Iran and Nuclear Ambiguity

Cambridge Review of International Affairs
ISSN: 0955-7571 (Print) 1474-449X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccam20
Iran and nuclear ambiguity
Ivanka Barzashka & Ivan Oelrich
To cite this article: Ivanka Barzashka & Ivan Oelrich (2012) Iran and nuclear ambiguity,
Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 25:1, 1-26, DOI: 10.1080/09557571.2012.656457
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Cambridge Review of International Affairs,
Volume 25, Number 1, March 2012
Iran and nuclear ambiguity
Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich

Federation of American Scientists
Abstract A comparison between Iran’s current nuclear efforts and those of the pro-
Western regime of Shah Reza Pahlavi shows that Iranian ambitions for a full-fledged
civilian nuclear programme have remained relatively constant for nearly half a century.
Today, fuel cycle technology provides Iran with a latent nuclear weapon’s potential.
However, US concerns about an Iranian bomb, which began in the early 1970s and
aggravated after the Iranian Revolution, long predate Teheran’s uranium enrichment
programme. Thus, Iran is a specific case of the general problem presented by the inherent
potential of nuclear technology to both civilian and military ends. Approaches to dealing
with a long-term, ambiguous, latent nuclear weapon threat, whether Iranian or other, are
suggested.
Iran presents a major challenge to the global fabric of nuclear non-proliferation.

It illustrates every possible complexity that a potential proliferator could offer:
a self-proclaimed revolutionary regime with a nuclear programme that has both
civil and military potential but that is difficult to justify economically, a history of
concealing nuclear activities, accusations of research suggesting an interest in
nuclear weapons, disputes about the authority of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) and interpretation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT),
confrontation with the United Nations Security Council and disregard for its
resolutions, and hostile relations with the United States (US) and its allies and
with many neighbours. Iran may be an especially challenging case but the
problems created by the potential dual civil –military applications of nuclear
technology are universal. Therefore, Iran serves as a test case: if the concerns with
Iran’s nuclear efforts are not addressed, the regional consequences could be grave
and the entire non-proliferation regime could be undermined globally; however,
if this most difficult of non-proliferation challenges can be resolved, it could serve
as a model for the rest of the world.
The Islamic Republic’s plans for a large-scale nuclear programme are not far
different from those of the pro-Western regime of the Shah, but today Iran actually
operates nuclear fuel cycle technology, which has both civilian and military
applications. There is little doubt that the Islamic Republic has the capability to
manufacture a nuclear weapon. This inherent technical ambiguity magnifies the
importance of Iran’s political intentions, which have been a concern since the 1970s.
There are sound reasons to be suspicious of Tehran’s nuclear efforts, but it could be
years before Iran decides to make an overt move towards a bomb or it may maintain
ISSN 0955-7571 print/ISSN 1474-449X online/12/010001–26 q 2012 Centre of International Studies

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2012.656457
2 Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich
this nuclear ambiguity indefinitely. Dealing with continuing ambiguity is the

greatest political and policy challenge faced by nations concerned by a nuclear Iran.
This article is divided into two parts: (1) a review of Iranian nuclear capabilities
and potential based on publicly available declassified US government documents
and IAEA reports, as well as the authors’ original research, calculations and
analysis; and (2) policy suggestions for how to move forward. We begin by
describing the problem of nuclear dual-use technology. After reviewing the history
of Iran’s civilian nuclear programme, its technical nuclear capabilities and their
potential military applications, comparing developments under the regime of the
Shah to those of the Islamic Republic, the article then discusses Iran’s intentions by
counterposing Iran’s declaratory policy, including its economic and political
justifications for nuclear power and nuclear fuel production and statements against
nuclear weapons, against evidence of suspicious actions provided by Western
intelligence assessments and IAEA reports. The article concludes with a policy
discussion that describes the scenarios of a nuclear-capable and nuclear-armed
Iran, and provides some suggestions on how to limit the Iranian threat.
The nuclear dual use problem

There is an inevitable nuclear weapons proliferation danger in any civilian nuclear
fuel programme. All of the NPT-recognized nuclear-weapon states thoroughly
intermixed civilian and military parts of their early nuclear initiatives. Nuclear
power reactors, as such, are not the problem. The materials produced to fuel
nuclear reactors and the materials produced by the reactor can, however, in
closely related forms, power nuclear bombs.
There are two main paths to a nuclear weapon, using either uranium or
plutonium. For either path, obtaining the material is the single greatest hurdle to
overcome and civilian nuclear fuel cycles can produce both materials. Indeed, not
related technology but exactly the same physical pieces of equipment can be used
to produce the materials for both civilian and military applications.
Uranium has two primary isotopes, U-235 and U-238. Uranium-235 powers
both reactors and weapons but is less than one per cent of naturally occurring
uranium. To be used in fuel in the most common types of reactors, the U-235
isotope must be increased to 3– 5 per cent through a process called ‘enrichment’.
For a bomb, uranium should be 90 per cent or so U-235. Most enrichment today
uses high-speed centrifuges to exploit the slight difference in mass between
the two isotopes to separate them. But exactly the same machines that enrich to
five per cent can continue enriching material to bomb-grade quality; it is simply
a matter of passing the material through the machines repeatedly.
The other potential nuclear-weapon material is plutonium, which does not
occur naturally but is produced in quantity in nuclear reactors and can be
separated from the used fuel. Some neutrons in the reactor are absorbed by the
U-238, producing U-239, which eventually transforms into plutonium-239. Most
common light-water commercial power reactors could, in principle, produce
weapon-grade plutonium but they are not well suited for it; the fuel is not
removed often enough and consequently the quality of the plutonium suffers.
Reactors using natural uranium and moderated by graphite or heavy water are,
however, ideally suited for the task. The US, Soviet Union, Britain, France and
Iran and nuclear ambiguity 3
North Korea used graphite reactors to produce weapon plutonium while India,
Pakistan, and Israel used heavy-water reactors.
The plutonium must be removed from the used fuel rods and separated from
other constituents. The used fuel rods are extremely radioactive so they must be
handled in special facilities. Some nations have separated plutonium to be reused
as civilian reactor fuel and, for industrial-scale separation, large automated
factories have been built which could also produce plutonium for weapons,
but such large facilities are difficult to hide from national intelligence systems.
Unfortunately, nuclear weapons require only kilograms, not tonnes, of plutonium,
and limited plutonium production can be handled in hot cells—basically small
laboratory-scale rooms equipped with radiation shielding and remote-controlled
arms—and these smaller facilities are much more difficult to detect.
The NPT enshrines the right of all of its signatories to any possible civilian
nuclear technology. A non-nuclear-weapon state can legally separate pure
plutonium or produce bomb-grade uranium as long as the material is under IAEA
safeguards and has some plausible civilian use. Safeguards do not create any
physical barriers to using nuclear material for weapons but they create a
monitoring system that is intended to alert the world if monitored material is
illicitly diverted to nuclear-weapons use. Thus, there is always the possibility that
a nation might produce essential nuclear-weapon material or its precursors as
permitted, then break out of the safeguards and rush to construct a bomb.
Work applicable only to nuclear weapons is illegal for non-nuclear-weapon-
state members of the NPT. Unfortunately, most of the weapons design and
component work can take place in small laboratories, even on computers, which
will not necessarily have distinctive signatures and so will be difficult to detect
reliably with national surveillance techniques. Except when using the very
simplest designs, countries wanting a nuclear weapon would test it before
considering it reliable. Nuclear tests, in contrast, can be reliably detected.
Nuclear weapons have to be delivered to their targets and here again dual use
creates ambiguity. All potential nuclear-weapon states have missiles available to
deliver conventional warheads. A nuclear warhead cannot be made arbitrarily
small, so a nuclear-capable missile must have a payload of at least several
hundred kilograms and a useful range. But many missiles that are currently
armed with conventional warheads meet these criteria and there would not
necessarily be any externally visible differences. Any military aircraft that can
carry a conventional gravity bomb could also carry a nuclear bomb and, again,
these differences would not be visible.
In short, the challenge of an ostensibly civilian nuclear programme with
military potential is in no way unique to Iran. Nuclear technology inevitably has
military applications and that is why, not only the actions of a state are important,
but so are its intentions, and those are difficult to pin down and can change
rapidly. Iran may be the most challenging current case but it is almost certainly not
the last.
Iran’s civilian nuclear efforts

