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Remember Iran's nuclear program?

Fri, 08/07/2009 - 11:35am

By Justin Logan

Recent reporting indicates the Obama administration is beginning to think about what to do if Iran fails to respond to their overtures for negotiation over its nuclear program.

A report in last week's Haaretz claimed that the administration was looking at the option of attempting to impose an embargo of refined petroleum products into Iran including, most importantly, gasoline which Iran has to import as a result of its lack of indigenous refining capacity. The NYT's David Sanger followed up with a story Monday indicating the reporting in Haaretz was correct, and Sanger predicts that legislation to impose sanctions on refined petroleum products will "sail through" Congress. There is also talk in Washington of pressing other U.N. Security Council members to sign on for similar measures. (Meantime, of course, the usual suspects in Washington have been doing their level best to promote panic and delude people about the likely consequences of military action.)

Sometimes, though, the trouble with making laws is that you have to enforce them. This seems like one of those cases. It's much easier for Congress to grandstand by imploring the administration to "cut off" the supply of refined petroleum products into Iran than it is for the administration to actually cut them off. As Sanger writes: "Enforcing what would amount to a gasoline embargo has long been considered risky and extremely difficult; it would require the participation of Russia and China, among others that profit from trade with Iran."

As this Reuters report observes, while such restrictions would indeed place some increased pain on Iran, they would constitute, more than anything, a "boon to traders." The fact is that there are extremely powerful incentives, particularly with the global economy in the toilet, for actors to cheat on these sorts of sanctions.

Given this reality, one wonders what's going on here. Moreover, Matt Yglesias points to another important puzzle: many of the people promoting a resolution at the UNSC instituting an embargo also want to do things like admit Ukraine and Georgia into NATO and pressure the Chinese on their treatment of the Uighur population in Xinjiang or the people of Tibet. In order to get Russia or China to sign onto a sanctions regime, we would have to engage in actual diplomacy with those countries, perhaps including dreaded "quid pro quos," which most hawkish analysts seem to view as appeasement.

Here's a side question on the Iran nuclear dispute more generally, in particular for Beltway folks: If you were an Iranian government official or an adviser to the government, what would you suggest the government do? Should it seek to acquire a nuclear capability or try to negotiate a deal with the United States? Please show your work.

(For thoughts on the increasingly likely choice between either military action or an incipient Iranian nuclear capability, see myself, Barry Posen, or Christopher Hemmer.)

Justin Logan is associate director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC.

BEHROUZ MEHRI/AFP/Getty Images

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Got it. This is very

by Scott Wedman on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 2:40pm

Got it. This is very predictable from you, given your other work. Why not help move the debate forward by doing what those that disagree with you in this debate often do not do themselves -- suppose you are wrong about Iran. How would you know? Alternatively, what sort of metrics can we use to navigate the question of deterrence with regards to Iran?

Seems like there is a big opportunity here for new thinking, not just the same yes/no debate that has gone on between groups like CATO and the IR realists on the one hand, and those of the more neo-con persuasion on the other.

Mr. Logan -- thoughts?

Fear Mongering

by Clint on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 2:41pm

The real fiction is that because it cannot be confirmed that Iran’s program is only for peaceful purposes, it must therefore be working towards a bomb.

This is untrue.

Iran is likely working towards a nuclear weapons capability, without building a bomb.

Having the capacity to build a nuclear weapon is not the same thing as having one, and having a large stock of low-enriched uranium is not the same as having the highly enriched uranium necessary for a bomb.

News reports and some commentators have recently claimed that Iran has enough material for a nuclear weapon. These reports referred to Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium. This is a misleading claim. To begin with, one cannot make a nuclear weapon with low-enriched uranium. A nuclear weapon requires highly enriched uranium or plutonium, and Iran possesses neither. In theory, Iran could take its stock of low-enriched uranium and enrich it to a grade required for making bombs, but its low-enriched uranium is currently under the surveillance of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Diverting this material for military purposes would be discovered by the IAEA. (Detection of diversion is the IAEA’s technological strong suit.) Iran’s choices, therefore, are to cheat and get caught or to kick out the inspectors. Either action would represent an extreme departure from Iranian strategy to date and in any case would likely precipitate military action by Israel.

