Tehran's Last Chance
If Iran were a normal country, the offer would have been handsome.
Iran claims to want enriched uranium for medical treatments and research into civilian nuclear energy. But enriching uranium is a very costly process, and Iran is not a rich country.
So last month, the International Atomic Energy Agency proposed a deal, based on a Russian proposal. Instead of enriching uranium itself, Iran would ship 80% of its known uranium stockpile to Russia. There, the uranium would be enriched up to the level appropriate to energy and medical purposes, at no charge to Iran. From Russia, the uranium would proceed to France where it would be refashioned into the form most useful for medical research, again at no charge.
The uranium would then be returned to Iran to use for its stated purposes.
The Iranian taxpayer would save money. Iranian cancer patients would get faster access to nuclear medicine.
There was just one drawback to the deal: The returned uranium would be enriched nowhere near the level required for weapons purposes — and Iran would be expected to cease and desist all enrichment activities of its own.
On Oct. 22, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA indicated acceptance of the deal. Final approval, however, would have to await word from home.
So the IAEA waited. And waited. And waited. On Oct. 29, a week after the deal was pencilled in Geneva, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei was pronouncing himself “hopeful” that Iran would accept.
In the following week, Iran relayed an objection to the IAEA proposal. Why do we have to wait for the return of our fuel? What if the Russians or French keep it?
OK, answered the IAEA on Nov. 7, what about this: You Iranians ship your uranium to Turkey, a country with whom you have good relations, but also a NATO member. The Turks put that uranium into storage. Simultaneously with your release of your low-enriched uranium, you will receive more highly enriched (but not weapons grade) uranium from Russia. You don’t have to trust anybody, and the cancer patients can have their treatments immediately!
Another pause. Then on Nov. 18 came Iran’s answer: No. We’re happy to accept enriched fuel from Russia. But our fuel we keep. And our enrichment activities continue.
The world now knows more about the scale of those activities. At the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh on Sept. 25, President Obama stood side-by-side with UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicholas Sarkozy. The leaders announced that their governments had confronted Iran with evidence of a secret nuclear enrichment facility near the city of Qom. That facility could hold up to 3,000 centrifuges to spin low-enriched uranium into highly enriched weapons-grade material.
The Qom facility is the second secret facility to come into the light of day: Back in 2002, the United States revealed it had discovered a facility near Natanz.
So there we are. The Iranians could not make their message clearer if they had sent a crayoned letter to the IAEA: “We’re building a bomb — and you don’t dare stop us. Boom boom, suckers.”
There is only one last non-military stop on this train: President Obama’s initiative to organize so-called “crippling” sanctions against Iran.
These sanctions would penalize the firms that sell, carry and finance the half-million tons of gasoline that Iran must import every month. (Incredibly, this huge oil exporter and aspiring nuclear power refines only about half the gas it needs.) Such firms are vulnerable to international pressure: Two of the three Swiss firms that provide the bulk of Iran’s gasoline have substantial investments in Canada, for example. If Canada joins the sanctions regime, Canada can bring great pressure to bear on these suppliers — and thus upon Iran.
To sustain sanctions over any length of time, however, will require international co-operation, especially from Russia, China and India. Will that co-operation be forthcoming? So far, the record is not promising. But if those countries understand that the final destination of the Iranian effort is an Israeli military strike on Iran, maybe they will rethink. For that reason, the whole world has an interest in enhancing the credibility of Israeli action. For that reason, the campaign to penalize and demonize Israel for its actions in Lebanon and Gaza is an affront to world peace. Only an effective Israel can believably threaten the strike that will incentivize Iran’s trading partners to join the U.S. economic campaign.
And so once again — as with the Israeli strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor in 1981, and the Israeli strike at Syria’s nuclear reactor in 2007 — the peace of the region and possibly the world will depend on Israeli strength and courage.
Originally published on November 21, 2009 in the National Post.