Can Iran’s Accelerating Nuclear Program Be Stopped?

WASHINGTON: In recent weeks, as Iran ratcheted up its sensitive uranium enrichment activities another notch, and outside observers voiced growing fears that it had intensified its work to design a nuclear warhead, reports surfaced for the first time of North Korea-Iran nuclear connection. Meanwhile, opposition within the Security Council to tough sanctions added to uncertainty as to whether Tehran’s nuclear ambitions can still be checked.

In February, Iran announced that it had begun to enrich uranium to 19.75 percent, a significant step closer to the 80- to 90-percent level used in nuclear weapons, and a big jump from the 3.5 percent enrichment level, used in nuclear power plants, it had previously held to. Enrichment concentrates the easily split atoms of uranium, which comprise only 0.7 percent of natural uranium, to produce these enhanced materials. But as with compound interest, the more one starts with – here, the higher the enrichment level of the feedstock – the faster one reaches one’s goal. Once 3.5 percent enriched material is used as feedstock, the incremental enrichment process starts to move faster, and, it moves faster still if 19.75 percent material is the feed, permitting rapid production of bomb-grade material.

Although the quantities of uranium Iran has enriched to 19.75 percent are, at the moment, insignificant, Tehran has now demonstrated to the world that it has mastered the underlying technology to improve uranium to any level it chooses. 

Iranian officials claim the country needs the 19.75 percent enriched material to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor, which is used to produce medical isotopes. But Tehran has announced plans to enrich its entire stock of 3.5 percent material – more than 2,000 kilograms – to the 19.75 percent level. The plan is raising suspicion because this is much more than might actually be needed for the reactor in the next several years, leaving Iran with a surplus of 19.75 percent material that could be rapidly upgraded to be usable for at least one nuclear weapon. Iran likely received the design of a highly-enriched-uranium nuclear warhead from Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, which could avert the need for a nuclear test.

The added enrichment work needed to produce bomb-grade material from the 19.75 percent enriched uranium Iran is now making, moreover, could be performed in a very small enrichment facility that might evade detection by International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) monitors and foreign intelligence services. In late 2009, Iran revealed the existence of a considerably larger enrichment facility at Qom that had gone undetected for several years. And, it has announced it plans to build ten more enrichment plants at as yet undisclosed locations.

Adding to suspicions is that Iran is not known to possess the technology to manufacture the finished fuel elements for the Tehran Research Reactor, which must meet exacting safety specifications. Today, only France, Argentina, and Chile have fuel fabrication lines to produce such fuel. Tehran has rejected a Western offer brokered by the IAEA that would have allowed it to ship its 3.5-percent enriched material to Russia for further enrichment and then on to France to be made into fuel elements. If Tehran really has an urgent need to produce medical isotopes and is not simply using this as a rationale to justify enriching uranium to higher levels, one would have expected Iranian officials to pursue the Western offer more seriously.

As these events unfolded, the IAEA and the United States appeared increasingly concerned that Iran was continuing to work on the design of a nuclear warhead, a view long held by several Western European countries and Israel. Departing from the more cautious findings of his predecessor, the IAEA’s new Director General Yukiya Amano, stated in February that the Iranian nuclear program “raises concerns about the possible existence in Iran of past or current undisclosed activities related to the development of a nuclear payload for a missile.” In Washington, press reports stated that Obama Administration officials are revising a mid-2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that concluded this work had stopped in late 2003 and now believe it is continuing.

Still more troubling is a report suggesting that North Korea may be assisting the Iranian nuclear effort. Although North Korea was believed to have helped Syria construct a reactor designed to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons no evidence had surfaced publicly that North Korea, Syria, and Iran might be collaborating to advance Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

Israel destroyed the Syrian reactor in a September 2007 air strike. In late February 2010, however, news reports quoting Western officials stated that before the reactor was attacked, North Korea had delivered 45 tons of unenriched uranium concentrate, known as “yellowcake,” to Syria – and that North Korea had subsequently moved the material to Iran via Turkey. Iran has limited domestic supplies of uranium, and the US and its allies have been attempting to curtail Iran’s access to external suppliers of the material. The 45 tons from North Korea (which has domestic sources of uranium) and Syria, sufficient for several nuclear weapons if enriched to weapons grade, would deal a setback to this US initiative.

A North Korea-Iran nuclear nexus  could gravely undermine international nonproliferation efforts. The North Korean yellowcake transfer, for example, could be only the first of many such shipments. As North Korea itself has been attempting to enrich uranium using the same technology as Iran, Tehran could return the favor by assisting Pyongyang make this program a success. After having flagrantly violated relevant UN Security Council resolutions by continuing their respective nuclear operations, it now appears that North Korea and Iran may have begun to assist each other to bypass the Council’s demands.

What are the goals of the Iranian government? With each passing month a nuclear arsenal must look more attainable and the government’s hold on power more certain, notwithstanding the uproar over last June’s elections. It is hard to imagine that Tehran will curb its nuclear ambitions short of acquiring nuclear weapons. Recent political support from Brazil, Lebanon, and Venezuela, all wary of Western pressure, may make Iran more confident it can weather any sanctions regime the United States and its allies can bring to bear.

The Obama Administration is attempting to implement a set of powerful new sanctions to pressure Tehran to comply with Security Council requirements. The first step is to command Iran’s attention by placing what its leaders value at risk. The Administration has indicated it will target enterprises run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, said to be leading the country’s nuclear program, and possibly the Iranian central bank. Sanctions that hit too hard, however, risk injuring the Iranian economy as a whole, potentially causing a backlash that could shore up support for the Ahmadinejad government and its apparent aspirations for a nuclear-armed Iran. Russian and Chinese support for an effective sanctions regime could also be undermined.

To stop a runaway nuclear program, the international community needs to push the brake pedal with both feet. As committed as the Obama Administration may be to this endeavor, without broader international support, it is difficult to be sanguine about its chances for success.