Even, in the worst case, if Iran were to obtain nukes, it would use them for deterrence, and could be contained, according to studies by the National Defense University:

http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docUploaded/McNair70.pdf

"Please show your work"

by Clint on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 2:46pm

Ok, but the people arguing for military strikes on Iran (which would not end their nuclear programme) should show _their_ work first.

It would have been helpful in the Iraqi case too.

As for showing our work -- pls read the document "Reassessing the implications of a nuclear armed Iran" by the NDU given above:
http://www.ndu.edu/inss/docUploaded/McNair70.pdf

Iran seeks nuclear weapons _capability_ (NOT a bomb) for the purposes of deterring aggressive nations like the US (eg. Iraq, Af/Pak attacks) and Israel (Lebanon, Syria, Gaza, Iraq attacks).

A deterrent capability versus Israel would be a very good thing for middle east peace.

U.N. nuclear watchdog

by Clint on Fri, 08/07/2009 - 10:46pm

VIENNA (Reuters Fri Jul 3, 2009 ) - The incoming head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday he did not see any hard evidence Iran was trying to gain the ability to develop nuclear arms.

"I don't see any evidence in IAEA official documents about this," Yukiya Amano told Reuters in his first direct comment on Iran's atomic program since his election, when asked whether he believed Tehran was seeking nuclear weapons capability.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL312024420090703

dni

by Clint on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 12:54am

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/08/06/AR2009080603920_pf.html

Iran Years From Fuel For Bomb, Report Says
U.S. Analysts Also Discount Strength Of Russian Military

By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 7, 2009

Despite Iran's progress since 2007 toward producing enriched uranium, the State Department's intelligence analysts continue to think that Tehran will not be able to produce weapons-grade material before 2013, according to a newly disclosed congressional document.

The updated assessment, by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, emphasizes that the analysis is based on Iran's technical capability and is not a judgment about "when Iran might make any political decision" to produce highly enriched uranium.

The intelligence community agrees that a political decision has not yet been made. According to the assessment, State Department analysts think such a decision is unlikely to be made "for at least as long as international scrutiny and pressure persist."

The views on Iran's nuclear program are contained among answers in a document supplied by Director of National Intelligence Dennis C. Blair to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence after a hearing in February. Steven Aftergood, a senior research analyst at the Federation of American Scientists, obtained the document through a Freedom of Information Act request and published it Thursday on his Web site.

Among items included in the document is an analysis of Russia's military status. Blair concluded the Russian military "is a shadow of its Soviet predecessor." Its conventional forces are "not a direct military threat to central or western Europe," and its ability to project large forces abroad "is very limited."

In fact, according to the intelligence analysis, Moscow appears to be emphasizing the creation of a "smaller, more professional, mobile, survivable, highly technical military," one more adapted to deal with countries on its borders, except for China. The analysis describes recent Russian naval activities in the Mediterranean, the Indian and Pacific oceans, and the North Atlantic as "show the flag" exercises.

As a sign of the limitations, Moscow has "consistently" kept its defense spending to less than 3 percent of its gross national product in recent years. U.S. defense spending this year is around 4.7 percent of its gross domestic product.

The collapse of world oil prices, along with the worldwide economic slowdown, has helped curb Russia's defense spending. The intelligence report says that the country faces its first recession in years and that its companies are about $450 billion in debt to Western financial institutions.

Closer to home, Blair said that the intelligence community continues to look for al-Qaeda sleeper cells in the United States and that the FBI is particularly interested in people with contacts with "militants in Pakistan's FATA," the area near the Afghanistan border.

Answer

by Clint on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 12:58am

"If you were an Iranian government official or an adviser to the government, what would you suggest the government do? Should it seek to acquire a nuclear capability or try to negotiate a deal with the United States? "

Neither -- it should continue making its _civil_ LEU nuclear fuel and ignore the unfounded threats of the West.

