Iran’s Nuclear Fileand

Security in Persian Gulf

Abbas MalekiLandau Network, Stanley Foundation

Tremezzo, ItalyApril 25 10, 2007

What I want to say

• Theories of Nuclear Proliferation and Restraint

• Few Options for Iran to end the crises

• Nuclear Technology and security Arrangement In Persian Gulf

• How to deal with Iran

Theories of NuclearProliferation and Restraint

• Security threats

• Prestige (status)

• Regional/other ambitions

• Organizational politics

• State building

• Electoral politics

• Regime• Norms• Alliance/no threat• Pressure

• Electoral politics• Liberalization• Lack resources• Democracy

Proliferation Restraint

Iran’s Nuclear History

1950s Declared interest in Nuclear Technology

1960s Little nuclear activity

1973-1977 Robust nuclear activity

1977-1985 Nuclear efforts frozen/cut

1985-1996 Resumption of Nuclear, but drift, modest progress

1997-2007 Aggressive nuclear gains

Iran’s Nuclear History (2)October 2003

Iran abandoned uranium enrichment in Tehran Agreement with EU3

November 2004

Paris Agreement. Iran abstained from uranium conversion

August 2005

Iran resumed uranium conversion

January 2006

Iran resumed uranium enrichment

February 2006

IAEA sent Iran’s file to Security Council

July 2006

Resolution 1969, demanded Iran to terminate it enrichment activities

Iran’s Nuclear History (3)2007 Resolutions 1737, 1747,

financial sanctions, limits on official trips

April 2007 Larijani-Solana will meet

White House blessed new dialogue

IAEA says Iran enrichment is in low level

GB wants to reevaluate its relations with Iran

New positive signals from Tehran

Iran’s advantages

• Iran’s enormous reserves of oil and natural gas make it a significant factor in the global fossil fuel market and provide Tehran with its own economic leverage.  

• Iran has an extensive trading relationship with the European Union,

• A burgeoning energy relationship with China, • A longstanding commercial nuclear relationship with

Russia.  • Billions and tens of billions of dollars are at stake  • Beijing, Moscow, and Brussels understand that they

cannot significantly hurt Iran without also hurting themselves

• Membership to Shanghai Cooperation Organization

Iran’s Energy Reserves by Type

Iran’s Energy Reserves

Iranian uranium fuel cycle path

1

3 4M ining U ra niu m O re M illing

C o nc e ntra tio n

P u rific a tio nC o nv e rs io n to

U F 6

C o nv e rs io n toU ra niu m m e ta l

Saghand/Yazd Area

Natanz

2

IsfahanIsfahan

5

6

Esfahan

Bushehr

2

Isfahan

Fuel fabrication

Iran’s centrifuge Industrial plantPlan:

1. Test single P1 centrifuge with “nuclear material” (UF6)

2. Test a “cascade” of 10 P1’s with UF6.

3. Test 19 P1s in a cascade.

4. Run a cascade of 168 P1s.

5. Run the second cascade of 164 P1s

6. Run 9 cascade of 164 P1s

7. Matching together?

Joint Enrichment Facility in Iran

• Commercial consortium of the major nuclear fuel suppliers that would guarantee fuel supply if problems arose with the multinational facility

• An MNA must provide both assured access to fuel for Iran and

• Assurance to the international community that the enrichment facility or technology will not be turned to military purposes.

• The success or failure of any particular MNA proposal will depend on practical details such as

-ownership structure, -Technical safeguards, -Questions about staffing, -Controls on and access to sensitive information.

Organizational Chart for Joint Venture

managementc ompany

Holding company

Centrifugeleasing

Workers Capital equipment

French Model

• A French-led enrichment program announced recently by Mohammad Saidi

• The development could take two different forms: -Either a brand new enrichment facility by an international holding company, or the conversion of the present Iranian enrichment program into one jointly owned and operated by Iran and outside governments.

• The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already envisioned the possibility of multi-lateral operation of existing facilities.

Iran & URENCO

• Iran and Europe join together to build a state-of-the-art enrichment plant in Iran using URENCO’s most advanced centrifuges with the proviso that the centrifuges’ bottom bearings contain self destruct mechanisms that could deploy in the event of unauthorized use.

MIT-Harvard Initiative

Two MIT’s scholars proposed the joint venture could be created as a holding company that would lease centrifuges from an outside source such as URENCO.

• A typical URENCO facility, equipped with 50,000 advanced T-21 centrifuges, is capable of producing fuels for 42 of 1,000 megawatt nuclear power plants, like the one under construction in Bushehr.

The JV Centrifuge plant:

60,000 T-21 centrifuges

~168 P1 Centrifuges AccountantsManagers

Technicians

We estimate that the facility will employ about 230 people:

Employees will come from each of the partner countries. There will be employees from each country present 24/7.

5 Million SWU-kg/yr support 42 reactors

SWU: Separative Work Unit

Times and Costs•The T-21 centrifuge has not gone into mass production yet, however, we estimate from LES and George Besse II the costs associated with this facility:

$1.9 billion to $2.8 billion, depending on how much extra it might cost to build a high tech facility in a developing country.

