The IAEA’s questions for Iran

Jeffrey Lewis 0:02

Shahid Barujaradi. You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk Podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:24

I'm Aaron Stein, the director of the Middle East Program and the National Security Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute.

Anne Pellegrino 0:32

And I'm Anne Pellegrino, an independent analyst in Monterey, California. What are you baking this weekend? Ooh, I've baked a lot of things lately. Three loaves of sourdough. I attempted sourdough donuts that were disgusting. And tonight is sourdough pizza dough. So we'll see how that turns out.

Aaron 0:55

Very tasty. You're going to ask me what I'm baking?

Anne 0:59

No.

Aaron 1:01

I made banana bread, and I'm proud of it.

Jeffrey 1:05

Oh, we have a lot of banana bread in our house. It's what we do with old bananas.

Aaron 1:09

That's right, with rotten bananas. And we made the healthy-ish version, so we used coconut oil rather than butter. That's disgusting.

Jeffrey 1:18

We're not here to talk about Aaron's repellent taste in banana bread. We are back with our lousy Zoom recording technology to talk about Iran because some shit's gone down with Iran and the Iran nuclear deal. And I thought we'd talk about that a little bit.

Aaron 1:40

Can we talk first about the background you have on Zoom?

Jeffrey 1:43

Yeah, for listeners who can't see, I'm taking advantage of the Zoom virtual background option. And I have behind me a cascade of Iranian centrifuges.

Aaron 1:55

What's the breakout time on this?

Jeffrey 1:58

Well, I'm actually recording this from in my toilet to try to get away from the sounds of my children. So I'm thinking realistically, we could get six or eight in. So about four or five years.

Anne 2:11

Did we name it the USS Tinny Shitter?

Jeffrey 2:17

The Tinny Shitter for both the sound quality and the normal function of this particular space. So that's why you have the background, so you don't have to look at my toilet.

Anne 2:28

You actually sound pretty good. Yeah, you do, actually. I would have had no idea if you didn't tell me.

Jeffrey 2:33

Okay, well, that's enough about Anne's wonderful sourdough pizza, your disgusting coconut oil banana bread, and my toilet. We are here to talk about Iran, because some stuff has happened. Three things I think we're gonna talk about today. We're gonna talk about Instax, the first use of Instax. Which is kind of an interesting thing. We're gonna talk about the IAEA's efforts to access three sites in Iran when the Iranians seem super excited about allowing access to two and answering questions about a third.

And we're gonna talk about The most recent IAEA report, which has some information that's been brewing for a while. It's not that all of it's new. So we're going to talk about three things today. We're going to talk about INSTEX, we're going to talk about covert sites, and we're going to talk about some underappreciated aspects of the JCPOA that are eroding.

So you all want to talk about INSTEX first?

Anne 3:34

Sure. So I guess... So we had tried to record this episode last week when this was first happening, but last week on March 31st, the German Foreign Office tweeted out that France, Germany, and the United Kingdom had successfully concluded its first transaction via INSTEX to facilitate the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran. 2019 on January, the mechanisms were set up on January 31st, 2019, but this was the first time that they had been used.

And so INSTEX, for those listeners who don't know, is kind of, it's a European vehicle to kind of get around U.S. financial sanctions and by allowing European exporters to receive payments for sales to Iran from funds that are already within Europe and vice versa so that no money is actually changing hands, which then prevents them from Getting on the wrong side of the United States financial system.

Jeffrey 4:59

So this was kind of a big deal, right? Because they set up this mechanism in January, 2019 to coordinate trade. And yet there hadn't actually been any trade.

Aaron 5:10

And that was on purpose. There was a significant amount of pressure from the Trump administration not to use this vehicle because of, you know, honestly is that they would, they were going to deem these transactions as sanctions violations.

Anne 5:22

And they tried to just limit it to, so currently they are limiting it to just medical supplies, medicine, what have you. But the Iranians really would like to expand this to other goods that they deem necessary.

Jeffrey 5:39

Right. I mean, I actually think the real value... I mean, I think they were quite politically clever to pick an export of medicine at this time, right? Because it's very hard politically to make the case that you shouldn't be... That you shouldn't be facilitating this kind of trade. And I think for listeners, the European Council on Foreign Relations has this beautiful explainer, and we'll put a link in the show notes.

