Benjamin Netanyahu warning on Iranian nuclear progress
Benjamin Netanyahu stubbornly ignored warnings from the White House to tone down his rhetoric on Iran, warning that Tehran would be on the brink of nuclear weapons capability in six to seven months.
Speaking on the most popular Sunday morning news show, Meet The Press, he
repeated his demand for Washington to draw a "red line" over the
Iranian regime's nuclear weapons ambiton.
"You have to place that red line before them [Iran] now, before it's too
late," he said.
Earlier, Mr Netanyahu rejected as "completely groundless" the notion
that he is wielding the Iranian nuclear threat as a political weapon to
weaken President Obama ahead of the US elections, which has gained currency
among some American commentators.
The Israeli prime minister also emphatically denied claims made by Leon
Panetta, the US defence secretary, that Israel's insistence on a "red
line", after which the US would guarantee to attack Iranian nuclear
installations, was mere "posturing".
Mr Panetta said that "red lines are kind of political arguments that are
used to try to put people in a corner".
Dismissing Mr Panetta's damning analysis of his policy, he assumed a tone of
long-suffering patience with his allies and their reluctance to issue Tehran
with a genuine military threat.
"I started speaking about the Iranian threat 16 years ago. If I was not a lone voice then, I was one of the few, and then others joined… Now I speak about red lines for Iran. So far I am one of the few; I hope others will join," he told the Jerusalem Post paper in comments published yesterday.
"It takes time to persuade people of the wisdom of this policy."
As early as 1986, Mr Netanyahu, then Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, advocated decisive military action as the only way to deal with terror threats. In 'Terrorism: How the West Can Win' the burgeoning leader identified the Islamic Republic of Iran among the greatest threats to global security and criticised US reluctance to use its military might to thwart terrorism under what he termed the 'Western malaise'.
"The rules of engagement have become so rigid that governments often straightjacket themselves in the face of unambiguous aggression," he wrote. "The application of military force, or the prospect of such application, inhibits terrorist violence."
As prime minister, Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed frustration with American reluctance to condone military action in Iran. Only last week, he thundered that the international community had 'no moral right' to put 'red lines before Israel'.
But this bullish approach met a cool reception in Washington. President Obama is reported to have declined a request to meet with Mr Netanyahu during the United Nations general assembly later this month.
The consensus that Mr Netanyahu has deliberately used the Iran issue to insert himself in the American electoral race, to embarrass the president and boost the Republican ticket, is also gaining momentum in the US media.
The Jerusalem Post, a right-leaning Israeli newspaper, observed that this suggestion "annoys him [Netanyahu]" and concluded that the tough rhetoric he has used to assert Israel's right to take arms against the Iranian threat was for the benefit of his domestic- rather than the American - electorate. The prime minister did not refute the possibility that general elections could be called in Israel as early as March next year.
Mr Netanyahu did, however, promise the Jerusalem Post's readers that Iran's nuclear programme will be crushed, concluding that his main regret for the year was "we have not yet stopped Iran."
"When you interview me next year, I hope I can give you a different answer," he said.
The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard meanwhile warned that "nothing will remain" of Israel if it takes military action against Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme.
Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran's response to any attack will begin near the Israeli border. The Islamic Republic has close ties with militants in Gaza and Lebanon, both of which border Israel. It was the latest of a series of apocalytpic threats by Iranian leaders directed at the Jewish state.
"I started speaking about the Iranian threat 16 years ago. If I was not a lone voice then, I was one of the few, and then others joined… Now I speak about red lines for Iran. So far I am one of the few; I hope others will join," he told the Jerusalem Post paper in comments published yesterday.
"It takes time to persuade people of the wisdom of this policy."
As early as 1986, Mr Netanyahu, then Israel's ambassador to the United Nations, advocated decisive military action as the only way to deal with terror threats. In 'Terrorism: How the West Can Win' the burgeoning leader identified the Islamic Republic of Iran among the greatest threats to global security and criticised US reluctance to use its military might to thwart terrorism under what he termed the 'Western malaise'.
"The rules of engagement have become so rigid that governments often straightjacket themselves in the face of unambiguous aggression," he wrote. "The application of military force, or the prospect of such application, inhibits terrorist violence."
