Let us bet on the fact that nobody will bomb Iran's nuclear facilities,
at least for quite a while. There is no Iranian nuclear test in the offing. Up
to now, the inspections of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) have
uncovered no diversion of declared stocks of uranium for use in a nuclear
explosive device. Of course, clandestine activities could always take place in some
remote places of the vast Iranian territory, undeclared to the inspectors of
the Vienna Agency. Let us even assume that such activities are actually taking
place. Could they bring Iran, without being detected, at a distance of just a few
screwdriver turns from the bomb? There is a big gap between paper and computer
work as well as laboratory-scale experiments on one side, and the full-scale
production of materials and equipment required for a nuclear arsenal on the
other. The former can be easily hidden, the second is much harder to conceal.
In the history of nuclear proliferation, the only surprises to the outer world
have been the first Russian test in 1949 – though one could guess that it
would happen sooner or later –, and the 1974 Indian nuclear test. But the
world was then more naïve, and the methods of collecting information on such programs
much less sophisticated: no observation satellites, no electronic
eavesdropping… Recently, the progress of Pakistan or North Korea towards the
bomb could be closely monitored, and the upcoming of their first tests was
hardly a surprise for people concerned.
How can Iran come close to the bomb? It has only two practical ways at
its disposal: expel the IAEA inspectors, as North Korea did, and use its
formerly declared facilities, Natanz and Fordow, to produce the necessary
highly enriched uranium. This, of course, would amount to a formal declaration
of intention to produce a nuclear engine and the following period would become
for Iran a zone of all dangers. North Korea is immune from strikes on its
nuclear facilities because of China's protection. But Iran is a lonely country.
It is doubtful that Russia would rush to its help, once assured that the
Bushehr nuclear plant that it has fathered would be left untouched.
The second way would be to develop a wholly clandestine program starting
with the extraction of uranium ore, followed by the production of the uranium concentrate
called yellow cake, then its conversion into gaseous form, and finally its
enrichment up to 90%. All of this through industrial processes treating hundreds
of tons of ore, dozens of tons of natural uranium ready for enrichment, and tons
for low enriched uranium in store for higher enrichment. There would be
thousands of centrifuges spinning underground for months and years. Plus all
the experiments to be conducted around the engineering of the bomb. Such a vast
and multi-faceted program would run indeed a high risk to be uncovered long
before approaching its ultimate goal.
This assessment has been amply endorsed by the main intelligence services,
American, European and Israeli alike. But things become more intricate when one
claims it has the right, not only to stop Iran from acquiring the bomb, but to prevent
it from acquiring the technical and scientific prerequisites for producing a
nuclear engine. Assessments become inevitably hazier, the zone of uncertainty
expands, anyone can produce its own definition of the forbidden threshold and
decide to act accordingly. This is where we stand today.
And from such a slippery position, things could fairly easily go astray.
In the United States, the Congress could, one vote after another, funnel the
Administration into ever narrowing straits. A presidential candidate pledging
to bomb Iran could get elected. In Israel, a difficult internal situation could
confer a fresh appeal to some demonstration of strength. The destruction of the
Iraqi reactor Tammuz took place in 1981 three weeks before an election that Menahem
Begin was bound to loose. And there is always the risk of a major unexpected
event in the like of September 11 or the Arab Spring, introducing in current
games a new paradigm. In the spring of 2001, the U.S., Britain and Canada had
come to the conclusion that the comprehensive sanctions imposed for a decade
upon Iraq were producing little effect on the regime but dire consequences for
the population. They proposed the Security Council to replace them by smart,
better targeted sanctions. This should have signaled the beginning of the end of
the Iraqi crisis. In came the Twin Towers attack. The smart sanctions were
finally approved by the Security Council in May, 2002. But at this time, the chariots
of war had already entered Afghanistan and were rolling towards Iraq.
Thus, crises getting out of hand start begin as crises that the main
actors believe they can control. This painful conclusion brings us to try to
imagine what could be the results and the consequences of a strike against
Iranian nuclear facilities.
The Fordow enrichment plant is widely believed to be the place chosen by
Iran to produce, would it take such a decision, enough uranium enriched to 90%
for one or two bombs per year. It would therefore be the first target of a
strike. Buried under some 300 feet of rock, it can accommodate about 3,000
centrifuges. The last IAEA report confirms that Fordow has started at the end
of 2011 to enrich uranium up to 20%. This percentage is considered to be the
upper limit of low enrichment. Uranium produced in Fordow is supposed to end up
fueling the small research reactor sold by the Americans to the Iranians in the
late sixties. It seems difficult, even with "bunker busters" to reach
and destroy the heart of a facility so deeply buried in the mountain. Only
nuclear tactical bombs could do the job. Of course, the access to the facility would
be brought to collapse. The centrifuges, which are fragile devices, would
suffer serious damages under the secondary effects of the explosions. All of
this would take months, perhaps one or two years to repair. Another solution
would be to transfer the undamaged and repairable centrifuges to others, even
more remote places. Production would be significantly delayed, but the setback could
be absorbed in the medium term.
The Isfahan conversion facility and the Natanz enrichment facility,
built on plain, open ground, would suffer much heavier damages. The Iranians
could then feel happy to have built at least one of their nuclear facilities
underground. For years, they have been under regular threats of strikes over
their nuclear facilities, and pressed simultaneously to keep all of them above ground,
as so many goats used as baits for the tiger.
