Iran seems to have pulled the rough diplomatic equivalent of downing eight pints and running around all over the place.

This just in:

*Iran Begins Removal of IAEA Seals at Enrichment-related Locations*

Vienna, 10 January 2006 – IAEA inspectors confirmed today that Iran started to remove IAEA seals on enrichment-related equipment and material at Natanz. Based on the information currently available, the removal of Agency seals at enrichment site of Natanz, and at two related storage and testing locations, Pars Trash and Farayand Technique, will be completed by 11 January 2006.

On 7 January 2006, Iran requested that the Agency remove, before 9 January 2006, specified seals at Natanz, Pars Trash and Farayand Technique. These seals covered P-1 centrifuge components, maraging steel, high strength aluminium and centrifuge quality control and manufacturing equipment, as well as two cylinders containing UF6 located at Natanz. The seals also covered some process equipment at the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant (PFEP) at Natanz.

According to Iran, the intended scale of the “R&D” is small and will be carried out at PFEP. Iran has also informed the Agency that it planned to install small-scale gas ultracentrifuge cascades at PFEP and that, during this “R&D”, UF6 gas would be fed into these cascades for research purposes. Iran also indicated that these activities may include the manufacturing of a limited number of new components, currently planned only for P-1 centrifuges.

The cascade hall and the UF6 feed and withdrawal stations at PFEP will continue to be covered by IAEA containment and surveillance measures….

I “noted last night”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/931/iran-to-resume-uranium-enrichment that Iran had said it wouldn’t start producing nuclear fuel, but added that Tehran might engage in some linguistic hair-splitting.

“This is apparently the case.”:http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-24/0601106548122559.htm According to Mohammad Saeedi, the deputy head for international affairs of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization (IAEO):

bq. “We differentiate nuclear fuel production with research and access to technology. Suspension of nuclear fuel production will be continued in the country”…

Saeedi also revealed either serious ignorance or nuts of steel.

According to IRNA:

bq. Saeedi expressed hope Iran can reach a consensus with the European side on its nuclear activities within a logical framework so that all concerns can be removed.

Good luck with that. “CNN has a decent roundup”:http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/10/iran.nuclear/index.html of the international reaction. Short version: everyone’s pissed.

Strong work.

That’s what “Jacqueline Shire is reporting”:http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=1488020 over at ABCNews.com:

Sources with knowledge of Iran’s nuclear program tell ABC News that a senior Iranian official notified the IAEA verbally over the weekend of its intention to introduce uranium hexafluoride gas, or UF6, into centrifuges at a facility in Natanz, 150 miles south of Tehran.

Introducing UF6 into centrifuges is the necessary step in producing enriched uranium. The centrifuges work by separating out uranium-235 atoms, which can be used to make nuclear weapons and also to fuel nuclear reactors, from heavier uranium-238 atoms.

This would suck.

I am, I admit, a bit surprised by this news. When I first heard about Iran’s intentions to conduct additional nuclear research, my thoughts were similar to Robert Einhorn’s:

bq. “When we learned last week that Iran was going to resume some ‘research and development’ work at Natanz, we assumed there would be some modest initial activity, such as the production of centrifuge components, but this is a much bigger step,” said Robert Einhorn a former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation”

I wasn’t sure they’d even go _that_ far. Presumably, the Iranians could conduct research that would technically fall within the scope of the November 2004 agreement suspending:

bq. … all enrichment related and reprocessing activities, and specifically: the manufacture and import of gas centrifuges and their components; the assembly, installation, testing or operation of gas centrifuges; work to undertake any plutonium separation, or to construct or operate any plutonium separation installation; and all tests or production at any uranium conversion installation.

It’ll be illuminating if/when documentation of Iran’s notification to the IAEA becomes available.

One possibility: this verbal notification may be Iran’s way of gauging the international community’s reaction.

I say that because several recent Iranian statements suggested that they wouldn’t start enriching uranium.

For instance, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hamid-Reza Asefi “said 3 January”:http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/menu-234/0601037949181117.htm that “nuclear research has nothing to do with enrichment and production of atomic fuel.”

According to the Mehr News Agency, Mohammad Saeedi, Deputy Director of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization issued a similar statement the same day. He added that Tehran “had not yet made a final decision on producing nuclear fuel.”

