Canadian Jewish News August 29, 2002
Iran's quest for nuclear arms alarms Israel
For more than a decade now, the United States, encouraged by Israel, has tried to thwart Iran's nuclear ambitions.
Washington's non-proliferation efforts focus on persuading Russia to desist from building a nuclear reactor for Iran in the Persian Gulf city of Bushehr. They also hinge on convincing the Russians not to sell the Iranians conventional offensive military equipment, including long-range missiles.
Bushehr, in fact, has emerged as an irritant in the United States' warming relationship with Russia.
Last February, U.S. and Russian officials ended a two-day meeting in Moscow sharply at odds over Russia's co-operation with Iran on nuclear - and missile - technology. Then, in May, at a Moscow summit, U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed yet again to resolve the issue - prompting Russia's foreign minister, Igor Ivanov, to remark ''Unfortunately, Iran is a sore point in our relations.''
On July 26, the simmering dispute came to a boil when Washington learned that Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov had approved plans to build three more reactors in Bushehr and an additional two reactors in Ahwaz, a town north of Bushehr.
The disclosure angered U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham. As he put it on Aug. 1, on the eve of a meeting with his Russian counterpart: ''We have long been concerned that Iran's only interest in nuclear civil power, given its vast domestic energy resources, is to support its nuclear weapons program. For these reasons, we have insistently urged Russia to cease all nuclear co-operation with Iran, including its assistance to the reactor in Bushehr.''
Chastened by Washington's reaction, Russia announced that it would reconsider its plans and would take ''political factors'' into account before expanding its assistance to Iran - a nation whose Islamic fundamentalist regime is not only unfriendly to the United States but is extremely hostile to Israel.
In the meantime, however, Russia is finishing the $800 million (US) 1,000-megawatt reactor in Bushehr. More than 1,000 Russian engineers and technicians work on the site. They are expected to install the reactor's main turbine this month.
By all accounts, Bushehr will be ready in 15 months and operational some 18 months later. Germany began building Bushehr in 1974, when Iran was governed by the pro-Western Pahlavi monarchy, which maintained a panoply of diplomatic, commercial and intelligence ties with Israel.
Germany dropped out in 1979, the year the shah was deposed by the Islamic revolution. Russia, eager to upgrade Soviet-era relations with Iran - a country rich in oil and natural gas - took over the project in 1995.
In essence, the low-grade conflict between the United States and Russia over Bushehr turns on the question of Iranian intentions.
Russia claims that Bushehr is a purely civilian plant designed to develop new energy sources, not nuclear weapons. Putin has assured Bush that Russia has no intention of undermining the process of nuclear non-proliferation. In an interview with Barbara Walters on 20/20, he denied that Russia was helping Iran develop a nuclear capacity.
Besides, Moscow adds, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and has allowed inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the Bushehr reactor. After their last meeting several months ago, Putin assured Bush that Russia would press Iran to allow extensive international inspection of the plant.
The United States, which has labelled Iran part of an ''axis of evil'' nations that seek atomic arms, fears that Tehran will use Russian equipment and expertise to pursue a secret program to produce nuclear weapons that could threaten America and its allies in Europe and the Middle East.
According to experts, neither the technology nor the spent fuel from Bushehr could be used to manufacture a nuclear device. But the same technology can theoretically be utilized to make enriched fuel for nuclear weapons. Furthermore, weapons-grade plutonium could be extracted from the spent fuel to make a nuclear bomb.
In short, Washington wants Russia to ban the export to Iran of potentially dangerous dual-use technology and to penalize private Russian companies that allegedly engage in such commerce. This has been a prime objective of American diplomacy since the days of the Clinton administration.
Russian officials, from Energy Minister Alexander Rumyantsev on down, have promised the United States that they will not permit Iran to gain access to spent fuel. Indeed, Russia passed legislation in 2001 requiring Iran to return spent radioactive material.
According to The Christian Science Monitor, Russia rejected an Iranian request to build a more robust heavy-water reactor in Bushehr. In addition, the newspaper reports, Russia turned down another Iranian request for gas centrifuges, which would have enabled Iran to produce weapons-grade material.
But the United States remains skeptical and considers Russian assistance to Iran as the single most dangerous proliferation threat.
In a monograph published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, Chen Zak, a former official in Israel's Atomic Energy Commission, claims that Iran is, in fact, developing a clandestine nuclear weapons program. She writes that the intelligence agencies of the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Israel have unanimously concluded that Iran, its heated denials notwithstanding, is actively working toward that objective.
In the July 29 edition of The Jerusalem Report, Yiftah Shapir, a scholar who monitors the Middle East military balance for the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, argues that Bushehr will not be used for nuclear weapons programs beyond the training of a cadre of nuclear scientists. Shapir, however, suspects that Iran is constructing a secret reactor to enrich uranium for weapons use.
Israel, which itself is a nuclear power, has warned Iran that it regards Bushehr - bombed three times by Iraq during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War - as a threat to its national security.
Ha'aretz, the Tel Aviv daily, reported recently that Israel's National Security Council warned that ''everything must be done... to prevent Tehran from achieving nuclear weapons capability.''
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency estimates that Iran is seven years away from attaining a nuclear bomb. Israel's estimate is five years. John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a non-partisan U.S. military and intelligence research centre, believes that the moment of truth is on the horizon.
''Within the next year, either the United States or Israel is going to either attack Iran's (nuclear sites), or acquiesce to Iran being a nuclear state.''
The United States and Israel are also worried that Iran, thanks to Russian and Chinese help, is acquiring the delivery systems - long-range missiles - to launch nuclear weapons. In recent years, Iran has tested the Shihab missile, which Israel regards ominously.
In the late 1990s, under American pressure, Russia cancelled three key missile technology deals. Yet Russia apparently continues to play a pivotal role in Iran's missile program.
Viewing Tehran as a crucial partner in the Middle East, Russia cemented relations with Iran in 1989 following the visit to Moscow of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Unable to buy arms from the West as a result of U.S. sanctions, which were imposed after Iran's takeover of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979, Iran purchased MiG-29 and Su-24 combat aircraft, and three Kilo-class submarines, from Russia.
In 1995, then U.S. vice-president Al Gore and then Russian prime minister Viktor Chernomyrdin signed an agreement ending all Russian sales of conventional weapons to Iran by December 1999. The accord allowed Russia to fulfill existing sales contracts. Russia withdrew from the agreement two years ago.
Iran's current president, Mohammed Khatami, visited Moscow last March. After Khatami's talks with Putin, Russia agreed to intensify military and technical co-operation with Iran and to supply Iran with a new batch of weaponry: BTR-80 armoured vehicles, T-62 and T-72 tanks and Su-24, Su-25 and MiG 29 combat jets. Putin, somewhat disingenuously, claimed that they were not offensive weapons.
In the wake of his meeting with Khatami, Putin told the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations that Russia would be careful about the kind of arms it would sell to Iran.
''Putin said they would not sell weapons that would endanger Israel,'' said Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice-chair of the Conference of Presidents. Yet it remains to be seen whether Putin's assurances are genuine and sincere.
In the meantime, much to Israel's distress, Iran appears to be growing stronger militarily.
Copyright 2002 Canadian Jewish News
