[NYTr] Slate: Bloggers Assess IAEA Report on Iran

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Dave Muller - southnews

Slate - Nov 17, 2007
http://www.slate.com/id/2178269/nav/fix/

Bloggers assess the IAEA's November findings on Iran's nuclear program

With the release of the International Atomic Energy Agency's report on 
Iran's nuclear program, opinions are split in cyberspace as to what the 
thing actually means. The report concluded that the Islamic Republic 
currently has 3,000 active centrifuges at Natanz, but it also found that 
the uranium being processed is only up to fuel-not weapons-grade, or 4 
percent enrichment.

At the National Review's Corner, Stanley Kurtz writes, "[W]ith the 
Iranians making a ten-fold improvement in their capacity in just one 
year's time, how secure can we feel when they could conceivably be only 
months away from bomb-level efficiency, and an additional 12-18 months 
away from actually producing enough fuel for their first bomb? It seems 
obvious that official claims by U.S. intelligence that Iran won't have a 
bomb until 2015 are nonsense." Liberal Cernig at Newshoggers is having 
none of that: "The report mentions nothing whatsover about a timeline to 
produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon - 
unsurprising since the report does say that Iran has only managed 
low-level enrichment barely adequate for reactor fuel so far, and that 
the 3,000 centrifuges are running way below capacity. Dr. Jeffrey Lewis 
and others have calculated 20% efficiency and suggest problems with 
contaminated feedstock - which means multiplying that timeline by five!"

Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room concurs: "Plus, while 3,000 sounds 
like a huge number, Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis has repeatedly 
reminded us, it's way, way below what Tehran would need even for its 
smallish, homegrown reactor. We're talking more on the order of 18,000 
centrifuges for that." Shachtman repeats an old line: "Is Iran dangerous 
as hell? You bet it is. Do we need to do something soon about this? You 
bet we do. Is this sky falling this second? No, it's not."

The Vineyard of the Saker goes further in calling off the alarms: "1) 
Iran has proven that its nuclear program is fully accounted for and 
thereby that it is purely civilian in nature 2) Iran refuses to stop 
enriching uranium, which it is fully entitled to do as a member of the 
NPT, even though the UNSC (illegally, in violation of NTP obligations) 
demands that Iran stops all enrichment Iran is thus no 'threat' to 
anyone. The 'illegal Iranian nuclear weapons program' canard is dead."

One bit of the report that Michael Goldfarb of the conservative Weekly 
Standard's Worldwide Standard picks up on is the disclosure that Iran 
had " 'accidentally' received blueprints for a nuclear warhead (as part 
of an illegal transfer of nuclear know-how), which were 'accidentally' 
discovered by the IAEA, and we are still supposed to believe that (a) 
they aren't working towards a nuclear weapon, (b) they don't have other 
blueprints with which they weren't quite so careless, and (c) the IAEA's 
standard for compliance has always been 'generally truthful.' This 
wishful thinking can only lead to one conclusion--a nuclear Iran. And, 
while the use of force to prevent such an outcome is certain to be 
painful for all parties involved, diplomacy just isn't going to work, 
because the IAEA is all trust, and no verify."

Strategic Thinking sayis similarly cynical, writing that "while Iran has 
been in violation of its safeguard commitments for failure to report 
facilities and provide other information, this is alone not sufficient 
to conclude that Iran is seeking to produce nuclear weapons. It is 
essentially circumstantial evidence, albeit, in some cases, compelling 
circumstantial evidence. For example, it doesn't make much economic 
sense for Iran to build a capacity to produce nuclear power plant fuel 
at several times the cost it would pay Russia for that fuel."