from those who don't like the government, they repeated. "Regime change" will come in due time and in an Iranian manner.

U.S. Interference in Iran's Internal Affairs

Several reminded us that in January 1981, the United States and Iran signed the Algiers Accord, in which the United States agreed "not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs." The Algiers Accord was the agreement to end the 444-day U.S. Embassy hostage crisis.

However, this accord has been violated numerous times by the United States. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh wrote in the New Yorker that in late 2007, Bush requested and received from Democratic congressional leadership $400 million reprogrammed from previous authorizations to fund a presidential finding that substantially increased covert activities designed to destabilize Iran's religious leadership. These covert actions involved support for the Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident organizations. Hersh wrote that since 2007 United States special operations forces had been conducting cross-border operations from southern Iraq, with presidential authorization, including seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and taking them to Iraq for interrogation, and pursuing "high-value targets" who could be captured or killed. Hersh said operations by the Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command were significantly expanded in 2007 by this authorization.

Iran's Nuclear Program

Iran has had a nuclear program for almost 50 years, having purchased a research reactor from the United States in 1959 during the reign of the Shah Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The Iranian government states that its nuclear energy program will allow increased electricity generation to reduce consumption of gas and oil to allow export of more of its fossil fuels. The U.S. National Intelligence Estimate made public on Dec. 3, 2007, concluded with "high confidence" that the military-run Iranian nuclear weapons program had been shut down in 2003 but that Iran's enrichment program could still provide enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon by the middle of the next decade, a time frame unchanged from previous estimates.

Virtually everyone with whom we spoke said they believe their country has a right to have a nuclear-enrichment program and to produce nuclear energy. Many questioned why Iran would ever need a nuclear weapons program, unless as leverage against the United States' 30-year antagonism toward their country. They reminded us that Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (unlike Israel, North Korea, India and Pakistan, which refused to join the NNPT and developed nuclear weapons purposefully outside the treaty). Additionally, they insist that Iran is in compliance with the International Atomic Energy Agency standards, according to the November 2008 IAEA report, despite interpretations of the report by the United States and Israel.

Some reminded us that on Aug. 9, 2005, at the IAEA meeting in Vienna, 60 years after the U.S. atomic bombing of Japan, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei announced that he had issued a fatwa, or religious mandate, forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons. Importantly, the supreme leader controls the Iranian military and the nuclear program of Iran, not the president, Ahmadinejad.

Iran, Israel and the United States

Iran, Israel and United States have had a disturbing, but fascinating, history over the past 30 years. Iran's current relationship with Israel and Western countries seems to be defined by Ahmadinejad's October 2005 statement -- widely reported, but tragically and dangerously mistranslated and misinterpreted -- that "Israel should be wiped off the face of the earth." According to highly respected Middle Eastern scholar Juan Coles, Ahmadinejad was "not making a threat, but was quoting a saying of Khomeini's that urged pro-Palestinian activists in Iran not give up hope -- that the occupation of Jerusalem was no more a continued inevitability than had been the hegemony of the shah's government." Whatever this quotation from a decades-old speech of Khomeini may have meant, Ahmadinejad did not say that "Israel must be wiped off the map" with the implication that phrase has of Nazi-style extermination of a people.

But the history of Iranian-Israeli relationships is more than just Ahmadinejad's misinterpreted statement. Israel, like the United States, had a long history of selling arms to the shah, which Iran's revolutionary government was willing to exploit secretly, despite its public animosity toward the state of Israel. In the early years (1980-82) of the Iranian Revolution and during the war with Iraq, Khomeini's government sold oil to Israel in exchange for weapons and spare parts. Even during the American hostage crisis (1979-1981) in which 52 U.S. diplomats were held for 444 days, Israel made weapons deals with Iran. President Ronald Reagan's Secretary of State Alexander Haig gave permission to Israel to sell U.S.-made military parts for fighter planes to Iran in early 1981.

In another remarkable relationship known as the Iran-Contra affair, funds from Israel's sale to Iran of U.S. weapons in 1985-1986 were used by U.S. Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, National Security Adviser Adm. John Poindexter, National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane (Reagan's first national security adviser) and National Security Council staffer Marine Lt. Col. Oliver North to fund the Contras' war against the revolutionary government in Nicaragua. This was in violation of a congressional ban on funding the Contras and took place during the Iraq-Iran war when the United States was also providing military equipment to Iraq. Iranians remember that those convicted for their actions, including Weinberger, Poindexter, McFarlane and North were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush, who was vice president during this period of criminal actions.

Iranian Support for Hamas and Hezbollah

When asked about one of the most contentious points in U.S.-Israeli-Iranian relationships -- the Iranian government's support for Hamas in Palestine and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon -- Iranians pointed out that the United States has consistently and heavily funded Israel during its 62-year existence (the United States provides about $4 billion per year to the Israeli government and the Israeli Defense Forces). Many Iranians suggested that Palestinians who have lived in refugee camps during those 62 years must be provided assistance. Hezbollah began in 1982 as a small militia fighting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and is now not only a military group but a political organization that won seats in the Lebanese government, has a radio and satellite television station and provides social development and humanitarian assistance for much of southern Lebanon. Iranians strongly felt that Hamas, the elected (and they emphasize elected) government of Gaza, needs financial support, particularly now in current extraordinary humanitarian crisis due to the lengthy Israeli blockade of foods and services into Gaza.