The world’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme stem not only from what
Iran is doing but also from why it is doing it. Much of the world is deeply
suspicious of Iran’s intentions. Judging intentions from actions is rarely

straightforward. Iran uses several lines of argument that its nuclear activities
are purely civilian and peaceful. First, the history of the programme long pre-
dates the current government. Additionally, there are reasons of economics, fuel
security and national pride that Iran claims justify all of its activities.
Origins of Iran’s civilian nuclear programme

Iran’s pursuit of nuclear technology began in 1957 during the rule of Shah
Mohammad Reza Pahlavi with an agreement for nuclear cooperation with the US.
Executed under the mandate of Eisenhower’s Atoms for Peace programme, the
initiative was part of wider military and economic support for the Shah, one of
the US’s main allies in the Middle East at the time. The deal outlined an active role
for US companies in Iran’s future nuclear energy sector. The US also hoped that
an energy partnership would secure Iranian oil exports. A decade later, a US
company constructed a five-megawatt research reactor and helped establish
a nuclear research centre at Tehran University to educate Iranian scientists
and engineers.
Attracted by the prospects of nuclear technology, Iran signed the NPT in 1968
and concluded its safeguards agreement with the IAEA in 1974.1 The same year,
the Shah established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), whose main
role was to oversee the development of large-scale nuclear energy programme on
‘a top priority basis’ (US Embassy Tehran 1976a). The Shah’s goal was to have a
nuclear energy industry that could produce 23,000 megawatts of electricity in 20
years (US Embassy Tehran 1977b). Iranian government sources suggest that these
numbers were based on a 1973 study by the US-based Stanford Research Institute,
which advocated for an increase in Iran’s non-oil energy base (Zarif 2005).2
Following the establishment of the AEOI, Iran signed contracts with Western
companies for the construction of nuclear power plants, fuel supply and personnel
training. Iran planned for the construction of eight light-water reactors from US
companies, two by France’s Framatome and two reactors by Germany’s Kraftwerk
Union. Germany began construction of its two reactors at Bushehr in 1975.
The AEOI cherished Iran’s NPT right to independently develop nuclear fuel
cycle technology. Iran contemplated building a domestic enrichment plant, but
realized, probably due to financial reasons, that ‘this was not really feasible’
(US Embassy Tehran 1976a).3 However, the Shah kept his options open for the
future: in 1976, Iran signed a contract with a US supplier for experimental laser
uranium enrichment technology (IAEA 2007b). Tehran was also eager to purchase
1
Iran signed the NPT in 1968, the year it became open for signature. The treaty entered
into force in 1970.
2
A Hudson Institute study suggests that Iran may have had plans to develop up to
35,000 megawatts of nuclear power by the late 1990s (Dunn 1975).
3
Gaseous diffusion plants were very costly and gas centrifuges were a sophisticated
new technology that was only beginning to enter the commercial realm. Probably due to
large investments in research and development, gas centrifuge enrichment was taken up by
large consortiums, such as Urenco (founded in 1971) and Eurodif (founded in 1973), of
which Iran became a partner. The US had dropped centrifuge enrichment in favour of gas
diffusion in 1944 during the Manhattan Project.
reprocessing technology and spent several years negotiating with the US to this
end, finally abandoning plans for domestic capabilities in 1977.4
Despite its interest in domestic enrichment and reprocessing, Iran largely
focused on bilateral and multilateral arrangements to secure fuel supplies. Iran
made investments in Eurodif, an international uranium enrichment consortium
owned by France, Italy, Spain and Belgium. The US encouraged Iranian
participation in a gaseous diffusion enrichment plant to be built by the Bechtel
Corporation on US soil (US Department of State 1974). A 1978 US –Iran nuclear
agreement, which focused on the sale of US light-water reactors, made provisions
for plutonium reprocessing of US-supplied material but only under very
restrictive conditions.5
The 1979 revolution had important consequences for Iran’s nuclear
programme—at first, the programme’s scale was significantly reduced and
there was less cooperation with foreign companies. Although it is widely believed
that Western nuclear contractors unilaterally withdrew from Iran immediately
after the fall of the Shah, the actual history is far more complex. After Khomeini
took over the country, Iran had concerns about the economic viability of a large-
scale nuclear programme and temporarily suspended its already questioned
nuclear efforts.6 Iran annulled reactor contracts with France and withdrew from
the Eurodif enrichment consortium. In addition, the government stopped making
payments for the almost-completed Bushehr nuclear power plant. When the
German contractor then terminated the project, Iran demanded compensation and
by 1982 had started looking for alternative vendors. Although Kraftwerk Union
initially reconsidered its decision to abandon the project, the Iraqi invasion in 1980
and the eight-year war that followed unambiguously derailed attempts to
complete the project. The Iraqis bombed the Bushehr site several times during the
war and contractors refused to work on the project until a peace deal was struck.
Later attempts to continue with the nuclear programme were difficult. Iran and
the US had severed diplomatic relations in 1979 due to the US embassy hostage crisis.
Concerned about supplying a hostile regime with proliferation-sensitive technology,
Washington pressured potential new nuclear suppliers to avoid business with Iran.7
The German government banned its companies from providing nuclear assistance
to the Islamic Republic, including work on the Bushehr plant. Due to its own
disputes concerning unfulfilled contracts, France refused to reimburse Iran for
its Eurodif shares or supply nuclear fuel. These cases have become the basis of
Tehran’s claims that no credible international fuel guarantees exists and, thus, the
rationale for the independent development of its domestic fuel cycle technology.
Because of US-led restrictions, in 1985 Iran decided to acquire enrichment
technology from the black market. Two years later, Iran received blueprints for
4
See Burr (2009) for a detailed discussion. Iranian officials claimed they abandoned
plans for domestic reprocessing in 1977, according to the US Embassy in Tehran (1977a).
5
Concerning the proliferation risks of reprocessing, the agreement allowed for Iran to
reprocess US supplied material outside Iranian territory upon Washington’s approval.
6
During the last year of the Shah’s regime, the programme had stagnated due to the
unstable political conditions, budget changes, and corruption charges against AEOI
officials, followed by the agency’s absorption by the Ministry of Energy.
7
These countries included China, Germany, Argentina, Spain, Italy and the Czech
Republic.
centrifuges from Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan network and began research and
development (IAEA 2003b; 2005b). Iran’s enrichment activities became public
only in 2002 when a dissident group revealed Tehran’s clandestine activities. As a
consequence, Iran’s nuclear programme, and specifically its uranium enrichment,
has become the object of intense international scrutiny.
The Islamic Republic’s ambitions for a large-scale nuclear programme are not
far different from those of the Shah. In 2005, Iran’s parliament voted for essentially
the same goal of the 1970s—of producing 20,000 megawatts of nuclear power in 20
years. Although the Shah was also concerned about an assured long-term fuel supply
and had showed interest in developing domestic fuel production capabilities,
nuclear self-sufficiency has become a higher priority for the current regime.
Due to sanctions and export controls, Iran has attempted to indigenously
develop nuclear capabilities and produces many nuclear components domes-
tically. Iran has also made significant advancements in developing the entire fuel
cycle. Although it imported uranium from South Africa, Iran has been exploring
its own uranium deposits in the Saghand and Gachin mines. There are domestic
milling facilities to convert the mined uranium to yellow cake, which is then
transformed to uranium hexafluoride at the conversion plant in Isfahan. Uranium
enrichment to 3.5 per cent U-235 for light-water reactors and 20 per cent U-235 for
research reactors takes place at a gas centrifuge facility in Natanz.8 Iran is
currently constructing a heavily protected small-scale enrichment plant in the
mountains of Qom, called the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. With the types of
centrifuges available at the time it was disclosed, Fordow was, by itself, too small
to be practical for either civilian or military applications,9 but Iran has announced
plans to build ten additional enrichment facilities (Erdbrink 2009). Tehran intends
to move higher-level enrichment to the Fordow facility (Pouladi 2011). Iranian
officials claim the country is self-sufficient in producing centrifuges (Aqazadeh
2006) and have begun replacing the current inefficient Pakistani models with new,
faster indigenous centrifuges (Pouladi 2011). Some reports suggest that Iran’s
enrichment programme has been the target of active attempts at sabotage, most
notably by a sophisticated computer virus called Stuxnet, but Iran’s enrichment
capacity continues to increase slowly.
Despite strained relations with the West, Iran has been able to receive some
assistance in its nuclear efforts. In 1987, Iran secured a deal with Argentina for an
upgrade and refuelling of the Tehran research reactor. China has provided some
support for the Isfahan nuclear complex. In the early 1990s, Russia signed a deal to
complete the Bushehr reactor and has since resisted US pressure to abandon the
deal. After many delays, the reactor is planned to start operation in 2011. Fuel for
Bushehr will be supplied by Russia, and all spent fuel will be shipped back, thus
substantially reducing the proliferation threat. The Iranian government has
8
When negotiations for a deal with France, Russia and the US for refuelling the
research reactor in Tehran failed, Iran began enriching to 20 per cent in February 2010.
9
When the facility was first disclosed in September 2009, both US intelligence and
Iranian officials claimed that it was designed to house 3000 centrifuges. Given the
performance of Iran’s first generation centrifuges at the time, the facility was too small to be
considered viable for breakout by Iranian military planners. The calculus will change if Iran
installs more or more capable machines or uses 20 per cent enriched uranium as feedstock.
This argument is expounded in Ivan Oelrich and Ivanka Barzashka (2009a; 2009b).
announced that it is open to bids from foreign companies for construction of