I'm just gonna read it because I think it really explains how INSTEX, which is the European counterpart, right? It's the instrument in support of trade exchanges. And the Iranian counterpart, STFI, the Special Trade and Finance Institute, how they coordinate trade without any money crossing borders, because that's what would trigger the financial sanctions, right? So the example they give, and again, this is from this article, so these are not my words, these are the quite clever words of two other people.

A European exporter with an order for medicine from an Iranian importer provides INSTEX with the relevant documentation on the transaction. This will include evidence that the importer has practiced reasonable due diligence in relation to the Iranian buyer and end user. Crucially for European companies, INSTEX will not provide the requisite due diligence service, right? So the European exporter with medicine goes to INSTEX with the documentation.

And then once it's approved the sale, INSTEX will register it on a ledger of trade. INSTEX will examine its ledger to identify an instance in which a European importer has registered a purchase of pistachios from an Iranian exporter. INSTEX will then approve a payment from the European importer of pistachios to the European exporter of medicine, meaning that the payment can be made from one European bank to another without using funds that originated in Iraq.

So to complete the process of the trade intermediation, the Iranian counterpart to INSTEX will coordinate a similar payment from the Iranian importer of medicine to the Iranian exporter of pistachios. These funds will remain within Iran. It's quite clever, although one has to wonder how, you know, how much trade and arrangement like this could ultimately support.

Anne 7:47

Well, I mean, I feel like it's, I don't think it can handle a large volume at this point in time. But I think that for these essentials, especially in a time when Iran is having a really rough time with the bad thing that we try not to mention on the pod.

Aaron 8:04

We're not mentioning the bad thing.

Anne 8:06

I didn't bleep that. No. But it's important. It is important. To make it known that the first transfer of goods is necessary because they're having a really rough time with the bad thing. We can't avoid it completely.

Jeffrey 8:29

No, but it is politically clever, don't you think? Yes, it is.

Aaron 8:34

I think it's politically clever, but I think it's also politically revealing that it took so long for them to process their first payment and that the processing of the first payment was built around The export of something that would be deemed humanitarian goods, rather than something in facilitation or something that the US Treasury would be looking at far more closely in terms of monitoring of secondary sanctions placed upon, potential imposition of sanctions placed upon European countries if they were to do, if they were to engage in trade with the Iranians in ways that the JCPOA was supposed to facilitate.

Would you say that's a good way to put it?

Jeffrey 9:10

Yeah, I mean, the way I look at it is, The purpose of this is to try to deliver to the Iranians some of the benefits of the agreement in order to keep the Iranians at least nominally in the deal. They're at the point now where they're not abiding by many of the provisions, just as the US isn't abiding by many of the provisions.

But things have not broken down completely. I think it's a clever way to start things, but given that it has been an entire year, it is just not clear to me that this instrument, as clever as it is, is going to really ultimately be a difference maker. Although I hope I am wrong.

Aaron 9:53

Yeah, and I think it's worth noting the first transaction being around medicines, Given what Anne said with the backdrop what it is, was a clever way to do this. I will question the viability of this as a large scale mechanism to give Iran even some of what it wanted under the JCPOA. And even in the very, very clever and very clear to follow explanation that you read from the ECFR piece, that's still kind of complicated than just a bank transfer, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think Iran has been making the requisite sort of counter moves to register their displeasure.

Jeffrey 10:42

Yeah, so for example, there's not enough trade to get us the answers and access we want to the three covert sites, which is the second big thing we want to talk about. The other major development has been that the IAEA has raised questions about three undeclared sites in Iran. And while the IAEA has been super careful about not naming the sites, We have a pretty good guess.

Right now, it looks like this involves one site that the IAEA visited, but that they have questions about, and two sites that the IAEA would like to visit, but that the Iranians are not eager to give access to.

Aaron 11:25

Yeah, so I think it's just worth just reading what the Director General Grossi said in full, because it's kind of circumspect, but nevertheless very clear, if you know where to read it. So I'm just going to read it. Quote, the agency has identified a number of questions related to possible undeclared nuclear material and nuclear-related activities at three locations that have not been declared by Iran.

The agency sought access to two of the locations, Iran has not provided access to these locations and has not engaged in substantive discussions to clarify the agency's questions.

Jeffrey 12:03

And then there was the big warning, right? Which in an interview with Reuters, he said, I sincerely hope that Iran will listen to us and listen to the voice of the international community and assess that it's in their interest to cooperate with us. We will be walking towards a crisis if not.

