Speaking of the “Arak reactor”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1933/arakit-aint-no-natanz, I should have mentioned that Iran’s IAEA SGA requires Tehran to put the reactor under safeguards, which means that reprocessing the SNF without getting caught would, as far as I know, be pretty damn tough.
OK, I know “what I said,”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1932/olc-on-the-abmt but that _is_ the last post.
Paul’s “simply amazing post on the Bush OLC and the ABM Treaty”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1932/olc-on-the-abmt should be required reading. Wowza.
Out of sheer jealousy, I will now add my own $0.02. Neither the original memo nor the commentary in Paul’s post seems to mention it, but this ain’t the first time that treaty law has been bent like a pretzel to permit testing banned under ABM. The first time around, though, the law being creatively reinterpreted was the ABM Treaty itself.
From the _NY Times_ of “Feb. 17, 1987”:http://www.nytimes.com/1987/02/17/world/arms-debate-now-centers-on-abm-pact.html?sec=&spon=&&scp=7&sq=sofaer%20abm&st=cse:
The question of how to interpret the Antiballistic Missile Treaty has emerged as the central arms-control issue, affecting the Soviet-American negotiations in Geneva, relations between the United States and its allies and relations between the Administration and Congress.
The Reagan Administration has insisted that its interpretation, which would permit the United States to conduct extensive testing and development of new types of antimissile systems, is “legally correct.” The Administration is now considering whether to adopt its new interpretation formally to justify new “Star Wars” tests.
The Administration’s interpretation is disputed by all but one of the principal American negotiators of the treaty and has been privately criticized by some Government experts as well.
The critics say the Administration’s view is not supported by the negotiating record, which is classified as secret, and is not consistent with the explanations provided to the Senate when the treaty was approved in 1972.
The Administration’s interpretation has also been called into question by diplomatic exchanges between American and Soviet officials since the treaty was signed.
The chief American negotiator of the treaty, Gerard C. Smith, said the Administration’s interpretation amounts to “a breach of contract.” And Harold Brown, the former Defense Secretary and a member of the American team that negotiated the treaty, said the Reagan Administration’s stance “is an off-the-wall interpretation.”
Lieut. Gen. Royal B. Allison, retired, who representated the Joint Chiefs of Staff on the American negotiating team, also said that he believed the Administration view was wrong.
On the other hand, the Administration’s interpretation is now defended by Paul H. Nitze, the senior arms-control adviser to Secretary of State George P. Shultz and a former negotiator of the treaty, who has reversed his earlier position that the treaty is restrictive.
From “April 30, 1987”:http://www.nytimes.com/1987/04/30/world/ex-aide-says-reagan-got-flawed-advise-on-abm-s.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/T/Treaties:
A former State Department aide told Congress today that Administration officials ignored dissenting legal views and provided flawed advice to President Reagan in recommending the adoption of a broad interpretation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty.
“The procedures were flawed, resulting in conclusions that are inaccurate,” said William J. Sims 3d, a lawyer who worked for Abraham D. Sofaer, the State Department legal adviser. Mr. Sims later worked for the general counsel of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.
Mr. Sims said legal officials at the Defense Department and the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency prepared studies that supported the traditional, restrictive interpretation of the 1972 ABM Treaty. He said the studies were not considered until the issue was settled within the Administration. “The experts were left out,” he said. Mr. Sims said today that he resigned in August as a matter of principle over the ABM treaty issue.
[snip]
In the testimony today, William Sims appeared alongside Sidney N. Graybeal, a former negotiator who has helped prepare a classified review of the ABM treaty for the Pentagon.
Mr. Graybeal described the Administration’s new view as “a rewriting of what actually transpired.”
Mr. Sims described a hasty process in which hard-line political appointees disregarded the views of career civil servants with long experience on arms control issues.
According to Mr. Sims, Defense Department hard-liners “seemed to be in the driver’s seat.” “These officials,” he said, “offered the initial memo, we had to clamor to try to catch up.”
Mr. Sims said that as an aide to Mr. Sofaer he was unable to obtain a copy from the Pentagon of Mr. McNeill’s analysis. He said other important documents, such as an analysis of the treaty negotiating record by Mr. Graybeal, were not provided to the State Department by the Pentagon until after key decisions on interpreting the treaty were made.
Sofaer nevertheless issued his opinion on the testing of space-based defenses in May 1987. The Clinton Administration overturned it in July 1993.
As you probably know, the Obama administration “released”:http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/olc-memos.htmsome old Office of Legal Counsel memos a few weeks back.
“One of them”:http://www.usdoj.gov/opa/documents/memoabmtreaty11152001.pdf, dated 15 November 2001, is titled _Memorandum Regarding Authority of the President to Suspend Certain Provisions of the ABM Treaty_. I asked a FoKerr who wished to remain anonymous for their thoughts on the memo.