nuclear reactors to meet its 20,000-megawatt goal (Mottaki 2008).
Potential military applications of Iran’s nuclear programme

There is little question that Iran has the technical and financial resources to
develop a nuclear weapon if it so chooses. The Iranian nuclear question is often
posed as whether Iran is or is not working towards a nuclear weapon and, when
cast this way, most observers will answer in the affirmative. But that is too simple.
The US’s concerns about Iran’s nuclear intentions have been enormously
magnified since the Islamic Republic was established but go back to the reign of
the Shah, so this is a half-century-old problem. It is useful to compare Iran’s
progress over those decades with that of North Korea, which has produced
a nuclear explosive device, while Iran, with 20 times the gross domestic product,
40 times the export earnings, three times the population and, despite sanctions,
with far greater access to international technology, has not. Most countries,
fortunately, are not even considering developing a nuclear weapon, and North
Korea is clearly on a national campaign to do so. A very few countries, most likely
including Iran, are along some spectrum of intensity of effort towards a nuclear
weapon. They may be exploring options, they may be keeping options open or
they may be pushing ahead more or less energetically with development. In these
cases, the question of nuclear intent does not have a straightforward yes or no
answer. Given Iran’s suspicious behaviour, it may seem prudent to take a ‘better
safe than sorry’ attitude and simply assume that Iran is next in line behind North
Korea but this simple approach has costs: Iran’s domestic political dynamic will
be very different depending on whether it has made a firm decision or not or, more
precisely, depending on where it sits on this spectrum of effort. How outside
powers should best change Iranian intentions will change depending on that
domestic political dynamic.
The biggest hurdle to acquiring a weapon is the nuclear material—either
enriched uranium or plutonium. Iran can now enrich uranium and can use the
same equipment to continue enrichment up to bomb-grade levels. After the start-
up of the heavy-water reactor at Arak, Iran may be able to produce plutonium
suitable for weapons.
There are three routes that Iran could take to a nuclear-weapon capability.
First, it could build a parallel, clandestine nuclear material production capacity,
not subject to IAEA inspections. Of course, the outside world will never, by
definition, know about the facilities that Iran hides successfully but, given Iran’s
history of having facilities revealed by foreign intelligence or Iranian dissident
groups and given Iran’s goal of appearing to observe legal requirements—as it
interprets them—this approach appears risky. Second, Iran could try to slowly
and secretly divert weapon-grade material from declared facilities. But the IAEA
is extremely confident that, in the case of Iran, it can currently detect a diversion of
material of the size needed for weapons. Third, Iran can develop nuclear material
production capacity, that is, enrich uranium, even to high levels, or even separate
plutonium, all under IAEA safeguards and then ‘break out’ of the agreement—
that is, expel inspectors and quickly redirect its well-developed nuclear
infrastructure to producing a weapon. It is this breakout potential that causes
the greatest concern about Iran’s nuclear capacity and intentions, and it is why
developments at Natanz in particular are followed so closely.
Breakout would include pressing ahead as far as possible with nuclear material
preparation that is ostensibly dual use—that is, has a possible civilian application,
such as uranium enrichment. The centrifuges at Natanz are enriching uranium to
3–5 per cent U-235 to fuel a future nuclear reactor. By passing the partially enriched
material back through these same machines several times, the uranium could be
enriched right up to bomb-grade material. Enriching from natural uranium to
typical nuclear fuel U-235 concentrations is more than half the enrichment work
needed to get to weapon grade material.10 Iran is enriching small amounts of
uranium to 20 per cent U-235 concentrations, ostensibly to fuel its research reactor in
Tehran, which Iran says is to produce medical isotopes. Going from power reactor
concentrations to 20 per cent cuts the time to a bomb’s worth of material by more
than half again (Oelrich and Barzashka 2010b), giving a potential bomb-maker a
significant head start. Nominally civilian equipment that converts the uranium in
gaseous form back to metallic uranium could be used to produce bomb material.
Iran has under construction a 40-megawatt natural-uranium, heavy-water
reactor at Arak that it claims is intended for medical isotope production
(IAEA 2004a). Iran has long argued that no foreign firm would agree to replace the
five-megawatt Tehran Research Reactor (TRR) (IAEA 2007a) and so it was forced
to develop the heavy-water reactor as a domestically produced alternative. The
facility is subject to IAEA inspection but is still under construction, so it does not
get as much public attention as Iran’s enrichment programme, and hard
information about the facility is scarce. When the Arak reactor comes online, Iran
might argue that it wants to separate the plutonium from that reactor to use in
uranium –plutonium mixed fuel in some other reactor, justifying construction of
a plutonium separation capacity and a stockpile of plutonium.
Heavy-water reactors can use natural uranium. Natural uranium means low
concentrations of U-235 in the fuel so the fuel must be replaced frequently. Most
heavy-water reactors, in contrast to light-water reactors, therefore have designs that
allow frequent change of fuel elements without shutting down the reactor. Low
exposure time in the reactor coincidentally results in low-concentration but very
high-quality plutonium. These characteristics make natural-uranium, heavy-water-
moderated reactors ideal for weapon-grade plutonium production (Einhorn 2006).
A medical isotope reactor using heavy water and natural uranium would be
unusual but not unheard of. Canada’s National Research Universal reactor, which
produces prodigious amounts of medical isotopes, is a heavy-water reactor that now
uses 20 per cent U-235—not the natural uranium envisioned for the Arak reactor—
but has operated at both higher and lower U-235 concentrations in the past.
Any medical isotope—or plutonium—production requires reprocessing facilities
or special ‘hot cells’, that is, laboratory rooms typically fitted with thick lead-glass
windows and remotely controlled manipulator arms that allow technicians to work
on the material without being exposed to dangerous radiation. The plans Iran has
presented to the IAEA for the hot cells at the Arak site have changed and have always
10
The amount of enrichment work needed to enrich from natural uranium to low-
enriched uranium and to high-enriched uranium depends on the tails assay, which
determines the amount of material that is being lost in the process. For faster enrichment
more uranium is wasted.
been vague. First, hot cells plans were not included, then plans for cells for ‘long-lived
isotopes’, which the IAEA interpreted to imply plutonium, were presented, then hot
cells more appropriate for radioisotopes. Hot cells designed specifically for
extraction of medical isotopes from reactor targets could, with some modification,
also extract plutonium, which could then be used in weapons. The IAEA reports that
the technical specifications in Iran’s inquiries about hot cells are more appropriate
for plutonium production than medical isotope production (IAEA 2004b).
Under NPT limits, a country may enrich right up to weapon-grade material
as long as it is part of a supposedly peaceful civilian programme and all the
material remains under IAEA safeguards.11 While openly enriching uranium, and
perhaps someday separating plutonium, Iran could simultaneously be working
secretly on weapon-unique technology—for example, chemical implosion, which
could be very small scale and easily hidden. IAEA safeguards do not provide
physical security of fuel and their purpose is not to stop a proliferator from
diverting material; they are only to alert the world if such a diversion were to
occur. Iran could, whenever it chose, expel IAEA inspectors, remove the seals on
safeguarded material and then relatively quickly complete the final stages of
nuclear-weapon-material preparation using the existing infrastructure.
Iran could maintain this ambiguous state for many years into the future.
Iran’s political leaders may not be sure themselves whether they want to develop
a nuclear weapon but might still be certain they want to maintain the option.
Dealing with this continuing ambiguity is the greatest political and policy
challenge faced by nations concerned about a potential nuclear threat from Iran.
Iran’s justifications and intentions

