11/04/14 – Muhammad Sahimi – The Scott Horton Show

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All right, you guys, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Our first guest today is Mohamed Sahimi.
He's a professor of chemical engineering and materials science at the NIOC chair in petroleum engineering at USC in LA.
I miss LA.
Good old LA.
Hey, he also writes for Antiwar.com, original.antiwar.com slash Sahimi.
And oh, no, now I'm realizing that I'm not prepared.
Your own news website is MENews something.
I'm going to get it wrong.
Sahimi, please tell me.
Good morning, Scott.
It is Iran News and Middle East Report, IMENews.com.
IMENews.com, right.
Hey, welcome back.
Good to have you back on the show.
Great to talk to you again.
Great article here for Antiwar.com.
I really urge everybody listening to take a read through this thing.
We ran it yesterday there.
You'll find it in Mohamed's archives there, original.antiwar.com slash Sahimi.
If nuclear negotiations with Iran fail, US will be blamed.
And it's a really good piece because, well, you got that right, the headline, but also just the substance, the way you take us through here and explain the issues, what all the issues were, what's been resolved, what's outstanding and why and what can be done and which politics are trying to screw it up and everything else.
It's a really great piece.
I really hope everyone will take a look at it.
And so let's start with, as you do in the article, Iran's concessions and the issues that were...
And again, everyone understands, I hope in this audience, that the Iranian nuclear weapons program is just a giant fake red herring of an issue, but it's still the single largest outstanding issue between America and Iran preventing an end of our Cold War.
So it's very important that we get this resolved, even though they never were making nukes and we all know that.
But anyway, so we have all these supposed concerns.
Mohamed, if you could please take us through the ones that, as you start with here, have already been resolved.
Yes, there were several issues that have been resolved.
The first issue was Iran's uranium enrichment facility in Fordow, south of Tehran, that Iran had built under a mountain.
And because it was built under a mountain and military experts in the United States have said that it cannot be destroyed by bombing, the US had demanded that Iran should close the facility and get it over with.
But Iran has said repeatedly that they will not close the facility.
So what seems to have been agreed on is that Iran made a major concession by agreeing to convert the facility to a research facility so that most of the centrifuges that are there would be basically set aside so that they cannot be used for any enrichment facility.
As I mentioned enrichment activity, as I mentioned in the article, Iran probably built the facility in the first place for one of the two reasons, or maybe both.
One was to use it as sort of a bargaining chip so that we can extract some concession from the West, because as I said, it cannot be destroyed by bombing.
And second, when they built these several years ago, there was great concern in Iran that the West can bomb the Natanz facility, where most of Iran's centrifuges are.
And therefore, nothing would be left of all the things that Iran had done and assembled together for uranium enrichment that Iran wants to use in its nuclear reactors.
So now Iran has agreed to basically stop enriching uranium at Fordow.
So that was one issue.
The second issue was the Arak heavy water reactor.
Iran has a medical research reactor in Tehran that has been in operation for almost 50 years since 1967, and it was actually originally donated by the US to Iran.
But Iran had to redesign it in 1982 because it ran out of fuel, and the US was not willing to supply Iran with fuel for that reactor.
So Argentina redesigned it.
But its useful life is coming to an end because most reactors don't work properly beyond 45 to 50 years.
So Iran designed and started constructing a replacement for that reactor, which works with heavy water.
But the problem with heavy water reactor is that its nuclear waste contains a lot of plutonium.
And the concern was that Iran may may try to use that plutonium for bomb making.
So Iran on its own initiative suggested that, first of all, they will redesign the reactor, they would change the reactor the way it is built right now.
So that first of all, it will produce much less plutonium.
And secondly, Iran has agreed not to set up any reprocessing facility, because although the plutonium exists in the nuclear waste, it has to be separated from the rest of the waste so that it can be used for any purpose that they want to use.
So Iran has agreed not to build any reprocessing facility.
Now, here is an important point.
Iran has agreed not to set up any reprocessing facility.
But in the 1970s, actually the Ford administration had urged Iran to build a reprocessing facility for nuclear waste in Iran, not only for Iran's future nuclear reactor, but also for the entire region.
So that's a sort of a historical note that we should take note of.
So that was another important issue that apparently has been resolved.
The third issue is the very fact that Iran has agreed to limit the number of centrifuges that it can have for the duration of the comprehensive agreement that they are trying to reach with the United States.
And as we know, the safeguard agreement that Iran signed with the International Atomic Energy Agency in 1974, and is still enforced, puts no limitation on the number of centrifuges that Iran can have.
But because of the apparent concern by the West that Iran may use those centrifuges for anything other than a peaceful purpose, which Iran, I never believe that Iran had any intention of, Iran has agreed to limit its number of centrifuges for the duration of agreement.