Iraq

On the question of Iraq, many Iranians who lived in the border regions with Iraq during the eight-year war said they personally knew the agony of deaths, injuries, destruction and other costs of war and do not wish that on their former enemies. They talked of the irony of the political outcome of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq, in which many Shiite Iraqis, who lived in exile in Iran during President Saddam Hussein's regime and have longstanding ties to the Iranian government, are now in leadership positions in the new U.S.-backed Iraqi government.

Afghanistan

Other Iranians reminded us of Iran's help to the United States in 2001 and 2002 in the early days of the U.S. military action in Afghanistan. When we asked about recent U.S. intelligence analysis that indicated Iranian support for the Taliban, we were met with laughs. The Taliban are Sunni Muslims, while Iranians are Shiites. They reminded us that in 1998, the Taliban killed 11 Iranian diplomats and one Iranian journalist at the Iranian consulate in Afghan northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, an incident Iranians have not forgotten. The Iranians consider the Taliban their adversaries and feel that a Taliban government in Afghanistan would make the region more unstable.

Sanctions Are Drying Up Lines of Credit for Businesses

We found that Iranians are proud of their creativity to outwit the 29 years of various sanctions the United States has placed on their country. They say the United States has only isolated itself commercially by its sanctions, as Iran trades with many other nations. Europeans, Chinese, Russians and Indians have had flourishing businesses with Iran. However, the recent international sanctions' clampdown on lines of credit for Iranian banks has had a rippling effect into the business community, where money for loans to Iranian businesses for purchase of materials is drying up. Oil dollars that paid for an incredible amount of imports are drying up with the downturn in oil prices, and the government is beginning to re-evaluate the large subsidies given to the population for food, gasoline and services.

We spoke with four businesswomen (an architect, a chemist, a business consultant and an agricultural professional), who each said of their businesses had been affected negatively with the shrinking of money available for purchase of materials from outside the country and for continuation of current levels of operation or expansion of their businesses.

One of the most incredible stories we heard about the effect of the sanctions was on the alternative-energy sector. Since there is so much rhetoric in the United States about the dangers of the Iranian nuclear program, we decided to see if there were alternative-energy companies in the country. On the aircraft flying into Iran, we met a European businessman who said he would put us in touch with the director of a wind-energy company. He introduced us by telephone to the director of Saba Niroo Co., an Iranian company that makes wind turbines and is the largest regional wind power manufacturer. We met with the director and staff at the state-of-the-art factory in south Tehran. Saba Niroo has installed some of the 143 wind turbines planned for the wind farm in Manjil, Guillan Province, and the 43 wind turbines planned for the Binalood wind farm in Khorasan Razavi Province. They have installed four wind turbines in the Pushkin Pass wind farm in Armenia.

However, the director told us that because of U.S. sanctions, Vestas, a Danish wind energy company with whom the Iranian company has had a contractual relationship, has now refused to honor its 15-year contract to furnish critical parts for the wind turbines.

As a result, Saba Niroo has 50 huge 70-foot-long blades and corresponding chassis and installation towers lying useless in its warehouse and warehouse yard. Saba Niroo may go bankrupt in six months if it is unable to complete and sell the wind turbines -- all because of U.S. sanctions and pressure.

As a part of citizen diplomacy, we decided to defy sanctions and show our support of alternative-energy programs, by purchasing shares in Saba Niroo. We have also decided to purchase shares in Vestas, which has a big U.S. headquarters in Portland, Ore. As shareholders, we could put pressure on Vestas to honor its contract with the Iranian company.

Human Rights in Iran

On the question of human rights in Iran, executions, political prisoners and rights of gays and lesbians, many Iranians strongly want changes in their government's policies. In response to a question on Sept. 24, 2007, from an audience at Columbia University in New York, Ahmadinejad drew widespread criticism when his answer was translated as, "In Iran, we don't have homosexuals in our country, we do not have this phenomenon. I don't know who told you that we have it." In October 2007, one of Ahmadinejad's media advisers said that the president had meant that "compared to American society, we don't have as many homosexuals -- in Iran, we don't have homosexuals like in your country."

Homosexual acts are punishable by law: Sodomy (defined as "sexual intercourse with a male") is punishable by execution, and punishment for "lesbian acts" is 100 lashes. However, conviction takes the testimony of four witnesses, and if the accused recants before witnesses testify, the accused will not be punished. The discussion of human rights of youth and gay youth combined in the much-publicized 2005 execution by hanging of two young men in Iran. Some say they were executed solely because they were gay, and others say the two were convicted and hanged because they sexually assaulted another boy.

Interestingly, sex-change surgery is legal in Iran and there are more sex-change operations in Iran than any other country except Thailand. The Iranian government provides grants up to $4,500 for the operation and further funding for hormone therapy on the theory that persons wanting a sex change have a "treatable disorder."

Iranians want change to come from within their society, not imposed by another government, especially one, as we were reminded, that has its own human rights issues, including incarceration of the highest percentage of its citizenry of any country in the world, high rates of execution (Texas in particular), state-sponsored kidnapping from other countries (known in the Bush administration as extraordinary rendition), imprisonment without due process, extrajudicial courts and a military and an intelligence agency that are notorious for torture.

