Incentives and Isotopes Posted by Kelsey Hartigan

Yesterday, NSN and the Center for America Progress co-hosted a forum on principled and pragmatic policy options for dealing with Iran.  Paul Pillar’s write-up in the National Interest offers an overview of his remarks and a reminder of why the current debate over Iran’s enrichment program isn’t getting us too far.

“For all the focus on uranium enrichment, the western side has done little to explore with Iran the possibilities for imparting greater transparency to the Iranian program as a form of safeguards against diversion to military purposes. Our leaders and negotiators have uttered a few things about how someday the west might trust Iran with its own enrichment program, but we have given the Iranians almost no reason to believe any such utterance.

“From Tehran's viewpoint, the overriding message being received is one of pressure and more pressure, of unrelenting animosity, and of lack of acceptance. It is quite understandable for Tehran to conclude that even if it were to end its enrichment program, the state of relations would not fundamentally change and that the principal U.S. goal is, and will remain, regime change. Such a conclusion destroys any Iranian incentive to make concessions on the nuclear program or anything else under discussion. And it increases the Iranian motivation to develop nuclear weapons.

“The fruitless quest for a no-enrichment solution, which has been going on now for some time, lessens the chance of achieving more feasible but still favorable outcomes. And if the saber rattling were ever to lead to the use of military force, among the disastrous consequences for U.S. interests would be to ensure the enmity of future generations of Iranians and to provide the strongest possible incentive for those Iranians to build, or rebuild, a nuclear weapons capability.

Olli Heinonen, former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, recently floated an interesting proposal— one that could help alleviate the current stalemate on the enrichment question and begin to shift the dynamic Pillar describes above.  Heinonen suggests that the U.S. and its partners, presumably the P-5 +1, work with Iran to build a new research reactor that is designed to use low enriched uranium.

Iran is currently constructing a heavy water reactor, the IR-40, but it's not expected to be operational until sometime around 2013 at the earliest.  As ISIS explains, "If operating optimally, the IR-40 would produce about 9 kilograms of plutonium annually or enough for about two nuclear weapons each year."  If the U.S. and others worked with Iran to modify the reactor design it could ease some of the proliferation concerns and possibly create space for a future fuel swap.

“The offer to help build a new, more secure research reactor to replace the TRR could revive the fuel swap program, in which Iran would agree to send more of its enriched uranium out of the country to be converted into fuel for the new reactor. The outcome would provide Iran with a solid supply of medical isotopes and a new, up-to-date training facility for its scientists. And it would address proliferation concerns by limiting the increase of stocks of enriched uranium and future production of plutonium…

“A modern, more powerful research reactor will require a substantial part of Iran's current stocks of enriched uranium -- ensuring that they are not available for further enrichment for weapons -- and provide a secure, reliable supply of radioisotopes for decades to come. It would only be a first step, however. Iran will still need to address the world's broader concerns about the scope and intentions behind its nuclear program. But successful cooperation on a new reactor might make those conversations a little bit easier.

This would in no way be a silver bullet for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program but such an incentive could help temper the level of distrust that currently exists and provide a stronger platform for future dialogue, perhaps even on matters beyond the nuclear issue.

Comments

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Why does Iran's uranium enrichment program require cessation or even greater transparency when it is and has been under complete 24/7 surveillance by the IAEA as required by the NPT, and the IAEA has consistently reported that there has been no diversion of enriched uranium to weapons programs?

"Each non-nuclear-weapon State Party to the Treaty undertakes to accept safeguards, as set forth in an agreement to be negotiated and concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency in accordance with the Statute of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Agencys safeguards system, for the exclusive purpose of verification of the fulfillment of its obligations assumed under this Treaty with a view to preventing diversion of nuclear energy from peaceful uses to nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices."

Regarding the concern about plutonium after 2013, has Iran been requested to place that reactor under IAEA surveillance as required by the NPT?

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