Anne 12:19

So there are some thoughts about what those three sites are likely to be. And they stem from the Atomic Archive, which was the documents that Israel purloined from a warehouse in suburban Tehran. So the three covert sites that The IAEA would like to visit or would like questions answered about are likely a site called Turquoiseabad, which is the location of the warehouse outside of Tehran where the atomic archive was discovered.

The Shahid Borujerdi project, which is a site located near Parchin that is alleged to be, quote, a production scale facility for manufacturing uranium metal components for nuclear weapons. And the third is an unnamed site near Abadeh where Israel has alleged that Iran has conducted experiments to develop nuclear weapons, including yield estimation experiments. And we'll talk about it, but Fabian has geolocated this site.

Jeffrey 13:36

Yeah, I think we should talk about Turquoiseabad, the warehouse site first, because it does look like that's the one that the IAEA has been to. And it's a little unclear in the IAEA reports because they didn't use its name, but one of the reports mentioned that they had done environmental sampling at a site that revealed natural uranium particles of anthropogenic origin.

And the IAEA report didn't say that was Turquoise Abad, but your typical anonymous diplomats, right?

Aaron 14:03

Told Reuters- The Western diplomats, always Western diplomats. Western diplomats, yeah, that's right.

Anne 14:09

Loose lips, shank sips. Wow.

Jeffrey 14:12

I wonder which country, huh? Yeah, it's shocking. It's hard to imagine which Western diplomats it was.

Aaron 14:17

Right.

Jeffrey 14:19

Yeah. But I mean, that was a kind of, so I mean, the important thing there, right, is that This is the site where the Atomic Archive was located, which the Israelis raided. I always got a little frustrated because some of the people who are constantly demanding the IAEA do this inspection or do that inspection demanded that the IAEA go visit the site.

And then when the IAEA visited the site, they said it was too little too late. It's not good enough. Super annoying. But big ups to a friend of the pod, Mark Fitzpatrick, who in advance of the visit said, if radioactive material had been stored at the warehouse in question, it would have left traces that last for years and are very difficult to erase.

And lo and behold, it left traces and the Iranians couldn't erase them.

Aaron 15:17

This is my favorite part because Iran always gets caught with its hand in the cookie jar, and it's always the IAEA doing sample swipes. And the IAEA is never deemed good enough to be an enforcement agency or to at least be able to inspect these places properly. Again, it always seems to catch the Iranians with their hand in the cookie jar.

Jeffrey 15:36

Right. It's incredible. I mean, this is the Iranian, you know, we were treated to the just endless torrent of bullshit about how the Iranians were self-inspecting. Right. IAEA wasn't going to find anything at Parchin.

Aaron 15:51

Too late.

Jeffrey 15:52

Pink tarps. Low and behold, they both got natural uranium at the site, but then more importantly, and very cleverly, they didn't just swipe for uranium, they swiped for the explosive that the Iranians claimed had been stored there. And that wasn't present. And it was like, yeah, you guys are liars. So. Diagnostic by omission. I, you know, I mean, good for the IAEA for getting in there.

Not surprising. It was the archive for the nuclear weapons program that we all believe existed up until 2003. Not sure what we learned other than that, like the archive is really probably an archive, which, you know, didn't doubt.

Anne 16:37

We should also mention, so the next two sites, those revelations came, we think, out of the archive, but are sites that are part of the former program, not things that we are currently worried about.

Jeffrey 16:57

Yeah, I mean, it's part of this endless and utterly pointless argument we have where we say Iran was building a nuclear weapon. That's why it is very important to strike this nuclear deal. And then people say, you can't strike a deal with them. They were building a nuclear weapon. It's like, yes, no, Iran was building a nuclear weapon.

That's why you have to enhance inspections. You can't trust them because they were building a nuclear weapon. Like, yes, I know. That's why I need the IAEA, but you can't trust them. Yes, I know, that's why.

Aaron 17:29

Yeah, we'll get to this. We'll come to this later. But one of the problems we have talking about Iran is because none of the three of us doubt that Iran had a very active, very organized- This would be a much better podcast if we could get Gareth Porter on who pretends that this is something else. Exactly, pretend that Iran wasn't building a nuclear weapon.

Iran was building a nuclear weapon. We all know this. So, like, that's the hardest part about this, about me, for me, is following along with this because the imploding of the JCPOA makes it easier for Iran to build a nuclear weapon at a time when we know that they had previously built a nuclear weapon where it would be better to verify in robust detail that they're not building nuclear weapons.