As prime minister, Mr Netanyahu has repeatedly expressed frustration with American reluctance to condone military action in Iran. Only last week, he thundered that the international community had 'no moral right' to put 'red lines before Israel'.
But this bullish approach met a cool reception in Washington. President Obama is reported to have declined a request to meet with Mr Netanyahu during the United Nations general assembly later this month.
The consensus that Mr Netanyahu has deliberately used the Iran issue to insert himself in the American electoral race, to embarrass the president and boost the Republican ticket, is also gaining momentum in the US media.
The Jerusalem Post, a right-leaning Israeli newspaper, observed that this suggestion "annoys him [Netanyahu]" and concluded that the tough rhetoric he has used to assert Israel's right to take arms against the Iranian threat was for the benefit of his domestic- rather than the American - electorate. The prime minister did not refute the possibility that general elections could be called in Israel as early as March next year.
Mr Netanyahu did, however, promise the Jerusalem Post's readers that Iran's nuclear programme will be crushed, concluding that his main regret for the year was "we have not yet stopped Iran."
"When you interview me next year, I hope I can give you a different answer," he said.
The commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard meanwhile warned that "nothing will remain" of Israel if it takes military action against Tehran over its controversial nuclear programme.
Gen Mohammad Ali Jafari said Iran's response to any attack will begin near the Israeli border. The Islamic Republic has close ties with militants in Gaza and Lebanon, both of which border Israel. It was the latest of a series of apocalytpic threats by Iranian leaders directed at the Jewish state.
Inside Iran's Nuclear Program
Also available in
العربية
September 6, 2012
Inside Iran's Nuclear Program
Also available in
العربية
September 6, 2012
On August 29, 2012, Simon Henderson and Olli Heinonen addressed a
Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Mr. Henderson is the Baker
fellow and director of the Gulf and Energy Policy Program at The
Washington Institute. Mr. Heinonen, a senior fellow at the Harvard
Kennedy School's Belfer Center, previously served as deputy
director-general and head of the Department of Safeguards at the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), inspecting nuclear facilities
in Iran and other countries. The following is a rapporteur's summary of
their remarks.
A nuclear bomb can be made from either plutonium or uranium. Plutonium must be obtained by reprocessing material from a power reactor, a rather dangerous but relatively simple chemical process. Yet a country's chances of building a power reactor and producing plutonium without the world noticing are quite small, which makes the uranium route far more attractive to rogue states like Iran.
A centrifuge is a carefully balanced, vertically spinning rotor used to enrich uranium. Natural uranium is mainly composed of the U-238 isotope, but the isotope required for a power reactor or a nuclear weapon is U-235, which makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Once solid uranium is converted into a gas -- uranium hexafluoride -- it can be spun at high speeds in a centrifuge until the U-235 separates from the U-238. The material is enriched via many stages, steadily removing the excess uranium-238. Stopping at 3.5 percent U-235 is sufficient to fuel power reactors, while going as far as 90 percent produces material suitable for a nuclear submarine or an atomic bomb.
There are basically two forms of atomic bomb. In a "gun-type" device like the one dropped on Hiroshima, one small piece of U-235 is slammed into another, bringing both to critical mass. Simultaneously, extra neutrons are fired at the uranium, prompting a nuclear explosion. Many nuclear weapons designers consider this method crude and prefer the implosion-type bomb, which involves symmetrically compressing a grapefruit-size piece of U-235 into the size of an orange. The United States, Israel, and many other countries fear that Iran is pursuing this kind of device.
Finally, the fact that Iran has so far produced only 20 percent enriched uranium is no cause for comfort. By the time that enrichment level is reached, 90 percent of the physical separation work has been done, so producing weapons-grade material would take comparably little time.
It remains to be seen if the IAEA will ever discover what was at Parchin, which could be the missing link in Iran's nuclear process. Even if the facility no longer exists, explanations must still be pursued, whether by contacting the scientists who performed the experiments or through environmental sampling. At Syria's destroyed al-Kibar reactor, the IAEA was able to find particles of uranium despite the regime's decontamination efforts. Performing similar investigations at Parchin would be difficult but could yield information essential to understanding Iran's capabilities.
