Gary Milhollin

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MundoOriente Próximo,

The continuing nuclear talks with Iran have just entered their most challenging phase. During the next six months, the U.S. and its negotiating partners will try, in the words of President Barack Obama, to persuade Iran to agree on a “peaceful nuclear program,” including a “modest enrichment capability,” that leaves it short of the ability to produce nuclear weapons.

This task will be far harder to achieve than is generally understood.

A civilian program to enrich uranium for nuclear power must, by its nature, be many times larger than a bomb program. That is the opposite of what most people think.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

There has been a lot of talk about Iran making a sudden dash for the bomb. The fear is that, with its thousands of gas centrifuges and its tons of enriched uranium, Iran might be able to make a bomb’s worth of nuclear fuel before the U.S. or any other country could intervene to stop it.

In a speech in September at the United Nations, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went so far as to display a bomb diagram, on which he drew a red line showing when the dash might occur. He said it could be as early as this spring.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAsia,

Negotiators from the world’s major powers sit down with Iran this week for more talks on its nuclear program, just weeks after North Korea tested another nuclear weapon.

If the connection between these two events isn’t obvious, it should be: North Korea’s nuclear saga is a cautionary tale for anyone attempting to bargain with the Islamic Republic.

Back in the 1980s, when suspicions were first raised about North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, the country’s leadership was keen to distract attention with a show of clean hands. It joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, promised not to make the bomb and said it would report the whereabouts of all its nuclear material to international inspectors.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The disclosure of Iran’s secret nuclear plant has changed the way the West must negotiate with Tehran. While worrisome enough on its own, the plant at Qum may well be the first peek at something far worse: a planned, or even partly completed, hidden nuclear archipelago stretching across the country.

The Qum plant doesn’t make much sense as a stand-alone bomb factory. As described by American officials, the plant would house 3,000 centrifuges, able to enrich enough uranium for one or two bombs per year. Yet at their present rate of production, 3,000 of Iran’s existing IR-1 centrifuges would take two years to fuel a single bomb and 10 years for five weapons.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

The coverage of the latest bombastic tour of Manhattan by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran may have obscured the fact that the International Atomic Energy Agency has released its latest report on Tehran’s nuclear program, and it contains some unpleasant news: By the time we inaugurate our next president, Iran is likely to achieve “virtual” nuclear weapon status. This means that it will be able to produce, within a few months of deciding to do so, enough weapon-grade uranium to fuel a bomb.

But how is that possible? After all, about the only thing the Bush administration and our European allies seem to agree on regarding Iran is that there is a lot more time for diplomacy and sanctions to work before the ayatollahs can cross the nuclear line.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

On Monday the United States intelligence community issued what everyone agrees was blockbuster news: a report stating that in the autumn of 2003, Iran halted its nuclear weapons program. The National Intelligence Estimate has been heralded as a courageous act of independence by the intelligence agencies, and praised by both parties for showing a higher quality of spy work than earlier assessments.

In fact, the report contains the same sorts of flaws that we have learned to expect from our intelligence agency offerings. It, like the report in 2002 that set up the invasion of Iraq, is both misleading and dangerous.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

International inspectors confirmed this month that Iran is equipping its uranium enrichment plant at Natanz, a step that brings it closer to building an atomic bomb and brashly defies a United Nations resolution passed in December. So it might seem like good news that the foreign ministers of 27 European Union nations announced yesterday that, in accord with the resolution, they will impose a ban on selling nuclear-related materials and technology to Iran and put a freeze on the assets of 10 Iranian organizations and 12 people.

However, nothing involving nuclear proliferation is ever that simple. The December resolution called for measures not only against the named entities, but also against companies that are “owned or controlled” by the culprits or that act “on their behalf or at their direction.”…  Seguir leyendo »