Those thoughts are below, edited for clarification and to protect the innocent. The 1997 MOU referred to near the beginning is “this one”:http://www.fas.org/nuke/control/abmt/text/ad-mou.htm, which would have made Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine parties to the treaty. The MOU has never been submitted to the Senate.
I’ve read the whole memo, and I think my head is about to explode. I thought they were dealing mostly with the MOU on succession because that’s where they start. Their opinions on the MOU seem to be that, since it never entered into force, the ABM Treaty remained in force as a bilateral Treaty between the U.S. and Russia. I think this is accurate. They return to the MOU at the end of the memo and seem to be laughing at Clinton for his decision to submit it to the Senate as an amendment to the Treaty. They don’t think he needed to do that because it was his right, as President, to declare the Treaty to be multilateral. They are missing some significant history here. Clinton didn’t agree to submit the MOU because he thought he needed advice and consent. He did it because Helms et al wanted a crack at defeating it, and the Treaty, and had threatened other Presidential priorities (and START II) if he didn’t submit it. It was a political decision, not a legal one.
Also, the memo makes it clear that they are not addressing the Members of Congress who just wanted the Treaty to lapse, they are addressing those who wanted to have a Senate vote on the U.S. plan to withdraw. They conclude (correctly, I think), that the President can withdraw from a Treaty without Senate advice and consent. So, I’m with them up to there. If Bush wanted to withdraw from the ABM Treaty, he could do so.
But then they start to lose me and make my head ache. They get into the issue of suspension, particularly suspension of some, but not all of the Treaty. It seems that they were asked if the Pres could do this so that he could avoid withdrawing while proceeding with his missile defense tests. At the time that we were negotiating with the Russians about modifying or redefining some of the Treaty provisions, or having both sides withdraw together (which is what Bush really wanted) because we were coming up on some missile defense tests that would have violated the Treaty (using Aegis radars to track a long-range missiles). So we either had to violate, redefine the provision, or withdraw from the Treaty.
And Yoo decided the President could just suspend that provision (and others that interfered with upcoming tests) without withdrawing from the Treaty. Now my head explodes. From a political perspective, one could see this as a way to pressure the Russian’s to accept our proposals for broader changes to the Treaty, by showing them that we were ready to go all the way, and if they wanted to save anything, they should agree to our proposals. But I don’t think Yoo approved it as a negotiating tactic. I think he saw it as a part of the President’s right to break the law. He argued, earlier in the memo, that Treaties weren’t exactly like laws because the President controlled the negotiating and ratification process (the Senate provides advice and consent, the Pres ratifies and exchanges instruments of ratification) and didn’t need congressional approval to withdraw. All true. But, once the Senate provides its advice and consent and the President exchanges instruments of ratification, the Treaty is the law of the land. If the President doesn’t like it, he can withdraw, but to choose just to ignore parts of it? Not so much. The examples in the memo are cases where we suspended participation after the other side had done something to violate or alter the Treaty first. We suspended provisions in response. Yoo takes that to mean we can suspend them whenever. That’s what’s known, in arms control parlance, as VIOLATING THE TREATY. I guess the Pres could choose to do that, but, he can’t claim its just a temporary suspension. IT’S A VIOLATION, with all the attendant consequences.
Apparently, Bush did not want to bear the international consequences of withdrawing from the Treaty, until they were convinced (rightly) that those consequences would be minimal. And he had tests coming up fast on the calendar, so he had to do something. And a partial suspension seemed to be the answer.
This is like the signing statements, where he signed the bill, making it the law of the land, then said which parts of it he would choose to ignore. Its the law, unless I decide I don’t want to obey. Or, put another way, its like the Senate provides A&C to the CTBT, and the President deposits the instruments of ratification, then gives a speech saying its a wonderful Treaty, but I plan to suspend Article I so we can carry out a nuclear test explosion next month. When we finish that test, we’ll un-suspend the Article, at least until we decide to test again.
Kind of blows up Yoo’s argument that suspension is less awful than withdrawal because it doesn’t alter the structure or substance of the Treaty….
The precedent set by a partial suspension would have made it impossible for us to ever negotiate another arms control treaty. Who would sign up with us, knowing that we reserved the right to violate at will by “suspending” parts of the Treaty?
Last post ’til I return…
Following up on Josh’s “post”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1931/irans-equinox-fuel-manufacturing-plant-comes-online … I understand the concerns that Einhorn and others have about the Arak reactor, but as a proliferation threat it’s not equivalent to the Natanz facility. That’s because enrichment facilities can produce fissile material, but you need a reprocessing facility to separate plutonium from spent reactor fuel. Iran says that it isn’t gonna build a reprocessing facility and, from what I understand, such facilities are considerably harder to hide than centrifuge facilities.