Currently, the United States can make several inferences about the Iranian nuclear program. For instance, Tehran is clearly pursuing enriched uranium as a priority rather than plutonium. Although the regime conducted simple plutonium experiments in the early 1990s, its interest in that route quickly waned. It still pursues plutonium production, but not at the same levels as uranium. For example, not much fuel has been produced for the heavy-water reactor in Arak, which would require at least two years to produce enough plutonium for a nuclear device. Processing spent fuel from the Bushehr plant would likewise be an untenable option; at least a year or two must pass before such messy radioactive material can even be handled, and the processing facility would have to be so large that it would be clearly visible in satellite imagery.
Accordingly, Iran is much more likely to stick with uranium enrichment as its path to a nuclear device. If it does achieve 90 percent enrichment, it would still need to convert gaseous uranium hexafluoride into the uranium metal required to build a nuclear weapon. This would not be particularly difficult; the details of that process are in the public domain, and Iran has conducted it before. By next summer, Iran could have enough material, if further enriched, for two nuclear weapons.
Iran uses several kinds of centrifuges to enrich uranium, including the IR-1 and IR-2, and has continually increased its stock of IR-1s. Years ago, the regime announced that it wanted to produce every centrifuge component locally. Most of the necessary high-strength aluminum is likely produced in Iranian factories, though it could also be purchased abroad. At the moment, Iran's stockpile of the raw material required to manufacture IR-1s is unknown.
The regime's other centrifuge type comes in two varieties: the standard IR-2 and the larger IR-2m. Both have been in operation for several years, though Iran has not always been able to feed uranium hexafluoride into IR-2 cascades, perhaps due to faulty designs. The IR-2 is not overly difficult to manufacture, but the raw materials (e.g., the carbon fiber in the rotors) are difficult to acquire in large quantities. These centrifuges must also be subjected to rigorous quality assurance testing to ensure they operate properly, without leaking uranium hexafluoride gas.
In light of these complexities, centrifuge production is a potential weak spot in Iran's nuclear program, one that was targeted by the Stuxnet computer worm in 2010. Yet carrying out another cyber attack on Iranian nuclear facilities seems challenging. Stuxnet's success was based on inside information and access; Tehran has since put systems in place to prevent such an attack, so any new cyber sabotage would have to be done quite differently. The military option is problematic as well. A surgically precise strike would not deter the regime from pursuing nuclear weapons; that would require a sledgehammer. Therefore, an economic solution -- namely, sanctions -- may be the most viable.
This rapporteur's summary was prepared by Katie Kiraly.
SIMON HENDERSON
The new study Nuclear Iran: A Glossary of Terms is intended to inform the discussion regarding what should be done about Tehran's nuclear program. The result of many months of collaboration, the report explains the specific techniques and facilities involved in the program since its inception, as well as the physics of nuclear technology, the history of nuclear weapons, and the technical terms used in IAEA reports.A nuclear bomb can be made from either plutonium or uranium. Plutonium must be obtained by reprocessing material from a power reactor, a rather dangerous but relatively simple chemical process. Yet a country's chances of building a power reactor and producing plutonium without the world noticing are quite small, which makes the uranium route far more attractive to rogue states like Iran.
A centrifuge is a carefully balanced, vertically spinning rotor used to enrich uranium. Natural uranium is mainly composed of the U-238 isotope, but the isotope required for a power reactor or a nuclear weapon is U-235, which makes up only 0.7 percent of natural uranium. Once solid uranium is converted into a gas -- uranium hexafluoride -- it can be spun at high speeds in a centrifuge until the U-235 separates from the U-238. The material is enriched via many stages, steadily removing the excess uranium-238. Stopping at 3.5 percent U-235 is sufficient to fuel power reactors, while going as far as 90 percent produces material suitable for a nuclear submarine or an atomic bomb.
