by Charles Naas
Following months of positive reports about the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its substantial nuclear program, the mood has turned somewhat pessimistic, despite verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has met its commitments under the November 2013 Join Plan of Action.
The negotiating teams have been unusually [...]]]>
by Charles Naas
Following months of positive reports about the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its substantial nuclear program, the mood has turned somewhat pessimistic, despite verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran has met its commitments under the November 2013 Join Plan of Action.
The negotiating teams have been unusually disciplined in terms of leaks but official briefings have indicated that some major technical issues are on the way to being settled. Encouraging? Yes, but from the beginning of the talks it was realized, or should have been, that the day would come when Iran’s long term plans for a sizable nuclear energy program and the need for large amounts of enriched uranium would be front and center.
The past is prologue. Roughly 5 decades ago, we negotiated for several years with Iran over future nuclear cooperation until there was little hope left and went aground for some time over who would control the possible reprocessing of spent fuel from the US supplied enriched uranium. In the reprocessing of spent fuel, small quantities of plutonium could be separated and used in power plants or nuclear bombs.
The US side offered a variety of solutions, such as a bilateral plant; buy-back of the fuel; shipping the spent fuel for reprocessing to European facilities; and multi-national enrichment and reprocessing firms. Iran, however, refused all such ideas until President Jimmy Carter and the Shah directly reached a compromise agreement. The president was able to satisfy the Persian monarch’s personal and national pride that Iran would not be treated unfairly. The success of the Iranian Revolution in February of 1979 prevented the legal enactment of that treaty.
Now the concerns over reprocessing have been replaced by deep concerns over enrichment. The present Iranian government, like its royal predecessor, has planned a substantial civilian power program that has tentatively selected 16 areas for the construction of 1000 MW reactors. None, it is believed, has had a shovel of earth removed as yet, however in the view of the lengthy construction time and the vast expenditures required for reactors, issues such as security and supply for sufficient enriched uranium are vital.
At present Iran has 9,000 first stage and 10,000 second stage — IR2 — centrifuges. In all the years that some of them have been operating, Iran has been provided a little over 11,000 kilograms — roughly 5 tonnes — of enriched uranium. This supply is sufficient for 5-7 bombs if further enriched but is totally insufficient for civil reactor needs.
For example, Iran’s one completed reactor at Bushehr needs roughly 21 tonnes of enriched uranium as yearly replacement fuel that will be sold by Russia. The new reactors — which are at least a decade away — will require roughly 70-80,000 tonnes of fuel to start power production, and annual replacement fuel of about 21-25,000 tonnes per reactor. Iran’s negotiators have proclaimed that to meet its future requirements, Iran will need at least 100,000 advanced centrifuges. If in fact Iran pursues its civilian objectives, that figure is modest.
So far Iran has insisted that its future needs must rely on domestic production and depending on imports would make Iran highly vulnerable to political differences and crises. This position is given added weight by the fact that the six powers across the table have been imposing sanctions for a decade.
The position of the P5+1 (US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) has been that Iran should reduce its current centrifuges to a number that can only provide enriched material for medical research and isotopes, and depend on imports from reliable producers for future reactor fueling.
The parties are an ocean apart. In response to the negotiating crisis, emergency bilateral sessions took place between Iran and each of the P5+1 members to examine whether there is enough “give” to hold out the hope that compromises can emerge. (Unhappily, as with Carter and the Shah, we do not have leaders who understand or trust each other.) The bilateral talks also give Iran opportunities to test whether cracks are possible within the six. If each side holds to its position, the negotiating effort could be extended for at least a six month period or end.
One potential way forward that requires careful study would be to stipulate that a specific number of additional centrifuges may operate and that the enriched uranium should be put aside under especially rigorous security for a particular future reactor. Whether the US Congress, Israel and Iran’s conservative cabal, not to mention the other five powers, could live with this kind of solution is questionable. But each leader, especially Presidents Barack Obama and Hassan Rouhani, have put great effort into this possible opening of modest relations after three decades of mistrust.
Presumably neither views failure with equanimity, although Obama has consistently said that success was no more than 50% likely.