Women's Issues

When thinking of women in Iran, many in the West immediately respond with comments about the clothing women must wear. Few realize that 70 percent of all university students are women, 30 percent of doctors in Iran are women, 80 percent of women are literate (88 percent of men can read), women receive 90 days of maternity leave at two-thirds pay and right to return to their jobs, and the number of children per woman has declined from seven in 1979 to 1.7 now. Abortions are illegal in Iran, but it's the only country I know of where couples must take a class on modern contraception before being issued a marriage license. It has the only state-supported condom factory in the Middle East, and it produces 45 million condoms a year in 30 colors, shapes and flavors.

In one of the most successful instances of women's grassroots organizational pressure on the government, in September 2008, more than 100 advocates for women's rights successfully lobbied against proposed changes to marriage laws that were detrimental to women and forced the Iranian Parliament to drop the regressive amendments.

Clothing Restrictions

Yes, there are mandatory clothing rules for women, including wearing a scarf and clothing that covers the arms to the wrists and legs to the ankles, and they are cited by Western women as a human rights concern. In fact, as our aircraft arrived at the Tehran International Airport terminal, the aircraft crew announced, "By the law of the country of Iran, women cannot leave the aircraft without a scarf on their heads -- and there will be an Iranian official outside the aircraft to return women who are not properly covered." While some Iranian women say wearing the scarf is burdensome, others are comfortable with the dress code. In any case, clothing restrictions are not the main focus of women's rights advocates. Rights to custody of children and property after divorce, right to education and health care are more important than mandatory wearing of a scarf.

In the Month Since Our Visit

Sparks fly over Iranian president's BBC Christmas message -- "Jesus Christ Would Stand Up to Bullying, Ill-Tempered and Expansionist Powers."

In what they surely knew would be a very controversial request, the British Broadcasting Company asked Ahmadinejad to deliver Channel 4's traditional "alternative Christmas message" to the Queen's Christmas address.

The head of BBC News and Current Affairs said the decision to ask Ahmadinejad was because "As the leader of one of the most powerful states in the Middle East, President Ahmadinejad's views are enormously influential. As we approach a critical time in international relations, we are offering our viewers an insight into an alternative worldview. Channel 4's role is to allow viewers to hear directly from people of world importance with sufficient context to enable them to make up their own minds."

It turned out that Ahmadinejad's 36-second message in Farsi, with English subtitles, broadcast on Christmas Day probably resonated with much of the world, but predictably provoked a British government hornet's nest with his comment that if Jesus Christ lived today he would stand up against bullying powers.

"If Christ were on earth today, undoubtedly he would stand with the people in opposition to bullying, ill-tempered and expansionist powers." Ahmadinejad, a devout Muslim, criticized the "indifference of some governments and powers" toward the teachings of the "divine prophets, including Jesus Christ" and said that "the general will of nations" was for a return to human values. He declared, "The crises in society, the family, morality, politics, security and the economy … have come about because the prophets have been forgotten, the Almighty has been forgotten and some leaders are estranged from God."

Ahmadinejad's remarks received very little media coverage in the United States, minuscule when compared to the news story of the month -- Bush's encounter with the Iraqi shoe thrower. However, a spokeswoman for the U.K.'s Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in predicting anticipated Bush administration displeasure, said: "President Ahmadinejad has during his time in office made a series of appalling anti-Semitic statements. The British media are rightly free to make their own editorial choices, but this invitation will cause offense and bemusement not just at home but amongst friendly countries abroad."

Labor Member of Parliament Louise Ellman, chairwoman of the Labor Jewish Movement, said: "I condemn Channel 4's decision to give an unchallenged platform to a dangerous fanatic who denies the Holocaust while preparing for another and claims homosexuality does not exist while his regime hangs gay young men from cranes in the street." Conservative MP Mark Pritchard, a member of the Commons all-party media group, said: "Channel 4 has given a platform to a man who wants to annihilate Israel and continues to persecute Christians at Christmastime."

Media Relations Not a Strong Suit of the Iranian Government

It's almost as if Ahmadinejad, who is up for re-election in summer 2009, has hired lame ducks Vice President Dick Cheney and Israel's Olmert as his foreign policy, national security and media consultants. How else could the Iranian government have come up with so many incidents in recent weeks that give ammunition to those in the United States and Israel who do not want dialogue with Iran on nuclear and regional security issues, who want human rights issues to publicize and who wish ill to the Iranian government and people?

For example, on Dec. 22, the Iranian government closed down two human-rights organizations headed by 2005 Nobel Peace Prize-winner Shirin Ebadi. The government accused the organization of carrying out illegal activities, such as publishing statements, writing letters to international organizations and holding news conferences. The Center for Participation in Clearing Mine Areas helps victims of land mines in Iran, and Defenders of Human Rights Center reports human rights violations in Iran, defends political prisoners and supports families of those prisoners. Ebadi was taken into police custody briefly following the raids.

The first week in December 2008, in a campaign against Western cultural influence in Iran, Qaemshahr city police arrested 49 people during a crackdown on "satanic" fashions and unsuitable clothing and closed five barbershops for "promoting Western hairstyles."