Iran’s latent nuclear-weapon capability is a concern because of the uncertainty
about Iran’s intentions. While hardware sets some limits on capability, intentions
are difficult to ascertain—they can be hidden and can change rapidly. Examining
the consistency and credibility of Iran’s justification for its civilian nuclear
programme is one gauge of its intent. Iran has presented economic, political and
security rationales for its programme but these must be viewed in light of
accusations of illicit weapons research.
Economic justification
The rationale for nuclear power in Iran has remained essentially the same since
the 1970s, when the Shah first adopted plans for development of a large-scale
industry with the help of Western countries. The need to diversify an oil-
dependent energy sector is dictated by projected increase in electricity and
petroleum consumption due to a growing population and concerns about the
eventual depletion of oil resources. Nuclear-generated electricity would allow
greater revenues from increased oil and gas exports. According to Zarif (2005),
11
It is important to note that international attempts to limit Iran’s enrichment are set
forth in UN Security Council resolutions imposed after referral from the IAEA Board of
Governors. Iran claims that its right to enrich derives from the NPT and Iran does not
recognize the Security Council’s authority to limit those rights.
Iran’s current nuclear energy plans may save it ‘190 million barrels of crude oil or
$10 billion per year in [2005] prices’. Finally, Iran claims that nuclear energy is
preferable to that generated by fossil fuels due to environmental concerns.
Iran’s nuclear activities have been under close international scrutiny since the
disclosures in 2002. Many scholars and politicians have questioned claims for
a civilian nuclear industry on the grounds that nuclear power has no economic
justification in an oil- and gas-rich state. This argument is weak. Nowhere in the
world is nuclear power evaluated in purely economic terms, and no reactor being
built today is free of direct or indirect government subsidies. Iran’s reasons for
nuclear power are similar to those of other oil-reach nations in the Middle East.
Questioning Iran’s justifications for nuclear power draws into question the
development of nuclear power in the region as a whole and undermines the basic
premise of the NPT. Finally, when the West questions the need for an industry that
once had the strong support of European and US governments, it devalues
arguments based on legitimate proliferation concerns.
Arguments for or against nuclear power in Iran must, however, be kept
separate from economic justifications for Iran’s development of nuclear fuel
production capabilities. There is no doubt that, considering only costs, buying
nuclear fuel would be cheaper on the market. The unknown, but no doubt high,
investments in uranium enrichment would be better invested in more efficient oil
and gas extraction and processing (Wood et al 2007). But the Islamic Republic’s
claim, that no nuclear fuel guarantees are credible, carries some weight,
considering its nuclear history. According to current officials, plans to generate
20,000 megawatts of nuclear energy, while protecting those investments in power
plants from ‘the political whims of suppliers in a tightly controlled market,’ make
domestic fuel production strategically, if not economically, sound (Zarif 2007, 83).
Thus, Iran may evaluate fuel production, not as the simple cost of a consumable,
but as an insurance premium to protect the larger capital investment in its future
power plants. In fact, the mullahs have a relatively better justification for domestic
fuel production than did the Shah 40 years ago.
Political reasons
Certainly, Iran’s nuclear efforts are motivated by more than economics. Throughout
the country’s nuclear history, officials have seen nuclear technology as a scientific
achievement that would modernize the country. Since the 1970s, Iran has
reaffirmed its NPT rights to peaceful nuclear technology and sought independence
on nuclear decision-making.12 In 1977, Akbar Etemad, the head of the AEOI stated,
‘No country, or group of countries, has the right to dictate nuclear policy to another’
(US Embassy Tehran 1977a). The Shah reserved the right to pursue fuel production,
but never developed the capability. Since then, Iran has refused second-class status
and sought parity with major powers. Today, nuclear independence had been
honed to a quest for nuclear self-sufficiency by developing the entire fuel cycle.
Arguments for nuclear technology based on prestige have existed for years.
The development of nuclear fuel cycle technology has been seen as joining an
12
The treaty does not preclude the development of enrichment or reprocessing
facilities, despite their risks for nuclear proliferation.
exclusive club of nations.13 However, Iran’s nuclear efforts have been coupled
with a nationalistic sentiment that has become prominent over the last decade.
Development of technology has been touted by the revolutionary regime as
a victory over Western suppression and, therefore, a sign of national supremacy.
Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that development of nuclear
power would provide Iran with capabilities to become an ‘unrivalled world
power’ (Iran Focus 2006). The nuclear issue has put Iran on the international radar:
preventing an Iranian bomb is high on Western governments’ political agenda
and, consequently, the issue features prominently in world press coverage. ‘We
have been able to promote the status of Iran and Iranians in international level and
we have enhanced the self-confidence spirits and national identity,’ said Gholam-
Reza Aqazadeh, former head of the AEOI (BBC 2009).
A closer analysis of Iran’s nuclear history reveals that the revolutionary
regime’s current civilian nuclear plans and their public justifications are not
unlike those of the pro-Western regime of the Shah. Since the 1950s, nuclear
technology has been seen by Iranian governments as a way of modernizing the
country. The mullahs’ current ambitions for large-scale nuclear energy production
and their economic justifications closely mimic those of the Shah. Interest in
developing fuel cycle technology is also not new. Credible fuel guarantees have
always been an issue of concern for Iran. Objecting to second-class treatment,
Iranians have asserted their NPT right to peaceful nuclear technology by rejecting
limitations on the option of developing enrichment or reprocessing facilities.
The US and Western European countries actively supported Iran’s nuclear
programme under the Shah, when the country was the US’s major ally in the
region. But those same countries have now taken the lead in questioning the
Islamic Republic’s civilian nuclear efforts. What has changed?
Clearly, the political relationship is now dramatically different, resulting in
ubiquitous distrust of the other side’s intentions. But there has been another
significant development—while the Shah was only contemplating uranium
enrichment, the current regime is actually enriching. Records show that the US
was never supportive of Iran producing its own nuclear fuel. The White House
hoped to reduce the Shah’s incentives for domestic enrichment or reprocessing by
offering options for his country’s participation in such activities abroad. Today,
however, Iran’s nuclear programme is less reliant on foreign support, which
increases concerns of nuclear-weapons proliferation.
Iranian declaratory policy

Iran has consistently claimed that it does not want nuclear weapons and has
publicly supported the global non-proliferation regime. The Shah saw the treaty
as a gateway to nuclear technology, but was concerned about unfair treatment by
nuclear-weapon states, which aimed to limit Iran’s access to fuel production.14
13
Only three countries, or ten per cent of all those possessing nuclear reactors, have all
the elements of the nuclear fuel cycle and are self-sufficient. Coincidentally, all three have
nuclear weapons.
14
This was the reason for protracted negotiations on a nuclear cooperation agreement in
the late 1970s. Iran’s right to reprocess US-supplied fuel was the key point of contention at
the time.
At the time, Tehran acknowledged the need to strengthen agency safeguards,