Jeffrey 18:13

Yeah, I mean, it's incredible. People are like, you know, the problem with this deal is that the provision sunset. So we have to pull out of the deal now and sunset all the provisions. It's like, you know, it's like the person who goes to the restaurant and they're like, the food is terrible and the portions are so small.

Aaron 18:30

It doesn't make sense. But we do think, or at least we are inferring that two of the other sites that Grossi was talking about were sites that were in the archive, right?

Jeffrey 18:47

Well, I think so. If only because regardless of whatever we think about the political theatrics of what the Israeli government under Benjamin Netanyahu is doing, These appear to be sites that are identified in the archive, and Rafael Grossi is a sincere and competent international official, and he is going to ask to see these sites, right? It is not possible for me to imagine that Rafael Grossi wouldn't be interested in seeing these sites, and so they have to be on the list.

Aaron 19:24

Right. So let's talk about the first one. Shahid Barujadeh?

Anne 19:30

We went over this. Shahid Barujadeh.

Aaron 19:34

Barujadeh.

Anne 19:34

This is what we're going with.

Jeffrey 19:36

We're establishing that the Arabic speaker is less likely to mispronounce the Persian word than the Turkish speaker.

Anne 19:44

Which, if you speak Persian and you speak Arabic, you know that that is... Still not good enough because they are just, they are still different.

Jeffrey 19:55

It's better than my redneck pronunciation.

Aaron 19:59

Shahid Bergerdi. I like that one the best. It's actually pretty good. We're going to go with that one.

Jeffrey 20:06

You know, I mean, you know, and- Got a little Charlie Wilson going on there. I'll never forget, yeah, my childhood accent comes out. I'll never forget learning that Yongpyeong Island in South Korea, you know, which is Yongpyeong-do, which I can't, I mean, I can't get it right, that people just called it in the military, YP-do. Why PDO?

Why PDO? So just SB. Right, so SB is a site that, and I'm quoting here, senior Israeli analysts assess that this site was involved in making uranium metal components for nuclear weapons. It was published by ISIS. It was, you know, it was provided to them. I mean, you know, and to their credit, they footnoted it, right? It was a briefing that David Albright got in Tel Aviv from Israeli intelligence officials.

Anne 20:54

Footnotes are important.

Jeffrey 20:56

Hey, you know what? He could have pretended that he found it himself, which he didn't do. That would have been unethical. So I can give them shit about not liking their politics and then also give them credit for footnoting things. You know, it turns out it's harder for some people to footnote things than others. It's harder for some people to footnote things than others.

Aaron 21:15

Yeah, okay. Okay. It's... It's near, it's on the Parchin site, right?

Jeffrey 21:23

Yeah.

Aaron 21:24

Parchin military base. Parchin is famous. It's huge. We know this. It's very large. And it's the site where they had the test chamber, where the famous self-inspection took place and where the IAEA found uranium particles. Actually, where the Iranians who self-inspected found the uranium particles that the IAEA analyzed.

Jeffrey 21:46

Right. And I think from a what does it matter perspective, it is important to note that the documentation shows that construction occurred between April 2002 and May 2003. So that's before Iran halted, a word I don't love, but before Iran halted or paused or suspended its nuclear weapons program, which is typically given as sometime in the fall of 2003, although...

The bureaucratic mechanism by which Iran halted the program. It probably took a little longer for it to play out. So this is a pre-2003... This facility is probably, I mean, I think the evidence is pretty good that it's part of the pre-2003 weapons program.

Anne 22:36

So the evidence, let's talk about the evidence, because I think one of the biggest parts is that it... Documents indicate that it is associated with project 3.14, which had been previously identified by the IAEA as part of the covert nuclear weapons program involved in uranium metallurgy.

Jeffrey 23:00

Yeah, you know, one of the really interesting things that comes out is, so they have the documents associated with this, right? So they've got a contract that says it's for this Project 110, which is a nuclear weapons program. And then there's what I think is one document with two slides saying that the beneficiary is this Project 3.14.

There is one IAEA document that mentions Project 3.14. And it makes it clear it's part of the covert nuclear weapons program.

Anne 23:26

And I have seen secondary sources say it was linked to uranium metallurgy.

Jeffrey 23:33

I have never been able to find that in an IAEA document. And, you know, one of the coauthors on the report is Ali Heinen, who's the former director for safeguards. So I suspect that this is confirmation that that's what they thought it was for.

Anne 23:53

Okay, so we'll just put a little asterisk above that just as like a note. Oh, I think it's real.