And now, there is the predictable increased international criticism about the Russian government providing the Iranian government with anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, triggered by the Bush administration's decision to put a "missile shield" in Poland and the Czech Republic. On Dec. 23, United Press International reported that the Russian government had begun delivery to the Iranian government of some of its most modern anti-aircraft and anti-missile defense systems, the S-300s. These missile systems can shoot down ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes as far away as 100 miles. Iran conducted well-publicized air force and ballistic missile defense exercises in September.

The Bush administration's poke in the eye of Russia and Iran by the deployment of ballistic missiles in Poland and a radar in the Czech Republic "to protect against attacks from rogue states" is perceived by many Iranians as a strategy to ensure that tensions in the region continue to escalate. The United States is planning to deploy 10 Ground-Based Interceptors in Poland and batteries of shorter-range Patriot PAC-3 anti-ballistic missiles to protect the GBIs.

Iranians Not Optimistic About Future Relations with the United States Under an Obama Administration

Despite President-elect Barack Obama's comments during the presidential campaign that he would have dialogue with the Iranian government without preconditions, many Iranians with whom we spoke are not optimistic that there will be meaningful change in U.S. policy during an Obama administration. Citing appointments of former Israeli Defense Force member and U.S. Congressman Rahm Emanuel as chief of staff; Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., who during the summer campaign said she would "obliterate" Iran if Iran used nuclear weapons against Israel (a statement that Iranians find incomprehensible since it is Israel that has nuclear weapons, not Iran, and Israel continues to threaten Iran), and Dennis Ross, the Middle East negotiator during the Clinton and Bush administrations, Iranians said they hoped the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby had not already determined Obama's agenda toward Iran.

Iranians Want Peace

To emphasize again, the overwhelming comment from Iranians during our visit was that they want peace with the United States. They hope that the new president of the United States will talk with their government to resolve issues instead of resorting to the threat, much less the use, of military action.

Our Future With Iran -- a Hope for Diplomacy, Not Military Action

As we have seen from the American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq, the use of our military to resolve security issues kills and injures civilians, destroys cities and villages, creates more people who dislike/hate our country and who may be willing to use violence against us, and jeopardizes, not enhances, the security of the United States.

As a retired U.S. Army colonel and a former U.S. diplomat, I hope that the Obama administration will throw away the old template of 30 years of crisis, threats of military action, vindictiveness and retaliation and look to diplomacy to develop a peaceful future with Iran!

See more stories tagged with: iran, ann wright

Ann Wright is a 29-year Army/Army Reserves veteran who retired as a colonel, and a former U.S. diplomat who resigned in March 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq. She served in Nicaragua, Grenada, Somalia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Sierra Leone, Micronesia and Mongolia. In December 2001, she was on the small team that reopened the U.S. Embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan. She is the co-author of the book Dissent: Voices of Conscience

Everything You Needed Know about Iran but the Mass Media, the Republicans and Hillary Clinton Wouldn't Tell You | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

 

By Sreeram Chaulia
The contention of a senior Russian diplomat, Vladimir Voronkov, that Iran is presently incapable of developing nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them has reopened an international Pandora's box.
The comments by Voronkov, head of the Russian Foreign Ministry's Department of European Cooperation, cast doubts on, if not contradict, Israel's assessment that Iran is rapidly gaining nuclear-weapons capability in the guise of "peaceful" electricity generation.
Russia's word has a notable significance on the matter because it enjoys unparalleled access to Iran's nuclear facilities. Russian

