Recent reports that Iran and the U.S. have reached an “understanding” about mutual de-escalatory steps including over Iran’s nuclear program suggest that both sides want to avert a major crisis at this time.
The Biden administration is preoccupied with the Ukraine war, challenges from China, and seeking re-election to a second term. Iran is burdened by sanctions and looking to shore up its regime’s tattered legitimacy after nationwide protests against forced veiling. It is also preparing for an eventual leadership change when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies.
Under these circumstances, a diplomatic cease-fire could pause Iran’s nuclear advances, which have been significant since the Donald Trump administration quit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Iran now possesses sufficient fissile material for four or five nuclear bombs and, according to some experts, could weaponize within a few months if it so chose.
If and when Iran develops nuclear weapons, they will have been a long time coming.
Iran’s nuclear program was born in the late 1950s against the backdrop of U.S.-Iran friendship. Iran received a small research reactor from the U.S. under the so-called Atoms for Peace program. The then Shah of Iran lacked a strategic nuclear vision at the time but was fascinated with Western notions of modernity — which nuclear programs embodied — and wanted to show off.
“He [Shah] loved nuclear technology so he can show to the Arab world, that I have a five-megawatt reactor and you do not,” an Iranian nuclear scientist who worked on the Tehran Research Reactor told this author on condition of anonymity. Until the end of his reign, the Shah did “both the thinking and making the decisions,” on all nuclear-related matters, the scientist said.
In the 1970s thanks to massive oil revenues, the Shah ordered the expansion of the program and contracted to buy several civilian reactors from Germany and France. The U.S. however, was uneasy about the Shah’s nuclear intentions with one CIA analyst predicting that if “Iran continues with its nuclear program and if the Shah remained alive, and other countries in the region have proliferated nuclear weapons, Iran would also develop nuclear weapons by mid-1980s.” Other U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by this author indicate that the Iranian military had begun working on the design of nuclear explosive devices by 1978, a year before the Shah was overthrown.
Even when the U.S. and Iran were security partners, the two disagreed about whether Iran had the “right” to possess advanced nuclear technology under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran joined as a non-nuclear weapons state. The issue of plutonium reprocessing was a particular sticking point given its potential to create weapons fuel and the U.S. refused to provide that technology to Iran.
The Shah’s logic during this period was that given Iran’s conventional superiority, Iran did not need a nuclear arsenal but “if 20 or 30 ridiculous little countries are going to develop nuclear weapons,” then Iran should have them too. As the late Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi wrote years later, Iran’s strategy was to pursue a “surge capacity,” more commonly known as a hedging strategy. His successors have also followed that route.
The Islamic Republic that succeeded the Pahlavi dynasty initially distanced itself from what it called a treasonous and expensive program that made Iran beholden to Western imperialists. With the outbreak of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Iraq’s widespread use of chemical weapons and, world powers’ support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion, however, the view of Iranian leaders shifted. As the late Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a key Iranian politician who went on to serve two terms as president, recalled, “When we first began, we were at war, and we sought to have that possibility for the day that the enemy might use a nuclear weapon. That was the thinking…”
Iran resumed nuclear work in 1981 when the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) sponsored a conference on nuclear power plant construction. Iran also began small-scale uranium conversion activities at the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center (ENTC), a French-designed center that was completed with Chinese assistance in 1984. In 1982, Iran imported uranium concentrate from South Africa. This material is converted to yellowcake, then to gas form (UF6) prior to enrichment.
By 1985, there was a full-fledged effort to resurrect the Shah’s nuclear program with the aim of acquiring the ability to enrich uranium, the so-called nuclear fuel cycle. As some scholars have suggested, Iranians also contacted Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan’s network in the late 1980s to obtain the designs for rudimentary centrifuges. Iran chose the simple P-1 or IR-1 model, as it was called in Iran, so that it would be within the technological capacity of the country to manufacture indigenously.
The 1990s witnessed further expansion of Iran’s nuclear program with the help of China and Russia. In January 1990, Iran signed a deal with China, although it excluded enrichment. Iran and Russia signed an agreement in January 1995 under which Russia pledged to complete the Bushehr nuclear reactor that had been started by Germany in the 1970s. Like the Shah who sent Iranian students abroad to pursue advanced degrees in nuclear engineering, the Islamic Republic also began dispatching engineers to Pakistan and Italy to replenish its cadre of skilled manpower.
By the summer of 1999, Iranian scientists had enriched uranium with a cascade of 19 IR-1 centrifuges operating at the Kalaye-Electric company. Iran entered the 21st century having mastered the key technology needed to produce nuclear weapons.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 changed Tehran’s calculations. Faced with a much superior nuclear and conventional power, repeated calls for regime change from Washington, as well as the overthrow of their old enemy Saddam, Iranian leaders, according to many assessments, decided to end work on the design of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003. Iran continued its hedging, however, on uranium enrichment.
