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It's all about oil

By Marko Beljac - posted Monday, 5 February 2007


The United States has deployed an extra aircraft carrier battle group for the Persian Gulf in order to rattle the sabre in the nuclear standoff with Iran. Given the experience with dodgy intelligence during the lead up to the invasion of Iraq it is worth reflecting on just how real is the purported Iranian nuclear threat.

The Iranian nuclear program is long standing and can be traced all the way back to the Shah who held power prior to the 1979 revolution. At the time Henry Kissinger stated, the “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals”.

Today, one of the main pillars of the argument that Iran’s nuclear energy program is actually a cover for a weapons program is the notion that oil rich Iran has no economic need for nuclear energy. Asked to explain the shift Kissinger responded that Iran under the Shah was an allied power.

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The recent crisis began when US intelligence disclosed to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that Iran was building a secret uranium enrichment facility.

In other words, if Iran were an ally of the United States then the intelligence on Tehran’s uranium enrichment facility would most likely have never made it to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

If the IAEA is to solely rely on intelligence from the US then it becomes likely that the only covert nuclear programs that the IAEA refers to the UN would be ones the US doesn’t like: it would effectively become an instrument of US policy. Earlier this year the IAEA refused to condemn Israel for its own, albeit outside of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) framework, nuclear weapons.

But how seriously should we take the economic argument? A Los Alamos National Laboratory study, which is often cited in these debates, argued that Iran has no economic rationale for a civil nuclear energy program. However, the terms of reference of the report were quite limited for the report only looked at Iran’s enrichment program, not its entire array of nuclear activities.

A more comprehensive study appeared in the The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, which concluded that Iran faces a grave energy crisis because it needs to import oil-based products given that it has inadequate refining infrastructure and growing domestic demand due to demographic growth. This energy crunch threatens the regime’s long term viability, the study surmises.

It is not obvious that Iran has no economic rationale for a nuclear energy program and if it does then it does not matter who is in the presidential palace in Tehran given this structural need.

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The only factors that could ameliorate this structural need would be external, but Iran has long been the subject of a US policy of containment, a key plank of which used to be support of Saddam Hussein during the period when he committed his worst atrocities. The screws have been tightened some more in recent times, especially in relation to financial sanctions and oil sector sanctions.

Iran’s response has been measured, contrary to most news comment, which characterises it as being “hardline”. Interestingly, it has also intensified a power struggle in Tehran between moderates and conservatives.

This progressive tightening of the screws, given the energy crisis that Iran faces, could easily be seen in Tehran as reflecting a policy of regime change. Similar perceptions in Pyongyang led to the recent North Korean nuclear test.

Important evidence used against Iran is that it has violated its nuclear safeguards agreements with the International Atomic Energy Agency. It did not disclose that it had an enrichment program nor that it conducted modest experiments with plutonium re-processing.

Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) and plutonium can both be used as the fissile material for a nuclear weapon. Both enrichment and reprocessing are actually legal under the NPT framework but non-disclosure is a violation of safeguards. It is this non-disclosure that is of concern.

But non-disclosure does not necessarily equate to a bomb program.

Let us assume that Iran does have a nuclear weapons program. Certainly it would have a strategic rationale for having one. Israel in the past, as a part of its “phantom alliance” with Turkey, has conducted mock bombing runs with nuclear capable aircraft on the Iranian border.

In the Bush administration’s 2002 Nuclear Posture Review, excerpts of which were leaked, Iran was listed as a target of US nuclear weapons. The US, partly, invaded Iraq in order to gain a permanent military presence in Baghdad. Iran has had testy relations with Pakistan, ironically enough given Pakistan’s previous support for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

If Iran has a nuclear weapons program it less reflects a desire for regional hegemony and more a reflection of genuine security concerns. Iran would seek nuclear weapons primarily to deter the United States.

How long would it take Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and what kind of threat would it be? If we focus on enrichment, using conservative gas centrifuge capacity figures, Iran would have enough HEU (25kg per bomb) for a strategic deterrent of 5-6 weapons by about 2012-2015 . This is assuming that Iran successfully constructs a large gas centrifuge cascade consisting of thousands of centrifuges.

Currently, Iran has a 164-machine cascade of doubtful working order. Analysts have pointed out that Iran’s enrichment program is bedevilled by impurities and it would require outside assistance to overcome these, if acquiring weapons grade enriched uranium were Tehran’s goal. Given these impurities it is doubtful whether Iran could produce the high grade of enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon.

Of much more concern would be plutonium. Iran is constructing a heavy water research reactor that would act as an efficient breeder of plutonium. It has been described as a “bomb factory”. This reactor could produce 8kg of plutonium a year, enough for 1-2 nuclear weapons a year. Best estimates suggest that this reactor would not be operational until 2014.

However, the plutonium from this reactor would still need to be reprocessed and in the latest report on Iran the IAEA stated, “there are no indications of ongoing reprocessing activities at those facilities, or at any other declared facilities in Iran”.

Of course Iran may have a secret un-declared program but according to Seymour Hersh the CIA has concluded that Iran has no secret nuclear facilities additional to the ones that we already know about.

That is to say, the Iranian nuclear threat, such as it is, is not a particularly acute one so far as time is concerned. This stands in complete contrast to many scare mongering antics, from the usual suspects, that suggest that we have only “months” in which to take military action in order to forestall an Iranian nuclear bomb.

What kind of threat would Iranian nuclear weapons make? A militarily effective nuclear weapon, that is one that can be delivered to target, would need to be fitted onto a ballistic missile in the absence of air superiority. The main missile here is the Shahab 3, which is Iran’s variant of the North Korean Nodong. Pakistan’s Ghauri II is also a variant of the Nodong. If Iran were to manufacture nuclear weapons then it would weaponise the Shahab 3, but doing so (given the large payload compared to a conventional explosive warhead) would seriously affect the missile’s range and accuracy.

At best this would give Iran a regional nuclear deterrent. It would not have the capability to deliver a nuclear warhead either to Europe or the United States. Nuclear weaponisation of the Shahab 4, reputed to have inter-continental range, is fantasy talk.

Therefore if Iran were to have nuclear weapons they would act as a deterrent against US intervention capabilities in the region, not against the US homeland, containing most of the world’s energy resources.

The eventual wash-up of the invasion of Iraq may lead to the formation of a semi-integrated Shiite bloc in the Gulf region. This could include Saudi Arabia’s most lucrative oil fields, which contain a sizeable Shia population. Any Iranian nuclear weapons would then take the form of a deterrent preventing Washington from breaking up such a consolidated independent entity by force. If so, the US would have effectively lost control of most of the world’s oil.

This is what is at stake and US actions with respect to Iraq and in relation to Iran is making such a possibility more likely. Indeed, if Washington is rattling the sabre against Iran because of its failures in Iraq then it would only greatly compound the original folly of invading Iraq.

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About the Author

Mark Beljac teaches at Swinburne University of Technology, is a board member of the New International Bookshop, and is involved with the Industrial Workers of the World, National Tertiary Education Union, National Union of Workers (community) and Friends of the Earth.

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