engineers working for a Russian company are building Iran's Bushehr nuclear reactor and are in daily touch with Iranian ground realities. Voronkov buttressed his claim by adding, "This information is confirmed by all the services responsible for the collection and analysis of information."
If Moscow's combined intelligence agencies are in agreement that Iran does not have nuclear-weapons capability, it calls for serious rethinking about whether the "crisis" built up over Tehran going nuclear was nothing but a bogey to roll back its rise as the impresario of a Shi'ite resurgence in the Middle East.
Long before the George W Bush administration began trumpeting the Iranian nuclear threat theory to the level of an international headache, Israel was gravely worried that a nuclear-armed Tehran could neutralize Tel Aviv's regional lead in unconventional weaponry. As an undeclared nuclear weapons power since the 1960s, Israel has been watching its volatile neighborhood like a jealous hawk for any signs of other states acquiring the ultimate deterrent.
In 1981, former Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin ordered Operation Opera, a surreptitious air strike to bomb and damage Iraq's Osirak reactor before it could be loaded with nuclear fuel and possibly used for weapons production. At that time, Iraqi president Saddam Hussein pleaded the exact line that Iran's political leadership is purveying today - that Osirak was part and parcel of Baghdad's legal and "entirely peaceful" civilian nuclear program.
In September 2007, Israel did a redux of Osirak by aerially bombarding Syria's partially built nuclear reactor near the Turkish border which was allegedly a joint venture with the government of North Korea. Planning for this strike happened in early 2007, when the head of Israeli intelligence, Meir Dagan, presented Prime Minister Ehud Olmert with "evidence" that Syria was seeking to buy a nuclear weapon from North Korea to give Tel Aviv a "devastating surprise".
Compared to the Osirak incident, Israel's Syria attack is shrouded in greater mist and speculation. One theory is that the Syrian reactor was only partially constructed and that it was years away from churning out anything threatening to Israel. The New York Times cited an American official that the action was a warning from Israel to Iran rather than a pre-emptive strike to decapitate Syria's barely existent plutonium infrastructure. The fact that Syria and Iran are close allies holding out against Israeli and American designs in the Middle East makes this interpretation plausible.
Israel started sounding alarm bells about Iran's nuclear program in 1991, but these fell on deaf years in Washington for a long time. From the mid-1990s, Israeli strategists were issuing dire predictions that Iran is just "a few years away" from acquiring a nuclear weapon. While the Bill Clinton administration did not buy this threat perception, Israel found empathy in the succeeding George W Bush White House and Pentagon. With many of the neo-conservatives hailing from Jewish backgrounds, or attached to the special US-Israel relationship, it became relatively easy for the US to push Iranian nuclear weapons to the top of the stockpile of pressing global issues.
Before the US military campaign in Iraq got bogged down in fierce anti-colonial resistance and sectarian violence, it was common to hear neo-cons in the US and Israel reach shrill pitch about the impending disaster of Iran going nuclear. Sensing a window of opportunity to fulfill their dream of forcible "regime change" in Tehran, the neo-cons used Iranian nukes as the casus belli. The US intelligence community was cowed by its political bosses to concur that Iran posed a serious world threat.
But as the war in Iraq dragged on and drained American troop morale and public enthusiasm, internal rifts cropped up within the US over plunging into a second war before the first was won. The 2005 National Intelligence Estimate, a comprehensive report based on consensus among various American spy agencies, projected that Iran is "about a decade away from manufacturing the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon". This revised figure was double the previous conjecture of a five-year distance between Tehran and the atom bomb. It poured cold water on war-mongering rhetoric by downplaying the urgency of the "Iranian nuke crisis", which had been highlighted by Israel as a ticking time bomb that must be defused by all means.
Adding another twist to the empirical debate about whether or not Iran has nuclear weapons is the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' nuclear watchdog organization. In June 2008, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei cast a new stone into already rippled waters by opining, "It would need at least six months to one year to reach the point where we would wake up one morning to an Iran with a nuclear weapon." In November this year, a routine IAEA update based on inspections recorded that Iran had already produced enough low-enriched uranium to build a single atomic bomb.
Israel and the neo-cons, whose influence in US policymaking has gradually declined, jumped at this neutral view and again sharpened their knives. Talk that Bush would bow out of power by waging war on Iran mounted in step with the IAEA's revelations. The seesaw drama about Iran's possession or lack of nuclear weapons was always integrally linked to Israeli and US war-making intentions.
Unfortunately for ElBaradei, who is on record that he will resign if Iran is physically attacked, his public candor about Tehran's imprecise and opaque disclosures has played into the hands of those itching for a military solution.
The latest Russian pronouncements are antidotes to the Israeli scare tactics. But like all previous assessments, Moscow's words can also be questioned for their veracity. Among the permanent members of the UN Security Council, Russia is strategically the closest to Iran and a staunch opponent of using force on Tehran. With rumors abounding that Israel could "do Osirak 3" on Iran at any moment, the Russian release could be timed to protect a friend.
Russian and US representatives are also meeting in Moscow to sort out a spat over Washington's proposed stationing of anti-missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. Voronkov specifically mentioned Iranian delivery systems (read missiles) in his announcement, a likely message for Washington which is portraying the Iranian missile threat as the raison d'etre for militarizing eastern Europe.
However, it bears reminder that even Russia and China acquiesced in three rounds of UN economic sanctions against Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear activities. As Tehran plays hide-and-seek with the IAEA and European Union interlocutors, the "Iranian nukes" cover story is set to dominate international headlines. US president-elect Barack Obama's remark that a nuclear Iran is "unacceptable" keeps the door open for speculation about the technical status quo of Tehran's weapons program.
The military decapitation option might not be taken off the table by Israel, despite Obama's inauguration next month in Washington. With the smog around Iranian nukes showing little sign of clearing, a dangerous informational confusion persists in which war could still break out.
Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international affairs at Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in New York.
(Copyright 2008 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News, Iraq, Iran current affairs

Nuclear Engineering International

 

No change on Iran

Introducing the report on Iran, ElBaradei said: “There remain a number of outstanding issues, relevant to the alleged studies and associated questions identified in my last report to the Board, which give rise to concerns and need to be clarified in order to exclude the existence of possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear programme. Regrettably, the agency has not been able to make substantive progress on these issues... I also still regret the fact that the agency has not been able to share with Iran documentation [related to the alleged studies] provided by member states. I call upon the member states concerned to authorise the agency to do so.”

The report said that Iran has continued to feed UF₆ into the 3000-machine IR-1 unit (Unit A24), and five cascades of Unit A26, at the Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). Installation and testing of the 13 remaining cascades of Unit A26 is continuing. Preparatory installation work at Units A25, A27 and A28 continues. As of 7 November, the total amount of UF₆ fed into the cascades since the beginning of operations in February 2007 was 9750kg, and Iran is estimated to have produced approximately 630kg of low enriched UF₆. All nuclear material at FEP, as well as all installed cascades, “remain under agency containment and surveillance.”