What ensued has been a cat-and-mouse game of nuclear diplomacy between Iran and the U.S., with Tehran attempting to expand its enrichment capabilities and Washington imposing an array of economic sanctions. As in the past, the most difficult obstacle to agreement has been the question of indigenous enrichment. The George W. Bush administration demanded that Iran halt enrichment while President Barack Obama accepted a strictly monitored and limited program on Iranian soil. This U.S. concession eventually led to the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, which limited Iran for 15 years to a small stockpile of 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to no more than 3.67 percent of the isotope U-235. Iran’s facilities were also to be under strict monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement proved to be a strategic blunder. After waiting a year to see if other JCPOA parties would continue to trade with it despite U.S. sanctions, Iran resumed enriching uranium to higher and higher levels. The Israeli assassination of a top figure in the Iranian nuclear program in late 2020 led Iran’s parliament to mandate a resumption of enrichment to 20 percent. After Israel attacked the Natanz enrichment facility in April 2021, Iran upped the ante by beginning to enrich at 60 percent. In August 2021, also in contravention of JCPOA, it began work on the production of uranium metal.
Efforts to revive the JCPOA after Trump left office have proved elusive. According to U.S. intelligence assessments, however, Iranian leaders have not made the political decision to build nuclear weapons even as their stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium has grown and disputes continue with the IAEA over unexplained traces of uranium at undeclared sites.
Recent reports regarding mutual reciprocal actions by Iran and the U.S. will not resolve the standoff, but can avert further escalation which could lead to a regional conflagration. They can also create a basis for future diplomacy and a nuclear agreement that might better stand the test of time.
Sina Azodi is a lecturer of International Affairs at the George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies, and a PhD Candidate at the University of South Florida, where he is writing a doctoral dissertation on Iran’s nuclear program. Follow him on Twitter: @Azodiac83
Iran’s Nuclear Program Has a Long History of Advances, Setbacks and Diplomatic Pauses
By Sina Azodi
Middle East & North Africa
The Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal and Israeli attacks on Iranian personnel and infrastructure have led Iran to retaliate by accelerating its nuclear program to the point where it could swiftly produce weapons. The U.S. and Iran are discussing a “pause” that would keep Iran short of weaponizing, release U.S. hostages and reduce regional tensions.
Recent reports that Iran and the U.S. have reached an “understanding” about mutual de-escalatory steps including over Iran’s nuclear program suggest that both sides want to avert a major crisis at this time.
The Biden administration is preoccupied with the Ukraine war, challenges from China, and seeking re-election to a second term. Iran is burdened by sanctions and looking to shore up its regime’s tattered legitimacy after nationwide protests against forced veiling. It is also preparing for an eventual leadership change when Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei dies.
Under these circumstances, a diplomatic cease-fire could pause Iran’s nuclear advances, which have been significant since the Donald Trump administration quit the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2018. Iran now possesses sufficient fissile material for four or five nuclear bombs and, according to some experts, could weaponize within a few months if it so chose.
If and when Iran develops nuclear weapons, they will have been a long time coming.
Iran’s nuclear program was born in the late 1950s against the backdrop of U.S.-Iran friendship. Iran received a small research reactor from the U.S. under the so-called Atoms for Peace program. The then Shah of Iran lacked a strategic nuclear vision at the time but was fascinated with Western notions of modernity — which nuclear programs embodied — and wanted to show off.
“He [Shah] loved nuclear technology so he can show to the Arab world, that I have a five-megawatt reactor and you do not,” an Iranian nuclear scientist who worked on the Tehran Research Reactor told this author on condition of anonymity. Until the end of his reign, the Shah did “both the thinking and making the decisions,” on all nuclear-related matters, the scientist said.
In the 1970s thanks to massive oil revenues, the Shah ordered the expansion of the program and contracted to buy several civilian reactors from Germany and France. The U.S. however, was uneasy about the Shah’s nuclear intentions with one CIA analyst predicting that if “Iran continues with its nuclear program and if the Shah remained alive, and other countries in the region have proliferated nuclear weapons, Iran would also develop nuclear weapons by mid-1980s.” Other U.S. intelligence reports reviewed by this author indicate that the Iranian military had begun working on the design of nuclear explosive devices by 1978, a year before the Shah was overthrown.
Even when the U.S. and Iran were security partners, the two disagreed about whether Iran had the “right” to possess advanced nuclear technology under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which Iran joined as a non-nuclear weapons state. The issue of plutonium reprocessing was a particular sticking point given its potential to create weapons fuel and the U.S. refused to provide that technology to Iran.
