Iran Chatter

Iran is being discussed at an IAEA board meeting in Vienna, with talks centering around a report delivered by Mohamed ElBaradei criticising Iran's push towards uranium enrichment and complaining of Iran's less than full cooperation with the IAEA.

At the same time, the latest Iranian diplomatic efforts to reach an agreement with Russia failed, when initial Russian acquiescence on the deal soon turned to a rejection of it, in the face of staunch opposition from the USA and Europe. The deal would have allowed Iran to pursue some enrichment testing on Russian soil, while Russia enriched the uranium on an industrial scale, as with the previous proposal, essentially allowing Iran to develop its enrichment skills, taking it further towards its goal of mastering enrichment at Natanz, and ultimately using high-enriched uranium (HEU) to make atomic bombs. Iran's coverage of the IAEA meeting and discussions are worth a look, for a bit of comic relief.

However, a recent New York Times article reminds us just how far, or near, Iran might be in developing the facilities and skills to enrich uranium. This serves as a reminder that while a concerted effort, perhaps with a little help and a lot of luck, could see Iran armed with an atomic warhead in a few short years, the hurdles ahead of them, and their trouble with the technology, indicate a far longer wait, perhaps better measured in decades. In fact, my opinion of Israel's worst case scenario is that it does not take account of Iran's determination to master the enrichment process itself. Iran's leadership, time and again, have stressed that Iran has a right to the technology (which it does, under the NPT). This leads me to doubt that Iran would be happy getting a small supply of enriched uranium or plutonium from somewhere else. They've invested a lot of time and money, and even more prestige (both domestic and international) chasing mastery of the enrichment cycle, and they're not about to give it all up and admit defeat. You might even say that this point - having the capability to enrich their own uranium - has become a central, unchangeable factor in the Iranians' thinking.