JUNE
23, 2015
PRESIDENT
OBAMA’S main pitch for the pending nuclear deal with Iranis
that it would extend the “breakout time” necessary for Iran to produce enough
enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. In a recent interview with NPR, he said
that the current breakout time is “about two to three months by our
intelligence estimates.” By contrast, he claimed, the pending deal would shrink
Iran’s nuclear program, so that if Iran later
“decided to break the deal, kick out all the inspectors, break the seals and go
for a bomb, we’d have over a year to respond.”
Unfortunately, that claim
is false, as can be demonstrated with basic science and math. By my
calculations, Iran’s actual breakout time under the deal would be approximately
three months — not over a year. Thus, the deal would be unlikely to improve the
world’s ability to react to a sudden effort by Iran to build a bomb.
Breakout time is
determined by three primary factors: the number and type of centrifuges; the
enrichment of the starting material; and the amount of enriched uranium
required for a nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama seems to make rosy assumptions about
all three.
Most important, in the
event of an overt attempt by Iran to build a bomb, Mr. Obama’s argument assumes
that Iran would employ only the 5,060 centrifuges that the deal would allow for
uranium enrichment, not the roughly 14,000 additional centrifuges that Iran
would be permitted to keep mainly for spare parts. Such an assumption is
laughable. In a real-world breakout, Iran would race, not crawl, to the bomb.
These additional
centrifuges would need to be connected, brought up to speed and equilibrated
with the already operating ones. But at that point, Iran’s enrichment capacity
could exceed three times what Mr. Obama assumes. This flaw could be addressed
by amending the deal to require Iran to destroy or export the additional
centrifuges, but Iran refuses.
Second, since the deal
would permit Iran to keep only a small amount of enriched uranium in the
gaseous form used in centrifuges, Mr. Obama assumes that a dash for the bomb
would start mainly from unenriched uranium, thereby lengthening the breakout
time. But the deal would appear to also permit Iran to keep large amounts of
enriched uranium in solid form (as opposed to gas), which could be reconverted
to gas within weeks, thus providing a substantial head-start to producing
weapons-grade uranium.
Third, Mr. Obama’s
argument assumes that Iran would require 59 pounds of weapons-grade uranium to
make an atomic bomb. In reality, nuclear
weapons can be made from much smaller amounts of uranium (as
experts assume North Korea does in its rudimentary arsenal). A 1995 study by
the Natural Resources Defense Council concluded that even a “low technical
capability” nuclear weapon could produce an explosion with a force approaching
that of the Hiroshima bomb — using just 29 pounds of weapons-grade uranium.
Based on such realistic
assumptions, Iran’s breakout time under the pending deal actually would be
around three months, while its current breakout time is a little under two
months. Thus, the deal would increase the breakout time by just over a month,
too little to matter. Mr. Obama’s main argument for the agreement — extending
Iran’s breakout time — turns out to be effectively worthless.
By contrast, Iran stands
to gain enormously. The deal would lift nuclear-related sanctions, thereby
infusing Iran’s economy with billions of dollars annually. In addition, the
deal could release frozen Iranian assets, reportedly giving Tehran a $30
billion to $50 billion “signing bonus.”
Showering Iran with
rewards for making illusory concessions poses grave risks. It would entrench
the ruling mullahs, who could claim credit for Iran’s economic resurgence. The
extra resources would also enable Iran to amplify the havoc it is fostering in
neighboring countries like Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen.
Worst of all, lifting
sanctions would facilitate a huge expansion of Iran’s nuclear program. Ayatollah
Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, says that he wants 190,000 centrifuges
eventually, or 10 times the current amount, as would appear to be permissible
under the deal after just 10 years. Such enormous enrichment capacity would
shrink the breakout time to mere days, so that Iran could produce enough
weapons-grade uranium for a bomb before we even knew it was trying — thus
eliminating any hope of our taking preventive action.
Nothing in the pending
deal is worth such risks. Unless President Obama can extract significantly
greater concessions at the negotiating table, Congress should refuse to lift
sanctions, thereby blocking implementation of a deal that would provide Iran
billions of dollars to pursue nuclear weapons and regional hegemony.
Alan J. Kuperman is an associate
professor and the coordinator of the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project
at the University of Texas at Austin