Intelligence Sources: Rohani Prepared to Shut Down Nuclear Site

[Recursion]

Source: Der Spiegel

Nothing -- not even Syria's arsenal of chemical weapons -- is a source of such deep concern for the West and Israel as Iran's nuclear facilities, such as Natanz, Isfahan and Fordo. The installation at Fordo, not far from the holy city of Qom, is viewed as a particularly grave threat.

Researchers working underground there are using 696 centrifuges to enrich uranium to 20 percent. Afterwards, it only takes a relatively small step to create the material required to build nuclear bombs. Fordo, which didn't go into operation until late 2011, is reportedly the most modern plant in the Iranian nuclear program which -- despite all denials from Tehran -- the world believes is designed to give the Islamic Republic the ultimate weapon. What's more, Fordo is believed to be virtually indestructible. Even bunker-buster bombs would hardly be powerful enough to disable the facility -- the enrichment cascades lie 70 meters (230 feet) under the surface.

But the long-smoldering nuclear dispute with Tehran may be about to take a sensational turn. SPIEGEL has learned from intelligence sources that Iran's new president, Hassan Rohani, is reportedly prepared to decommission the Fordo enrichment plant and allow international inspectors to monitor the removal of the centrifuges. In return, he could demand that the United States and Europe rescind their sanctions against the Islamic Republic, lift the ban on Iranian oil exports and allow the country's central bank to do international business again.

Rohani reportedly intends to announce the details of the offer, perhaps already during his speech before the United Nations General Assembly at the end of the month. His foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, will meet Catherine Ashton, the European Union's top diplomat, in New York next Sunday and give her a rough outline of the deal. If he were to make such wide-ranging concessions, President Rohani would initiate a negotiating process that could conceivably even lead to a resumption of bilateral diplomatic relations with Washington.

Read more: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/iranian-president-rohani-prepared-to-decomission-nuclear-site-a-922487.html

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As Andrew Sullivan says, "meep meep".

[bhikkhu]

1. That would be one more wonderful thing

as Iran is much more suited to be a modern secular democracy than to slide into fundamentalist isolation. One recent positive indication supporting this (ironically) was their "supreme leader"'s fatwa banning nuclear weapon development in January. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-202_162-57564199/iran-religious-decree-against-nuclear-weapons-is-binding/

Primarily this would be good news for the people living there, as economic sanctions erode the lives of people in general, much more than they affect the leadership.

[Scootaloo]

8. The people who need punishing...

Are the leaders of the United States and Israel who felt that the people of Iran as a whole needed to be punished, bestialized, and demonised for their fears of and hatreds towards Iran. Read this line:

Researchers working underground there are using 696 centrifuges to enrich uranium to 20 percent. Afterwards, it only takes a relatively small step to create the material required to build nuclear bombs.

Sounds scary, right? Oh, those terrible iranians are going to nuke everything! They're ALMOST THERE! Netanyahu's Wile E. Coyote bomb chart is true O M G!!!

*deep breath*

So what's that relatively small step before the mad mullahs kill us all?

Well... weapons-grade uranium is 90% enriched. So... that relatively small step is another 70%.

Oh and then they need the technical know-how to build a bomb. And the sort of weapons that would be needed to deliver a warhead. They have neither.

Now of course, reactor-grade uranium only needs 4% enrichment or so. So why 20% It's a really odd number - it's way above what you need for a reactor core, but way below what you would need for a bomb. My guess? Whoever in charge is trying to reinvent the wheel and figures that uranium that is five times as pure will produce five times the power in a reactor. Somewhere in Iran a nuclear physicist has given up even trying to talk to that guy.

[bhikkhu]

9. I thought that too -"relatively easy"?

Easy to write, at least. 20% is relatively easy for a large, technologically very advanced nation. The purity needed for bomb-grade material is a big step up from that. Our own uranium enrichment plants consumed several percent of the total US electric capacity in the 50's, and were the size of small cities.