In September, the agency conducted a physical inventory verification (PIV) at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP), the results of which are pending. Between 25 August and 28 October, Iran had fed approximately 31kg of UF₆ into the 10-machine IR-2 cascade and the single IR-1, IR-2 and IR-3 centrifuges. All nuclear material at PFEP, as well as the cascade area also remains under agency containment. “To date, the results of the environmental samples taken at FEP and PFEP2, and the operating records for FEP3, indicate that the plants have been operating as declared” (less than 5.0% U-235 enrichment). Since March 2007, 20 unannounced inspections have been conducted at FEP.

On reprocessing, the agency has continued to monitor the use and construction of hot cells at the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) and the molybdenum, iodine and xenon radioisotope production (MIX) facility through inspections and design information verification (DIV) and there are no indications of ongoing reprocessing related activities at those facilities.

In August, the IAEA conducted a PIV at the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP), the results of which are consistent with the declaration made by Iran. An inspection in October revealed no major changes in the construction status of FMP since May.

As of 3 November 2008, approximately 33t of uranium in the form of UF₆ had been produced at the Uranium Conversion Facility (UCF) since the last PIV in March. This brings the total amount of UF₆ produced at the facility since March 2004 to 348t, all of which remains under agency containment. The UCF was shut down in August for a routine maintenance and restarted operation in October.

Using satellite imagery, the IAEA has continued to monitor the status of the Heavy Water Production Plant, which appears to be in operational condition. Satellite imagery is also being used to monitor construction of the Iran Nuclear Research Reactor (IR-40) since Iran, in March 2007, suspended implementation of arrangements concerning the early provision of design information. Because of this, the agency was not permitted to carry out the DIV scheduled for October. However, it has confirmed that construction of the reactor is continuing. The IAEA requested in December 2007, but has not yet received, preliminary design information for the nuclear power plant that is to be built in Darkhovin.

Outstanding issues

A number of outstanding issues remain relating to the “alleged studies,” based on US intelligence data, which indicate weapons development, although Iran has insisted that they are forgeries. Moreover, the USA refuses to allow the agency to give copies of these studies to Iran, but still expects Iran to give detailed answers to the charges. The report says the agency currently has no information — apart from the uranium metal document (an issue dealt with in earlier reports) — “on the actual design or manufacture by Iran of nuclear material components of a nuclear weapon or of certain other key components, such as initiators, or on related nuclear physics studies. Nor has the agency detected the actual use of nuclear material in connection with the alleged studies.” However this issue is stalling any further progress and the agency asked Iran to cooperate in supplying the requested information.

“Iran needs to provide the agency with substantive information to support its statements and provide access to relevant documentation and individuals in this regard. Unless Iran provides such transparency, and implements the Additional Protocol, the agency will not be able to provide credible assurance about the absence of undeclared nuclear material and activities in Iran.”

Dependence on intelligence information for its investigations does not sit well with the IAEA. Opening the board meeting, ElBaradei had raised the issue of satellite imagery as a tool to assess claims of undeclared nuclear activities. He noted: “It is of course unfortunate that the agency, like the United Nations as a whole, does not have an independent satellite capability, as was proposed some years ago by France. As that is unlikely to change any time soon, we will continue to make use of available commercial and member state satellite imagery. But I should stress that, because the agency cannot verify the authenticity of such imagery, we rely on it only as an auxiliary source to corroborate other information …(and) this may mean that the agency’s assessments in some cases are inconclusive.”

After the meeting, Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani said the IAEA should set a deadline for the USA to present evidence for its claims about Iran's nuclear programme. He told reporters on the sidelines of the Nuclear Power Plants, the Environment, and Sustainable Development conference in Tehran (see panel), that the IAEA should take the issue off its agenda if those countries that want Iran to halt its uranium enrichment programme cannot prove their allegations. He said the latest report was “ambiguous”, and criticised IAEA officials for allowing the intelligence services of certain countries to have undue influence over its activities.

Moscow’s mediation

Moscow has stressed the need for Iran to ensure full cooperation with the IAEA at a meeting in Moscow between Russian deputy foreign minister, Sergey Ryabkov, and the Iranian ambassador to Russia, Mahmud Reza Sajjadi. At the same time, Russian officials said that US president-elect Barack Obama will have to normalise relations with Iran to reach an agreement over the disputed nuclear programme, reiterating opposition to any further sanctions. Russia is hoping that “the new administration understands that there is no alternative to the political process and dialogue at all levels,” said Ryabkov in an interview with Bloomberg Television in Moscow. Asked if Obama would have to normalise ties with Iran to reach a nuclear agreement, he replied: “Yes, absolutely.”

Pressure for a US policy change is also coming from inside the USA. A panel of American diplomats and other experts have advised Obama against any further economic and military threats. “An attack would almost certainly fail,” while coercing Iran with economic sanctions has very little chance of success, the experts said in a report to a conference on the future of US-Iran policy. “Threats are not cowing Iran and the current regime in Tehran is not in imminent peril,” according to the report.

Far more likely to succeed, according to former US ambassadors Thomas Pickering and James Dobbins, Columbia University scholar Gary Sick and 17 other experts, is to “open the door to direct, unconditional and comprehensive negotiations at the senior diplomatic level.”

