Deconstructing Obama’s Missile Defense and Iran Policy
I have an article published on Obama's Ballistic Missile Defense Policy, including its Iran aspects at On Line Opinion.
Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran Claims Qom Enrichment Facility is an Air Raid Sanctuary
I've always maintained that if you want to understand what is happening in the world you have to read The Financial Times. In its report on Iran's military manoeuvres it quotes the head of the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran as stating
...Ali Akbar Salehi, head of the atomic energy agency, told state television on Saturday that the second plant’s construction was a reaction to threats issued against the main uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, which would be high on the list of targets in the event of any military strike on Iran’s facilities...
Of course, Salehi would say that. But it is the first statement which I have seen in the mainstream press suggesting that the Qom facility might be a hedge against a possible bombing campaign directed against Iran's nuclear facilities.
Recall I have raised this as one possibility from the get go.
An important empirical issue will be the size of the Qom plant. The smaller it is the more sense Salehi's statement would have.
But 3,000 centrifuges, i.e. a bomb year, isn't that good either. If Iran tests a nuclear weapon, it would then have one year to acquire a nuclear arsenal of one weapon. Naturally, a strategic arsenal would take much longer.
In the meantime it would be smashed to bits by the US Air Force. Iran would have to enrich enough uranium for a bomb over two years before testing a device at the 3,000 centrifuge level. That's assuming 3,000 IR-1 centrifuges, it should be added.
Not very rational. If we were talking 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges then we might have an open and shut case for a parallel military fuel cycle. Even 3,000 (IR-1 that is) tends towards the smallish for the above reason.
The Proposed Afghan Surge and Iran Policy
General McChrystal has handed over his troop request for the war in Afghanistan. Reports suggest something like an extra 40,000 troops. It would appear that there is fierce debate on this within the administration. Even elements of the military appear opposed, especially that arm that is supposed to do the fighting namely the Army
...Other officers, who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan and say they admire General McChrystal nonetheless, have privately expressed doubt that additional troops will make a difference. Others question the broader impact of such a buildup on the overall armed forces.“If a request for more forces comes to the Army, we’ll have to assess what that will do in terms of stress on the force,” said an Army official, who asked not to be identified because General McChrystal’s troop request had not been made public...
Those comments are interesting.
Obama is now going in hard against Iran, with talk of deadlines and so on. If Obama surges in Afghanistan, how over-stressed will the US Army be? By going in hard against Tehran the Pentagon has surely got to take on board the possibility of war with Iran.
With troops in Iraq and a surge into Afghanistan could they handle that? Things could get very explosive in the region.
But, then again, the US Army can pincer into Iran from Afghanistan and Iraq. If they don't surge in Afghanistan, could the army in the field in either Iraq or Afghanistan handle an upsurge in violence following an air campaign against Iran? These are all tough, but pertinent questions.
One wonders what the military leadership makes of all this in Iran.
Attention Now Turns To Project Green Salt Following Qom Enrichment Disclosure
You might recall my comments on UF6 and the formerly secret Qom enrichment facility (currently under construction). Andreas Persbo in a post at ArmsControlWonk makes some good points
...the facility would need to be supplied between 18 and 40 metric tons of natural uranium hexafluoride gas per year. An attempt to divert this from Esfahan, Iran’s only declared conversion facility, would entail a diversion of about seven to 16 per cent of its total capacity. I don’t have to do MUF calculations on that. A diversion that big would, with an extremely high probability, be detected by the IAEA. Indeed, I almost dare to say that detection is assured. This means that Iran would need to set up a clandestine conversion facility somewhere in order to bypass safeguards...
This brings Project Green Salt to the fore. PGS is important because it was an alleged covert parallel effort involving the development of UF4, essential in the process of converting uranium ore to UF6.
In the absence of a secret conversion project one does not have a viable undeclared military enrichment programme.
Its absence, however, would point to the idea that Qom is designed to maintain a technical capability to hedge against bombing.
