Dawn of Nuclear Age Breaks Over Bushehr

By Mark Thomas, RUSI Qatar

More than a decade and a half after it took over the project, Russia has begun loading low-enriched uranium fuel rods into the 1000 megawatt nuclear reactor which has been constructed at Bushehr, on Iran's southern coast.  It will take six months or more before the plant operates at full capacity, but once the fuel is introduced to the reactor this week the facility will be considered operational and Iran will become the first Middle Eastern country to possess civilian nuclear power.

Many will be sceptical of the announcement until they see the plant producing electricity.  Russian and Iranian authorities have been announcing the imminent launch of Bushehr for at least two years.  To quote one commentator, Michael Anton; 'the Russians are, in the parlance of the region, adept at selling this particular rug over and over.  Somehow the carpet never actually changes hands.' Technical problems are always blamed, but the delays have coincided suspiciously with political wranglings over Iran.

This time things appear to be different.  Until recently, the United States strongly opposed Russia's completion of the project, with Hillary Clinton arguing in March that to do so would be premature given suspicions of Tehran's nuclear intentions.  Now the Obama administration appears to have granted its support for Russia's actions; the apparent price for securing Russian support for the fourth round of UN sanctions against Iran, agreed in June.

Once operational, the reactor will generate plutonium waste that, if reprocessed, may well be used to produce an atomic bomb. It could also be processed in far greater quantities than the centrifuge cascades at Natanz which could produce weapons grade uranium.  Bushehr, however, has not formed a central part of the debate over Iran's nuclear programme, as the threat of the misuse of its technology is seen to be minimal.  Russia will both supply the fuel and take away the waste, preventing diversion to any weapons programme.  Consequently, it has been exempt from UN sanctions aimed at Iran's nuclear programme.

Bushehr Core to Debate

However, whilst Bushehr has so far not featured highly in the case against Iran, its launch is likely to see it form an increasingly central part of the Gulf Region's nuclear discourse:  both in arguments over Iran's efforts to enrich uranium, and in the consideration of the nuclear policies of neighbouring countries, which Iran's activities may drive forward.

In this politically charged and technically complex debate, the international community has struggled to counter Tehran's claims that the West is trying to deny Iran the right to peaceful nuclear technology.  This claim, however, is inaccurate.  Iran is in clear violation of substantive obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which grants all non-nuclear signatory countries access to peaceful nuclear technology, in return for foreswearing the right to develop nuclear weapons.  Nevertheless, amongst a global public unfamiliar with the intricacies of the international nuclear arms control regime, it is the Iranian argument which appears more persuasive.

The West is now utilising the launch of Bushehr to try and expose this claim and draw the distinction between Iran's right to civil nuclear technology, which it supports; and Tehran's proliferation-sensitive enrichment activities, which it suspects are a cover for a nuclear bomb.  Robert Gibbs, White House spokesman, stated that the reactor 'proves to the world that if the Iranians are sincere in a peaceful programme, their needs can be met without undertaking its own enrichment programme.'  The UK Foreign Office took the same position, stating that the 'announcement underlines the fact that Iran does not need to pursue these other activities to enjoy the benefits of nuclear power.'

Iran, though, can be expected to seize on the same facts to argue the opposite.  The agreement between Tehran and Moscow obliges Russia to provide nuclear fuel for ten years, but the reactor has a lifespan of perhaps forty to sixty years.  This has allowed Ali Akbar Saleh, head of Iran's Atomic Energy Agency, to pose the question 'With the assumption that we will receive fuel for 10 years from the Russians, what are we going to do for the 30 to 50 remaining years?'  And Mohammad Ahmadian, managing director of state-owned Iran Nuclear Power Plans Production and Development Company, has already said that Iran may not be able to depend on Russia for fuel  because previous delays in construction proved 'Western countries cannot be trusted'.

The outlines of Iran's forthcoming strategy are thus predictable.  Tehran can point to the functioning nuclear power plant at Bushehr and now claim, with credibility, that its enrichment activities are merely designed to supply its future electricity production demands.  The central argument of many analysts critical of Iran has been to question why Iran needs a uranium enrichment programme when it did not have a single functioning nuclear reactor.  Now Iran has a nuclear reactor. 

Moreover, the Islamic Republic has said that it has to meet domestic electricity needs of 20,000 megawatts in the next 15 years, and wants to build up to twenty nuclear power plants.  This provides a pretext for Tehran to expand and master its enrichment programme, a justification which until now has seemed implausible given the delays at Bushehr.  

The intention to build further nuclear reactors and the additional uranium enrichment facilities needed to fuel them, will now feature at the centre of Iran's claim to be seeking only peaceful  nuclear power.  In the meantime, Iranian nuclear engineers at Bushehr will be trained by Russia in the skills and knowledge needed to operate a nuclear reactor.  All this will bring Iran closer to gaining the knowledge and eventually the material necessary for a nuclear bomb. 