If failure seems likely, there are many questions that have to be addressed now and not await a crisis:
- Will Rouhani and his Foreign Minister Javad Zarif politically survive or will the possibility of a more cooperative Iran disappear?
- Do we take failure as a stage of negotiations and push onwards?
- Will the US Senate quickly enact even more sanctions?
- Will Israel attack Iran’s nuclear facilities as it has often threatened?
- What will be our policy to an Israeli assault and will we foolishly join in and find ourselves ensnared in another Middle East war?
- Will the P5+1 remain united, continue current sanctions and any new congressional requirements or will each go its separate way?
- Will Iran, Russia and China, all having current differences with the West, establish more extensive economic and political ties?
- The present offensive of the jihadist Islamic State in the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) threatens new power configurations in the Middle East. Will we be able to confer with Iran, one of the most significant countries in the region?
These are parlous times. Are we doing every thing possible to strengthen our hand?
This article was first published by LobeLog.
Photo: US President Jimmy Carter and Iran’s Shah Reza Pahlavi share a drink in 1977, two years before the monarch would be overthrown by a popular revolution.
]]>by Peter Jenkins
An article in the latest issue of the International Security journal goes to the heart of US and European nuclear non-proliferation policy. The author, Scott Kemp, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, raises a fundamental question: is proliferation best prevented by supply-side measures [...]]]>
by Peter Jenkins
An article in the latest issue of the International Security journal goes to the heart of US and European nuclear non-proliferation policy. The author, Scott Kemp, an Assistant Professor of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT, raises a fundamental question: is proliferation best prevented by supply-side measures (attempts to restrict the availability of certain technologies) or by influencing the demand side (the national interest calculations that underpin decision-making on nuclear weapon acquisition)?
The question has divided the US nuclear community since 1945 and is unlikely to be resolved by this one article, well-researched and highly intelligent as it is. Nonetheless, Kemp’s conclusion merits substantial debate, not least in the wider foreign policy community. It is that a rebalancing of nuclear non-proliferation policy is advisable, away from over-dependence on supply side restrictions and towards greater reliance on influencing states’ motives and calculations.
Kemp justifies his conclusion by surveying the extent to which controlling one type of nuclear technology — the use of centrifuges to enrich uranium — can be relied on to limit the spread of nuclear weapons, and by demonstrating that controls have been and will be porous and permeable.
Technological and industrial developments since 1945 have moved the proliferation-potential boundary outwards to where the building of a uranium enrichment plant lies within the reach of many states. The required information has long been in the public domain. The tools and equipment needed to build rudimentary centrifuge machines are unsophisticated. The risk of remote detection of a small clandestine plant is small. Thirteen of the twenty states that have built enrichment facilities have done so without recourse to outside help — and several others could have gone it alone.
Kemp is careful to distinguish between over-reliance on technology controls and denying that controls have any merit. He is not advocating the elimination of controls. On the contrary, he recognises that controls can make the task of building and operating centrifuges more arduous by forcing states to develop the technology indigenously and to spend time troubleshooting the challenges that will inevitably arise. Controls can also limit the ability of states to build high-performance centrifuges.
But where centrifuge technology is concerned, Kemp’s sympathies clearly lie with Niels Bohr, Robert Oppenheimer, and other Manhattan Project scientists who warned that controls could only provide a temporary hurdle, not an insurmountable barrier. Like them, he also believes that enduring protection “can only come from the political organization of the world”.
Mercifully, much of that political organization now exists, thanks to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which entered into force in 1970. Early doubts about how effective a barrier the NPT would be have been confounded. All but the four nuclear-armed states (Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea) and South Sudan, which has had more pressing priorities, are parties to it. Only nine states are known or suspected of having engaged in clandestine nuclear activities after becoming parties; and all but two of those (Iraq and Syria) have chosen or been persuaded to abandon their clandestine activities well short of nuclear weapons acquisition.