which were not stringent enough to keep states from acquiring weapons, but
refused to accept measures that were not universal (US Embassy Tehran 1976b).
Iran officially supported the idea of a nuclear-free zone in the Middle East.
It denounced nuclear weapons, claiming that ‘proliferation can only weaken
Iran’s position vis-à-vis its neighbours, and therefore proliferation is anathema to
Iran’ (US Embassy Tehran 1976c).
Since the revolution, the new regime has maintained that, ‘based on religious
and Islamic beliefs as well as based on logic and wisdom’, it does not want to
develop nuclear weapons (Khamenei as cited in Kerr 2008). The mullahs have
maintained the strategic position of the monarchy: ‘A costly nuclear-weapon
option would reduce Iran’s regional influence and increase its global
vulnerabilities without providing any credible deterrence’ (Zarif 2004). Iranian
officials have insisted that nuclear weapons ‘have no place in Iran’s defence
doctrine’ (Khoshroo 2003). Moreover, the revolutionary regime rejects nuclear
bombs on religious grounds. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa in 2005
stating that ‘the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are forbidden
under Islam and that the Islamic Republic of Iran shall never acquire these
weapons’ (Mehr News Agency 2005).
Iran has been very active in efforts to strengthen the non-proliferation regime,
but has largely focused on disarmament. It claims that the NPT is a weak and
unbalanced arrangement because most efforts have focused on limiting nuclear
technology instead of promoting the abolition of current arsenals (Ahmadinejad
2010). Iranian officials have been especially critical of Israel’s clandestine nuclear
arsenal and the West’s tacit approval of such capabilities. Tehran has sought to
rally both Islamic and developing states against the inequity of the nuclear regime
imposed by world powers. The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC)
rejected ‘discrimination and double standards in peaceful uses of nuclear
technology’ and resolved that any attempt to limit such applications would ‘affect
the sustainable development’ of their countries (OIC 2006). The Non-Aligned
Movement (NAM) has issued similar statements against any obstructions to ‘the
right of states to develop atomic energy’ (NAM 2008).
The fact that Iran denounces nuclear weapons does not mean it has not been
interested in developing the capability to have them and that it will not renege on
promises in the future. However, Tehran’s declaratory policy is significant. Unlike
North Korea, for example, the Islamic Republic denies wanting nuclear bombs.
This position does not detract from the ambiguity regarding Iran’s intentions, but
should ultimately be welcomed because it can help set expectations and standards
of behaviour. Moreover, if Iran chooses to reverse its policies, it could be held
accountable by its own people and the international community.
Evidence of suspicious actions

Suspicions that Iran may be interested in developing nuclear weapons date back to
the time of the Shah, when the country was still a major US ally. The Indian nuclear
test in 1974 increased worries that other countries would follow suit. The US
government was concerned about nuclear sales abroad and discussed ways to limit
the nuclear-weapons potential of US-supplied material to Iran under a nuclear
cooperation agreement if Iran were to abrogate its international obligations

(US Department of State 1974). The same year, a Special National Intelligence
estimate stated that there is ‘no doubt . . . in the Shah’s ambition to make Iran a
power to be reckoned with’, concluding that if other countries proceeded with
nuclear weapons development, there is ‘no doubt Iran will follow suit’ (Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) 1974). According to a 1975 classified Hudson Institute
study, Iran could independently acquire nuclear weapons material, even though its
nuclear programme was heavily dependent on foreign suppliers. The report
concluded that Iran might decide to develop nuclear weapons by the mid-1980s
and discussed the range of factors that could influence that decision, including
desire for world power or regional hegemony, or fear of neighbouring nuclear
states, such as the Soviet Union or India. According to Etemad, the head of the
AEOI, ‘there was great concern and perhaps some misunderstanding in the US
about Iran’s nuclear development’ (US Embassy Tehran 1976b).
There were indications that the Shah was interested in keeping the nuclear
option open. In a controversial public statement after India’s nuclear test, he said
that Iran would possess a nuclear bomb ‘certainly, and sooner than is believed’
(US Embassy Tehran 1974a). The Iranian government later denied this, but the
Shah reaffirmed his country’s right to develop weapons if others did: ‘Iran is not
thinking of acquiring nuclear weapons. But if the small states equip themselves
with such armaments, then Iran would revise its policy’ (US Embassy Tehran
1974b). In a 2008 interview, Akbar Etamad, the Shah’s chief atomic energy adviser,
claimed that, although the Shah ‘believed that Iran didn’t need nuclear weapons
at that moment’, it was likely part of his ‘plan to build bombs’ (Bahari 2008).15
Despite involvement in bilateral and multilateral fuel arrangements, the Shah
was interested in acquiring independent uranium enrichment and reprocessing
technology, which would provide Iran with the capability to build nuclear
weapons, but would have little economic justification if fuel were supplied from
abroad.16 In 1976, the AEOI expressed interest in nuclear cooperation with India,
especially with regard to peaceful nuclear explosions (PNE). Iran’s atomic energy
agency claimed it did not rule out PNEs in the future, especially if they were
found useful in civilian applications such as creating harbours and digging canals
(ideas that had currency at the time in the US and Soviet Union), but denied it
would pursue them unilaterally (US Embassy Tehran 1976b).
It is not surprising that earlier concerns that Iran could be seeking nuclear
weapons aggravated after 1979, when Tehran and Washington broke off
diplomatic relations. After the new regime revived efforts to complete the
Bushehr nuclear power plant in 1982, the US placed nuclear technology transfer to
Iran and other potential proliferators under close scrutiny (Benjamin 1982).
The US and its allies have since closely followed the Iranian nuclear-weapons
question. In 1984 West German intelligence sources claimed that Tehran might
have a nuclear bomb in two years using enriched uranium supplied by Pakistan
(Associated Press (AP) 1984a).17 This information was denied by US officials
15
Some authors allege that the Shah had actually set up a clandestine weapons
research programme (Condersman 2002).
16
Details are discussed in the previous section.
17
Pakistan did not test a nuclear bomb until 1998, but had enriched uranium to bomb-
grade levels in the early 1980s.
(AP 1984b), but a 1985 US National Intelligence Council report described Iran as
a ‘potential proliferation threat’ because it was ‘interested in developing facilities
that could eventually produce fissile material that could be used in a weapon’
(US National Intelligence Council 1985). The document concluded it would take
Iran a decade to do so. In 1992, Robert Gates, then director of CIA, warned in a
congressional testimony that Iran had plans to acquire nuclear weapons, but was
unlikely to achieve this before 2000 (Smith 1992). The 2005 National Intelligence
Estimate (NIE) on Iran, the US’s most authoritative judgment on key national
security issues, assessed with high confidence that Tehran was ‘determined to
develop nuclear weapons’ and was unlikely to do so ‘before early-to-mid next
decade’ (Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) 2007). A February
2011 update of the assessment confirmed these conclusions (Crail 2011).
Although government intelligence services have long been following Iran’s
nuclear progress, the nuclear programme became the object of international
scrutiny only after 2002 when allegations of clandestine efforts were confirmed.
That year, the National Council of Resistance on Iran, an anti-government exile
group, exposed Tehran’s construction of a heavy-water reactor at Arak and gas
centrifuge enrichment facilities at Natanz. The US government confirmed it had
been aware of these activities (Tenet 2004). IAEA inspections discovered that Iran
had been illegally using nuclear material in undeclared activities. Mohamed
ElBaradei, IAEA’s Director General, found Iran in violation of its safeguards
agreement due to failure to report imports of nuclear material and the activities
and facilities in which it was processed (IAEA 2003a). Further investigation of the
agency revealed that Iran had purchased enrichment technology from the black
market. This led to the discovery of an illicit procurement network, directed by the
father of the Pakistani bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, who had supplied centrifuge
technology to Iran, Libya and, possibly, North Korea.
More allegations of clandestine enrichment appeared in 2009, when US,
French and British leaders disclosed a small-scale hidden facility, the Fordow Fuel
Enrichment Plant, in a tunnel in the mountains near Qom, in close proximity to a
military base with air defence systems. President Obama declared that the ‘size
and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful programme’
(White House 2009). Iran had announced the facility to the IAEA just days before
the Western governments’ announcement and claimed that it was not obligated to
report the plant earlier.18 ElBaradei found that Iran’s ‘failure to inform the Agency
. . . was inconsistent with its obligations under the Subsidiary Arrangements to its
Safeguards agreement’ but did not judge that Iran had violated the agreement as it
had in 2003 (IAEA 2009). Inspectors visited the site and found that no nuclear
material had been introduced, consistent with Tehran’s claims. The purpose of the
facility is still under investigation.
The discovery of Fordow plant has been widely touted as evidence for Iran’s
intentions to produce weapon-grade uranium outside the IAEA safeguards.
18
In 2003 Iran accepted a revised version of Code 3.1. of the Subsidiary Arrangements of
its Safeguards agreement. The new provision called on Iran to notify the IAEA of nuclear
facilities as soon as a decision is made to construct them. Iran withdrew from the revised
Code 3.1. in March 2007, but the agency did not recognize Tehran’s unilateral suspension of
the provision. Iran argued that it was obligated to report the Fordow enrichment plant only
180 days before nuclear material entered the site, according to the original terms of Code 3.1.
However, a closer technical analysis showed that, while the facility alone was too
small to make sense for a civilian programme, it was also too small for a weapons
programme. Confirming this assessment, Iranian officials declared plans to build
ten additional facilities in heavily protected locations, which would all adhere to
IAEA safeguards. In July 2011, Iranian officials announced plans to transfer 20 per
cent uranium production to the Fordow site. Iran needs 20 per cent uranium for its
Tehran Research Reactor and four planned research reactors that it says are intended
to produce medical isotopes. Because those reactors need smaller amounts of fuel
than a light-water power reactor, a smaller facility might make some civilian sense.
However, Fodow could provide Iran with a viable breakout option, since a stockpile
of 20 per cent enriched uranium greatly reduces the time to a bomb. In the context of
past developments, the hardening and dispersal of enrichment plants is suspicious,
but by itself is not proof of Iran’s intentions to build weapons. Strategic reasons for
protecting a civilian programme cannot be ruled out.19
Iran has had a mixed record of cooperation with international nuclear
institutions. Immediately after its nuclear activities were exposed in 2002, Iran
grudgingly cooperated with inspectors, concealing and obfuscating many details
of the programme. A 2003 IAEA report characterized Iran’s cooperation with the
agency as ‘limited and reactive, and information being slow in coming, changing
and contradictory’ (IAEA 2003c). Iran has since taken measures to remedy earlier
failures and the IAEA now says nuclear material is accounted for and under
agency safeguards.
In October 2003, Iran signed an agreement with France, Germany and the
United Kingdom, adopting voluntary measures to eliminate suspicions about its
nuclear intentions. It agreed to cooperate fully with IAEA inspections, sign the
Additional Protocol and voluntarily suspend enrichment activities.20 However,
due to what it called ‘prolonged and fruitless’ negotiations with European states,
Iran restarted uranium conversion in August 2005 (IAEA 2005a). After its case was
referred to the Security Council in February 2006 due to ‘absence of confidence
that Iran’s nuclear programme is exclusively for peaceful purposes’, Iran
suspended and never ratified the Additional Protocol (IAEA 2005c).
Iran has refused to abide by several rounds of Security Council resolutions
imposing sanctions against its nuclear programme and requiring it to suspend
uranium enrichment and heavy-water activities.21 Iran considers these resolutions
illegal because they contradict its NPT rights to peaceful nuclear technology.
Despite the repeated referral of its nuclear case to the Security Council, Iran has
never been declared to be outside the NPT, mostly because the treaty does not
include a mechanism by which such ruptures should be decided and because the
international community would rather keep Iran within the IAEA monitoring
system. According to the IAEA, Iran clearly violated its safeguards agreement,
which is contrary to Article 3 of the treaty. But it less clear whether Iran has violated
19
For a detailed discussion, see Barzashka and Oelrich (2010).
20
The Additional Protocol grants the IAEA short-notice access to nuclear information
and sites that are not covered by the safeguards agreement, such as uranium mines, fuel
fabrication plants and nuclear waste facilities.
21
The UN Security Council has issued six resolutions on the Iranian nuclear issue since
2006, including: S/RES/1696(2006), S/RES/1737(2006), S/RES/1747(2007), S/RES/1803
(2008), S/RES/1835(2008) and S/RES/1927(2010).
Article 2, which calls on non-nuclear-weapon states not to develop nuclear

