Iran’s Unknown Unknowns

Over the last few days there’s been a bit of a kerfuffle about a New York Times story claiming that Iran had been cheating on its previous nuclear agreements. As it turns out the NYT isn’t the only source for the claim:

Since Iran agreed in late 2013 to negotiate limits on its nuclear ambitions, the Obama Administration has boasted that its diplomacy has “frozen” Iran’s progress, particularly the regime’s stockpile of enriched uranium. Turns out this isn’t true.

That’s the conclusion of a report Tuesday by the Institute for Science and International Security (the other ISIS), a clearinghouse for technical analysis on Iran’s nuclear programs. Under the 2013 interim nuclear agreement, Iran was not prevented from running its centrifuges to enrich uranium. And enrich it has, producing some four tons of low-enriched uranium since the agreement came into effect in January 2014.

The agreement did require Iran to convert the enriched uranium into an oxide form that cannot be easily turned into weaponizable material. And here is where Iran has failed to comply. As the ISIS report notes, Iran has produced only 150 kilograms of uranium oxide, “a mere five percent of what was expected.” Since last November Iran hasn’t even bothered to convert any enriched uranium into oxide.

Iran has until the end of June to convert the remaining 3,800 kilos into oxide if it’s to honor the terms of the deal. Don’t hold your breath. The Iranians claim that their efforts to oxidize the uranium have been slowed by technical snafus and fouled by sabotage. Sabotage by whom? It makes no sense for the West to stymie an attempt to reduce Iran’s stockpile of weapons-usable uranium.

A likelier explanation is that Iran never intended to honor the interim agreement. Now it can use its additional uranium stockpile either to drive a harder bargain as nuclear negotiations approach their June 30 deadline—or drive harder toward a bomb.

Remember the memorable phrase about known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns? The known knowns about Iran is that it had a nuclear weapons development program, it has a nuclear development program, and it has cheated on previous agreements. The known unknown is that we don’t know the extent of Iran’s cheating which could potentially extend to ongoing nuclear weapons development. What are the unknown unknowns? By definition we don’t know but it seems to me that we should at least want to know.

I don’t think that those who are in favor of an agreement on nuclear development with Iran have made a strong enough case. The burden of proof is on them rather than on those who oppose such an agreement. The very least we should expect from proponents is a convincing case that the U. S. benefits from the proposed agreement and their proposed strategy for mitigating the risks the agreement will expose us to.