So many, many of the most important issues seem to have been resolved.
Now, what remains is that, first of all, how many centrifuges Iran can have?
Well, hold it right there for a second.
I just want to go ahead and recap here real quick and make sure we got caught up here and understand.
So their secondary enrichment facility that they built at Qom, the one that's basically bomb-proof hidden under the mountain there, they've agreed to no longer enrich, especially not up to 20% anymore.
That's not even on the table.
Hasn't been for a while.
They're not even going to have an enrichment plant there at all now.
It's just going to be a completely worry-free research facility.
Then they're going to change the configuration of the Bushehr reactor and they're going to change the configuration of their other IR-40 reactor from, which is at Iraq there.
No, they won't.
They won't reconfigure the Bushehr reactor because that's a light water reactor.
Oh, that's already the light water reactor.
Yeah, this is the light water reactor.
And its fuel is shipped to Russia.
Now, that was already the deal though, wasn't it?
Yeah, that thing was already in place.
So there is no concern about that.
And the IR-40 in Iraq will be reconfigured so that it will produce less plutonium and Iran will not reprocess the spent fuel so that they cannot separate plutonium from it.
And as you say, they would need a whole new facility in order to do that reprocessing and they've pledged not to even build one.
Exactly.
And you pointed out an important point that I had forgotten.
Actually, now I realize I have forgotten to mention in my article.
And that is, Iran has agreed to stop enriching uranium at 20%.
Iran had already produced enough 20% fuel for Tehran Research Reactor as long as it operates so that by the time the IR-40 reactor in Iraq comes online, it will have enough fuel.
So Iran has agreed to stop that.
Again, this is not part of the safeguard agreement, but Iran has made a major concession here by agreeing to stop that enrichment.
Right.
Okay.
Now, when we get back from this break, we'll talk about the rest of this manufactured controversy and how much of it can possibly be put to bed and Mohammed Sahimi's betting odds, if I can get you to bet, Mohammed, what you think the chances are for a final deal here by the end of this month.
It's the Scott Horton Show, back in just a sec.
Hey, all Scott here.
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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
This is my show, The Scott Horton Show.
Talking with Mohammed Sahimi from USC.
And imenews.com. imenews.com.
This piece is at antiwar.com original.antiwar.com slash Sahimi.
And it ran yesterday on the page there.
If nuclear negotiations with Iran fail, U.S. will be blamed by Mohammed Sahimi and by Scott Horton and by the other, I don't know, a few dozen people in America who understand this issue outside of those persecuting the horrible policy here, perpetrating it, implementing it.
So, okay, we covered what the Iranians have been willing to negotiate away so far.
And then let me just catch the audience up here real quick, Mohammed, on the fact that Iran has been a member of the nonproliferation treaty since it was invented.
And since back in the Shah's day, and they have what's called a safeguards agreement with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is sort of like the international nuclear ATF cops.
And the agreement says that the IAEA can inspect Iran's nuclear facilities to make sure that they're not diverting nuclear material to any nefarious purpose.
So their centrifuge enrichment program is perfectly legal, as long as it's safeguarded, which it is, which it always has been.
So what exactly is the controversy here, Mohammed?
Well, the controversy is, or one of the main issues is the so called breakout time, which means that if Iran decides to leave NPT and expel IAEA inspectors from Iran, and then rush to enrich enough highly enriched uranium for making a bomb, how long would it take to do it?
The US has demanded that the breakout time, the so called breakout time should be at least one year.
Now, here is the controversy.
The breakout time depends on a large number of factors.
For example, how efficient your enrichment facility is, and how fast it can produce highly enriched uranium, what type of centrifuges you use.
And even if you succeed in all of these, do you have the technology and know how to convert your nuclear device or crude nuclear bomb to some sort of a warhead that can be placed at the top of your missile so that if you want to deliver it somewhere, you can.
Now, first of all, there is no evidence that Iran has such a know-how for miniaturizing the nuclear device into a warhead.
And secondly, there is no evidence that Iran actually wants a nuclear bomb.
And third, it all, as I said, it all goes back to what enrichment technology you have, how efficient it is, and what you want to do with it.
Iran has said consistently that it wants to enrich uranium for its Bushehr reactor, and in fact, they are signing an agreement with Russia to build two other nuclear reactors in Iran.
And another one, not IR-40 that I mentioned, but another one is under construction in Iran, in southwest Iran.
Therefore, in the next few years, Iran will have at least four nuclear reactors and need fuel for it.
But what has been basically talked about in Washington by people like David Albright and people like him is that Iran should limit the number of its centrifuges, because they have based their theory for breakout time solely on the number of centrifuges.