weapons. The IAEA and Iran have fundamentally different views here—the IAEA
argues that member states have an obligation to provide positive evidence that no
weapon-related activity is occurring but Iran claims that, under the treaty, it must
simply submit declared facilities to safeguards and that proving a negative is, in any
case, impossible. The State Department argued that Iran’s long-term concealment,
illicit procurement and safeguards violations along with the nature of Iran’s nuclear
programme and its lack of economic justification leads to the conclusion that ‘Iran is
pursuing an effort to manufacture nuclear weapons, and has sought and received
assistance in this effort in violation of Article II of the NPT’ (US Department of State
2005). However, Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations (UN) argues that,
‘while discrete, [Iran’s efforts] did not violate the NPT by diverting its programme
to military use’ (Zarif 2007). Moreover, Iran claims that Western suspicions are
merely a basis for discrimination; other member states with enrichment capacity,
such as the Netherlands, are not asked to prove their innocence.
Although the IAEA does not have conclusive evidence that Iran’s nuclear
programme has military dimensions, it has raised questions about very specific
research that is not dual use but applicable only to nuclear weapons. In its reports,
the IAEA refers to this work as the ‘alleged studies’.22 The IAEA has no
independent intelligence-gathering capacity so the accusations come from
Western, mostly US, intelligence agencies and Iranian dissident groups with
contacts inside the nuclear enterprise (Oelrich and Barzashka 2010a) but the IAEA
states that the ‘information, which was provided to the Agency by several
Member States, appears to have been derived from multiple sources over different
periods of time, is detailed in content, and appears to be generally consistent’.23
The allegations include research on converging explosive compression of uranium
and spherical casting of uranium, detonators with precise timing, and a possible
nuclear re-entry vehicle for Iran’s Shahab-3 missile (IAEA 2008). The Times
published an undated document that laid out a programme for research on a
neutron generator using explosively compressed uranium deuteride (Philip 2009).
None of this research would have any plausible use except for a nuclear weapon.
In addition, there have been accusations of work that might have some civilian
applications but clearly would be of interest to a nuclear weapon designer, for
example production of polonium-210, used for neutron triggers for weapons.
Iran steadfastly refuses to address the accusations, arguing that they are
fabrications and, in any case, simply outside the purview of the IAEA and the
requirements of the NPT. Iran specifically refuses to address the accusations
unless confronted with actual evidence rather than what it sees as mere assertion.
In response, the US refuses to allow Iran to see the original documents because
doing so would put in danger the informants who provided them.
When the relationship between the US and Iran deteriorated, nuclear concerns
increased. The IAEA has not been able to prove that Tehran has been engaged in
nuclear weapons work; there is no single aspect of Iran’s nuclear efforts that is
a smoking gun. However, clearly Iran has the potential to build nuclear weapons and
there are sound, and historic, reasons to be suspicious of Tehran’s nuclear intentions.
22
These are often referred to by Iranian sources as ‘the American laptop’.
23
IAEA 2008, para 16.
Options and solutions

Iran, its regional neighbours, the Security Council, European powers, the US and
the rest of the world will never agree on what the Iran ‘problem’ is. However, this
does not mean that solutions are impossible. Iran has a nuclear-weapon potential
and has engaged in activity that is either ambiguous or worrying; nonetheless
building an actual weapon depends on its intentions and choices. Of course, no
one can be certain of what Iran’s intentions are and perhaps even Iran has not
made a choice. If Iran develops a nuclear weapon, there will be clear evidence of
that and it is hoped that the world will respond in some way. Even short of a
bomb, however, other nations will respond to continuing ambiguity about Iran’s
potential for weapons. The international and regional communities have an
interest in affecting Iran’s calculus, to move its incentives from more to less
worrying outcomes.
Continuing ambiguity
No one believes that Iran today has a nuclear weapon or even the material for one.
The challenge today is the possibility that Iran may be working towards a bomb.
Consequently, many countries, lacking absolute assurances otherwise, will act as
though the potential danger is there.
If Iran maintains its nuclear ambiguity indefinitely, it is reasonable to fear
that other nations in the region may want to match Iran’s latent capability. While
a standoff among virtual nuclear powers is less dangerous than having neighbours
with nuclear-armed missiles pointed at one another, it is still very destabilizing.
Wars fought between latent nuclear powers can be expected to spark frantic races to
complete bomb work. Indeed, fear that a neighbour might be starting the final
stages of a bomb could spark pre-emptive wars. Wars, once started, could be brutal
and intense if each side felt compelled to force its enemy to capitulate before
a nuclear weapon could be completed. Compromise and ceasefires could be seen as
stalling tactics to allow final bomb work and could become impossible.
Of course, Iran’s nuclear weapon capability will not be intended equally for
every potential enemy and not every nation will perceive the same threat from
a nuclear-armed Iran. The US may be the main motivation for and focus of an
Iranian nuclear weapon. The US is deeply suspicious of Iran’s radical ideological
motivations and views the regime as hostile, anti-status-quo, threatening to the
US’s ally Israel, and a supporter of international terrorism. At the same time, the
US believes that a peaceful Middle East and access to its oil supplies are essential
to the global economy. Thus, the US feels forced to engage—or confront—Iran.
If Iran is determined to maintain a latent nuclear-weapon capability, the US and
the rest of the world have limited options for unambiguously and directly stopping
it, short of invading and occupying the country. Military attack only on Iran’s
enrichment facilities could set back their enrichment programme, perhaps by
several years, especially if both the centrifuges and the stockpiles of enriched
uranium were destroyed. An air attack on the Arak reactor would stop potential
plutonium production. But a military attack might so galvanize the country
that whatever ambiguity there had been might evaporate, turning a potential
weapon into a real one. There is always the possibility that Israel will attack
Iran’s enrichment plant and, while we are less confident about predicting Israeli
actions—and indeed the likelihood of Israeli attack may indeed be greater than
what we predict—we believe the probability is still small.
With the limited and universally unattractive military options, the US would
be forced to use continuing pressure short of war, but, while sanctions and covert
action can slow Iran’s progress towards a nuclear weapon and can make the price
of developing such a weapon very high, they cannot stop Iran if it is determined to
do so. Iran has an indigenous capability to produce centrifuges and has some
uranium ore deposits, so, even under the most severe sanctions or even military
attack, Iran could probably eke out enough highly enriched uranium for a few
nuclear weapons. Those nations deeply suspicious of Iran can only hope that it
will remove the ambiguity by giving up key components of its nuclear fuel
cycle programme in exchange for greater integration into the international nuclear
fuel economy.
If Iran builds a bomb

