Variations On Iran's Nuclear 'Point of No Return'

Aluf Benn, Ha'aretz:

When will Iran reach the point of no return in its effort to acquire nuclear weapons? Israeli and American statesmen and intelligence officials provide contradictory answers to the question, with the Israelis saying it is a matter of a few months, while the Americans say it is a matter of a few years. READ MORE

Since presumably there are not very great differences in the intelligence material both sides have access to regarding Iran's nuclear program, the contradiction is interpreted as a difference over the threat's seriousness. But the gap also is due to a different approach taken by the two sides when it comes to the "point of no return" concept.

According to Israel, the key question is when the Iranian scientists and engineers acquire the know-how to produce enriched uranium independently with technology they already have. The minute the Iranians know how to run their centrifuge units, the path to a bomb is just a matter of time. Right now, the Iranians lack both the know-how and experience, and have promised the Europeans to suspend their uranium enrichment.

According to Israeli assessments, nobody will stop Iran, and it will reach independent production of enriched uranium some time this year. Then they will need another three years to produce enough material with which to produce a nuclear bomb. Building the bomb itself is not considered a technological obstacle.

The American approach is different. The Americans define the point of no return as being the point when the Iranians have a "significant amount" of fissionable material, meaning about 25 kilograms of enriched uranium or seven kilograms of plutonium, which is enough to make one nuclear bomb. Until the Iranians reach that point, they will not cross the threshold.

The Iranians already have uranium mines and a plant for processing raw material into gas that is used to produce enriched uranium. The gas is produced in two stages, and before the program was suspended, the Iranians managed to stockpile 37 tons of low-quality gas and 3.7 tons of high-quality gas that the centrifuges can use to produce enriched uranium.

Lately, they have threatened to resume upgrading the gas, but when they encountered European threats to move their nuclear program to the UN Security Council, the Iranians were deterred.

There is growing concern here that other nations in the area have acquired nuclear technology from North Korea or from the smuggling network run by Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdul Kadr Khan. Among the suspected countries are Egypt, Syria and Saudi Arabia. However, there is no solid evidence for any secret nuclear activity in those countries beyond suspicions and circumstantial evidence.

Israeli officials who deal with nuclear policy and weapons controls are following the activities of the monitoring committee of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) in New York, which convened yesterday for its second week of deliberations.

Bitter dispute

There is a bitter dispute over the agenda due to Egyptian demands to strengthen ties to previous conferences.

Israel has not signed the NPT, and decided this year not to send a representative to the conference due to opposition from Israel's Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). The Foreign Ministry proposed sending a mid-level diplomat, as it did in previous sessions in 1995 and 2000. Its position was that it is preferable to follow the deliberations from up close and try to influence in real time the formulations regarding the Middle East and Israel, which end up in other international forums. The AEC argued that Israel should keep its distance from the NPT conference and not legitimize it.

Practically speaking, Israel is relying on the United States to take care of its interests. The AEC executive director, Gideon Frank, visited Washington last week and met with his American counterparts.

The Israeli position is complex. It supports the NPT as an instrument to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and even proposes strengthening it to increase monitoring over countries like Iran. But it refuses to join the NPT on the grounds that a global agreement is inappropriate for the region's unique circumstances.

In recent years, Israel enjoyed some understanding of its position, which is that there should be no talk of making the region a nuclear weapons-free zone until overall peace is achieved in the area. There is no real pressure on Israel to join the NPT beyond decisions initiated by Egypt from time to time in international forums. Israel also has made it clear that it will not be asking to join a treaty in the future as a nuclear state, as demanded by India and Pakistan, the only other nuclear states, along with Israel, that are outside the NPT.