And in this argument that they have, they have actually convinced some members of Congress, the pro-Israeli members of Congress, that Iran should not have a large number of centrifuges, if at all.
Now, as I mentioned, and you also summarized it very nicely, all the concessions that Iran has made are actually the rights that it is entitled to under nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its safeguard agreement.
So, Iran has actually given up a lot of its legal rights for the duration of comprehensive agreement, and there is no evidence that Iran actually has any secret facilities or has any intention of making any nuclear bomb.
And as you mentioned, this was basically a manufactured crisis, the way Gary Porter put it, by pro-Israel and neocons in the United States.
So, that is one issue.
The other issue is what they refer to as possible military dimension of Iran's nuclear program, which means that Iran may have had some activities in the past that could be related to the attempt to make a nuclear weapon.
Now, the whole basis for this possible military dimension of Iran's nuclear program is supposedly a laptop that existed in Iran and contained a lot of documents about Iran's past activity, and was stolen, brought out of Iran, given to Western intelligence agencies, and then the IAEA started pressing Iran to explain it.
Now, here is the important point.
Iran has said that if it is shown the document, and if it is shown to be authentic and not fake, it will explain everything.
But the IAEA has refused to present Iran with any actual documents and has just said that, you know, that's the evidence they have.
It has been corroborated by other Western intelligence agencies and so on.
Here again, David Albright of the Institute for International Security, ISIS, which I call a non-jihadist ISIS, has again propagated the idea that Iran has had some research activity and some technology development in the past related to manufacturing of a nuclear bomb, and therefore Iran must explain these things.
Now, in this, he has actually aided those who want to pressure Iran and, even if possible, maybe attack Iran at some point.
One of the aspects of this possible military dimension is the allegation that Iran, back in early 2000, before 2003, made some experiments in a military facility in southeast Tehran, near Tehran, 40 kilometers southeast Tehran, in which they experimented with high explosives that are conventional high explosives, but they can be used for triggering a nuclear reaction, which will lead to a nuclear bomb.
Now, these allegations belong, as I said, to many years ago.
Back in 2004, Mohammad al-Baradei, who was Director General of IAEA at that time, demanded that Iran allow IAEA to visit this military facility, which is called Parchin, and to see for themselves whether there is any evidence there is.
And let me also mention that these allegations were first brought up by John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Proliferation, a non-Iran hawk and pro-Israel guy.
Anyway, although Iran was not actually obligated to allow IAEA to visit Parchin, because Parchin is not a nuclear site, and Iran, but Iran was implementing the additional protocol of safeguard agreement, which means that Iran was obligated to allow IAEA, if it was enforced, if it was ratified.
IAEA visited Parchin in 2005 twice, and both times its delegation of inspectors was led by Ali Heinonen, who was the Deputy Director General at that time for safeguard.
And we know Heinonen has a very strong reputation for being anti-Iran.
They visited Parchin twice, and they didn't find any evidence.
And as I mentioned in the article, at that time, the Iranian press reported that Ali Heinonen had told Iranian officials that the Parchin case has joined history.
And in other words, there was no evidence, the case is closed and finished.
Well, haven't they decided now that they're going to go ahead and drop this as the so-called possible military dimensions, as one of the sticking points, and probably because it's such obvious debunked nonsense?
I mean, even Robert Kelly, the IAEA inspector himself has, you know, completely debunked this whole thing.
Well, when Yukiya Amano became Director General of IAEA on December 1st, 2009, he decided that he wants to revive the issue, because he claims that what the evidence that they originally had, which Ali Heinonen had talked about, about it in February of 2008, in a meeting of the Board of Governors of IAEA, has now been corroborated by other evidence that they have gathered from other sources.
But he doesn't mention what these sources are and what this evidence is.
So he revived it, and he refuses to set aside the story.
As you said, it's fake, but they persist in pushing this issue.
And again, particularly regarding Parchin, David Albright did a great disservice.
Back in 2004, his institute issued report after report that something is going on in Parchin, and Iran must allow the IAEA to visit Parchin.
When the two visits took place, no evidence was found.
The man never retracted anything, he never apologized for anything.
And now that the Parchin issue has been revived again, he has been issuing again, one after another report, claiming that something is going on here.
And just a few weeks ago, when there was apparently an explosion in the military site, he again tried to somehow link it to the allegation about experiments with high explosives, and has issued reports about it, satellite images about it, and so on and so forth.
So this is basically the breakout time, which I mentioned, is the sticking point, apparently, related to the number of centrifuges that Iran can have.
Now, the latest report that was spoken first by Gary Porter last week, but I had read it in the Iranian press, is that the two sides are discussing a way out of this impasse by Iran agreeing to ship its enriched uranium to Russia for conversion to fuel rods and fuel plates, even though Iran has the technology and know-how in Iran to do this, and has been doing this.