If Iran takes the last step and overtly develops weapons, the US and its allies and
Iran’s neighbours will have to depend on a combination of containment,
deterrence of nuclear use through threat of devastating response, and defence.
Though US intelligence judges that ‘Iran’s nuclear decision-making is guided
by a cost – benefit approach’ (Clapper 2011), some portray Iran as a ‘rogue state’,
meaning it is ideological, radical and not entirely rational and, therefore, not
capable of being deterred. However, especially because the Iranian government
sees itself as a regime with a unique vision and mission, it places extremely high
priority on regime, as opposed to solely national, survival. Nuclear use might be
part of a dying spasm or result from mistake and miscalculation, so the danger
must always be taken seriously, but offensive nuclear first use will never seem
attractive based on calculation of costs and benefits.
Deterring Iran’s use of a nuclear weapon is just the beginning of the challenge.
Some US strategists believe that the greater threat is that Iran will believe that
a nuclear weapon neutralizes threats of conventional attack by the US and other
powers and Iran will, therefore, be emboldened to engage in ever more risky and
provocative behaviour until Western and regional powers are forced to intervene
even against a nuclear-armed Iran.24 Iran may want to develop nuclear weapons,
not to use against European capitals to paralyse North Atlantic Treaty
Organization (NATO) powers, but to use nuclear weapons on its own territory
to stop a conventional invading army, a nuclear use that would present the West
with a very difficult conundrum regarding ‘retaliation’. Whether the US and other
nations are actually paralysed by an Iranian nuclear weapon is not really
important. The danger arises if Iran only believes that nuclear weapons provide
a security guarantee and is lured into ever riskier behaviour. Moreover, the US has
an interest in devaluing nuclear acquisition to deter the next potential proliferator
from going nuclear. The US may feel compelled to be particularly rigid with Iran
or any new nuclear states precisely to prove that nuclear weapons do not buy the
kind of military and political leverage hoped for or, if they do, only at great cost.
24
A major motivation for a European missile defence may be to maintain European
NATO powers’ ability to intervene conventionally in Iran without fear of nuclear retaliation.
A nuclear weapon could, therefore, increase the likelihood of conventional

confrontation between the West and Iran (Sagan 2006; Takeyh 2007).
The US and Europe are, of course, not the only possible targets of an Iranian
nuclear weapon. Iran sees itself as a natural great regional power, due a grander role in
the Middle East than many of its neighbours would welcome. Historically, when any
new power arises, other states take to either balancing or bandwagoning. Iran has few
natural allies among its neighbours and few would welcome Iranian dominance; thus
counterbalancing is likely among at least some, probably most, of Iran’s neighbours.
Some neighbours may seek closer security ties with the US, including nuclear
guarantees to counter any new Iranian nuclear capability. However, some nations
will reject both Iranian and US nuclear dominance. Only a handful of countries in
the Middle East have both the financial and technical resources to develop nuclear
weapons but, among those, some will decide that an independent national nuclear
force is the only counter to Iran that they can depend on, creating a new regional
arms race.
The US is pressing ahead with a missile defence system intended to counter
Iranian missiles, perhaps armed in the future with nuclear weapons. The primary
purpose of a defensive system is, of course, to intercept and destroy Iranian
missiles if they are launched. But having the system in place might also dissuade
Iran from deploying offensive missiles in the first place. If Iran’s missiles can be
shot down easily (something that is now technically uncertain), then the missiles
are less valuable to Iran. The cost– benefit calculation may be shifted far enough to
cause Iran, or any other nation, to simply decide not even to start down the
deployment path or, perhaps, to be reluctant to deploy a valuable, limited asset
like a nuclear weapon on a vulnerable launch platform.25 A defensive missile
system could also reassure wavering allies, encouraging them to stand firm with
the US against a nuclear-armed Iran in some future crisis.26 Regardless of the
actual effectiveness or perceived utility of missile defences, US domestic politics
makes pursuit of missile defences obligatory.
The consequences of an actual Iranian bomb, or even a potential bomb, are
dangerous and destabilizing and the potential for one remains as long as Iran
controls production of enriched uranium and, perhaps, someday plutonium.
Uranium enrichment alone is not the issue—the Netherlands has approximately
a thousand times the enrichment capacity of Iran but no one is worried that the
Dutch are going to make a dash for a nuclear weapon. Uncertainty about Iran’s
intentions is the cause of concern but intentions are impossible to prove and
building trust requires generations of good relations. With intentions so
ambiguous, the only concrete part of the problem is uranium or plutonium
production and Iran has staked enormous political prestige on its nuclear
programme, making it a symbol of national rights and independence.
Ways to limit the threat

With Iran’s limited capacity, enrichment is the current choke point in getting to a
weapon. Low-enriched material can serve as the feedstock for further enrichment,
25
This assumes, of course, that Iran believes that the defensive missiles might actually work.
26
In this case, it is the allies that must be convinced the missile system will work.
significantly reducing the time needed to get to bomb-grade material once a

decision is made to do that; thus stockpiles of even low-enriched uranium are
worrying. As of February 2010, Iran was stockpiling 20 per cent enriched uranium.
A large enough stockpile of this higher-concentration material could be a game-
changer by providing Iran with a viable breakout option. Iran’s breakout time
starting from its stockpile of 3.5 per cent enriched uranium is in the order of
months, but starting with enough 20 per cent uranium, this time is in the order of
weeks. Maintaining ceilings on the size of stockpiles would be a significant
confidence-building measure. For example, using some of Iran’s Low-enriched
uranium (LEU) for conversion into fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor, as was
proposed in 2009, removes LEU from the country and reduces the inventory of
LEU.27 This deal fell through and today Iran is enriching to 20 per cent ostensibly to
produce fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor and four new research reactors but
has not yet started manufacturing fuel elements. Nuclear fuel supplier states could
offer Iran a similar arrangement requiring the swap of 20 per cent uranium and
perhaps LEU for ready-made fuel.
Uranium can be enriched in gas centrifuges only if in gaseous form, that is,
uranium hexafluoride, but uranium in power reactor fuel is in the form of
uranium oxide, a ceramic that can withstand the reactor’s high temperatures.
Converting back from the ceramic to gaseous form is difficult and would be
detected by IAEA safeguards. Standard industry practice is to store uranium in
the hexafluoride form (it is a dense solid at room temperature, so easy to store) to
make further enrichment or dilution easier. Iran could, however, begin conversion
of some of its hexafluoride to oxide form, which would also be a significant
confidence-building measure.
Iran does not yet have the technical capability to manufacture fuel elements for
power reactors and, aside from the reactor at Bushehr being built and fuelled by
Russia, the fuel specifications of future reactors are not yet even fixed; as a result,
incorporating uranium into fuel elements now would be impossible in any case.
Iran could, however, store LEU under international control, for example, at the
international fuel bank in Angarsk, Russia, in anticipation of having a foreign
manufacturer, perhaps Russia, use the uranium at an appropriate time.
In addition to restraint in enrichment, Iran could change long-standing policy
and address the ‘alleged studies’ into nuclear weapons-related research. Iran
believes these accusations are outside of the purview of the IAEA and that
investigation would dignify what it dismisses as slander and would inevitably
encroach on its national sovereignty. Yet, the international community is suspicious
of Iran precisely because of the lack of openness of its nuclear programme—for
example, a history of admitting important activity only after it has been revealed by
outsiders. While other sovereign states openly discuss and debate long-term plans
for commercial nuclear power, Iran seems to take protection of information as a
symbol of national sovereignty. Iran’s argument that secrecy is justified by the
ongoing threat of attack by the US or Israel is spurious. The locations of actual
facilities that would be targets are, in fact, known. Rather than insisting on national
27
The Tehran Research Reactor deal was a confidence-building measure and never
meant to significantly reduce the Iranian threat, since the deal required a one-time swap of
Iranian LEU for 20 per cent enriched fuel and did not limit Iran’s enrichment. For a detailed
discussion on the technical dimensions of the deal, see Barzashka (2010).
rights, Iran could set itself up as an international proponent of nuclear transparency.