One should also note that Obama is not taking bombing off the table. I have said many times over that an air campaign will not destroy the knowledge or technical capacity that Iran needs to make a bomb. I have also said that the emphasis should not be on suspension of enrichment, but on getting Iran to ratify and implement the Additional Protocol.
So long as the Iranians think that they are going to get bombed they really wouldn't want to implement the Additional Protocol.
In so far as the US talking points memo goes, there are two interesting features
...The site is under the management of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, but unknown to all but the most senior AEOI officials...
It has been argued that Iran halted its warhead program when all of Iran's nuclear programs were consolidated under the auspices of the AEOI. If this is true then Qom would be a little bit different.
The previous angle suggested a parallel fuel cycle under the control of the Republican Guards, as I have argued before. Now we would have a parallel military fuel cycle "under the management" of the AEOI. That's assuming Qom is military.
This seems to be a little bit different to what we seemingly had before. The hardliners in Tehran are stronger now than before. Current trends do not look good.
The other bit is
...The site is intended to hold approximately 3000 centrifuges, but we do not know what type of centrifuge Iran intends to employ there....
Both these comments seem human intelligence centric. It suggests that the Iranian nuclear enterprise has been, like, seriously penetrated by US intelligence.
If HUMINT sources have informed the US about Qom, why not about a secret UF6 feedstock program? If these same HUMINT sources (or perhaps source) have indeed informed the US about the "intention" of introducing 3,000 centrifuges in Qom, why not the "intention" underlying the overall purpose of the facility?
The hardliners in Tehran and Washington are now calling the shots. War is possible.
Iran’s Secret Uranium Enrichment Plant; Parallel Military Nuclear Fuel Cycle or Air Raid Sanctuary Part Two?
It is quite clear that Obama is making the implication that the Qum facility is weapons related
...American officials said late Thursday that they believe the plant was designed to hold about 3,000 centrifuges, which enrich uranium for nuclear power plants — or, with additional enrichment, for bombs. That would be enough centrifuges to manufacture about one bomb’s worth of material a year, though it is unclear whether any of the centrifuges have been installed or turned on. Mr. Obama said Friday that “the size and type of the facility is inconsistent with that of a peaceful facility.”...
It is true that the Khan labs in Pakistan were about that size when Islamabad began enriching uranium for bombs and that 3,000 centrifuges do not make for an industrial scale plant.
However, where would the UF6 for the plant come from? Project Green Salt? Is that still an issue? True the IAEA is looking into Green Salt, but in the context of past not current actions. If this is a secret weapons facility then some form of secret source for UF6 is needed.
Obama's comments still does not rule out the hypothesis that the Qum facility could be an air raid sanctuary. The purpose of such a sanctuary would be to maintain critical infrastructure and technical know how in which to re-start an industrial scale plant after the bombing of Natanz.
For this purpose you don't need any secret UF6.
Any rational state whose nuclear facilities face a credible threat of being destroyed by way of air power would seek to maintain such a smallish facility as a hedge against military strikes.
Sanger has written two articles on this online and both do not even bother to entertain this position.
Whatever is true one thing is clear; Obama has launched a 3 pronged attack to get "crippling sanctions" enacted against Iran namely the BMD decision, his insincere comments on nuclear abolition at the UN (his DoD chief is talking of building more "reliable" nuclear weapons at the same time) and now this.
In fact notice one of the main purposes of the UN nuclear resolution; to try and achieve NPT enforcement mechanisms. If the air raid sanctuary angle for the Qum facility turns out to be correct then this facility actually undermines the Obama UN position. If a country which the US doesn't like such as Venezuela were to pursue a nuclear program it creates the incentive for that state to build secret facilities to avoid losing everything after possible air strikes.
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Marko is also interested in philosophy, especially the theory of knowledge, and science, especially physics, and considers himself to work within the naturalist and enlightenment tradition. He is writing a book on nuclear terrorism.