Jeffrey 23:58

It's just, I actually, I happened to find, I found one Book about Iran's nuclear program that mentioned that's what the IAEA thought project 3.14 is for. And I kind of made a note to myself of like, oh, this person must have done some good interviews. Right. So like, it's not that I don't believe it. It's just that like, We'd seen them reference project 3.14 in as best I can tell one document where they didn't say what it was for.

But nomenclature wise, that makes sense. And I should say also, there's also a table of purposes of the rooms. And while they don't say uranium, it makes it clear it's for processing metals. So I think that's good enough. I mean, I see why Israeli analysts would conclude it was to make uranium components for nuclear weapons. And I think that's pretty good.

Aaron 24:46

Yeah. Close to the test chamber.

Jeffrey 24:48

Yeah. So, you know, it actually, if I was going to make a broader observation about this, I guess I would say that it goes to the kind of the challenge of the IAEA at a place like Parchin, right? Which is you got to know where to look. I mean, there's the famous story in Fars, I think it's Fars News or maybe Mare, about...

Ali Heinen and another IAEA official trying to select a spot to inspect at Parchin and then picking out this bunker and then the Iranians laugh at them because they say it's a toilet, right? Which I'm not actually sure that story is true, just because the Iranians said it.

Aaron 25:24

You're the guy who geolocated Kim Jong-un's toilet.

Jeffrey 25:27

Yeah, but even if it were true, this is a really big sprawling site with lots and lots and lots of buildings. And unless you have really good information about what's happening in a particular building, you know, it's... It's actually not that easy, right, to know exactly where you should go. And so I'm not surprised that they would put a facility like this at Parchin and not super surprised that they would be able to hide its existence.

Aaron 25:58

I may be not remembering this correctly, and I don't care if you leave it in if I get it wrong, but it was after they went and looked at Parchin, it was around 2005 or 2006 where there were more documents sort of Made available to the IAEA. I don't know how else to say that. It allowed them to refine their search to go looking for that specific building that had the test chamber.

Am I remembering that correctly?

Jeffrey 26:22

Well, that's how I remember it, but it's possible we're both misremembering it. But yeah, they did do a visit to Parchin, which just was not conclusive because it doesn't seem like they went to the right building.

Aaron 26:34

Right.

Jeffrey 26:35

Which again, like not meant as a criticism of the IAEA or of Olly Heinen at the time. Like it just, it's hard, right? It is hard. And frankly, if you're doing your job, You shouldn't limit yourself to just the places that you're sure of, right? Right. It's called testing of the dependent variable. Yeah, I'm sympathetic to that.

So it's not surprising the Iranians were able to do this.

Aaron 27:09

I didn't mean that as a criticism. I meant to say that it was a reaffirmation that it is hard, especially at a big place like Parchin, Where you could get a whiff that says Parchin is the site of some nefarious activity, but not know exactly where in Parchin the book.

Jeffrey 27:26

Yeah, well, I mean, it's like getting a whiff that there's some nefarious activity at, you know, the University of Maryland College Park where I went to school. And I was like, yeah, well, I know there is, but like what building do you want me to go in for f**k's sake? You know, I meet people all the time who went to Maryland when I went, right? And it's like, there's like, I don't know how many thousands of students, and it's like, oh, I, you know, didn't know, you know, like should we talk about the third site? Because Aaron, you, you, you have, you have feelings about this place. I just called the dump in the desert. It's buildings in the desert.

Right, so this is Abadei. I mean, this is one of the most interesting things to me. The Israelis chose what information from the atomic archive to distribute. And so they gave SB to Albright and company, but they held back this place Until one of the multiple Israeli elections that's been held in the past year. Maybe the second one, I can't remember.

Anne 28:42

Oh.

Jeffrey 28:44

And they said, and you know, in their defense, they said they decided not to burn it until the Iranians started tearing it down. once, once the Iranians knew that it was compromised, then they could go ahead and release it. Now, I'll leave it up to you as to whether it needs to be released in a campaign style briefing by the Prime Minister, but.

You know, it's a really interesting location because the Israelis do not say what the purpose of the site is and didn't really provide much documentation associated with it.

Anne 29:23

But you and Fabian went and found the site and tried to understand.

Jeffrey 29:29

And by that, I mean, by that you mean Fabian went and found the site and was like, hey, Jeffrey, I found the site. How does this look? And I went, oh, it looks good to me. Okay. So Fabian found the site. And from there. How is he working with Fabian? Does he just find it? It's remote.