Just saying.
As visitors to the “White House website”:http://www.whitehouse.gov/Nowruz/ know, today is the Zoroastrian new year, No Ruz (“New Day”), which is celebrated by pretty much all Iranians. It marks the vernal equinox, the transition between seasons.
“According to the Iranian Students News Agency”:http://isna.ir/Isna/NewsView.aspx?ID=News-1307413&Lang=E, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) plans to mark the occasion by formally inaugurating the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP) in Isfahan. It’s already partly operational:
The plant is in a good condition and is able to produce nuclear fuel assemblies for Iran’s Arak 40-megawatt research reactor which is to be launched within the next two or three years, [deputy AEOI chief Abdullah Solatasana] added.
The Plant is able to produce nuclear fuel assemblies for Iran’s Bushehr and Darkhovin power plants respectively with 1000 and 360 megawatts capability, Solatasana said.
The Head of (AEOI) Gholam Reza Aghazadeh has already declared nuclear fuel tablets for Arak reactor have been produced according to global standards.
(On that last point, see also paragraph 10 of “the latest IAEA report”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/IAEA_Report_Iran_Feb_2009.pdf.)
So where does this transition take the situation? It makes matters worse in the medium run, but if the Iranians play it smart, it could also ease the immediate atmosphere of crisis.
The bad news is, the Arak reactor is ideally suited for plutonium production, “as Robert Einhorn has explained”:http://www.armscontrol.org/pressroom/2006/20061109_Einhorn. Preparing Arak’s natural uranium (NU) fuel at the FMP moves events closer to the “North Korea-style confrontation, ca. 1994”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001285.html that hovers on the horizon.
The good news is, the same facility could be used to relax the already acute tensions over the enrichment of uranium. “Scott Kemp recently pointed this out”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15SANGER.html to the _New York Times_:
If Iran wanted to ease jitters, it could do something very simple: turn its enriched uranium into reactor fuel.
“We’d hope they’d do it unilaterally, and maybe they will,” R. Scott Kemp, a nuclear expert at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University, said in an interview. So far, though, Iran has foregone that step and keeps the door open to further enrich a growing uranium supply.
Now, nobody with intact critical faculties really thinks the so-called fuel enrichment plant at Natanz was originally meant to make enriched reactor fuel, and if the idea is energy production, there’s certainly little point in operating it today. Russia supplies the fuel for Bushehr, and completing the Darkhovin reactor hasn’t been a high priority, “as Frank Pabian has pointed out”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2129/frank-pabian-on-iran-syria. In any case, Iran lacks the uranium to fuel either of these reactors. But going ahead anyway and turning low-enriched uranium (LEU) into fuel rods would materially demonstrate “what Iranian spokesmen”:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01E0DD113EF936A15756C0A9609C8B63&n=Top%2FReference%2FTimes%20Topics%2FOrganizations%2FU%2FUnited%20Nations%20&scp=10&sq=m.a.%20mohammadi&st=cse “have repeatedly asserted”:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C01E7DB1731F93BA35751C1A9609C8B63&scp=8&sq=m.a.%20mohammadi&st=cse “about the peaceful”:http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C0DE1DA143FF937A25755C0A9619C8B63&sec=&spon=&scp=9&sq=m.a.%20mohammadi&st=cse “nature of the”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/04/opinion/lweb04iran.html?scp=1&sq=m.a.%20mohammadi&st=cse “nuclear project”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/opinion/l03iran.html?scp=3&sq=m.a.%20mohammadi&st=cse. And that would buy time for everyone involved.
Cross-posted to “ArmsControlWonk.com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2225/irans-equinox-fmp-comes-online. See the “comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2225/irans-equinox-fmp-comes-online#comment.
There’s much hubbub lately about a couple of things. One is a “completely unsourced article”:http://www.nzz.ch/nachrichten/international/wie_iran_syriens_nuklearbewaffnung_vorangetrieben_hat_1.2221863.html in the Swiss newspaper _Neue Zürcher Zeitung_ that makes a number of sensational claims about Syria’s -nuclear reactor at al-Kibar- “secret military pencil factory”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1881/update-from-the-pencil-factory. One of these claims is that Iran financed the facility and North Korea built it.
This is “not a new claim”:http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,561169,00.html, certainly not in the German-language press, where seemingly “unreplicable”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/283/word-of-the-day-geheimdienst “reporting”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/1411/irans-scud-stunt on unconventional weapons in the Middle East often seems to crop up. _Sei vorsichtig._
[Update: “Jeff has got ahold of this story”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2228/ripping-off-ronen-bergman.]