Author Info:

Judith Perera is Editor of McCloskey NuclearBusiness

Nuclear Engineering International

Are Key Obama Advisors in Tune with Neocon Hawks Who Want to Attack Iran? | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet

 

A familiar coalition of hawks, hardliners, and neoconservatives expects Barack Obama's proposed talks with Iran to fail -- and they're already proposing an escalating set of measures instead. Some are meant to occur alongside any future talks. These include steps to enhance coordination with Israel, tougher sanctions against Iran, and a region-wide military buildup of U.S. strike forces, including the prepositioning of military supplies within striking distance of that country.

Once the future negotiations break down, as they are convinced will happen, they propose that Washington quickly escalate to war-like measures, including a U.S. Navy-enforced embargo on Iranian fuel imports and a blockade of that country's oil exports. Finally, of course, comes the strategic military attack against the Islamic Republic of Iran that so many of them have wanted for so long.

It's tempting to dismiss the hawks now as twice-removed from power: first, figures like John Bolton, Paul Wolfowitz, and Douglas Feith were purged from top posts in the Bush administration after 2004; then the election of Barack Obama and the announcement Monday of his centrist, realist-minded team of establishment foreign policy gurus seemed to nail the doors to power shut for the neocons, who have bitterly criticized the president-elect's plans to talk with Iran, withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and abandon the reckless Global War on Terrorism rhetoric of the Bush era.

"Kinetic Action" Against Iran

When it comes to Iran, however, it's far too early to dismiss the hawks. To be sure, they are now plying their trade from outside the corridors of power, but they have more friends inside the Obama camp than most people realize. Several top advisers to Obama -- including Tony Lake, UN Ambassador-designate Susan Rice, Tom Daschle, and Dennis Ross, along with leading Democratic hawks like Richard Holbrooke, close to Vice-President-elect Joe Biden or Secretary of State-designate Hillary Clinton -- have made common cause with war-minded think-tank hawks at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and other hardline institutes.

Last spring, Tony Lake and Susan Rice, for example, took part in a WINEP "2008 Presidential Task Force" study which resulted in a report entitled, "Strengthening the Partnership: How to Deepen U.S.-Israel Cooperation on the Iranian Nuclear Challenge." The Institute, part of the Washington-based Israel lobby, was founded in coordination with the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and has been vigorously supporting a confrontation with Iran. The task force report, issued in June, was overseen by four WINEP heavyweights: Robert Satloff, WINEP's executive director, Patrick Clawson, its chief Iran analyst, David Makovsky, a senior fellow, and Dennis Ross, an adviser to Obama who is also a WINEP fellow.

Endorsed by both Lake and Rice, the report opted for an alarmist view of Iran's nuclear program and proposed that the next president set up a formal U.S.-Israeli mechanism for coordinating policy toward Iran (including any future need for "preventive military action"). It drew attention to Israeli fears that "the United States may be reconciling itself to the idea of 'living with an Iranian nuclear bomb,'" and it raised the spurious fear that Iran plans to arm terrorist groups with nuclear weapons.

There is, of course, nothing wrong with consultations between the United States and Israel. But the WINEP report is clearly predisposed to the idea that the United States ought to give undue weight to Israel's inflated concerns about Iran. And it ignores or dismisses a number of facts: that Iran has no nuclear weapon, that Iran has not enriched uranium to weapons grade, that Iran may not have the know-how to actually construct a weapon even if, sometime in the future, it does manage to acquire bomb-grade material, and that Iran has no known mechanism for delivering such a weapon.

WINEP is correct that the United States must communicate closely with Israel about Iran. Practically speaking, however, a U.S.-Israeli dialogue over Iran's "nuclear challenge" will have to focus on matters entirely different from those in WINEP's agenda. First, the United States must make it crystal clear to Israel that under no circumstances will it tolerate or support a unilateral Israeli attack against Iran. Second, Washington must make it clear that if Israel were indeed to carry out such an attack, the United States would condemn it, refuse to widen the war by coming to Israel's aid, and suspend all military aid to the Jewish state. And third, Israel must get the message that, even given the extreme and unlikely possibility that the United States deems it necessary to go to war with Iran, there would be no role for Israel.

Just as in the wars against Iraq in 1990-1991 and 2003-2008, the United States hardly needs Israeli aid, which would be both superfluous and inflammatory. Dennis Ross and others at WINEP, however, would strongly disagree that Israel is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Ross, who served as Middle East envoy for George H.W. Bush and then Bill Clinton, was also a key participant in a September 2008 task force chaired by two former senators, Daniel Coats (R.-Ind.) and Chuck Robb (D.-Va.), and led by Michael Makovsky, brother of WINEP's David Makovsky, who served in the Office of the Secretary of Defense in the heyday of the Pentagon neocons from 2002-2006. Robb, incidentally, had already served as the neocons' channel into the 2006 Iraq Study Group, chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Representative Lee Hamilton. According to Bob Woodward's latest book, The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008, it was Robb who insisted that the Baker-Hamilton task force include an option for a "surge" in Iraq.

The report of the Coats-Robb task force -- "Meeting the Challenge: U.S. Policy Toward Iranian Nuclear Development" -- went far beyond the WINEP task force report that Lake and Rice signed off on. It concluded that any negotiations with Iran were unlikely to succeed and should, in any case, be short-lived. As the report put the matter, "It must be clear that any U.S.-Iranian talks will not be open-ended, but will be limited to a pre-determined time period so that Tehran does not try to 'run out the clock.'"