Aaron 29:47

I don't know how he found it.

Jeffrey 29:48

It's in the middle. Well, the Israelis did. They gave the town and they put up a picture.

Aaron 29:54

Yeah.

Jeffrey 29:54

So they showed us that picture and they gave the town and he just low hanging fruit. He bulldozed through it like a boss.

Anne 30:01

Yeah. So what did you see? What did you see? Because I don't get to sit with you and look at this stuff anymore. You have to tell me.

Jeffrey 30:10

It's a dump. It's hard to know how dumpy it is, though, because there weren't a lot of great satellite images of it. Remember, it looks like it was part of the pre-2003 nuclear weapons program. Right. And so, if you look at Google Earth, for example, the newest picture is like May, 2013. And by then, it looked like it was in pretty bad shape.

We also used to have TerraServer, but pour one out for TerraServer, it's now dead. So we went through all the TerraServer. What? Gotta buy that straight from DG now, or Maxar. Which I guess we're going to probably end up doing. You know, it really didn't look very active until the... Archive was raided, and then the bulldozers showed up.

Oh, man.

Aaron 31:10

And the love is on Xi'an treatment.

Jeffrey 31:12

Yep, yep. Which is now, what, Khaosar Park? It's a lovely park these days.

Aaron 31:17

It's a lovely park. That's the one place that got rid of particles.

Jeffrey 31:21

Yeah. So for listeners, the one spot the Iranians have ever seemed to successfully demolish, raise, and then seal up so that there's no finding anything was Lavazan Shan, which was probably a site for testing centrifuges, which the Iranians not only bulldozed, but they ground scraped. God knows what happened to the dirt, and they've turned it into a park, and they've redone the park multiple times since, and it's had basketball courts and other things put down.

There are pictures of it online. It looks like a very peaceful and beautiful place to contemplate universal bereavement.

Aaron 32:00

If they ever let us in, maybe we'll record a live podcast from there.

Jeffrey 32:03

That would be freaking awesome.

Aaron 32:06

You know, one of the funny things about this site is

Jeffrey 32:09

Which I don't really get. I mean, first of all, the Iranians didn't scrape the warehouse, which they could have. Yeah, it was weird. And they didn't scrape this site. They knocked down the buildings, but they left like a bunch of trees and things. And so it didn't look like it was the kind of ground scraping that I would expect to have seen if they were going to do a proper cleanse.

So I don't know what they're up to, but... But they didn't let the IAEA... Yeah, well, I mean, it's a suspicious site for sure, right? I mean... Like, whatever you think about the motives of the people leaking this information, I think the archive is real and much of the information appears to be verifiable. This is a weird looking facility.

It's in a location that looks like a security facility. You know, it's not a farm. And the fact that after the archive was stolen that the, you know, it suddenly got bulldozed. You wouldn't bulldoze a site like this. A site like this that's in the middle of nowhere, if you abandoned it, you would just let it fall down.

So that's the one that I find the most enigmatic because like the SB, we know we've, because we have the briefings, we have a pretty good idea what it was for. And it's not surprising that a facility like that existed. This one is still kind of interesting to me. Are we done? Are we done with the three sites?

Aaron 33:33

It's not really for us. Okay. It's sort of confirmation of things we already assumed happen. Right.

Jeffrey 33:41

But it's- Right, it's the circular argument of, oh my God, Iran had a nuclear weapons program before 2003. Yes, we know that's exactly why you need to agree to enhance the IAEA inspections. But you can't do that because Iran had a nuclear weapons program before 2003. Yes, I know that's why you have to, yeah.

Aaron 33:59

Right. But- The Iranians haven't been sitting around and saying, oh, just keep smashing me over the head with sanctions. They've been gradually increasing pressure, particularly on the Europeans, but also the United States, by undoing or at least violating provisions within the JCPOA sort of sequentially in response to American actions. And I think those, and I think we all agree, are the more worrying part than these old buildings, presumably older buildings, and the much-vaunted breakout calculator.

Anne 34:31

Yeah, we've talked in numerous podcasts recently about the steps that Iran is taking away from the JCPOA in attempts to pressure Iran. The United States to coming back to the table. But I think beyond those steps, there were a couple other things in some recent statements that got you nervous, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey 34:57

Yeah, because, you know, a lot of the things the Iranians have done are ultimately reversible. You know, they can't, they said like, oh, well, we're going to accumulate LEU now at a faster pace rather than ship it out. Like, well, okay. But if we come back to the deal and, you know, you patch things back, then you just, you know, you pack that up and ship it out again.