Of course, they could just be torturing the definition of “producing nuclear fuel.”

Wrong week to quit sniffing glue…

A while ago, Jeffrey “posted the full text”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=583 of an informal Iranian proposal to limit its centrifuge operation to a facility of about 3,000 machines.

Although the proposal contains a few things to like (e.g. a commitment to forego reprocessing), the 3,000 limit isn’t one of them.

The second phase of Iran’s proposal _does_ include the “assembly, testing and installation of 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz.” The fourth phase includes the fun-filled “incremental manufacturing, assembly and installation of centrifuge components up to the numbers [50K+] envisaged for Natanz.”

As an aside, a State Department official “confirms”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_07-08/IAEA_Iran.asp Iran has also floated the idea of a facility with a few hundred centrifuges. The official wasn’t sure when the Iranians had done this.

Additionally, Russia “suggested”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_07-08/IAEA_Iran.asp an interesting proposal, although the details vary depending on who is talking:

bq. Sirus Naseri, head delegate to Iran’s talks with the Europeans, told Agence France Presse May 21 that Tehran is considering a Russian offer to enrich Iranian uranium, but the terms of the deal are unclear. Russia has told the United States that it offered to produce enriched uranium from Iranian lightly processed uranium ore, or “yellowcake.” But Iran claims that Russia offered to use Iranian uranium hexafluoride, a Department of State official told Arms Control Today June 10. Iran has a uranium conversion facility designed to convert yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride. Uranium hexafluoride is perceived as the greater proliferation threat.

Obviously, I prefer proposals that constrain Iran from producing fissile material as much as possible.

It is tough to know the extent to which this all matters, given the election. All of the above could be off the table, but “it looks like”:http://www.mfa.gov.ir/output/INDEX.HTM Iran will not decide anything until the EU3 deliver their proposal, due by August.

…at least, they’re not _that_ f*cking stupid.

Warren Hoge and David Sanger “write”:http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/03/international/middleeast/03npt.html in the New York _Times_ “there is considerable concern” that Iran will withdraw from the NPT.

Perhaps. But there’s some evidence that the Iranians realize they’d be painting a target on themselves if they took such a drastic step.

Hassan Rowhani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, discussed the matter 11 February before an audience of university students. According to ISNA:

Talking about the legal and political consequences of Iran leaving the NPT, Rowhani said: The consequences will be of a political and legal nature. From a legal point of view any country for the sake of its national security and interests, can leave the NPT providing that it gives 90 days notice to the UN. However, from a political viewpoint, it means that it is preparing to build nuclear bombs.

He added: Americans were trying to prove that Iran was after nuclear bombs and they would have been proved right, if we had left the NPT.

Rowhani stated: Currently we are not in a normal situation. Americans are levelling accusations against us and if we decide to leave the NPT, then Americans will be proved right and the initial outcome of such action will be the referring of our dossier to the UN Security Council.

Indeed, it is worth pointing out that Iran has some less-drastic options. For example, Tehran can:

* Stop adhering to its IAEA additional protocol and revert back to its original safeguards agreement. The additional protocol hasn’t yet been ratified, so Tehran may argue that it’s not doing anyting illegal.

* End the suspension of its enrichment program. Iran’s not legally obligated to continue the suspension and may believe that it will not face strong penalties for doing so.

Obviously, Iran would be violating its November 2004 agreement with the EU3 and could be referred to the UNSC. But Tehran may ultimately risk it, especially if things are bad enough for Iran to contemplate withdrawing from the NPT. If the international community doesn’t think that the Iranians have any _current_ nuclear activities that violate their safeguards agreement, Tehran may emerge relatively unscathed from any UNSC proceedings.

It is, therefore, imperative to convince Iran that it will be better off reaching an agreement with the EU3 than not.

_Newsweek_’s Mark Hosenball, who also wrote the Bolton/Cuba story referenced in “my last post”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=516, has “another piece”:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7369510/site/newsweek/ about the MEK/NCRI’s role in revealing Iran’s nuclear programs. (See also “ACW 24 October 2004”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=259)

Most of you probably know that the NCRI announced in August 2002 that Iran had secret nuclear facilities at Arak and Natanz. The USFG had no official reaction at the time, but the IAEA’s investigation of Tehran’s nuclear programs began shortly afterwards.

Now, the NCRI was largely correct in that instance. (I say “largely” because its August 2002 announcement referred to Natanz as a facility for “nuclear fuel production,” which could imply something other than uranium enrichment.) Since then, however, it is often said that this group’s revelations gave Western intelligence agencies their first clue about the facilities in question.

Indeed, Hosenball points out, Bush told reporters 16 March that the facilities were “discovered, not because of their compliance with the IAEA or NPT, but because a dissident group pointed it out to the world.”

But it seems that some in the IC have taken issue with the implication that they knew nothing about Arak and Natanz:

bq. Intelligence sources tell NEWSWEEK, however, that while the council’s revelation may have been new to the public, U.S. agencies had reported the same information to policymakers, in classified form, well before the resistance group went public with it.

U.S. officials have said much the same thing in public on at least two occasions. First, former SecState Powell said during a “March 2003 interview”:http://tokyo.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20030311a3.html that the US had shared intelligence with the IAEA. Second, Presidential Medal of Freedom Winner George Tenet “said almost a year later that”:http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/02/05/tenet.transcript.ap/ “It is flat wrong to say that we were surprised by reports from the Iranian opposition.”

Another issue concerns the NCRI’s track record for accuracy. News from this group is often good for getting right-wingers to show their “O” face and belittle the EU3’s diplomacy with Tehran, but it’s probably good that we’re not banking on these exiles for too much intel.

For example, IAEA inspectors visited another site that the NCRI ID’d as a secret nuclear facility. ElBaradei reported this past November that the inspectors …

bq. … visited three locations at an industrial complex in Kolahdouz in western Tehran that had been mentioned in open source reports as relevant to enrichment activities. While no work was seen at those locations that could be directly linked to uranium enrichment, environmental samples were taken. The results did not reveal any indications of activities involving the use of nuclear material.

Additionally, an IAEA official told me 5 April that no subsequent NCRI reports have led the agency to any smoking guns.

Moreover, “ElBaradei thinks”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2005_03/ElBaradei.asp the IAEA needs more information, which suggests that the NCRI isn’t helping all that much.

To be fair, the NCRI _was_ right once and the IAEA is continuing to follow up on at least some of the group’s information. But the point is that we have the agency there to verify the exiles’ claims. Of course, that didn’t much matter with Iraq …

At least some Iranian officials appear somewhat skeptical of the “Bush administration’s limited incentives”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/index.php?id=475 for Tehran to comply with the EU3’s negotiating demands.

Senior Iranian negotiator Sirus Naseri told Iranian state television 15 March:

bq. As far as America is concerned, we said: Ms Rice, are you prepared to shut down two of your power plants if we supply you with pistachios? We said that we would supply them with a three year stock of pistachios. However, we will supply their pistachios lorry by lorry because they said things would have to be taken step by step and when we see any progress, we will reward them with more pistachios. This is how ridiculous the situation is.

Mmmmmmmm….pistachios. I bet they next offer a fruit basket…

*Jeffrey’s 2 cents:* ACW reader AM sends word that Iranian pistacho merchants have been reluctant to include their product in a barter deal for Bushehr:

A high-powered delegation of Russian nuclear industry officials is traveling to Tehran this week to negotiate details of how Iran will pay for nuclear reactor construction contracts worth a total of $1 billion. … [Russian officials] are proposing to be paid by a combination of cash and Iranian barter goods. Sources in Tehran say about $700 million is to be paid to Moscow in cash, and $300 million in Iranian barter goods.

[snip]

At the same time, the Iranians have come up with a high-powered product of their own. Presented for the first time at the WorldFood-97 exhibition in Moscow last week, the Iranian wonder product reportedly does one thing nuclear energy cannot – it revives flagging male sexual potency. It’s the pistachio nut prepared with saffron.

“Iranians don’t suffer from impotence,” said Mohammed Karimiapour, director of Arian Milan, one of Iran’s leading exporters of pistachios. “But for centuries, Iran’s shahs have used saffron with their pistachios to cure this ill. In the northern countries of Europe, the saffron pistachio is now being advertised for this purpose. I’ve seen the case studies and letters that have poured in.”

