WarSclerotic

Iran’s Advanced Centrifuges – Assessment and Significance.

Rafael Ofek

4/2/2013

According to Reuters (January 31, 2013), Iran informed the IAEA by letter of its plans to install and operate advanced centrifuges at its main uranium-enrichment facility near Natanz. The report did not include details about the identity of the advanced model or the amount of centrifuges that Iran intends to install.

However, despite the vague information in the Reuters, report, the IAEA’s reports from the latter half of 2012 might shed some light on Iran’s advanced centrifuge plan. In recent years, Iran has developed two advanced versions of centrifuges: IR-2m, which is a second-generation Iranian centrifuge model, and the fourth-generation IR-4. The rotor in the IR-1 model, Iran’s first generation of centrifuges, which is the primary component in the centrifuge, is composed of an aluminum alloy. However, the rotor in the advanced models is not metallic, but made of carbon fibers. In one of the photos of Iranian President Ahmadinejad, apparently when he visited a factory for the production of centrifuge components, he is seen holding a centrifuge rotor made of carbon fiber. The use of carbon fiber makes it possible to increase the diameter of the rotor, and even significantly increase its rotation speed – thus increasing the yield of the centrifuge considerably. However, at least from the Iranian perspective, while the IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges are advanced, the technology they are based on was actually developed in the 1970s and 1980s. They are very much copies of second-generation centrifuges, which is itself based on German design, just as the IR-1 is a copy of first-generation Pakistani centrifuges, which are based on Dutch design.

The technological knowledge in the field of centrifuges was sold to Iran in the late 1980s and the 1990s by Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, who gained the knowledge while working at a Dutch research facility that took part in the URENCO centrifuge project, which was shared by Germany, Britain and the Netherlands. In the 1970s, Dr. Khan returned to Pakistan, after cunningly copying the URENCO programs and smuggled them into the country. It is quite possible that detailed technological knowledge that helped in the development of the advanced Iranian centrifuges made its way to Iran from the Iraqi centrifuge program, via Iranian intelligence agents who worked in Iraq before the First Gulf War and afterwards.

The centrifuges developed by Iraq before 1990 were also based on the German centrifuge, according to plans that were covertly acquired by the country from German experts. In any case, the operation of the advanced centrifuges might be an advancement from Iran’s perspective, by significantly increasing its uranium-enrichment capability. According to David Albright, manager of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) in Washington, who deals with intelligence assessments on the issue of nuclear circulation around the world, the yield from Iran’s advanced centrifuge models is five times higher than that of the IR-1 model. According to the IAEA reports, the pilot plant of the Natanz facility has advanced centrifuges installed for a while now. As of the second half of 2012, some of them are operational when fed UF6 gas. The status of these centrifuges, as of August 2012, is as follows: a small and experimental cascade of 10 IR-4 centrifuges, which was operated from time to time to carry out tests and measurements; another cascade of 123 IR-4 centrifuges, installed but not operated; and a third cascade of 162 IR-2m centrifuges, which were installed but not operated.

In the past, the Iranian cascades contained 164 centrifuges. However, according to a new design, the new cascades have 174 centrifuges. It is therefore likely that Iran’s recent announcement to the IAEA comes due to the vast experience acquired in Natanz in the experimental operation of the advanced centrifuges, and in Iran’s view that the time has come for their regular operation in industrial scope. Iran’s latest announcement to the IAEA was apparently vague. It lacks details on the number of advanced centrifuges Iran intends to operate soon, nor did it provide the rate of uranium enrichment that it will be used for. The IAEA reports that have been published so far also lack information about the amount of advanced centrifuges produced by Iran thus far, and about the production capability of the Iranian factories, which produce and assemble the centrifuges.

In any case, it can be assumed that Iran will operate at least the two cascades in Natanz in the near future; Most of the advanced centrifuges have already been installed in these cascades – whose full installation may have already concluded, or will conclude soon. It is possible that these things will be made clear in the IAEA report that will be published in the coming month.

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Lt. Col. (Res.) Dr. Rafael Ofek is an expert of physics and Iranian technology. He has served in the past as a senior researcher and analyst in the Israeli intelligence community.

Why Iran is spreading and Saudi Arabia is shrinking.

By Abdulrahman Al-Rashed

Al Arabiya

Tuesday, 05 February 2013

We must commend Iran’s ability in keeping the world busy, fabricating battles in Lebanon, Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Eretria, Somalia, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, South Eastern Asian and Central African countries while supporting its groups even in the West.

Iran seems like a superpower that inserts its hand in every corner of the world. The obvious question is: How does Iran possess all these funds and capabilities? And why don’t we see a spread similar to Iran and its effectiveness by richer countries, like Saudi Arabia?

