Michele Kearney's Snuffysmith's Blog: Atomic Amnesia: The Forgotten Military Aspects of Iran’s Nuclear Program

Tuesday, June 3, 2014

Atomic Amnesia: The Forgotten Military Aspects of Iran’s Nuclear Program

06/03/14

Emily B. Landau, Ephraim Asculai, Shimon Stein

Nonproliferation, Iran

The military aspects of Tehran’s program are of critical importance to negotiations, and should be regarded as a deal-breaker if not included in any proposal for a final deal.

With most analysis of the Iranian nuclear program focused on its uranium-enrichment capabilities and the possible plutonium route to a nuclear device, the purely military aspects of Iran’s activities have been relegated to the sidelines. Indeed, as the nuclear negotiations between the P5+1 and Iran move toward the July 20 deadline, it is still not clear whether the international negotiators will insist upon including the suspected military aspects of Iran’s nuclear program in the framework of a final comprehensive deal. When we consider the relationship between the decade-long IAEA investigation into the military aspects of Iran’s program, and the recent round of negotiations led by the P5+1, it should be clear that IAEA findings must feed into P5+1 negotiations. But, the current situation—in which the IAEA is waiting for some Iranian answers until the end of August, but the deadline for the talks is July 20—does not auger well for the inclusion of the military aspects in a comprehensive deal.

In fact, the military aspects of Iran’s program are of critical importance to negotiations with Iran, and should be regarded as a deal-breaker if not included in any proposal for a final deal. With regard to fissile-material production, it has not been too difficult for Iran to insist on civilian explanations (read: excuses) for its activities based on dual-use technology. But evidence of Iranian work on developing a nuclear explosive mechanism would be very strong indication of its military nuclear ambitions. The evidence that the IAEA is trying to clarify with Iran appears under the diplomatic title of “Possible Military Dimensions”, but the PMD are just one set of issues, and what should be on the table is the full range of suspected weaponization activities.

There are two ways of thinking about integrating the military dimensions of Iran’s nuclear program into the negotiations and a final deal. The first would be minded to the issue of verification, the idea being that in order to verify Iran’s activities into the future, inspectors must be very clear about how Iran was cheating in the past. So everything that Iran has done—all of its past and present activities that the West regards as military in nature—would be placed on the table, but without necessarily pronouncing judgment as to what exactly Iran was attempting to achieve.

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