The other thing is a “briefing at the CSIS website”:http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_pubs/task,view/id,5337/ suggesting that Israel has conventionally armed ballistic missiles precise enough to knock out Iran’s nuclear facilities. Some of which are deeply buried, lest we forget.
Anything’s possible, right?
I’m going to go out on a limb to say that Israel almost certainly lacks this capability, because if they had it, it’s a very good bet they would have used it by now.
Posting might be even lighter from me during the next week or so.
Reading this _NYT_ “article”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/weekinreview/15SANGER.html the other day reminded me of this portion of a “piece”:http://armscontrol.org/act/2006_10/IAEAIranIntel I wrote about 2-1/2 years ago:
By contrast, Israeli government estimates suggest that Iran could master the enrichment process within six to 12 months and produce enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) for a nuclear weapon in as little as three years, according to a knowledgeable Western official.
Asked about *differences between the two government’s estimates, [then-DNI John] Negroponte said that both countries “basically operate from the same knowledge base” but that Israel will “sometimes…give you the worst-case assessment.”*
The transcript of that interview is “here”:http://www.dni.gov/interviews/20060901_interview.pdf. Not that this has been going on for a while or anything…
The “Iran breakout debate”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1890/more-breakoutology has officially become tiresome.
Anyone bothering to read this blog will remember “the instant analysis of the last IAEA report that ISIS put out”:http://isis-online.org/publications/iran/IAEA_Report_Analysis.pdf. It got “quite a bit of attention”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2193/iran-panic-induced-by-lousy-reporting at the time.
Some of you might also have seen “what Glaser and Kemp wrote in response”:http://www.princeton.edu/~rskemp/can-iran-make-a-bomb.pdf.
Anyone on the ISIS email list certainly knows, because ISIS “called them out today”:http://www.isisnucleariran.org/assets/pdf/Correcting_the_Record.pdf, for some reason.
Kemp and Glaser have now made a quick reply.
Knowledge doesn’t grow without criticism and debate. I’ve certainly learned a thing or two from this exchange. But some of it seems waaaay too close to being a determined defense of “a hasty analysis that grabbed headlines and caused confusion”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1889/sound-bites-man. This approach ill serves the cause of informing the public about science and policy issues affecting international security.
That is all.
Cross-posted to “ArmsControlWonk.com”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2223/wonk-pissing-contest. See the “comments at ACW”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2223/wonk-pissing-contest#comment.
p{float: center;}. !/images/74.jpg!
Minas Morgul? The palantir is under the spire at the top.
“According to Mr. Google”:http://translate.google.com, the classical Greek word _skepsis_ is also the preferred Russian term for “skepticism.”
You can color me скептический after reading “this article in today’s Post”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/17/AR2009031703033.html.
As President Obama seeks to recast relations with Russia and persuade it to help contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he must win over leaders who are deeply suspicious of U.S. intentions and who have long been reluctant to damage what they consider a strategic partnership with Iran. But the Kremlin has indicated it is willing to explore a deal with Washington, and analysts say it may be more open to new sanctions against Iran than expected.
The Obama administration has all but decided not to make a new push for sanctions until after it tries engaging Iran diplomatically and improving ties with Moscow, according to administration officials and Russia analysts. If the overture to Iran fails, as many expect, administration officials believe they will be able to make a stronger case for sanctions to Russian leaders they hope will be more invested in a new relationship with the United States.
Russian support is crucial on nonproliferation issues, particularly Iran. It’s really, really difficult to imagine this issue being resolved peacefully if Moscow doesn’t play a constructive role, so it’s encouraging to see someone “trying to win the Russian side over”:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1068299.html, “for a change”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6658633.stm. But let’s not imagine that an American charm offensive could suddenly melt hearts in “Minas Morgul”:http://www.tuckborough.net/fortress.html#Minas%20Morgul or instill a sense of urgency that did not exist before.
Reaching an understanding on really tough sanctions will be hard. After control of energy supplies, “arms sales”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1911/playing-the-gargoyle-card and “nuclear sales”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1836/bushehr-update are the core of Russian influence abroad, and Russia hasn’t escaped the global economic crisis, either. There is also some risk of, ahem, _overcharging_ the agenda, where “strategic arms talks”:http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/formulating-the-next-us-russian-arms-control-agreement are already at “center stage”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1896/like-shooting-monkeys-in-a-barrel.
After years of butting heads, seducing the Kremlin away from an “oppositional”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/05/world/europe/05kyrgyz.html, “zero-sum view of NATO”:http://www.kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/07/15/1121_type82912type84779_204155.shtml that seems to pay dividends at home may be too much even for America’s intrepid Secretary of State, but I wish her good luck. Better press that “reset button”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GdLClHAMB0 a few more times, just to be sure.
_Note for the perplexed: if you don’t recognize the building in the photo at the top, it’s the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs._