Negotiations to create a permanent agreement on Iran’s nuclear program began on 18 February between Iran and the UN security council nations, the United States, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany (the 5+1). The 5+1 will have a number of tough nuts to crack. These include the existence of an underground enrichment facility at Fordo which is so well protected that it might be invulnerable to conventional attack. It is possible that enrichment of material for a nuclear weapon and work on a weapon itself could be carried out there without fear of permanent disruption. Another thorny problem is presented by the partly built plutonium plant at Arak. Plutonium can be used instead of uranium to make a bomb.
Iran’s uranium enrichment program is far advanced; the Islamic Republic is only about two months away from being able to produce weapons-grade uranium from the stockpile of low-enriched material it is allowed to keep under the temporary agreement signed on 24 November 2013. At current rates of enrichment they won’t be able to achieve this because the number of working centrifuges (the devices used to enrich the uranium) has been reduced under the agreement
None of the centrifuges have, however, been destroyed; Iran has merely agreed to allow some of them to remain idle for the duration. In addition the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akhbar Salehi stated on 10 February that a new generation of centrifuges has been developed which is 15 times more powerful than those currently in use. The time needed to produce enough highly enriched material for a bomb is not, however, determined by how much enrichment is allowed by the accord but by how much time it would take if all the centrifuges which are operational at a given time were put to use to create enough material for a bomb. The shorter the timeline to a bomb the greater the chance Iran will be able to build one without being detected.
In order to prevent this the agreement needs to allow for reaction time by the international community if a dash for the bomb is made. To allow for this either centrifuges would have to be dismantled or Iran’s stock of low-enriched uranium would have to be put beyond use. The Islamic Republic’s president Hassan Rouhani has said that centrifuges will not be dismantled ‘under any circumstances.’ On the other side of the fence Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu urged Germany to work toward elimination of Iran’s enrichment infrastructure on Sunday. If a deal is signed by the world powers which does not include the sorts of safeguards described above it would mean trading the leverage of sanctions for the constant threat of a bomb.
The prospect of a deal provides an opportunity to bring about better relations between Iran and the international community and resolve the nuclear issue. If mishandled by negotiators it may also provide an opportunity for Iran to become a nuclear weapons state. To avoid this a balance must be struck between firmness and a willingness to compromise. Firmness means making sure that the agreement provides for ample reaction time by the international community in case Iran decides to go for the bomb. The best-case scenario would be one in which sufficient time is allowed for renewed sanctions to work and thereby to avoid the possibility that a military solution will become the only one available. Keeping on track for a workable solution depends on political perceptions. There are still influential figures in the US and elsewhere who believe that the regime has changed its politics and is no longer the extreme or revolutionary threat that it once was. The evidence to support this claim is ambiguous but if the negotiators believe it to be the case it may take the edge off their attempts to prevent proliferation. As the American philosopher Henry David Thoreau once said: ‘In the long run we only hit what we aim at.’ We still need to be having a debate about Iran’s politics because the conclusions drawn will affect the goals of the diplomatic process.
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