Of course, one hopes that the Bushehr power plant would be left aside
from any planning against Iranian nuclear facilities. It has already started
producing electricity and its nuclear heart is therefore highly radioactive.
Its destruction could very well produce a Fukushima- type accident on the shore
of the Persian Gulf, which forms a closed sea.
And about the response of Iran, what forms could it take? Considering
the serious shortcomings of the Iranian army, navy and air force, on can hardly
imagine Iran taking the risk to enter into some kind of conventional war with
any of its neighbors of the Persian Gulf. Any attempt to close the Strait of
Hormuz could not be sustained over a few days. Iran could shoot a few dozen
missiles equipped with conventional warheads towards Israel. This would be a
painful act of vengeance, but with no strategic consequences. It could ask the
Hezbollah to unleash the stockpile of hundreds, and probably thousands of
missiles of different types accumulated with its help since the end of the last
war in Lebanon. But the Hezbollah could very well end up fully destroyed in the
new war which would follow.
What about a covert war of terror in Europe, in the United States and beyond?
Apart from the rather unconvincing recent episodes taking place in Georgia and
in India, it appears that there have been no terrorist activities coming from
Iran or its friends in the last fifteen years. Of course, there was also the
recent assassination attempt of the Saudian ambassador in Washington. But the
investigation of the case does not seem to progress. The main suspect has
finally refused to plead guilty. Passed the initial political declarations and
the vote of a resolution pointing at Iran by the United Nations General
Assembly, the interest in the case seems to have been waning.
There is one form of vengeance little spoken of, that Iran could activate
in full respect of the Law. This would be to withdraw from the
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Article 10 of this international agreement
states: «Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right
to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to
the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of
its country." If a strike came from Israel, it would be indeed an
extraordinary event to see a country alien to the NPT, and having no nuclear
facility controlled by the IAEA, bomb the nuclear facilities of an NPT Party, placed
under permanent control of the Agency, and from which no diversion of nuclear material
has been ever signaled. If the strike came from the United States, we would see
an NPT Party authorized to keep a nuclear arsenal destroying the facilities of
another member of the same Treaty, committed not to acquire the bomb, and from
the time being having no bomb at all.
What would be the legal consequences of such a withdrawal? Iran would
still have the duty to keep all its nuclear existing facilities, whatever the damages
inflicted, as well as the fissile material already produced, under the control
of the IAEA. Indeed, the Safeguards Agreements contracted by the Agency have no
link whatsoever with membership of the signatory country to the NPT. On the
other hand, all new nuclear facilities, all newly produced fissile material,
would escape from IAEA controls. New facilities could be deeply buried, or
dispersed in the vast Iranian territory, or hidden in urban landscapes. Deprived
of the capacity to inspect these facilities, the international community would
loose a precious source of information on the Iranian nuclear program. Last and
most important consequence, Iran would regain the freedom to detain a nuclear
arsenal, as India, Pakistan or Israel.
Could we then assist to a wave of withdrawals from the NPT coming from neighboring
countries rightfully worried by a nuclear Iran, like Turkey, Egypt or Saudi
Arabia? Such an outcome is possible, but not certain. The United States would
deploy all its efforts to convince them to remain in the community of the Treaty
members, even at the expense of enhanced military guarantees.
Let us follow up the track of an Iran rid of NPT constraints. Save for a
Regime change, Iran, after healing its wounds, would be able to produce a first
bomb in about two to three years. It would then have to learn to miniaturize
and to harden this first device in order to produce deliverable nuclear
weapons. Another five to ten years, at least, would be needed to put together a
budding nuclear arsenal. Then comes the big question : thus equipped, would
Iran be tempted to destroy Israel?
As the former Iranian nuclear negotiator Hussein Mousavian was recently
reminding in several interviews, nuclear strikes over Israel could very well
kill almost as many Palestinians as Jews. A land considered as especially holy
by the Islamic Republic would be polluted for centuries to come. And, of
course, the inevitable retaliation coming from Israel, and most probably from
the United States, would produce even more dramatic consequences for Iran.
Another more likely hypothesis would be that the enemies of Israel, comforted
by the existence of an Iranian nuclear umbrella, would be encouraged to create unending
difficulties for the Jewish State. But in such a case, Iran would become the
hostage by its own friends. It could very well find itself driven against its
will into some diplomatic, and then military escalation. It is doubtful that Iran
would light-heartedly contemplate such a perspective, knowing too well that, for
decades to come, strikes it could inflict could hardly be compared with the
ones it could receive.
What remains are the unbearable insults and threats
uttered by the Iranian leaders against Israel. As long as they maintain such a
behavior, Israel will have all reasons to worry, and the international
community all reasons to be deeply disturbed. Iran cannot complain to reap what
it has been so consistently sowing. But on our part, let us beware of anachronisms.
The Iranian Islamic regime has never presented itself as the herald of a higher
civilization, entitled to enslave or annihilate people around it. It is
pursuing the end of the political entity embodied by the Jewish State of
Israel, and this must be sternly condemned, if only by reference to the mutual
obligations of the signatories of the United Nations Charter. But it does not
call for the creation of new Auschwitzes. The Iranian leaders are not Hitler or
Goebbels. They are Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, and that is already plenty.
