Valerie Lincy

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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,

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,

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 »