The Shah’s logic during this period was that given Iran’s conventional superiority, Iran did not need a nuclear arsenal but “if 20 or 30 ridiculous little countries are going to develop nuclear weapons,” then Iran should have them too. As the late Ambassador Ardeshir Zahedi wrote years later, Iran’s strategy was to pursue a “surge capacity,” more commonly known as a hedging strategy. His successors have also followed that route.
The Islamic Republic that succeeded the Pahlavi dynasty initially distanced itself from what it called a treasonous and expensive program that made Iran beholden to Western imperialists. With the outbreak of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, Iraq’s widespread use of chemical weapons and, world powers’ support for Saddam Hussein’s invasion, however, the view of Iranian leaders shifted. As the late Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a key Iranian politician who went on to serve two terms as president, recalled, “When we first began, we were at war, and we sought to have that possibility for the day that the enemy might use a nuclear weapon. That was the thinking…”
Iran resumed nuclear work in 1981 when the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) sponsored a conference on nuclear power plant construction. Iran also began small-scale uranium conversion activities at the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center (ENTC), a French-designed center that was completed with Chinese assistance in 1984. In 1982, Iran imported uranium concentrate from South Africa. This material is converted to yellowcake, then to gas form (UF6) prior to enrichment.
By 1985, there was a full-fledged effort to resurrect the Shah’s nuclear program with the aim of acquiring the ability to enrich uranium, the so-called nuclear fuel cycle. As some scholars have suggested, Iranians also contacted Pakistan’s A.Q. Khan’s network in the late 1980s to obtain the designs for rudimentary centrifuges. Iran chose the simple P-1 or IR-1 model, as it was called in Iran, so that it would be within the technological capacity of the country to manufacture indigenously.
The 1990s witnessed further expansion of Iran’s nuclear program with the help of China and Russia. In January 1990, Iran signed a deal with China, although it excluded enrichment. Iran and Russia signed an agreement in January 1995 under which Russia pledged to complete the Bushehr nuclear reactor that had been started by Germany in the 1970s. Like the Shah who sent Iranian students abroad to pursue advanced degrees in nuclear engineering, the Islamic Republic also began dispatching engineers to Pakistan and Italy to replenish its cadre of skilled manpower.
By the summer of 1999, Iranian scientists had enriched uranium with a cascade of 19 IR-1 centrifuges operating at the Kalaye-Electric company. Iran entered the 21st century having mastered the key technology needed to produce nuclear weapons.
The U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 changed Tehran’s calculations. Faced with a much superior nuclear and conventional power, repeated calls for regime change from Washington, as well as the overthrow of their old enemy Saddam, Iranian leaders, according to many assessments, decided to end work on the design of nuclear weapons in the fall of 2003. Iran continued its hedging, however, on uranium enrichment.
What ensued has been a cat-and-mouse game of nuclear diplomacy between Iran and the U.S., with Tehran attempting to expand its enrichment capabilities and Washington imposing an array of economic sanctions. As in the past, the most difficult obstacle to agreement has been the question of indigenous enrichment. The George W. Bush administration demanded that Iran halt enrichment while President Barack Obama accepted a strictly monitored and limited program on Iranian soil. This U.S. concession eventually led to the signing of the JCPOA in 2015, which limited Iran for 15 years to a small stockpile of 300 kilograms of uranium enriched to no more than 3.67 percent of the isotope U-235. Iran’s facilities were also to be under strict monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Trump’s withdrawal from the nuclear agreement proved to be a strategic blunder. After waiting a year to see if other JCPOA parties would continue to trade with it despite U.S. sanctions, Iran resumed enriching uranium to higher and higher levels. The Israeli assassination of a top figure in the Iranian nuclear program in late 2020 led Iran’s parliament to mandate a resumption of enrichment to 20 percent. After Israel attacked the Natanz enrichment facility in April 2021, Iran upped the ante by beginning to enrich at 60 percent. In August 2021, also in contravention of JCPOA, it began work on the production of uranium metal.
Efforts to revive the JCPOA after Trump left office have proved elusive. According to U.S. intelligence assessments, however, Iranian leaders have not made the political decision to build nuclear weapons even as their stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium has grown and disputes continue with the IAEA over unexplained traces of uranium at undeclared sites.
Recent reports regarding mutual reciprocal actions by Iran and the U.S. will not resolve the standoff, but can avert further escalation which could lead to a regional conflagration. They can also create a basis for future diplomacy and a nuclear agreement that might better stand the test of time.
Sina Azodi is a lecturer of International Affairs at the George Washington University’s Institute for Middle East Studies, and a PhD Candidate at the University of South Florida, where he is writing a doctoral dissertation on Iran’s nuclear program. Follow him on Twitter: @Azodiac83
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