Iran’s spending

 Iran definitely has the desire and enthusiasm to spend and squander its money on setting up fires across the globe, and it is good at practicing this type of activity 

Abdulrahman al-Rashed

Iran definitely has the desire and enthusiasm to spend and squander its money on setting up fires across the globe, and it is good at practicing this type of activity. It must be better than Saudi Arabia in the value of every dollar it spends to achieve this aim.

As Iran has become financially broke due to sanctions and military spending, Saudi Arabia has around 700 billion dollars of reserves at banks. At a time when Iran wastes its funds on its armed groups in Iraq, Hezbollah brigades in Lebanon and others, Saudi spends huge sums of money on around 150,000 students studying at western universities!

On the industrial level, Saudi Arabia owns a wide industry base built on its petroleum products while the Iranian government spends its funds on developing and manufacturing arms.

Celebrating achievements

Two weeks ago, Tehran said it sent a monkey to space as part of its progressive scientific experiments, and the story transformed into a joke. No one has believed it yet. The day before last, it announced that it had built a Stealth aircraft (called the ghost in Arabic) that represents the utmost degree of scientific progress in military aviation as radars cannot detect it while flying.

Tehran has previously celebrated building and inaugurating naval submarines that compete with similar American ones. For years, Iran has announced developing a system of missiles. Critics, on the other hand, have insisted that these missiles were only similar to Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s missiles – Russian ones with Arabic or Islamic names and are amended by decreasing their load of explosive material so they cross longer distances.

Citizens pay the cost

What does Iran aim to say by its massive military spending and promotional ads of its scientific achievements? Perhaps it aims to say that it will win the next war? Or that it has become a superpower that deserves a seat at the U.N. Security Council? Or that it is a country capable of challenging an international boycott? Or is it merely local publicity to soothe the Iranian citizen who pays for militarization and foreign adventures in order to pacify the ego of President Ahmedinejad, the revolutionary guards and the supreme leader.

Inflation has eaten up the savings of citizens who now live on government aid to buy bread and fuel. It is a similar promotion to what North Korea feeds its hungry people as it speaks of international conspiracies and military accomplishments. At the time of Mao Tse-tung, China also distracted the Chinese people with this talk.

It seems that Iran chooses the dates of announcing its achievements before international meetings that address Iranian affairs such as the nuclear program and the economic sanctions.

Even those who say that military findings regarding deals of Western weapons are gut-wrenching, it is in fact, on the level of spending, less than what Iran puts on military projects and foreign adventures doomed to fail.
At last, if it weren’t for Iran and its aggressive policy, the Americans may have not had an excuse to fill the Gulf with battleships and the land with military bases. Iran is the justification for defensive weapons’ deals and the tension dominating our region since 1980.

This article first appeared in Asharq al-Awsat on Feb. 5, 2013.

(Abdulrahman al-Rashed is the General Manager of Al Arabiya News Channel. A veteran and internationally acclaimed journalist, he is a former editor-in-chief of the London-based leading Arab daily Asharq al-Awsat, where he still regularly writes a political column. He has also served as the editor of Asharq al-Awsat’s sister publication, al-Majalla. Throughout his career, Rashed has interviewed several world leaders, with his articles garnering worldwide recognition, and he has successfully led Al Arabiya to the highly regarded, thriving and influential position it is in today)

Ahmadinejad: First Iranian leader to visit Cairo in more than 30 years.

Tuesday, 05 February 2013

Ahmadinejad is the first Iranian president to visit Cairo since the 1979 Iranian revolution ruptured diplomatic ties between the two most populous countries in the Middle East. (AFP)

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U.S., allies ready more anti-mine drills as Iran tensions simmer | Reuters.

(Reuters) – The U.S. military announced on Monday an anti-mine exercise in “the Middle East’s international waterways” in May with more than 20 nations participating, the latest show of global will to keep waterways open as tensions with Iran simmer.

The drill was characterized as defensive and a follow-up to the IMCMEX 12 exercise held last September, focused on keeping oil shipping lanes open by clearing mines that potentially Iran, or even guerrilla groups, might deploy to disrupt tanker traffic.

“This year’s effort will reaffirm the ongoing, global cooperation that this mission enjoys with the international community’s strong support for free trade,” General James Mattie, commander of the U.S. military’s Central Command, said in a statement.

U.S. officials have in the past sought to play down any link between the drills and ongoing tensions with Iran, which is pushing forward with a nuclear program the West fears is aimed at giving it the capability to build an atomic bomb. Tehran says the program is peaceful.

But the anti-mine exercises are widely seen as a clear show of determination by a broad coalition of states to counter any attempt Iran might make to disrupt Gulf shipping in response to an Israeli or U.S. strike on its nuclear facilities – a form of retaliation Iran has repeatedly threatened.

Central Command said the drill in May, IMCMEX 13, would focus on mine countermeasures, as well as maritime security operations and protecting maritime infrastructure. It did not provide further details.

