Day: February 11, 2014
The art and not the article
Nuclear talks with Iran start again February 18 in Vienna. This time the objective is a comprehensive agreement to replace the Joint Plan of Action initiated in January for six months and possibly to be renewed for another six months.
There are two routes to the fissile material needed to make nuclear weapons: enrichment of uranium (in Iran’s case using centrifuges) to above 90% U238 (in nature it occurs mainly as the isotope U235, containing three fewer neutrons); or production of plutonium 239, which is generated by irradiating U235 in a reactor and then “reprocessing” the spent fuel to separate plutonium. Ideally, if you don’t want someone to have nuclear weapons you would block both these routes: no enrichment and no plutonium production.
That is what my friends at the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), led by Eric Edelman and Dennis Ross, prefer in their Assessment of the Interim Deal with Iran. They don’t like the Joint Plan of Action because it exchanges a limited freeze and small rollback on nuclear facilities for a limited freeze and small rollback of sanctions. Their detailed critique is well worth reading. They fear, echoing the Israelis, that there will be no comprehensive agreement and that the Obama administration will settle for extending the interim deal indefinitely, leaving Iran with a substantial nuclear capability even if no nuclear weapons. They want a big rollback of enrichment and reprocessing capabilities in Iran, with stringent limits imposed ad infinitum. Read more
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