Right. So the, so a lot of that stuff is reversible. There have been two things happening that are not getting any attention that are causing me more anxiety because they go to the question of how effective are we gonna be at detecting a covert program? Because as I've said a million times, I do not believe that the Iranians are going to say, hi, we're done.

We're building a bomb, we're using Natanz, you have X number of weeks to bomb this facility or we will have the material. Like that just to me does not seem like their MO, right? Whenever they get to a point where they are done with the deal internally, they're not gonna tell us They're just going to start sticking centrifuges under a mountain somewhere.

So it's so important to make sure that we can see all of the steps leading up to that. And there are two things in recent reports that really bother me. One is that Iran has started manufacturing centrifuge rotors and bellows with carbon fiber that is not subject to agency monitoring. So this is like really down in the weeds, but one of the cool things about the JCPOA is it placed monitoring on the workshops that actually make the centrifuges.

That was the best part of the JSON. Right. And one of the things that made that an effective mechanism was that, generally speaking, when this whole thing started, carbon fiber was being imported by Iran, and they were supposed to import it through a procurement channel. The IAEA could test it, look at it, and then it would go sit under surveillance.

And there was a provision that said, you know, they could make their own material too if they wanted. But if they did that, then the IAEA would have to be able to inspect that material and they would have to go sit under surveillance. And that was not a perfect deal, but now Iran has basically started, they've left the manufacturing process under safeguards or containment and surveillance, I guess is the phrase I should use.

They've left it under containment and surveillance, but they've begun bringing in material that is outside of this process. And some people say, well, that's because they're importing it from the black market, which would be, Worrisome, right? Because it means they have an access to a supply that we don't know about. But equally worrisome, you know, because I, you know, me with my experience with North Korea, I think we might be underestimating countries' domestic abilities.

We know they have talked about and they have shown us plans for producing carbon fiber. There's a big question about whether it's strong enough for rotors. Regardless whether it's one or the other, they now have a source of carbon fiber that's outside of monitoring that they are turning into centrifuges in front of the IAEA. It has to really cause you to worry whether there's another facility someplace that could be turning carbon fiber into centrifuges that are never then gonna be seen by the IAEA.

So that's causing me a lot of anxiety. And then the second thing is under the JCPOA, the only place that Iran could do mechanical testing of centrifuges, they could either do it at Natanz or they could do it at the Tehran Nuclear Center. And that's the only place they could do mechanical testing. And if it was involved in Richmond at all, it needed to be at Natanz.

There is now this one reference to a new location for mechanical testing of centrifuges, which just, You know, just as a practical matter, it raises the safeguards burden for the IAEA, right? And at least to me, serves as a warning, like it's nice that they told the IAEA about this one, but it's a reminder that if there are centrifuges that are potentially being manufactured outside of this structure, God knows where they're getting tested.

So I just... You know, this isn't like, oh my God, there's a hole in the deal because there is still a lot more surveillance on their centrifuge workshops than there was before the deal. But now the Iranians are starting to chip away at the stuff I really care about. And it just has me a little nervous.

Aaron 40:01

And that goes back to, I mean, I think all of this, you could wrap it up by saying these things would be solvable in a climate of political goodwill. If Iran is either importing carbon fiber and manufacturing or manufacturing robust enough carbon fiber itself, there are ways to – I don't even want to call it a loophole.

There are ways to basically make that fit the JCPOA if Iran was seeing benefits of the JCPOA. Without any benefits of the JCPOA for the sanctions that we led the podcast on, Managing these sort of manageable differences become much harder. And so these provisions that I know, the thing that I cared most about when I first read the JCPOA, whenever that was, time has lost all meaning, was the centrifuge monitoring and the more complete monitoring on the full front end of the fuel cycle.

And it's that stuff that I also worry about. It's not the breakout time. I could care less about that. And in the absence of political goodwill, you're seeing it manifest in the ability not to do inspections or at least not site visits. And then now with the carbon fiber stuff you just talked about.

Anne 41:26

Well, an added layer of complexity would be the inability right now to put boots on the ground to actually go check these things out, given the bad thing.

Jeffrey 41:38

Yeah, and I mean, the way I always looked at it was the JCPOA was ultimately a political agreement, right? It was going to live or die based on whether the benefits that Iran was receiving were sufficient for the people who wanted a less isolated Iran To triumph over the people who wanted a bomb, right? And so we always kind of knew that that was what this was about.

And the real question was, could we give ourselves confidence that the Iranians were keeping their end of the bargain? And we also knew that over time, Iranian capabilities were gonna grow and grow and grow, right? And that's why there's a whole bunch of stuff in the agreement that sunsets. It wasn't like we were getting an agreement where the Iranians were like, Abandoning science and technology in order to receive a handout from the US government.

It was, can you put in place a structure that delivers benefits to people in Iran who are willing to forego a bomb? And as you are giving them the benefits, can you give yourself confidence that they aren't doing that? And you always knew over time That their capabilities were gonna grow and the kind of confidence that you were gonna have was gonna have to change, right?

And it was gonna have to evolve from really intensive and intrusive inspection to, you know, this kind of much broader Approach, and so like, we knew that Iran was going to get better centrifuges eventually, and, and the JCPOA just accepted that that was going to happen, but we tried to put that day off as long as we could so that you could actually build this political compromise and make it durable. In the interim, what this development suggests to me is that obviously we are not building that political compromise. I mean, if anything, we're talking about this Trump administration is talking about how coronavirus might help with regime change, so there's none of that goodwill.

Right. And, and in the interim, we're watching Iran's progress, right, the Iranians are progressing. And so like, if they now suddenly have this access to a big supply of carbon fiber, and they're building new sites that are, you know, at least initially under monitoring, but you know, I suggest maybe there could be some that aren't. Our confidence is dropping before we have put in place the real durable political consensus, which to me feels exactly like how things went wrong with North Korea, and we know how that story ended.

Which, by the way, as I said from the beginning, if you like a nuclear-armed North Korea, you're going to love walking away from the Iran deal.

Anne 44:28

That doesn't sound like a happy note, Jeffrey.

Jeffrey 44:30

I even mentioned the bad thing.

Aaron 44:34

We didn't really talk about the bad thing. It was the bad thing in the context of perhaps potential other bad things. So a lot of bad things flopping around. But you're sitting on your toilet.

Jeffrey 44:44

No, I'm sitting in a room filled with Iranian centrifuges. The tinkling noise you hear is the condensation. Yeah, that's right.

Anne 44:59

Cascade doing its thing.

Aaron 45:01

Cascade doing its thing. I'm trying to think of a happy note to take us away before we go off the rails, as usual.

Anne 45:12

I don't have one. Not dead yet?

Jeffrey 45:15

We're all good. Everybody's healthy? Actually, I will tell you what. I will tell you something. I don't know if this counts as uplifting, but it was important and centering. I ran into... I ran into an important friend of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and an enormous booster of the Middlebury Institute. I was taking my kids for a walk at Garland Park, which is a big kind of nature area here in Carmel Valley.

And he was exercising and we exercised appropriate social distancing when we ran into one another. But we stopped in from six feet away, had a brief conversation and I've expressed my anxiety about all the things going on in the world at the moment. And as an older person, he sort of said, you're young, you're healthy, family's healthy, you get up each day and you focus on that fact.

And you know, yeah, you don't worry about the rest of the stuff, you know? And I, I, yeah, I think it was, it was good advice from someone who's successful and, and, and, you know, fairly old now. So you know, we pod away. It'll be all right.

Aaron 46:33

It'll be all right. With that I hope everybody is enjoying the podcasts preferably from their home or, or from from six feet away from any human outside your close family. We. Benefit, obviously, from your help in helping putting these podcasts on. So we encourage you to head on over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast, where you can give said help for $3 a month if you're a student, $5 a month if you are not a student, where you gain access to our Slack channel.

And our Slack channel does very, very cool things, including contributing to the Washington Post. Finding for the first time that the Iranians, the subject of this podcast, shot down a Ukrainian civilian airliner and some other stuff I'm forgetting. Jeffrey, do you remember what else?

Jeffrey 47:20

We are at this moment developing an open source resource to detect. Missile launches.

Aaron 47:28

So join the Slack channel because I learned a lot.

Jeffrey 47:30

So it's very technical and I'm not sure it's going to work, but it's f***ing awesome.

Aaron 47:33

And it's sort of this, what we are seeing is a collaborative spirit of a lot of cool people engaged in the trading of cool information because we all enjoy doing what we do. That's patreon.com slash ACW podcast. With that, Anne, good seeing you.

Anne 47:50

You too.

Aaron 47:51

Good seeing you and your centrifuges. I'm in my basement and I have air to come. So with that, I'm saying buh-bye.