- Iran: Eight Prisoners Hanged on Drug Charges
- Daughter of late Iranian president jailed for ‘spreading lies’ - IRAN: Annual report on the death penalty 2016 - Taheri Facing the Death Penalty Again - Dedicated team seeking return of missing agent in Iran - Iran Arrests 2, Seizes Bibles During Catholic Crackdown
- Trump to welcome Netanyahu as Palestinians fear U.S. shift
- Details of Iran nuclear deal still secret as US-Tehran relations unravel - Will Trump's Next Iran Sanctions Target China's Banks? - Don’t ‘tear up’ the Iran deal. Let it fail on its own. - Iran Has Changed, But For The Worse - Iran nuclear deal ‘on life support,’ Priebus says
- Female Activist Criticizes Rouhani’s Failure to Protect Citizens
- Iran’s 1st female bodybuilder tells her story - Iranian lady becomes a Dollar Millionaire on Valentine’s Day - Two women arrested after being filmed riding motorbike in Iran - 43,000 Cases of Child Marriage in Iran - Woman Investigating Clinton Foundation Child Trafficking KILLED!
- Senior Senators, ex-US officials urge firm policy on Iran
- In backing Syria's Assad, Russia looks to outdo Iran - Six out of 10 People in France ‘Don’t Feel Safe Anywhere’ - The liberal narrative is in denial about Iran - Netanyahu urges Putin to block Iranian power corridor - Iran Poses ‘Greatest Long Term Threat’ To Mid-East Security |
Thursday 22 January 2015Why Iran’s Nuke Program Could Be Even Bigger than You Might ThinkEarly today, the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler included a chart from my think tank, the Center for Security Policy, in a “Fact Checker” column that awarded President Obama three “Pinocchios” for making inaccurate statements about the Iran nuclear issue. Kessler’s piece was a surprise to me because it’s basically unheard of for the mainstream media to cite data from conservatives on arms-control issues. A rival piece by PolitiFact cited the usual experts, who echoed the same inaccurate perception of Iran’s nuclear program and the nuclear talks presented by Mr. Obama on Tuesday. When challenged today on Twitter about these contradictory pieces by a Democratic friend of mine, Kessler said: While I don’t always agree with Kessler and I think he’s often too tough on Republicans, I believe he tries to be fair. It took guts for him to buck the Obama administration and the foreign-policy establishment by concluding the president’s statements on Iran in the SOTU were mostly untrue. Although I believe the president’s Iran statements were entirely untrue and deserve five “Pinocchios,” Mr. Kessler article is an important contribution to the current debate in Washington. Kessler said two arms-control experts thought there were slight technical issues with the Center for Security Policy’s chart and cited comments from one of them, Ollie Heinonen, a former IAEA official who now teaches at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. The chart: Kessler wrote the following about Heinonen’s reaction to it: “This graph should say that material available (red) is UF6 [hexafluoride], which can be used as such for further enrichment, Heinonen said. “The rest (blue minus red), about 4 tons uranium in various chemical forms, can be reconverted to UF6. Iran has stated that it is not constructing such a facility. If converted, the number of “bombs” would be higher.” I was pleased that Kessler cited Mr. Heinonen since I consulted with him when I prepared this chart. Heinonen’s comments to Kessler reflect what he told me last November, that my figures understated the status of Iran’s nuclear program. I decided not to take Heinonen’s advice to increase the estimated output of Iran’s centrifuges because I wanted this assessment to be consistent with multiple experts and I was concerned we’d be accused of exaggerating the threat. That said, I believe Heinonen is right: Iran probably can make more than eight nuclear weapons – possibly as many as 11 – from the uranium it has enriched since 2009. |