Why has the NPT been so effective? Kemp leaves that question to be answered by others. My sense is that NPT parties see mutual security benefits in maintaining this regime for as long as possible, certain grievances notwithstanding, and have no appetite for engaging in a nuclear arms race with their neighbors. An element of deterrence may also enter into the equation: latecomers to the nuclear-armed clubhouse cannot be sure of getting in unscathed.
But I hope someone more qualified than I will undertake the thorough assessment Kemp calls for at the end of his article:
While the specific causes of proliferation abstinence lie beyond the scope of this article, the subject clearly merits deeper analysis by both policymakers and academics as such factors are probably the most viable basis for the future of the non proliferation regime.
More immediately, Kemp’s conclusion begs important questions in relation to the current negotiations between Iran and the P5+1: if technology restrictions can never be more than a hurdle to centrifuge-based nuclear weapon acquisition, is it essential that the US and EU insist on a dramatic cut in the number of operating centrifuges at Iran’s disposal during the interim phase of a comprehensive solution?
Would the US and EU be wise to walk away from the negotiation if, for domestic political reasons, Iran were to refuse to dismantle any of its 19,000 centrifuges and to operate any fewer than 9,000 at any one time?
Should the US and EU be ready to close the deal if Iran can demonstrate convincingly that it has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons — with no motive for incurring the near-universal condemnation that a nuclear “break-out” would trigger — and backs up the demonstration by accepting that verification of its nuclear program can remain at current levels indefinitely?
I know what I think. But what, I wonder, do the US administration’s “counter-proliferation” experts think, and what advice are they giving to the US secretary of state and president? I fear they may be on the other side of the post-1945 divide.
This article was first published by LobeLog.
Photo: The first meeting of the Preparatory Committee for the Review Conference of the Parties to the NPT, United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland on April 1, 1974. Credit: UN
]]>by Derek Davison
The three key timelines at the center of the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program were the subject of a panel discussion at the Wilson Center today. Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies spoke about the duration of a hypothetical comprehensive [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
The three key timelines at the center of the negotiations between world powers and Iran over its nuclear program were the subject of a panel discussion at the Wilson Center today. Jon Wolfsthal of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies spoke about the duration of a hypothetical comprehensive agreement, Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association (ACA) discussed Iran’s “breakout” period, and Robert Litwak of the Wilson Center talked about possible timeframes for sanctions relief.
While there may be flaws in the P5+1’s (US, UK, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) decision to make “breakout” their primary focus, it is that timeline, and specifically its uranium enrichment component, that dominates the negotiations and related policy debates. Uranium enrichment capacity is, according to Kimball, the “key problem” in terms of coming to a final agreement, given that more progress seems to have been made between the two parties on limiting the Arak heavy-water reactor’s plutonium production, and on more intensive inspection and monitoring mechanisms. He also discussed the contours of a deal that would allow Iran to begin operating “next generation” centrifuges, which enrich uranium far more efficiently than the older models currently being operated by the Iranians.
Kimball’s suggestion mirrored a new piece in the ACA’s journal by Princeton scholars Alexander Glaser, Zia Mian, Hossein Mousavian, and Frank von Hippel. They proposed a two-stage process for modernizing Iran’s enrichment technology and eventually finding a stable consensus on the enrichment issue. In the first stage, to last around five years, Iran could begin to replace its aging “first generation” centrifuges with more advanced “second generation” centrifuges so long as Iran’s overall enrichment capacity remains constant, and it would be able to continue research and development on more modern centrifuge designs so long as it permitted inspectors to verify that those more advanced centrifuges were not being installed. That five year period would also allow Iran and the international community time to work out a more permanent uranium enrichment arrangement, which could take the form of a regional, multi-national uranium enrichment consortium similar to Urenco, the European entity that handles enrichment for Britain and Germany.
As the authors note, Iran is one of only three non-nuclear weapon states (Brazil and Japan are the others) that operate their own enrichment programs, so the global trend seems to be moving in the direction of these multi-national enrichment consortiums. It is unclear if Iran would agree to this kind of framework, but this piece was co-authored by Mousavian, who has ties to Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, suggesting that it could become acceptable to the Iranian government.