[snip]

In the much larger barter deal now in planning, Iranian merchants are competing hard for inclusion of their products. But Mr. Karimiapour says the pistachio traders are holding back. Because of this year’s supply shortage and rising prices, most of the Iranians believe they can do better selling directly for hard currency, rather than accept the barter terms and currency controls that will be overseen by the Iranian Central Bank.

But Mr. Karimiapour is confident about the future of Iran’s pistachio trade in Russia. He’s also taken a long, hard look at the American competition. “They are rounder, with less taste than our nuts. Also, they can’t offer what we can for the Russian man.”

“They are rounder, with less taste than our nuts.” AWESOME.

In case you don’t believe me: John Helmer, “Iranian Nuclear Trade With Russia Goes Nuts; Pistachios Marketed For Sexual Potency,” _Journal of Commerce_ (June 11, 1997) 7B.

Will someone in the press please, for the love of God, notice that Bush’s description of Washington’s Iran diplomacy does not constitute anything anyone could reasonably call “success”?

Bush told an audience on Friday that:

bq. we [the US and the Europeans] worked together on the issue of Iran, to make sure that we speak with one voice to the Iranian regime, that they should abandon any ambitions for nuclear weapons for the sake of peace in the world. I am pleased that we are speaking with one voice with our European friends.

Persuading other countries to take the courageous “Iranian nukes bad” stance does not a diplomatic triumph make. And who, exactly, was on the “Bombs for Tehran” bandwagon that W so successfully derailed?

Good thing the adults are in charge…

Note to SecState Rice:

“Making token gestures”:http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2005&m=March&x=20050311173446xlrenneF1.122683e-02&t=livefeeds/wf-latest.html to support the EU3-Iran negotiations is only a really, really, weak beginning of a coherent Iran policy.

Look, Iran is being asked to do something that’s not legally required (i.e. give up its fuel cycle), so we have to provide serious incentives. I don’t think the WTO and aircraft parts incentives are going to cut it. Iranian officials, as well as “experts who have recently spoken”:http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27108-2005Mar11?language=printer with said officials, seem to agree.

Let’s be clear: Washington needs to make it clear that a satisfactory EU-Iran agreement on the fuel cycle issue would be sufficient to keep the US from overthrowing the government in Tehran. The US still hasn’t done that.

For example, Rice would not say during her confirmation hearings that a verifiable fuel cycle agreement would get the US to do, well, anything. Instead, she listed other concerns (terrorism, human rights, etc.) that the administration also wants resolved. During her subsequent trip to Europe, Rice refused on several occasions to answer direct questions about whether the US has a policy of regime change.

Contrast that with Powell’s 10 December statement that “U.S. policy is not to advocate regime change in Iran.”

Now, maybe something is happening behind the scenes. I certainly hope so. But I fear that the charaterization of the US strategy “in the NYT”:http://nytimes.com/2005/03/11/politics/11iran.html?pagewanted=all is accurate.

Some officials in the Bush administration… see the president’s decision to dangle what amount to modest American economic incentives as part of an effort to speed along the negotiating process so that Iran’s intentions become clear.

At that point, in the view of hawks on the issue inside the White House and the Pentagon, the Europeans will be bound to take the issue to the Security Council. These officials would only speak anonymously because such delicate negotiations hang in the balance.

Notice that this US schtick _really_ looks like the same bad-faith diplomacy from the Iraq debacle. Even if the US gets its UNSC referral, it is far from certain that anything will happen if others think we aren’t serious about the process this time around.

Of course, then the US could well say “the UN sucks, we’ll do our own thing.” Then we could likely be facing a choice between another war or welcoming the next major nuclear-armed non-NATO ally.

Strong work.

Before North Korea, on 4 March, said it was no longer bound to its 1999 missile launch moratorium, _Time Magazine_ “published a 20 February article”:http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1029824,00.html making an old charge: “Administration officials think it may be cheating [on the moratorium] by using Iran as its proxy.”

