Iran's New Nuke Facility

By BJ Bjornson

I notice in the news this morning that there is a big hullaballoo brewing over a new �secret� Iranian facility for enriching uranium,

The leaders of the United States, France and Britain have disclosed intelligence information to the UN nuclear watchdog that confirms a second uranium-enrichment site in Iran and are demanding an in-depth investigation.

Of course, reading further into the story I see this:

Iran informed IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei by letter on Monday that "a new pilot fuel-enrichment plant is under construction," agency spokesman Marc Vidricaire said.

So the big secret facility is one the Iranians have already informed the IAEA about? I suppose that makes the confirmation part a lot easier. I am quite confident that the already declared facility does in fact exist. Of course, there is a distinct possibility that the Iranians only got around to declaring the facility because they knew this revelation was coming.

Another point of relevance:

The IAEA has requested that Iran provided specific information regarding the newly revealed facility, which the country says will be used to produce electricity, Vidricaire said.

"The agency also understands from Iran that no nuclear material has been introduced into the facility," he said.

The lack of nuclear material being introduced is key in the legality of said facility. Under the NPT, a country does not have to inform the IAEA of any facilities until they are ready to introduce nuclear material into them, meaning the Iranians are technically still within their rights to have not disclosed the location sooner.

Now, under the Additional Protocol that we�d all like to see the Iranians ratify, they would have had to disclose said facility in the planning stages, but again, at the moment they are not under any legal requirements to do so. Part of the holdup in the ratification of the Additional Protocol is the fact that when the Iranians did operate voluntarily under the Protocol for over two years, the Bush administration reacted to this show of good faith by the Iranians much the same way the Republicans are reacting to the Obama administration�s efforts to compromise on the stimulus package, cap and trade legislation, and the Health Care bills, continued all-out opposition. Carrot-and-stick diplomacy doesn�t work if all you ever use is the stick, and as of yet, I�ve seen little to indicate Obama is actually much better in regards to Iran, though at least he isn�t as outwardly belligerent.

All the above said, Iran�s moves here are hardly confidence inspiring. While Steve has repeatedly noted the intelligence consensus that Iran doesn�t have an active nuclear weapons program, the paranoia inspired by Western hawks in regards to the country means Iran might want to consider being a little less secretive in their operations. While this new information isn�t anything I�m going to lose sleep over, it certainly isn�t going to help Iran�s case in the court of world opinion.

I also betting this was timed to the scheduled six-party talks Steve reported on due for next week. Mark Lynch has a good post up on the strategy behind the revelation with that in mind.

. . . it seems rather more likely that the administration chose to go public as part of a calculated effort to ratchet up the credibility of the threat of tough sanctions ahead of the October 1 meeting between Iran and the P5+1 in Geneva. The public disclosure puts Iran on the back foot ahead of those talks, and appears to have encouraged Russia to more seriously consider supporting such sanctions (that, plus the missile defense decision probably). This has to change Iranian calculations -- indeed, the perception that the sanctions are now more likely is precisely what may lead the Iranians to make more concessions to avoid them.

It also demonstrates to the Iranians the quality of Western intelligence and the difficulty of deception and denial -- especially in the atmosphere of (quite warranted) mistrust of their intentions. That may reduce their reasons to oppose the intrusive inspections and monitoring regime which Gary Sick argues is the most likely reasonable negotiated outcome. Such an outcome would be far more in the interests of the U.S., Iran, and Iran's neighbors than any plausible outcome of a military strike, and has to be the target of the engagement process.

An interesting possibility, though I�m certain we�ll have to sit through all sorts of screaming and shouts of �appeasement� from the usual quarters regardless what the outcome is.