But Iran has agreed to ship it out, apparently, they're discussing it, Iran has not formally agreed to it, to ship it out to Russia to be converted to fuel rods and fuel plates, so that at any given time, Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium in Iran would be low enough that it cannot be used for making a nuclear bomb.
If that agreement is actually reached, then basically most of the problems are solved.
The only remaining issue would be what would be the duration of the comprehensive agreement.
Iran has said that it's willing to go with a seven-year agreement, but the US has said that they want an agreement whose duration has two digits, which means at least 10 years.
Iran has said seven years because for the next seven years, Iran will receive fuel for its Bushehr reactor from Russia, but wants to be in a position after seven years so that we can start producing large-scale amounts of enriched uranium for the Bushehr reactor.
So that's another issue.
And finally, the remaining issue is how would the economic sanctions that the US has imposed on Iran be reliefed?
Obviously, the Obama administration cannot cancel most of these economic sanctions because they were approved by Congress and they require approval by Congress also to be canceled.
But the Obama administration has said that it will suspend the economic sanctions, and apparently Iranians have said that as long as they are suspended, it is good enough for them because they believe that once they are suspended and once Iran demonstrates that it is really implementing its part of the bargain, then the sanctions will collapse, regardless of whether the Congress will approve its cancellation or not.
So that's where we stand right now.
All right.
Well, I don't know.
Let me ask you this.
It's, I guess, a little bit more to the speculative part of this, but it seems like, and I know the electoral politics of today's elections probably play into it and what happens if the Republicans take the Senate and this and that, but I wonder if you think that the fact that Obama's finally, I mean, after screwing around his whole administration long, finally beginning a year ago, he seemed to really try to get this thing together and tell Kerry, no, really, I mean it, go ahead and start working on a deal here.
It seems like he means to see it through.
And of course, you know, he's the president, can bomb any country he wants, he can do whatever he wants, right?
So it seems like if he really wants a nuclear deal, then he can have a nuclear deal too, right?
And so I just wonder, you know, I guess maybe that obviously is an oversimplification a little bit and there's still an Israel lobby on the Hill and all that kind of thing, but I just wonder whether you think that, have you seen indications to make you confident that the president really means to see this through and figure out a way to do it?
Clearly the Iranians are willing to bend over backwards to make this deal.
But what about the American president?
I think, in my view, the president does want a nuclear agreement with Iran, not only for its own sake, because this has been, you mentioned it at the beginning of the program, but this has been a very important sticking point in the Cold War between Iran and the United States.
And I think the president does want to remove this issue so that maybe the relation between Iran and the United States will improve.
But at the same time, I think the president and his administration recognize that with all the problems in the Middle East, you know, the ISIS war in Iraq and Syria, the war in Syria itself, the radical Sunni extremist group that are supported by U.S. allies in that region, such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and United Arab Emirates, and given the influence that Iran has not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Lebanon, and given the experience that Iranian forces have had in fighting this terrorism, because one of the things that is not mentioned in this country is that Iran itself has been a big victim of terrorism.
There has been all sorts of terrorism activity against Iranian people inside Iran, and these terrorist groups have been supported one way or another by U.S. allies in that region, and perhaps even indirectly by the United States itself.
So the president recognizes that in order to address some of these important issues, it needs Iran's help, and Iranians have made it clear that if the nuclear issue is resolved to satisfaction of both sides so that Iran preserves its right to enriching uranium and nuclear technology, then Iran will be willing to help the Obama administration and the West to address some of these very important issues, bloody issues, in the Middle East.
And we have to remember that, again, this is not mentioned very often in this country, back in 2003, the Khatami administration, the former Iranian, reformist Iranian president, had put on the table a comprehensive proposal by which Iran would limit its nuclear program for a long time, and would also help the United States to resolve some of these issues in the Middle East, such as Palestine, Israeli issues, Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas, and so on.
But the Bush administration at that time was basically drunk of its so-called victory in Iraq, and rejected it out of hand.
So now that is being revived again, because now the situation is much worse than it was back in 2003.
And Iran is, in fact, in a much more powerful position regarding all the things that are happening in the Middle East.
So in my view, the president does want to reach an agreement with Iran and resolve this and basically remove it from the agenda.
Now, whether in this effort, he will be hindered by Congress and the pro-Israel lobby, I'm sure they will do their best.
But whether that would actually stop the agreement, that remains to be seen.
Well, we've got to stop right there.
We're right up against the limit here.
But thank you so much for your time, Mohamed.
It's great to have you back on.
Thank you, Scott.
I really appreciate it.
All right, so that's the great Mohamed Sahimi, Professor of Chemical Engineering and Material Science at USC.
Original.antiwar.com.
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