Anticipating the failure of the talks, the task force (including Ross) urged "prepositioning military assets," coupled with a "show of force" in the region. This would be followed almost immediately by a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports and oil exports, meant to paralyze Iran's economy, followed by what they call, vaguely, "kinetic action."

That "kinetic action" -- a U.S. assault on Iran -- should, in fact, be massive, suggested the Coats-Robb report. Besides hitting dozens of sites alleged to be part of Iran's nuclear research program, the attacks would target Iranian air defense and missile sites, communications systems, Revolutionary Guard facilities, key parts of Iran's military-industrial complex, munitions storage facilities, airfields, aircraft facilities, and all of Iran's naval facilities. Eventually, they say, the United States would also have to attack Iran's ground forces, electric power plants and electrical grids, bridges, and "manufacturing plants, including steel, autos, buses, etc."

This is, of course, a hair-raising scenario. Such an attack on a country that had committed no act of war against the United States or any of its allies would cause countless casualties, virtually destroy Iran's economy and infrastructure, and wreak havoc throughout the region. That such a high-level group of luminaries should even propose steps like these -- and mean it -- can only be described as lunacy. That an important adviser to President-elect Obama would sign on to such a report should be shocking, though it has received next to no attention.

Palling Around with the Neocons

At a November 6 forum at WINEP, Patrick Clawson, the erudite, neoconservative strategist who serves as the organization's deputy director for research, laid out the institute's view of how to talk to Iran in the Obama era. Doing so, he said, is critically important, but only to show the rest of the world that the United States has taken the last step for peace -- before, of course, attacking. Then, and only then, will the United States have the legitimacy it needs to launch military action against Iran.

"What we've got to do is to show the world that we're making a big deal of engaging the Iranians," he said, tossing a bone to the new administration. "I'd throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into it." He advocates this approach only because he believes it won't work. "The principal target with these offers [to Iran] is not Iran," he adds. "The principal target of these offers is American public opinion and world public opinion."

The Coats-Robb report, Meeting the Challenge," was written by one of the hardest of Washington's neoconservative hardliners, Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute. Rubin, who spent most of the years since 9/11 either working for AEI or, before and during the war in Iraq, for the Wolfowitz-Feith team at the Pentagon, recently penned a report for the Institute entitled: "Can A Nuclear Iran Be Deterred or Contained?" Not surprisingly, he believes the answer to be a resounding "no," although he does suggest that any effort to contain a nuclear Iran would certainly require permanent U.S. bases spread widely in the region, including in Iraq:

"If U.S. forces are to contain the Islamic Republic, they will require basing not only in GCC [Gulf Cooperation Council] countries, but also in Afghanistan, Iraq, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. Without a sizeable regional presence, the Pentagon will not be able to maintain the predeployed resources and equipment necessary to contain Iran, and Washington will signal its lack of commitment to every ally in the region. Because containment is as much psychological as physical, basing will be its backbone."

The Coats-Robb report was issued by a little-known group called the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC). That organization, too, turns out to be interwoven with WINEP, not least because its foreign policy director is Michael Makovsky. Perhaps the most troubling participant in the Bipartisan Policy Center is Barack Obama's minence grise and one of his most important advisers during the campaign, Tom Daschle, who is slated to be his secretary of health and human services. So far, Daschle has not repudiated BPC's provocative report.

Ross, along with Richard Holbrooke, recently made appearances amid another collection of superhawks who came together to found a new organization, United Against Nuclear Iran. UANI is led by Mark Wallace, the husband of Nicole Wallace, a key member of Senator John McCain's campaign team. Among UANI's leadership team are Ross and Holbrooke, along with such hardliners as Jim Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and Fouad Ajami, the Arab-American scholar who is a principal theorist on Middle East policy for the neoconservative movement.

UANI is primarily a propaganda outfit. Its mission, it says, is to "inform the public about the nature of the Iranian regime, including its desire and intent to possess nuclear weapons, as well as Iran's role as a state sponsor of global terrorism, and a major violator of human rights at home and abroad" and to "heighten awareness nationally and internationally about the danger that a nuclear-armed Iran poses to the region and the world."

Barack Obama has, of course, repeatedly declared his intention to embark on a different path by opening talks with Iran. He's insisted that diplomacy, not military action, will be at the core of his approach to Tehran. During the election campaign, however, he also stated no less repeatedly that he will not take the threat of military action "off the table."

Organizations like WINEP, AIPAC, AEI, BPC, and UANI see it as their mission to push the United States toward a showdown with Iran. Don't sell them short. Those who believe that such a confrontation would be inconceivable under President Obama ought to ask Tony Lake, Susan Rice, Dennis Ross, Tom Daschle, and Richard Holbrooke whether they agree -- and, if so, why they're still palling around with neoconservative hardliners.

See more stories tagged with: iran, neocons, tom daschle, richard holbrooke, dennis ross, susan rice, tony lake

Robert Dreyfuss, an independent journalist in Alexandria, Virginia, is a contributing editor at the Nation magazine, whose website hosts his The Dreyfuss Report, and has written frequently for Rolling Stone, The American Prospect, Mother Jones, and the Washington Monthly. He is the author of Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam.

Are Key Obama Advisors in Tune with Neocon Hawks Who Want to Attack Iran? | ForeignPolicy | AlterNet