(Reporting by Phil Stewart; Editing by Todd Eastham)

Iran’s nuclear standoff reaching tipping point | The Times of Israel.

Ahead of another round of talks, neither Tehran nor world powers show any sign of backing down

VIENNA (AP) — Judging by its expanding nuclear program, harsh sanctions against Iran have done little but impose hardship on its people, while diplomacy has also failed to slow the Islamic Republic’s atomic progress. And while more talks are planned for later this month, there is a growing sense that the nuclear standoff between Iran and the international community is reaching a tipping point.

Iran can theoretically back down. But because it insists that all of its nuclear work is peaceful and protected by international law it is unlikely to go further than repeating its top leader’s religious edicts against nuclear weapons in pushing for an end to sanctions. That in turn will lead to another negotiating failure — and mounting pressure for military intervention to prevent Tehran from becoming a threshold nuclear weapons power.

Each side wants what the other is bringing to the table at the planned Feb. 25 talks in Kazakhstan. The problem is that both want the other to blink first.

For the P5 +1 — the five permanent U.N. Security Council members plus Germany — the onus is on Iran. They want Tehran to stop enriching uranium to 20 percent — a grade that is only a technical step away from the level used to arm nuclear warheads. Then, they want it to transfer its 20-percent stockpile out of the country. They also demand that Iran shut down Fordo — the bomb-resistant underground bunker where Iran is enriching uranium to 20 percent. Only then are they ready to discuss sanctions relief on Iranian oil and financial transactions.

But Iran insists it is enriching only to make reactor fuel and for scientific and medical programs — a right that all nations have. It denies any interest in nuclear weapons, considers Security Council demands that it stop enrichment invalid, and U.N. and other sanctions illegal. Tehran wants a promise that non-U.N. sanctions at least will be lifted if it makes even the smallest commitments on uranium enrichment.

Demands and counter-demands have shifted since the talks began in 2003 between Iran and Britain, France and Germany, later expanded to include the United States, Russia and China. But one constant remains: failure not only to reach a breakthrough but even to make substantive progress.

Neither side is known to be bringing new proposals beyond what was in play the last time they met, in June in Moscow. Success seems even more elusive thanks to Iran’s recent announcement that it would speed up the pace of its uranium enrichment, and with planned new U.S. sanctions to take effect Wednesday.

“The situation has changed for the worse for both sides since last summer,” says Mark Fitzpatrick, a non-proliferation expert and former senior official at the U.S. State Department. With further enriching, Iran already has enough material for several nuclear weapons, and Fitzpatrick says that since the Moscow talks, Iran has produced enough additional low-enriched uranium to produce an additional weapon with further enrichment. As for Tehran, “the sanctions bite has gotten worse” since the two sides last met.

Even ahead of the new U.S. penalties, Iran’s revenues from oil and gas exports are now down by 45 percent from normal levels. That, and severe restrictions on its ability to access international banking networks led the rial, Iran’s currency, to lose 45 percent of its value last year. Over three years, it is 350 percent down.

But Iran shows no sign of budging, and Israel’s threat to hit Tehran’s nuclear targets if negotiations fail stands, as does the possibility that such a move would draw the United States into the conflict. Iran could enrich uranium to arm one weapon within half a year even though analysts say it would take years longer for it to actually create a full working nuclear weapon.

That is a longer time line than Israel accepts. But independently of Israel, President Barack Obama may not have more than a year or two to decide whether Iran has embarked on making nuclear weapons or whether it has only reached the ability to do so. If it’s the latter, he has to judge whether Iran is content to stay on the nuclear threshold and if America can tolerate that status.

For diplomacy to succeed, “both sides need to move with greater urgency and flexibility toward a lasting solution,” says Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association. “Iran apparently does not yet have the necessary ingredients for an effective nuclear arsenal, but its capabilities are improving. ”

An Iran with the capability to make the bomb might choose not to do so. Iran could be shaping its nuclear ambitions after Japan, which has the full scope of nuclear technology — including the presumed ability to produce warhead-grade material — but has stopped short of actually producing a weapon. It creates, in effect, a de facto nuclear power with all the parts but just not pieced together.

In that light, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s recent repetition of his fatwa, a proclamation that nuclear weapons are banned by Islam, could be another way of stating Iran’s nuclear goals — ready to assemble weapons but doing so only if threatened.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed that he would not allow the Islamic Republic to reach that level of weapons capability. But he is unlikely to attack without U.S. military backing — and he and Obama may have different interpretations of when such action may be needed.

“Our policy toward Iran’s nuclear program has been defined by Obama’s red lines, not Netanyahu’s, meaning that the U.S. isn’t likely to use military force unless and until it’s clear that Iran is taking active steps to weaponize its program,” says Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.

Israel official: Turkish tirades … JPost – Diplomacy & Politics.