One major hurdle in the talks remains Iran’s desire, as noted by Kimball, to be able to fully fuel its Bushehr reactors with domestic enriched uranium by 2021, the year when its deal with Russia to supply fuel to Bushehr runs out. Fueling the Bushehr reactors alone would require vastly more enrichment capacity than the P5+1 would be able to accept, and Iran has plans for future reactors that it would presumably want to be able to fuel domestically as well. The P5+1 negotiators, and well-known non-proliferation organizations including ACA, argue that Iran can simply renew its fuel supply deal with Russia and thereby reduce its “need” for enriched uranium substantially. But from Iran’s perspective, domestic enrichment is its only completely reliable source of reactor fuel. Indeed, Russia has historically proven willing to renege on nuclear fuel agreements in the name of its own geopolitical prerogatives. Any final deal that relies on outside suppliers to reduce Iran’s enriched uranium requirements will have to account for Iranian concerns about whether or not those outside suppliers can be trusted. It’s possible that the kind of enrichment consortium described in the ACA piece will satisfy those concerns.
The other timelines in question, the overall duration of a deal and the phasing out of sanctions, spin off of the more fundamental debate over enrichment capacity, and both revolve around issues of trust. Wolfsthal argued that the P5+1 may require a deal that will last at least until Rouhani is out of office, in order to guard against any change in nuclear posture under the next presidential administration. In his discussion of sanctions relief, Litwak pointed to an even more fundamental question of trust: is Iran willing to believe (and, it should be added, can Iran believe) that the United States is prepared to normalize relations with the Islamic Republic and to stop making regime change the paramount goal of its Iran policy? If the answer is “yes,” then Iran may be willing to accept a more gradual, staged removal of sanctions in exchange for specific nuclear goals, which the P5+1 favors. If the answer is “no,” then Iran is likely to demand immediate sanctions relief at levels that may be too much, and too quick for the P5+1 to accept.
]]>by Derek Davison
Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed, Iran’s Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi declared April 19 that Iran and the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) had “virtually resolved” a dispute over Arak. What does this mean for the continued negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program?
What [...]]]>
by Derek Davison
Although it hasn’t been officially confirmed, Iran’s Vice-President Ali Akbar Salehi declared April 19 that Iran and the P5+1 (the US, Britain, France, China, and Russia plus Germany) had “virtually resolved” a dispute over Arak. What does this mean for the continued negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program?
What is Arak?
Arak, or araq, is an anise-flavored alcoholic beverage that is especially popular throughout the Levant. It is closely related to the Turkish beverage rakı and the Greek ouzo.
Arak and water over ice
Not that Arak.
Oh, right, the nuclear talks. Sorry.
Arak is a city of over 500,000 people, located in the Markazi province in central Iran. It’s about 150 miles southwest of Tehran. Modern Arak was incorporated in 1795 by a Georgian lord who got on Catherine the Great’s bad side and offered himself and his army to the Qajar ruler of Iran, Mohammad Khan, in exchange for sanctuary. This makes Arak almost as old as the United States of America, but for an Iranian city that’s still pretty new.
What does Arak have to do with the nuclear talks?
Iran informed the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) in 2003 that it would begin construction on a “pressurized heavy water” nuclear reactor (PHWR), named IR-40 (40 because it was designed to run at 40 megawatts), at Arak. PHWRs are generally seen as greater proliferation risks than the more common “light water” reactors (LWR), so the status of the planned Arak reactor has become one of the primary issues in talks over Iran’s nuclear program.
What is a PHWR and why do they raise proliferation concerns?
A sustained nuclear reaction uses the free neutrons produced when one atom of uranium is split (fission) to strike other uranium atoms and cause them to split, but those neutrons have to be “moderated,” or slowed down, so that they will interact with fissile U-235 (the more common uranium isotope, U-238, is not fissile). Where LWRs just use regular water (H20) as coolant and neutron moderator, PHWRs use deuterium oxide (D20). Deuterium is a hydrogen isotope that contains a neutron in the nucleus (the added weight of the neutron is the reason why it’s called “heavy” water); in nature it accounts for less than 0.02% of all hydrogen in water, but the solution used in a PHWR will be nearly 100% D20.