There are basically two forms of atomic bomb. In a "gun-type" device like the one dropped on Hiroshima, one small piece of U-235 is slammed into another, bringing both to critical mass. Simultaneously, extra neutrons are fired at the uranium, prompting a nuclear explosion. Many nuclear weapons designers consider this method crude and prefer the implosion-type bomb, which involves symmetrically compressing a grapefruit-size piece of U-235 into the size of an orange. The United States, Israel, and many other countries fear that Iran is pursuing this kind of device.
Finally, the fact that Iran has so far produced only 20 percent enriched uranium is no cause for comfort. By the time that enrichment level is reached, 90 percent of the physical separation work has been done, so producing weapons-grade material would take comparably little time.
OLLI HEINONEN
If Iran did choose to pursue a nuclear weapon, it would likely do so in secrecy. Tehran has always been deeply committed to concealment regarding its nuclear program. For example, one recent IAEA report showed decontamination activities at the now-defunct Parchin plant, including placement of tarps over the building to conceal those efforts (read the agency's latest report on Iran [PDF]). Similar activities have been recorded at Natanz, where Iran has built a plant that is covered with many feet of concrete and rocks. Additionally, the most controversial site -- the facility in Fordow, located deep under a mountain -- was built entirely in secrecy.It remains to be seen if the IAEA will ever discover what was at Parchin, which could be the missing link in Iran's nuclear process. Even if the facility no longer exists, explanations must still be pursued, whether by contacting the scientists who performed the experiments or through environmental sampling. At Syria's destroyed al-Kibar reactor, the IAEA was able to find particles of uranium despite the regime's decontamination efforts. Performing similar investigations at Parchin would be difficult but could yield information essential to understanding Iran's capabilities.
Currently, the United States can make several inferences about the Iranian nuclear program. For instance, Tehran is clearly pursuing enriched uranium as a priority rather than plutonium. Although the regime conducted simple plutonium experiments in the early 1990s, its interest in that route quickly waned. It still pursues plutonium production, but not at the same levels as uranium. For example, not much fuel has been produced for the heavy-water reactor in Arak, which would require at least two years to produce enough plutonium for a nuclear device. Processing spent fuel from the Bushehr plant would likewise be an untenable option; at least a year or two must pass before such messy radioactive material can even be handled, and the processing facility would have to be so large that it would be clearly visible in satellite imagery.
Accordingly, Iran is much more likely to stick with uranium enrichment as its path to a nuclear device. If it does achieve 90 percent enrichment, it would still need to convert gaseous uranium hexafluoride into the uranium metal required to build a nuclear weapon. This would not be particularly difficult; the details of that process are in the public domain, and Iran has conducted it before. By next summer, Iran could have enough material, if further enriched, for two nuclear weapons.
Iran uses several kinds of centrifuges to enrich uranium, including the IR-1 and IR-2, and has continually increased its stock of IR-1s. Years ago, the regime announced that it wanted to produce every centrifuge component locally. Most of the necessary high-strength aluminum is likely produced in Iranian factories, though it could also be purchased abroad. At the moment, Iran's stockpile of the raw material required to manufacture IR-1s is unknown.
The regime's other centrifuge type comes in two varieties: the standard IR-2 and the larger IR-2m. Both have been in operation for several years, though Iran has not always been able to feed uranium hexafluoride into IR-2 cascades, perhaps due to faulty designs. The IR-2 is not overly difficult to manufacture, but the raw materials (e.g., the carbon fiber in the rotors) are difficult to acquire in large quantities. These centrifuges must also be subjected to rigorous quality assurance testing to ensure they operate properly, without leaking uranium hexafluoride gas.
In light of these complexities, centrifuge production is a potential weak spot in Iran's nuclear program, one that was targeted by the Stuxnet computer worm in 2010. Yet carrying out another cyber attack on Iranian nuclear facilities seems challenging. Stuxnet's success was based on inside information and access; Tehran has since put systems in place to prevent such an attack, so any new cyber sabotage would have to be done quite differently. The military option is problematic as well. A surgically precise strike would not deter the regime from pursuing nuclear weapons; that would require a sledgehammer. Therefore, an economic solution -- namely, sanctions -- may be the most viable.
This rapporteur's summary was prepared by Katie Kiraly.
No comments:
Post a Comment