Vanity, thy name is woman, some misogynist once said. My version is: cynicism, thy name is Bibi. I can’t think of a more cynical, manipulative story than this one. In his UN address, the PM said that his red lines had receded for some unspecified reason. Israeli journalists then breathed a sign of relief that Bibi had decided Iran wouldn’t enter the danger zone until this coming summer. So no fear of war for at least another eight months. Everyone could rest easy.
The reason for Bibi’s climb-down? We don’t know for sure, but I believe it was a combination of Obama administration jawboning and the almost universal opposition within Israel to mounting such an adventure. Of course, a monomaniac like Bibi couldn’t possibly concede this was the reason he backed down. To do so would cause him to lose face before his Likudnik ultranationalist supporters and before the Iranians themselves.
So he needed a good cover-story that diverted attention from the real reasons. He’s concocted a doozy. Haaretz reports that Israel now believes that Iran has diverted 50% of the uranium it has enriched to 20% for medical research. That means that Iran has deliberately slowed down its nuclear program, possibly in order to ease western pressure upon it. It means that the critical fuel necessary to produce a nuclear bomb has deliberately been diverted by Iran to peaceful use. If this was true, it would be a smart move on Iran’s part because it would provide just the face-saving gesture that would allow Israel and the U.S. to back off their threats to attack; while preserving Iran’s maneuvering room should it decide in future that it did want to go all the way toward making a bomb.
Another irony of this story is that if true it would mean that Iran was doing precisely what it told the world it was doing: enriching uranium for medical purposes. Precisely the argument that Bibi, Obama, Clinton and half the Israeli media proclaimed to be abject lies. Now you have Bibi the Liar doing an about-face and saying the very thing he called an Iranian lie is actually the truth. Amazing.
I don’t know which story is true. But I do know that you’d never lose a bet on Bibi choosing the most cynical, deceitful option to get himself out of a jam. So I’m betting he hitched his wagon to this uranium diversion story in order to save face before the world: how can the Big Bad Bibi explain how he turned from a fire-breathing dragon into a pussy cat seemingly overnight regarding the Iranian threat? Because the Iranians backed down in the face of fierce western and Israeli pressure. Now Bibi can relax too–for a few months. The world saved, for now.
All this means that come summer we’ll be hearing the drums of war start pounding once again. Then Obama will have to address the issue once again. Frankly, I don’t see how he agrees to go to war after he’s won a second term (presuming he does win). Unless he’s made a deal with Bibi to go to war this summer as the price for averting a war during the presidential campaign. Anything’s possible (almost).
RS: “I don’t know which story is true.”
Well, yeah, you are right to say that it’s hard to know the reason behind that very impressive back-flip by Amos Harel over at haaretz. It was as unexpected as it is likely to come as a bombshell to most Israelis, and I have no doubt that someone Very Close To Bibi put him up to it.
But at least be fair about the *factual* component of that article i.e. the most recent IAEA report on Iran did indeed note that the Iranian stockpile of 20% uranium shrank, and shrank quite considerably.
And, furthermore, that IAEA report leaves you in no doubt about why that stockpile decreased i.e. it shrunk because the Iranians did exactly what they said they were going to do, which is to use that stockpile to make reactor fuel for the Tehran Research Reactor.
Those are verifiable facts, and there is no need to question them.
Amid all the posturing about whether or not there will be an Israel/US attack on Iran, the bottom line is pretty simple.
If such an attack could be carried out at low cost it would have happened years ago. As long as Iran has the capability to make Israel pay a heavy human cost for such an attack it is not going to happen, all posturing to the contrary. The Israelis can dish it out but cannot take it. If Iran ever losses this capacity an attack is highly probable no matter who wins the election.
How does 20% enriched uranium play a part in medical research, unless it is to fuel a reactor to make other isotopes? Those could have medical and industrial uses, but there’s going to be some plutonium in the future of that fuel, too.
If Bibi’s original premise was right, this doesn’t change anything.
Industrial radioactive sources are used in various tests and alignment procedures for oil and gas wells: perhaps someone, somewhere, wants Iran’s production to ramp up a bit in the future?
I’d be more wary of a small-scale research reactor than some of the halls of gleaming centrifuges that have been paraded before our eyes and which have so incensed the Israeli and American right. Especially as the former is closest to the route which Israel herself took to obtain nuclear weapons.
Unless what they are trying to prevent is not a simple Iranian nuclear weapon, but only a more complex two-stage device which might need to achieve the higher initial compression which highly enriched uranium allows over plutonium. (You can compress it for slightly longer before anything happens and there are ways in which this is better for a fission-fusion device.)
What you could be seeing here, is a decision to tolerate basic single-stage 20Kt Iranian nukes are long as there are no compact 100Kt+ missile warheads or megaton-range bombs.
Frankly, if Iran has ever had an ambition to make basic 20Kt single-stage devices, they’ve already done so, years past. It’s more or less impossible to stop an industrial power with a heavy water reactor doing this, and none of the panoply of mass enrichment is really needed.
37. Fuel Plate Fabrication Plant: As previously reported,38 Iran has combined into one facility the
activities involving the conversion of UF6 enriched up to 20% U-235 into U3O8 and the manufacture of
fuel assemblies made of fuel plates containing U3O8. Between the start of conversion activities on
17 December 2011 and 12 August 2012, Iran has fed into the process 71.25 kg of UF6 enriched up to
20% U-235 and produced 31.1 kg of uranium enriched up to 20% U-235 in the form of U3O8.
http://www.iaea.org/newscenter/focus/iaeairan/iaea_reports.shtml
the current report pdf is the first one at the the link. I quoted the where the specifics in the report state that 71 kg of UF6 is converted into 31 kg of the U308 fuel. it is a process that converts a gaseous form of enriched uranium into a solid form. its conversion back to a gas so it can be enriched to a higher percentage is an intensive, technical process. This was all covered the time the report came out. I remember reading several analyses that unequivocally stated Iran’s conversion of the 20% into solid fuel was and is a trust-building maneuver.
*a trust-building action due to the difficulty of re-converting the fuel for further enrichment.
Gareth Porter:
“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report made public Thursday reveals that Iran has actually reduced the amount of 20-percent enriched uranium available for any possible “breakout” to weapons grade enrichment over the last three months rather than increasing it.
Contrary to the impression conveyed by most news media coverage, the report provides new evidence that Iran’s enrichment strategy is aimed at enhancing its bargaining position in negotiations with the United States rather than amassing such a breakout capability.”
http://original.antiwar.com/porter/2012/09/01/iaea-report-shows-iran-reduced-its-breakout-capacity/
anyway, all the info is there, people can research for themselves.
You have to love how it’s phrased: ‘We, the Israeli’s, now confirm that the IAEA has not published complete and absolute tripe. Thank you.”