Heavy water absorbs far fewer free neutrons from nuclear reactions than regular/light water, making it a more efficient neutron moderator. This means that it’s possible to run a PHWR using natural uranium, because all those neutrons that aren’t being absorbed are available to strike enough U-235 to sustain a reaction even in natural uranium (which contains very little U-235). LWRs require enriched uranium, which has been altered in centrifuges to artificially increase the percentage of U-235. This is the first reason why PHWRs are a proliferation concern, because while enriched uranium is subject to monitoring safeguards in how it is bought, sold, and transported on the world market, natural uranium is not. But the far greater concern is that PHWRs can produce significant amounts of plutonium as waste product, which can then be reprocessed into weapons-grade material. For example, India’s first tested nuclear weapon, Pokhran-I, was fueled by plutonium reprocessed from its heavy water CIRUS reactor, whose design is similar to IR-40’s.
Why does Iran want a heavy water reactor?
Reactors that are intended to be used for research (for example, to produce medical isotopes) rather than for power generation, often need to use uranium enriched to 20% U-235 or more, which in addition to being costly to produce is also itself a proliferation concern. PHWRs, again because D20 is such an efficient moderator, are an alternative in such applications. Iran insists that IR-40 is intended only to replace its aging Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer patients, but the P5+1 has expressed concern about its potential use in developing a weapon. The Joint Plan of Action that was signed in Geneva in November 2014 stipulated that Iran would take no steps toward bringing Arak online for its duration.
For all the P5+1’s supposed concern about Arak, it must be noted that, as Gareth Porter has pointed out, Iran has made no move to build the kind of reprocessing facility that would be needed to convert IR-40’s plutonium waste into weapons fuel. While it could build such a facility in the future, that would take considerable time and would not be easily concealed from IAEA inspectors, so Arak is not an imminent threat from a proliferation standpoint.
What is involved in this agreement that’s been reached, and what are its implications?
To be clear, so far there is no official confirmation that any deal has been reached. But while Iranian officials have ruled out converting IR-40 to a LWR, they have suggested a willingness to modify its design. Al-Monitor’s Laura Rozen reports that the compromise is likely very similar to a proposal laid out by a group of Princeton University scientists in the journal Arms Control Today, whereby IR-40 would be modified to run on lightly enriched uranium, rather than natural uranium, and would run at a lower temperature, 10-30 megawatts rather than 40. Both of these modifications would substantially reduce the amount of plutonium waste produced by the reactor (to about the same amount as if it were converted to a LWR) without compromising its effectiveness as a research reactor.
Arak has been a prominent element in the negotiations, so if a deal over its status has been reached, then it’s likely that the negotiators are now on the last few major disputes that need to be ironed out for a comprehensive agreement. These undoubtedly revolve around the issues of uranium enrichment and IAEA monitoring, which arms control expert Robert Einhorn has argued are the biggest issues in the talks.
]]>by Robert E. Hunter
Even the most serious issues can have lighter — not to say ludicrous — moments. Such is the case of Ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi, the man whom the Iranian government designated as its Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. The US State Department objected (rightly) on the grounds [...]]]>
by Robert E. Hunter
Even the most serious issues can have lighter — not to say ludicrous — moments. Such is the case of Ambassador Hamid Aboutalebi, the man whom the Iranian government designated as its Permanent Representative to the United Nations in New York. The US State Department objected (rightly) on the grounds that Aboutalebi played a role in the kidnapping of US diplomats in Tehran in 1979; the Iranians say that Aboutalebi served as a translator in a non-influential capacity. Congress got into the act and, in a rare moment of unanimity, passed legislation to deny a visa for the hapless Iranian diplomat. The administration followed suit, and thus, unless the US government changes its mind, Aboutalebi won’t be coming to New York.
Iran has complained (rightly) that the United States is violating its responsibilities as host to UN headquarters under Section 11 of the United States Headquarters Agreement. Of course, by holding 52 US diplomats hostage for 444 days, the Islamic Republic had itself violated the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, which regulates the behavior of nations in regard to foreign diplomats.
Diplomats accredited to the UN have the right to come and go freely, though for some — like those from Iran — only within a 25-mile radius of UN headquarters, while the US diplomats in Tehran had the right to go about their legitimate business (Vienna Convention Article 26); and Iranians had no right to enter the US embassy without permission (Articles 22, 24, and 29 inter alia).
Thus did the two countries, in unspoken conspiracy, become part of a comedy turn worthy of Marx — not Groucho, Chico, and Harpo, but Karl — who wrote that “…great historic facts and personages recur twice….Once as tragedy, and again as farce,” a reference to Louis Napoleon’s 1851 assumption of power in France.
Neither the United States nor Iran need this interplay amidst the very serious efforts to defuse the long-standing imbroglio, not to say crisis, over Iran’s nuclear program. By trying to send to the UN someone who had been complicit in the hostage-taking, Iran’s leadership may have been responding to domestic political pressures; but at best, this reflected poor judgment. Yet it is also fair to judge that this “tempest in a Persian tea glass” will not derail the talks that have been taking place between Iran and the so-called P5+1 states (the US, UK, France, Russia, and China, plus Germany).
Indeed, the outcome of this incident serves to highlight that the talks now have a better-than-even chance of reaching an agreement that will make it more difficult for Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, should it — despite its denials — choose to do so, along with its benefiting from eased (if not eliminated) economic sanctions against the Islamic Republic. (This week the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded that Iran has cut its most sensitive nuclear stockpile by nearly 75 percent in accordance with the 6-month timeline set by the Joint Plan of Action (JPA), which was reached in Geneva on November 24, 2013.)
Unless something goes wrong — a regular occurrence in the Middle East — there will ultimately be some sort of agreement on Iran’s nuclear program, even if not by the deadline agreed to late last year. Thus, as it’s already becoming clear, the chances of a US military attack on Iran, save for the latter’s initiating hostilities against Israel or some other country, have sunk virtually to zero, as President Barack Obama has fervently hoped.
This is good news, or at least the spring’s second swallow, the first being last November’s conclusion of the JPA. And the matter of Iran’s effort to send to the UN a man complicit in the 1979-80 hostage-taking would almost surely be forgotten as soon as/if the JPA evolves into a final settlement of the nuclear issue.
Still, what has been happening also illustrates that negotiations on the Iranian nuclear problem are only one element in a much broader set of concerns. These concerns include allegations that Iran continues to support terrorism in other countries (e.g., through Hezbollah); that it is not aiding efforts to stabilize Iraq; and that — by its very nature as a modernizing, Shia country, situated so close to rich but less-modernizing Arab states of the Persian Gulf — it will almost certainly be a major contender for regional predominance, beginning with economics and spreading to political and cultural influence. Hence Obama’s recent brief visit to Saudi Arabia to reassure its leadership of US fealty in trying to contain any such Iranian ambitions.
If the nuclear talks do succeed, however, no one should be under any illusions that Iran will sit on the sidelines in the Persian Gulf region or that its potential “business” with the West will be a long time in developing. Western firms are already lining up to enter Iranian markets; a return of partially-embargoed Iranian hydrocarbons to global markets will help, over time, to reduce prices and limit Russian oil and particularly gas leverage in Europe; and the United States will have a natural interest in seeking Iranian support to help stabilize Afghanistan — just as the Iranian government was instrumental in overthrowing the Taliban in 2001.
Thus we are already hearing rumblings of a major regional earthquake, but one with different effects in different places. Countries that have banked on Iran’s exclusion from competitions for regional influence (and for influence in Washington) will be discomfited. These will include Israel, even as a potential “existential threat” from a putative Iranian nuclear weapon would be — let us hope – reduced or eliminated once we have a final deal. One the other hand, if this political earthquake does happen, it will be a blessing for Europe and especially for the United States, and then Iran could choose whomever it wants to represent it at the UN without complaint.
Photo: The Iranian flag is seen at the center of this photograph of the UN headquarters in New York city.
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