Its model could be the Republic of South Africa’s decision to invite the IAEA in not to
only help dismantle its nuclear weapon programme but to demonstrate to the world
that it had done so. Seizing the high moral ground, especially in contrast with
Israel’s secretiveness, would be, at the very least, an interesting experiment.
The ideal solution, from the West’s perspective, is for Iran to end uranium
enrichment altogether. Iran’s possible nuclear weapon ambitions, even the ‘alleged
studies’, would present only a hypothetical danger without the supporting
enrichment capability. While Iran has consistently insisted on its right to enrich
uranium, it has argued that its decision to actually develop an enrichment capability
rests on a history of unreliable foreign fuel suppliers. We have seen that this history
is more complex and subtle than usually portrayed. It is also difficult to credit given
Russia’s delayed but actual fuel supply to Bushehr. However, perception of national
history is usually more important to policy than actual national history.
Regional solutions
The deeply suspicious relationship between Iran and the US and other powers may
be beyond repair for the foreseeable future, and making concessions to the Security
Council could seem politically intolerable to Iran. Regional solutions, in contrast,
while not easy, could hold great promise. Turkey’s efforts to act as an intermediary
in a 2009 fuel exchange deal between the US, France, Russia and Iran offers one
example. If Iran, as it claims, has no interest in a nuclear weapon, then it is also
interested in ensuring that its neighbours refrain from weapons development. Iran
and its neighbours could interact in a more equitable power relationship so that
every compromise and accommodation would not have to seem like a concession.
A regional enrichment facility is one commonly proposed option for providing
Iran with the fuel guarantees it believes it needs, while reassuring its neighbours.
Regional centres face many challenges; the foremost is a lack of incentives for
others to participate. The international market appears to be a reliable supplier of
enrichment services and fuel. Since the beginning of the nuclear age, no nuclear
reactor has stopped operations because fuel was denied for political reasons. The
advanced nuclear nations now have an overcapacity in enrichment and new
reactors will come online only slowly; thus enrichment prices should stay low for
a decade or two. Only in rare cases, for example Iran, will a nation have concerns
about the political reliability of fuel supplies. Potential regional partners might ask
why they should produce something locally at great expense when they can buy it
cheaply on the international market.
The timing of the development of a regional enrichment facility is another
challenge. The only power reactor in the region is Iran’s soon-to-be-completed
reactor at Bushehr and that will be fuelled by Russia. Iran’s other light-water reactors
are still on the drawing boards. Several other nations have expressed interest in
building reactors. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has a contract with the Republic
of Korea for construction of four reactors, and fuel deals for those reactors have
already been negotiated. Other nations have, at most, ambitions that may result in
reactors in a decade or more. A regional enrichment centre may not be economically
plausible before then. Even so, Iran could use the framework of regional enrichment
capacity to bring its enrichment capacity under greater regional inspection and
partial control or to eventually support enrichment located outside Iran.
Short of forming regional enrichment centres, aspiring nuclear nations could

form a regional uranium buyers’ cooperative. Aside from issues of national
prestige, national enrichment capability should only be a means to an end:
assurance of fuel supply. It is in the interest of all nations in the region that none
develops autonomous enrichment capability that could be diverted to weapons.
A buyers’ cooperative could be as simple as an agreement to buy all enriched
uranium through a single international broker. International support for such
an arrangement should be strong and broad, so fuel guarantees from the US, China,
the European Union (EU) and Russia would be forthcoming. The cooperative
would create an isolating layer that would dampen any attempt to apply political
pressure upon any one member, giving each member greater confidence in its
supply and reducing each member’s incentives to develop national enrichment.
Conclusion
Nuclear fuel cycle technology is inherently dual use—it will always have at least
a latent weapons applicability—so a state’s benign intentions are key to
international trust and harmony. However, intentions are almost impossible to
prove and could change very quickly. There are many reasons to be sceptical of
Tehran’s nuclear activities. Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions may remain
ambiguous for the indefinite future but even that nuclear twilight creates dangers.
Iran is often treated as a unique case, but it is a symptom of a much wider
problem. Although there may be some specific ways to limit the Iranian threat,
a solution will likely require a fundamental shift in attitude towards the nuclear
fuel cycle. Change has to be led by the established nuclear states. The lack of
a universal attitude towards nuclear fuel technology undermines non-
proliferation efforts. Uranium enrichment cannot be treated as just another
industry, like steel or petrochemicals, when established nuclear states do it but is
considered a nuclear weapons proliferation threat when the rest of the world
engages in it. Nuclear fuel supply should be an international activity with
international guarantees, whether regional or global. The nations with established
commercial nuclear industries must provide balanced incentives to Iran—and
other countries—and work more actively at promoting regional solutions.
Perfectly reliable supplies of nuclear fuel will not stop Iran from developing its
own capability if its real goal is a nuclear weapon, but reliable supplies will force
Iran to show its hand, removing the ongoing ambiguity regarding its nuclear
activities.
Notes on contributors
Ivanka Barzashka is a research associate at the Centre for Science and Security
Studies, King’s College London. She previously managed the Federation of
American Scientists’ interdisciplinary assessment of Iranian nuclear capabilities.
Ivan Oelrich is a defense analyst and writer in Arlington, Virginia. He has held
senior research positions at the Institute for Defense Analyses, Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government, the Congressional Office of Technology
Assessment, the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, and the Federation of
American Scientists.
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Cambridge Review of International Affairs

ISSN: 0955-7571 (Print) 1474-449X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccam20

Iran and nuclear ambiguity

Ivanka Barzashka & Ivan Oelrich

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09557571.2012.656457

Published online: 26 Mar 2012.

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Download by: [Uniwersytet Jagiellonski] Date: 11 April 2017, At: 13:29

Iran and nuclear ambiguity

Ivanka Barzashka and Ivan Oelrich

Iran presents a major challenge to the global fabric of nuclear non-proliferation.

ISSN 0955-7571 print/ISSN 1474-449X online/12/010001–26 q 2012 Centre of International Studies

this nuclear ambiguity indefinitely. Dealing with continuing ambiguity is the

The nuclear dual use problem

Iran’s civilian nuclear efforts

suspicious of Iran’s intentions. Judging intentions from actions is rarely

Origins of Iran’s civilian nuclear programme

announced that it is open to bids from foreign companies for construction of

Potential military applications of Iran’s nuclear programme

Iran’s justifications and intentions

Iranian declaratory policy

At the time, Tehran acknowledged the need to strengthen agency safeguards,

Evidence of suspicious actions

cooperation agreement if Iran were to abrogate its international obligations

Article 2, which calls on non-nuclear-weapon states not to develop nuclear

Options and solutions

If Iran builds a bomb

A nuclear weapon could, therefore, increase the likelihood of conventional

Ways to limit the threat

significantly reducing the time needed to get to bomb-grade material once a

rights, Iran could set itself up as an international proponent of nuclear transparency.

Short of forming regional enrichment centres, aspiring nuclear nations could

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