Perspective 168. Is Iran's Nuclear Program Obliterated?
Senators coming out of the same secret briefing give contradictory assessments. Obviously the “classified” information is not definitive. But based on the best information publicly available, has Iran’s bomb program been obliterated?
No. Not in the sense of the path to an Iranian bomb being permanently closed; that was never at stake. The issue had always been how long it could be delayed.
In perspective, since Ayatollah Khamenei came to power in 1989, Iran’s policy has been to create the shortest possible “break-out time”: the interval between withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (as it legally can) and having a working weapon. Thus it has consistently challenged inspection under the NPT and claimed civilian uses for what was clearly infrastructure for weapons.
The bottleneck is creating enough fissile material for a bomb, in this case enriched uranium; the second stage, weaponization, is generally estimated to be a matter of months.
U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 agreement gave Iran an excuse to increase uranium enrichment from fuel-grade (3.67 percent) to 20 percent and then to 60 percent, days away from weapon-grade of 90 percent. So how much was Iran set back by the Israeli and U.S. attacks, especially on the two key enrichment sites?
The best assessment, uninfluenced by pressures to which U.S. and Israeli intelligence services are subject, is that of David Albright, a former physicist heading the Institute for Science and International Security. Albright concludes that the attacks caused “massive damage,” setting the Iran program back “significantly.”
He estimates that the centrifuge enrichment program was “effectively destroyed.” The larger enrichment facitlity, Natanz, was “likely destroyed and knocked out of operation.” The deep underground plant at Fordow was “likely severely damaged or destroyed, and thus “no longer operational.”
Regarding other parts of the enrichment program, the facility to convert uranium ore to gas for enrichment, and a lab to convert the final product to the metal form for a bomb, were both destroyed and could take years to be rebuilt.
On the other hand, there is the problem of the roughly 900 pounds of 60 percent enriched uranium already produced. There is evidence that this was removed prior to the attacks and dispersed elsewhere. In theory. If the Iranians could put together enough working centrifuges, they could complete the enrichment of this material to weapon-grade and have enough for nine or ten bombs.
As for the second stage, weaponization, related sites were bombed but it does not seem clear that this would significantly add to the “break-out time” if Iran leaves the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And the government has already declared that it will not, for now, let the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors back into the country.
If Iran withdraws from the NPT, how will we know where they are on their path to the bomb? Fortunately, an operation such as an enrichment plant, requiring huge numbers of centrifuges in one location, is not that easy to hide in a world with satellites able to scrutinize any new construction site. And there are in Iran numerous dissidents willing to inform on the government they despise.
But it would be much better to have Iran in an agreement that allows genuinely civilian nuclear facilities under tight inspection. That would be the kind of delay that would make “break-out time” Irrelevant.