Less than a week after declaring to the international community that Iran was increasing its uranium enrichment from 3.5 to 20 percent, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad stated that the efforts were successful and that Iran should be considered among the nuclear countries of the world.  

Making his declaration at an event in Azadi Square in Tehran to commemorate the thirty-first anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, Ahmadinejad insisted that the uranium enriched to 20% was for peaceful purposes.  “The Iranian nation is brave enough that if one day we wanted to build nuclear bombs, we would announce it publicly without being afraid of you,” he told the crowd assembled for the observation of the anniversary.  

Uranium enriched to 20% U235 is considered highly enriched uranium that could be further enriched with relative ease to make a nuclear weapon.  Iran claims that the enriched uranium will be used in a research reactor to produce medical isotopes.  Tehran backed away from an earlier international offer to further enrich its low-enriched uranium outside the country, raising concerns that Iran’s intentions may not be as benign as it is making them out to be…

There is consensus among nuclear experts that, while Iran does have the capacity to enrich uranium to 20%, the amount that could have been produced by the time of Ahmadinejad’s announcement is negligible.  The International Atomic Energy Commission suggested that Iran’s increased enrichment efforts are only modest to this point, though David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security suggested that at the rate Iran plans to produce 20%-HEU, it may have enough HEU in three years to further enrich enough material for one nuclear weapon.

The announcement of Iran’s intention to increase the level of uranium enrichment, and the later claims of success, was met with an announcement by the United States Treasury Department of further “smart sanctions” against a handful of Iranian construction companies affiliated with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard allegedly involved in weapons production and trade.

There is also talk of a fourth round of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council.  Russia — which has historically been less enthusiastic about sanctions than the United States, the United Kingdom, and France — has indicated that they might support further sanctions.  The international community seems increasingly dubious of Iran’s denial of intent to develop a nuclear bomb.  However, China remains reluctant to impose new sanctions and may thwart attempts by the UN Security Council to tighten the economic sanctions imposed on Iran.

In light of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran’s sudden announcement of scaling up mere days before the anniversary of the Islamic Revolution, one cannot help but wonder if Ahmadinejad’s triumphant proclamation was an attempt to flex muscle to an increasingly vocal and active opposition and an international community sympathetic to the anti-government activists and increasingly distrustful of the aims of Iran’s nuclear program.  

All steps adopted by the United States and the international community should be careful to avoid undermining the pro-democracy opposition movement in Iran. The international community should continue strong and active diplomatic engagement with Iran, and impose sanctions only so long as they are targeted and designed to minimize the burden on the civilian population.  Calls for aggression and military intervention should be turned aside; the consequences of such escalation on both the stability and security of the region and on the civilian population would be catastrophic.

At the same time, the international community must continue to implore Iran to be more transparent with the IAEA about its intentions and grant it greater access to suspected nuclear-related information and facilities.  Iran should know that its plans to increase enrichment will only increase concerns over its nuclear program, especially since it rejected an earlier international offer to further enrich its low-enriched uranium in France and Russia.

Patience, careful monitoring and involvement by the International Atomic Energy Agency, and persistent diplomatic engagement by Western powers will not guarantee success but is the only sensible option to try to block Iran’s nuclear weapons plans.

On Sunday, an angry Iran refused to comply with a demand by the IAEA to cease work on its Qom nuclear fuel enrichment plant.  The resolution, which President Ahmadinejad now calls, “illegal,” criticized Iran for defying its obligations under multiple UN Security Council requirements and rebuked the country for its secret uranium enrichment activities near the city of Qom.  Iran further escalated the confrontation by declaring it would construct 10 more such plants.

This threat has created speculation in the blogosphere, but is it bluster or a realistic possibility?

Although the ability of Iran to deliver on all 10 sites seems questionable at best, Joshua Pollack at Arms Control Wonk speculates that secret plans to build new facilities may have been in place for some time, with construction already underway:

One way to see it, then, is that the Iranian side has seized the opportunity to get tough by coming clean, or to come clean by getting tough.  In the two-level game of international diplomacy and Iranian domestic politics, this sort of Janus-faced response may be as close to a win-win outcome as ever happens.

Adding fuel to this fire, the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate in 2007 “listed more than a dozen suspect locations” for nuclear weapons facilities in Iran.

While the Washington Times and the Wall Street Journal ready themselves for military strikes, Max Bergmann at the Wonk Room notes that the Bush administration’s previous refusal to engage Iran prevented an international consensus from emerging.  

The IAEA’s vote to censure Iran was not only “symbolic,” it represents a rare measure of unity within the group.  Moscow and Beijing have not previously been on board with efforts to punish Iran for its nuclear defiance, either acting to prevent new Security Council measures or pushing for lighter sanctions.  Bergmann notes that:

While Obama has been engaging Iran, he has also been working to significantly strengthen the international community’s stance on sanctions should the Iranians walk away.  The US and Europe, which were frequently at odds during the Bush administration, are now largely in sync.

The resolution was endorsed by six world powers — the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany.  Only Cuba, Venezuela and Malaysia voted against the document.

A vote on the resolution is expected to take place Friday.  If the resolution is adopted, it will be transmitted to the Security Council for further action, a move that has not taken place since 2006.  The IAEA’s 2006 censure of Iran increased initial public speculation as to the nature of the country’s nuclear program and prompted another four UN Security Council resolutions, three of them with sanctions.  This second referral may likewise signal the beginning of more serious action toward Iran.

In an otherwise interesting look at the state of Iran’s nuclear program and disputes among American and Israeli intelligence officials about how close Iran is to the bomb, The New York Times’ David Sanger gets away with a big whopper:

It is unclear how many months — or even years — it would take Iran to complete that final [nuclear weapon] design work, and then build a warhead that could fit atop its long-range missiles. [emphasis mine].

Now perhaps Sanger meant to say something along the lines of “and then build a warhead that could fit atop a future or yet to be developed long-range missile.”  But that is not what the above sentence suggests.  What it suggests is that Iran currently possesses long-range missiles, which, as NoH readers know, is, ummm, not true.  

According to a recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) report on Iran’s ballistic missile programs,

traditionally, the United States has defined long-range or Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) as those ballistic missiles capable of ranges greater than 5,500 kilometers (about 3,400 miles).  To date, five countries have deployed operational ICBMs (all with nuclear weapons): the United States, Russia, China, France, and Britain.  Other countries such as Iran, are believed by some observers to have ICBM programs in varying stages of development.

In other words, Iran does not now have any long-range missiles.  Iran does possess medium-range missiles that “may have range capabilities of 1,500-2,500 kilometers.”  While such missiles could reach targets in Israel, Turkey, and portions of southeastern Europe, they could not threaten the rest of Europe or the United States.  And while Iran may be seeking to develop long-range missiles, without substantial foreign assistance, Iran is not likely to possess a ballistic missile capable of threatening all of Europe and/or the United States within the next ten to fifteen years.

Better fact-checking, please.