[bananas]

11. No - going from 20 to 90% is easy compared to going from 0.7% to 20%

When uranium is extracted from ore, it's called "natural uranium" and is only 0.7% U-235.
Power plants require 3.5% U-235.
Going from 0.7% to 3.5% takes most of the work.

Here's a good explanation:

http://lewis.armscontrolwonk.com/archive/2620/iran-to-enrich-20-percent-leu

<snip>

70 percent of the work toward reaching weapons-grade uranium took place when Iran enriched uranium gas to 3.5 percent. Enriching it further to the 19.75 percent needed for the reactor is an additional “15 to 20 percent of the way there.”

Once the uranium is enriched above 20 percent, it is considered highly enriched uranium. The uranium would need to be enriched further, to 60 percent and then to 90 percent, before it could be used for a weapon. “The last two steps are not that big a deal,” Albright said. They could be accomplished, he said, at a relatively small facility within months.

It must seem odd for casual readers to see 20 percent and 90 percent U235 lumped together as highly enriched uranium or to be be told that Iran will find it much easier to go from 20 to 90, than from 5 to 20. That’s not how everyday math works, where 5 and 20 are closer to “ten” and 90 rounds to “one hundred.”

For many readers (especially of this blog) the answer is obvious. But for those to whom it is not obvious, Francesco Calogero found a nice way to illustrate the same point to students at a previous ISODARCO meeting. The essential concept is understand enrichment as a process of removing undesirable isotopes (or more specifically, isolating the desirable ones).

So, imagine 1000 atoms of uranium. Seven of them will be the fissile isotope Uranium 235. The rest are useless Uranium 238. (If you are the sort of person who just said, “Hey! What about Uranium 234?” or other nitpicks this post is not aimed at you.)

To make typical reactor fuel, Iran or any other country would removes 860 of the non-U235 isotopes, leaving a U235:U238 ratio of 7:140 (~5 percent).

To make fuel for the TRR, Iran removes another 105 non-U235 atoms from the 140, leaving a ratio of 7:35 (20 percent).

To make a bomb, Iran needs only to remove 27 of the remaining 35 atoms, leading a ratio of 7:8 (~90 percent).

This is simplified illustration, of course, since some of the U235 ends up in the depleted stream as “tails” — but you get the idea.

<snip>

[Hekate]

2. Ahh, so you remember that Andrew Sullivan article

As Andrew Sullivan says, "meep meep". That was from the 2008 presidential campaign, I believe.

[MADem]

3. Rohani isn't prepared to do ANYTHING. He doesn't have operational control over that stuff....

He does not have the authority to make these sorts of decisions.

However, if we're hearing this stuff, that means the Guardians are prepared to do this, and that would be good news. No, not good news--GREAT news.

The Iranian economy is on the verge of collapse. Those sanctions and this Syrian situation may have motivated them to just say "Awww, shit, give peace a chance..."

I hope so.

[Recursion]

4. The pessimist in me says a Guardian leaked this to quash it

But, hey, I'll stay hopeful for a bit.

[MADem]

5. I can appreciate that perspective....they have played that game before.

I think, though, that they're trying to find a way to back away from all that chem weapons shit in Syria, and they're waving an olive branch at us to see if we'll bite and be a bit nicer. Their economy really is a hot mess, too.

I think POTUS is prepared to play Here's a Carrot with them--they already understand the stick. I sure hope so; this has gone on for far too long.

[DavidDvorkin]

6. John McCain will not be pleased.

[Uncle Joe]

7. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Recursion.

[NeverAsItSeems]

10. Not true

This is not true. Read: http://www.tehrantimes.com/politics/110850-iran-will-not-close-fordo-nuclear-plant-source

[bananas]

12. What does "meep meep" mean?

And who is Andrew Sullivan?

[Recursion]

13. Andrew Sullivan is a blogger of ambiguous political stance

A former conservative who was kicked out of the movement some time ago, but was for example supporting gay marriage in the late 1980s.

The sense of "meep meep" is best demonstrated by this image:



and reflects the fact that Obama has an almost preternatural ability to get his enemies to destroy themselves.