Break-out Risk

More immediately, though, an expanded enrichment programme would significantly increase the risk of an Iranian 'Break-Out' - a decision to rapidly enrich uranium stockpiles to weapons grade level.   Current scenarios for a nuclear Iran envisage a point at which Iran acquires a sufficient quantity of low enriched uranium, to be able to make one or two atomic bombs. The estimated timeframe for this is the factor guiding current policy efforts. 

This likelihood of this 'Break-Out' scenario, however, is rather low. In the logic of nuclear strategy it fails to provide Iran with a 'second-strike' nuclear capability - a nuclear arsenal large enough to resist an incoming nuclear attack while retaining sufficient weapons to retaliate, when faced with a hundred or more Israeli nuclear warheads.  More likely, Iran would wish to have sufficient fissile material for five, or more nuclear weapons, before it would consider a break-out.  A large scale civilian nuclear programme would set Iran on the right trajectory for this to occur.

Every Action Has an Equal and Opposite Reaction

The activation of Bushehr also allows Iran to maintain the perception of the unstoppable progress and inevitable rise of the Islamic Republic; and in politics perceptions matter.  It is the belief that Iran is destined to dominate the region, and US influence decline, that is driving the Gulf states to hedge their bets and maintain ambiguous policies on Iran; publicly refusing to oppose Iran's nuclear programme whilst privately urging tough action by the West.

In politics prestige also matters.  For several decades the Arab states of the Persian Gulf states have maintained a technological edge over their Iranian neighbour, purchasing advanced technology from the West, whilst Iran has suffered under US sanctions.  The launch of Bushehr changes this dynamic and awards Iran a major technological feather in the cap. 

The question now is, what follows?  As Iran's nuclear transgressions have continued, the Arab states on the other side of the Gulf have already begun taking steps to develop their own nuclear capabilities.  The United Arab Emirates has led this charge, concluding a $24 billion agreement with South Korea to build four nuclear reactors, with the first to become operational by 2017. 

The one to watch, however, is Saudi Arabia; Iran's Sunni rival and the Gulf Arab heavyweight.  The Kingdom has gone to great lengths and expense to maintain a technological edge over Iran, spending a fortune on advanced Western defence systems, in particular.  The Saudis will be loathe to now allow themselves to fall behind the Iranians, or the UAE, when it comes to the technological crown of nuclear capability. 

Saudi Arabia can therefore be expected to actively pursue a civilian nuclear programme and seek to acquire more advanced technology than that of Iran.  But distinction could also occur between the nuclear policy choice taken by Saudi and that of the UAE.  Unlike Iran, the UAE has renounced any desire to undertake its own enrichment of fissile material, a development that helps support the Western position of not opposing those that seek nuclear technology for purely civil purposes.  In any case, the UAE, by virtue of its small size, lacks the industrial base to make indigenous nuclear technology a possibility.  The same cannot necessarily be said for Saudi Arabia, which has traditionally sought to gain control over the technology that it acquires and which, with the right partner, could look to develop its own enrichment capability. 

Such a measure would be highly controversial and technically problematic.  In order for the UAE to conclude the deal with South Korea, it was first required to sign a nuclear co-operation agreement with the US surrendering the option of indigenous enrichment, as most of the Korean reactor technology originates from the US.  If Saudi were to follow a different route it would need to find a non-Western partner.  It is clear though that Saudi has no desire to acquire nuclear weapons, with the country a staunch supporter of the concept of a Gulf Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone.  However, if provoked by Iran, it could seek to acquire a theoretical break-out capability, similar to Japan. 

A New Nuclear Era

The start of the reactor at Bushehr does not make Iran nuclear, in the conventional meaning of a nuclear armed state. Neither does it directly or materially assist that objective - but it will be used by Iran as the justification to continue its uranium enrichment programme and expand it to a stage that could allow it to reach a realistic break-out capability.  In the longer term it will also allow Iran to acquire the knowledge to run its own nuclear power plants and this could create a route for Iran to obtain a plutonium bomb.  Even before either of those scenarios occur, however, it will change perceptions of Iran in the minds of policymakers in the region, spurning active nuclear polices in the Gulf and beyond.  

Whether this will lead Saudi Arabia or others to pursue their own uranium enrichment and thus potentially a break-out nuclear capability themselves is unclear, but nuclear programmes will dominate the Gulf agenda.  Unopposed by Western powers, the launch of the reactor at Bushehr is likely to receive only moderate coverage. But make no mistake, the nuclear era in the Middle East has just begun.

 

Mark Thomas is Deputy Director of RUSI Qatar