Reports that North Korea has been circumventing the testing moratorium through outsourcing to other countries have been circulating for a while now. A “Bush administration official” made the claim to a _Los Angeles Times_ reporter on 5 August, six days before Iran “tested its Shahab-3 missile.”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_09/Arrow.asp

So why did _Time_ say that Iran and N Korea “may be cooperating more closely than previously known”?

If the author could go ahead and tell us, that would be great. But the article only says:

bq. After Iran test-fired the Shahab-3 last summer, there have been indications, a top U.S. official says, that Tehran is giving North Korea telemetry and other data from its missile tests and that North Korea is using the data to make improvements in its own missile systems. In exchange, the official says, Pyongyang may be supplying Iran with engineering suggestions for further testing.

Strictly speaking, I suppose it could be true that there are “indications” of post-August-test cooperation. But that doesn’t mean these “indications” are different from previous “indications.” What is new here ?

_Time_ certainly implies that there is new evidence, but it’s hard to know because the article doesn’t say a damn thing about previous data-sharing reports. Methinks someone likely got spun.

I don’t know any authoritative sources discussing exactly how much flight test data-sharing could substitute for actual flight-testing. Moreover, a State Department official commented on the available evidence for such cooperation “18 August”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2004_09/NK_Missile.asp

bq. Asked about press leaks from U.S. officials that Iran is conducting flight tests for North Korea, the State Department official said that it is “always a possibility” but added that the United States does not have solid information that such cooperation is happening. It is not clear that North Korea “would depend on Iran for anything,” the official added.

The _Time_ article also contains this misleading section:

bq. [Under Secretary of State John Bolton] warned, Iran could soon have missiles capable of delivering payloads to Western Europe and the U.S. And if that isn’t scary enough, CIA director Porter Goss said in congressional testimony last week that North Korea’s new, untested Taepo Dong-2 missile “is capable of reaching the United States with a nuclear-weapon-sized payload.”
The implications of a North Korea-Iran deal to share and test these missiles are grim. Equally ominous, Goss said, intelligence shows that North Korea is seeking to raise hard currency by peddling its missile technology to new clients beyond Iran.

To me, this implies that Goss testified that Iran and North Korea are sharing flight testing data. But he didn’t mention it in either his prepared statement or the hearing Q&A.

It is, at the very least, poorly written.

Yeeeaahhhh, great.

I was initially unimpressed a few days ago when “Cheney said”:http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6847999/:

Well, one of the concerns people have is that Israel might do it without being asked, that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had significant nuclear capability.

Given the fact that Iran has a stated policy that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well decide to act first, and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the diplomatic mess afterwards. [Mess edited for clarity. _ACW_]

I figured this was yet more buck passing by the administration (“Hey, don’t look at us….it’s the Israelis you gotta worry about”) but then realized that he was really threatening Iran. The reason is very simple- the US, it would seem, pretty much has veto power over an Israeli strike. Which means an Israeli attack is pretty damn close to a US/Israeli attack.

Now, I realize that lots of people complain that our influence on the Sharon government is limited. But in this case, there seem to be some pretty obvious barriers to Israel attacking without U.S. permission. If I’m reading “this map”:http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/reference_maps/middle_east.html correctly, Israeli aircraft would have to pass though Iraq, Turkey, or Saudi Arabia to bomb Iran. For obvious reasons, I think the US and our allies would have a bit of influence in all of those places.

And yes, I’m aware that Israel has “submarines with missiles”:http://www.armscontrol.org/act/2003_11/Israel.asp, but I really doubt there’s more than a slight possibility that Israel could up and attack Iran in such a manner without the US knowing about it.

In any case, this administration has to get serious about Iran. In one sense, it’s saying the right things. Cheney said “everybody would be best suited…if we could deal with it diplomatically” and Powell “said 10 December”:http://www.usembassy.ro/WF/100/04-12-13/eur111.htm that “U.S. policy is not to advocate regime change in Iran.”

But the problem is that remarks like Cheney’s Israel comments indicate that the administration is talking out of both sides of its mouth on this issue. Since Bush acted in bad faith in the case of Iraq, it’d be hard to blame anyone for thinking that he isn’t serious about diplomacy this time either.

If U.S. policy really is “diplomacy without regime change” (as the administration says it is), then US officials need to express that over and over again and tell people like Cheney to STFU about military action.