Sanctions on Gasoline won't work

by Kenneth Sorensen on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 3:07am

Russia and China masters the technique of building refineries, and will eventually step in and build what should have been built many years ago. After 1979 we have been witnesses to American Common Sense being taken hostage, long after the actual hostages - around fifty and among them several CIA employees - have been released. The pragmatic and sound Americans - as we all know and love them - would long ago have normalised relations with Iran, but have been prevented from it by the colossal Spider that is The Israel lobby, and which from Washington holds the entire political system of the worlds sole superpower in a tight, controlling grip. For every year that the sanctions continues, more absurdities like this are bound to emerge. The logical way of ending this - and what the Lobby has been workiong hard for - is to go to war. But thanks to the Iraqie insurgency and the dreadful costs to The United States in the form of loss of political goodwill among the nations of the world, increased terror and spread to Afghanistan of insurgence-techniques (suicidebombs and IED's) and financial losses, we are not going to see any kind of armed conflict in the case of Iran - which would also likely result in the closure of the Hormuz-strait and possible attack on oil-installations in Gulfstates as well as missile attacks on American military installations in all neighboring countries, followed by an oilprice-hike up towards 200 $ pr. barrel and beyound, up,up.

So American Common sense need finally to manifest itself in this policy-area as well, as happily have been the case in all other major policy-areas. In short, the mighty Israel lobby needs to be reigned in, by procecuting neoconservatives and placing santions om the sovereign state of Israel, for having actively dragged the Unites States of America into the disastrous and counterproductive war in Iraq.

If you were an Iranian

by J Thomas on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 10:44am

If you were an Iranian government official or an adviser to the government, what would you suggest the government do?

Thank you for this opportunity.

First I will review the essential background information.

Background:

As you know, at current rates of depletion we can expect iranian oil to be mostly gone in 20 years. And as our economy grows we need more electricity, which we currently must burn oil to get. The opportunity cost of the oil we burn will continue to increase -- when oil prices rise to $150/bbl we will be spending $150/bbl to make our electricity. Also, we will inevitably pump oil faster as demand rises. If we try to conserve our oil it will become more and more valuable and increasingly it will make us a target for foreign military adventures. So we desperately need a better way to make electricity.

The obvious choice is to build nuclear reactors. We have plenty of uranium we can mine. If we start now, in twenty years we can have enough reactors to satisfy our needs, even the increased needs we will have in twenty years.

However, zionist america does not want us to have a viable economy. Every muslim nation that has a viable economy looks like a threat to israel. They will try to stop us from having electricity. We have no good alternative to nuclear reactors, and they would find ways to oppose any other way we might find to generate electricity also. So somehow we must handle the american threat.

They have sketched out a proposal, implying that something along those lines would be acceptable to them. They propose that we mine our uranium and sell it exclusively to foreigners. Those foreigners would then convert the uranium into nuclear fuel which they would sell back to us. When the nuclear fuel was used up we would pay the foreigners to take it away, and then they would reprocess it into new fuel which they would sell back to us again. Needless to say, this would give the USA an opportunity to deny us any nuclear fuel whenever they chose to impose more sanctions. And if all our electric power production depended on that, they could cripple our economy at any time.

On the excuse that we must not be given any chance to build nuclear weapons, they demand that we use a particular type of nuclear power plant which is particularly hard to use for production of nuclear weapons or nuclear fuel. This design is inefficient so that it would use large amounts of expensive fuel which we would have to buy.

In all fairness, the USA imposes this same kind of nuclear power plant on themselves. This is one of the reasons that they do not build any nuclear power plants. Instead they burn large quantities of coal.

My own opinion is that within ten years or so the USA will recognise that they need efficient nuclear power plants, and they will choose the cheapest and most efficient form -- plutonium breeder reactors. These reactors create their own fuel out of the waste products from uranium enrichment. The US objection to this kind of power plant is that it cheaply produces plutonium which can be used for bombs. Once the USA gets over their nonproliferation fetish, they will see that breeder reactors are inevitable and they will build some themselves, along with the rest of the world.

But that does not help us in the short run.

The USA will continue to impose stricter sanctions, and there is nothing we can do about that so long as other nations obey USA.

USA may stage a large airstrike or even invasion. There is nothing we can do about that except try to make such a thing costly to them.

Israel may stage airstrikes, possibly nuclear strikes. We can try to get an alliance with russia, china, or india to help with that. But we really don't want foreign armies or airbases in our country. And without giving up that prize we are unlikely to get alliances.

We must build nuclear reactors, and any delay makes it harder to meet the deadline for our electric needs. We cannot give up our reactors. And we cannot accept the americans' joke of a compromise.

Recommendations:

We must do whatever we can to reassure the world that we do not want nuclear weapons. But we cannot possibly persuade the paranoid zionist americans of that. If they do not believe that Khamenei forbids us to do it, what would they believe? They will believe we are trying to make nuclear bombs no matter what we do, unless they are allowed to destroy our economy to the point that we are obviously no threat to anybody.

One thing that might help would be to abandon our space program. We could buy the right to send packages on other nations' space flights. We could possibly still get into space later -- we could then take advantage of advances in the field and not be as far behind as one might expect. Our space program is an item of national pride but the americans feel threatened that we might build nuclear bombs and put them in the rockets we might build and then use them to destroy israel. If we do not build the rockets then the americans might be slightly reassured.

We have nothing to lose by negotiating with the americans. There's always the chance they might come to their senses. We have nothing to lose by trying, if they are willing to talk to us. Perhaps they might be willing to let us reprocess our own nuclear fuel, under constant international inspections. Then they couldn't apply sanctions to our fuel. But they probably will not agree to that. If the fuel didn't leave iran then in theory we could at some point throw the inspectors out and divert the fuel to make bombs. So they would not only lose a critical method to cripple our economy, in their paranoid minds they would be letting us someday have nuclear weapons. Negotiations are unlikely to be productive.

Our strategy then must be to wait as long as possible, while we build our power plants. Maybe the americans will see reason. Maybe they will collapse to the point they no longer care about us. We must also negotiate with russia, china, and/or india. Try to get a standing offer of alliance, so that if the US threat becomes too severe we can accept the treaty on short notice. Foreign armies and airbases on our land would be very bad but if any alternative looks worse we must accept them.

Evidence

by Clint on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 11:57am

What evidence is there that Iran has a military nuclear program?

Anyone, anyone? No, I can't hear you...some _evidence_ please?

Clint, let me tell you a true

by J Thomas on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 2:26pm

Clint, let me tell you a true story.

Israel started their nuclear program with a french-built reactor. The french claimed their reactor was for research and that it was a kind that would not be useful for making nuclear weapons, but the reactor they actually built was indeed intended for making nukes. The israelis had a bunch of nuke-building stuff hidden in secret basements beneath the reactor. They carefully hid their secret tunnels from inspectors. They lied to everybody about it until the truth got leaked and now they don't say one way or the other.

Then the french started to build a reactor for iraq, that the french said was a research reactor that would not be useful for making nuclear weapons. The israelis claimed that it was actually for building nukes and that there were secret tunnels under it and that the iraqis were lying about it. They did not present any evidence for that claim and as far as I've ever heard they did not have any evidence.

They didn't need any steenking evidence! They knew what they would do in the iraqis' place. They knew what they themselves had done. So they bombed the unfinished reactor and then they claimed that iraq was very close to creating nukes. This was news to Saddam, he hadn't really believed that his college professors could do that, and he immediately increased funding for his nuclear weapons program 700%. The reactor had not been part of that program. An american physicist later visited the ruins and claimed he could tell that the reactor had not been like the israeli reactor but was the kind the french said it was.

But to this day zionists say that Saddam was about to get nukes until they bombed his reactor.

It doesn't take evidence to convince people that iran has a military nuclear program. Here's all it takes: you look an american in the eye and you ask him, "If you were in charge in iran, what would you do?"

And when he thinks about it, for most americans, if it was his choice he would start a secret program to build nukes. He'd lie about it until after he had a nuke tested and several more assembled.

That's how israelis think. That's how most americans think. If you want to persuade them that iranians are different then go ahead and try.

They believe that it's rational to build nukes and lie about it. When they say that iranians are irrational they mean iranians are irrational in ways that would get them to nuke israel even though they'd all be killed in return. They can't imagine iranians are irrational in a way that could get them not to build nukes when nukes are possible.

We don't need no steenking evidence!

game theory and computerized decision-making...

by wadosy on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 7:35pm

...cannot account for common sense and common human decency ---aka morals.

Sure, but it doesn't take

by J Thomas on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 9:59pm

Sure, but it doesn't take game theory or computers. Americans have traditionally demonised our enemies, we have assumed they would do awful things because we think they are the sort of people who would do awful things. After all if they were good people they would not be fighting us.

So for example in WWI we had lots of stories about the Krauts raping belgian women.

In WWII we had stories about german concentration camps and women from occupied territories sterilised and forced into prostitution for the troops, and japanese doing elaborate tortures and raping all the women in whole sectors of cities, and attaching bombs to their dead and wounded so that US soldiers would be blown up trying to give them medical attention, etc. After the war we decided it was all true.

In the Gulf war we had stories about iraqi soldiers who went into hospitals and threw babies out of incubators so they could send the incubators home to iraq, and we found those stories completely believable. All lies, of course. Or rather, the stories might perhaps have been true but the people who told them didn't know anything about the truth -- and didn't care, either.

We're always ready to believe evil of our enemies.

And we're certainly not willing to believe our enemies might be nicer than we are. Imagine that the USA did not have nukes but some threatening enemy did. Would we try to get our own nukes? Is there any possible doubt we would? Would we lie about it, facing sanctions or worse? Absolutely. Why would we expect that iran would be less ready to look after themselves than we would be if we were in their position?

There is no publicly-known evidence that iran has a military nuclear program at all. The announced evidence that they did before 2003 is, well, weak. Perhaps there is secret evidence that our government does not share with anybody? Perhaps so. Or perhaps not. But even most of the small fraction of americans who admit that there is no evidence, and who feel somewhat sympathetic to iran, still say that they think iran is developing nukes and they think iran is doing it for deterrence. They judge by what they would do if it was them in Khomanei's place.

This is not game theory or computers. This is americans.

We don't need no steenking evidence!

what i'm saying is...

by wadosy on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 10:14pm

...the computerized games and their thinktank handmaidens are the latest tools the big boys use to obscure our inability to keep psychopaths from running things.

except for the knuckledraggers, patriotism is old hat, racial supremacism is politically incorrect, "we need more land to live on" was discredited by hitler...
.

but in reality, it's just the same dismal old game with techy trimmings.

once you've become, through habit, as immoral as your computers,

by wadosy on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 9:56pm

...might becomes right... and any culture whose behavior is moral is incomprehensible... but all that is beside the point.

the point being: once you've accepted the proposition that might is right, it doesnt take much genius to figure out why you're so mighty... your might is dependent on your access to a natural resource, and supplies of that resource are dwindling.

you will use your might to grab the substance that makes you mighty and therefore, right.

game theorists, cray computers and legions of thinktank kommissars are nothing more than the latest tools our psychopathic masters use to justify mass murder.

and since our leaders are so mighty, they are always right.

people of faith... faith in (eventual) justice, faith in...

by wadosy on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 8:41pm

...the basic decency of humanity...

well, those are the people we must fear and exterminate.

especially the ones who also happen to live on top of the oil.

yawn

by wadosy on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 8:23pm

another freaking comedy thread.

N.I.E.

by Clint on Sat, 08/08/2009 - 9:22pm

Until 2003, I will admit, there was some evidence that Iran desires nukes.

Since then the evidence is mixed, and the NIE states the Iranian weapons program was halted. That is why the vast majority of experts agree that Iran desires the _capability_ to make a bomb and no more. And there is nothing illegal about that. It is within the NPT rules.

In December 2007, the intelligence community published the key findings of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran that concluded with “high confidence” that “Iranian military entities were working under government direction to develop nuclear weapons” but that “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program.”

The NIE defined what is commonly called “weaponization” as becoming proficient in the actual construction of a nuclear weapon, assuming that enough nuclear explosive material is already available.

The same report judged with “moderate confidence” that the “earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon is late 2009, but that this is very unlikely,” and it “probably would be technically capable of producing enough HEU for a weapon sometime during the 2010-2015 time frame.”

Diversion of the LEU to HEU enrichment would be detected by the IAEA.

The report also assessed with “high confidence” that “Iran has the scientific, technical and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons _if_ it decides to do so.”

sure, IF IF IF.....IF, ok? No evidence it has decided anything of the sort since 2003.

Nuf said.