Again from George Besse II, we estimate that the entire facility might take 7 years to build.

But it could be made in stages, with the first taking as little as 18 months.

Matt Bunn

P2 centrifuges are made of maraging steel with a bellows in the middle to handle “resonances.”

The IAEA has been told that Iran cannot manufacture maraging steel bellows and so has produced shorter rotors.

Preventing “Nationalization”Political Barriers: Technical Barriers:

Cascades will be setup as inflexibly as possible to prevent them from being quickly rearranged for producing HEU.

“Self-destruct” mechanisms

The bearing has very complex and difficult “groves”

Enrichment in Russian Soils

• multinational enrichment center to produce fuel

• Possibly in Russia, with Iran playing a central role in its management

Fuel Bank

• An international fuel bank, with rules that would require it to step in and provide fuel unless the Security Council specifically voted to bar it from doing so

Stockpile in Iran

• a stockpile within Iran itself.

Incentives for Iran

• Multi-layered guarantees of a reliable fuel supply for a peaceful Iranian nuclear program;

• Iranian agreement that large-scale enrichment will occur elsewhere, not in Iran, at least for a period;

• Full Iranian cooperation with international inspectors, including ratification of the Agreed Protocol to safeguards

• voluntary additional steps to clarify remaining questions about its past activities;

• New Trade and Cooperation Agreement between Iran and Europe

• Assurances from the United States and the other major powers that they will not attack Iran or attempt to overthrow its government as long as Iran complies with its nuclear obligations and does not commit or sponsor aggression against others.

What does Iran need?

• Incentive package mentions • Respecting Iran's rights under the nuclear Non-

Proliferation Treaty (NPT)• Firm guarantees on the proposed offers of nuclear

assistance• Sale of light water reactors to Iran• Secured nuclear fuel supply• Iran seeks clarification on the status of U.S. sanctions

which presently prohibit those offers of nuclear and technological assistance to Iran

• Is the United States willing to lift some if not all of those sanctions?

European Incentives

• The proposal presented by Javier Solana to Iran on June 5, 2006 contains most, but not all, the

• necessary elements for a resolution to the Iranian nuclear issue.

• The offer includes, a five-year guaranteed reactor fuel supply,

• Access to advanced reactor technology for new projects,

• Promises of increased trade and investment, and

• Expanded cooperation in other areas, including civil aviation and development of the oil and gas sector.

Warm and Cold Standby

• In 2000, the recently-privatized U.S. Enrichment Corporation (USEC) announced that it planned to shut down the Portsmouth enrichment, one of the two U.S. gaseous diffusion enrichment plants, as there was not enough demand to require both of them.

• The Department of Energy (DOE), which continued to own the Portsmouth and Paducah facilities while leasing them to USEC, developed a “warm standby” and a “cold standby” option for Portsmouth.

Warm Standby

• Among the proposals and counterproposals seeking a resolution to this issue, one that is especially gaining momentum in some quarters of Europe and Iran is to allow Iran’s centrifuges to spin but with no uranium hexafluoride.

• This would give Iran important knowledge of centrifuge cascade operations with proliferation risks

Warm Standby

• Portions of the plant would have continued to operate in a “recycle mode,” in which, the product and waste from the cascade would be returned to the input

• Material would cycle through the cascade without actually getting enriched, essentially just to keep that part of the cascade running.

• The rest of the plant would have been shut down, but “fully buffered” with dry air pumped into the cascades to ensure that damp air would not get in and cause corrosion, potentially allowing a relatively rapid restart.

Cold Standby

• The plant was to be entirely shut down, but with all of the cells buffered with dry air as above, and with constant surveillance and maintenance to ensure that it could be returned to operation reasonably quickly if needed.

• Buffer alarms were to be installed on the cells to sound a warning if damp air began to leak in to any of them.

• Some uranium deposits that had built up on parts of the cascades over the years, which could have blocked up the system as it moved to restart, were to be removed.

• Restart in this case was expected to take up to two years.

• The cost of this option was projected to be far less, $210 million total over four years.

How to deal with Iran?

• Coercion has so far failed• More effective might be a package of

inducements that included acceptance of and help for Iran’s ambitious civilian nuclear power program

• Relaxation of existing economic sanctions against Iran

• Establishment of a dialogue with Tehran on regional security: GCC + Iran & Iraq 

How to deal with Iran (2)

• Withhold on Iran’s strength overestimation

• Support democracy in Iran, not “Regime Change”

• Refrain to involve Iran on Shia-Sunni confrontation

• Insisting on monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities

• Revival EU proposal on TCA

How to deal with Iran (3)

• Engaging Iran to the regional activities in Persian Gulf to remove Confidence Gap

• Reactivate of RAPMI environment program

• Sharing Iranian companies to build new nuclear power plants in the region

• Removing obstacles on Iran’s energy projects in Caspian Sea

Thank you

maleki@caspianstudies.com