Ali Larijani, Secretary of Iran's High Council of National Security and the country's chief nuclear negotiator, has just returned from Moscow, expressing a "positive" attitude toward Russia's proposal to enrich uranium for Iran in Russia.

The other day, I suggested that such a proposal might offer, at best, a way out of the current impasses or, at least, usefully divide those in Iran who are hell bent on a bomb from the rest of the Iranian leadership.

What is the proposal, exactly?

As far as I can tell, the proposal involved two parts.

In May 2005, an Iranian official told AFP that Russia was willing to enrich uranium for Iran, although some of the details about how much

At the time, Paul reported that Russia told the United States that it offered to take lightly processed uranium ore, or "yellowcake" from Iran, enrich it to reactor grade (low enriched uranium or LEU) and then ship the LEU to Iran.

The Iranians claimed that the Russians had offered to enrich uranium hexafluoride made in Iran -- a proposal also offered by South Africa.  The proposals went nowhere, as Mark Hibbs reported at the time, because because one of the bottlenecks in the Iranian program has been the inability to produce pure UF6.  

The deal popped up again in the fall, this time with Russia reportedly offering to enrich Iranian UF6 and allow Iran partial ownership of the uranium enrichment plant in Russia.  Again, Paul offered the most detailed account:

For example, Moscow has proposed that Iran share ownership of a uranium-enrichment plant located in Russia, the State Department official said. Designed to address Iran's claim that it cannot rely on outside nuclear fuel suppliers, this proposal could be combined with Moscow's months-old proposal to enrich Iranian uranium in Russia. It would also satisfy Washington's concerns about Iran's nuclear program, the official added. Lavrov mentioned the joint-ownership proposal to his Iranian counterpart during a recent meeting, and Moscow is awaiting Iran's reaction.

The theory was that allowing Iran ownership in a Russian joint venture would give Iran the technical experience it sought and some measure of confidence that the United States or Europe wouldn't cut them off from fuel.  This is good deal, US diplomats reasoned, so if Iran didn't take it, we could safely assume some other interest -- like a bomb -- was driving their policy.

Iran, however, hasn't been so confident that Russia wouldn't sell them out, perhaps as a result of Iran's experience with Eurodif, a previous multilateral joint venture aimed at providing enriched uranium to Iran. This may explain why Iran reportedly proposed that Russia cut in China on the joint venture, too.

The advantage of this proposal is keeping Iran from installing the 50,000 centrifuges at Natanz -- enough, when completed, to churn out 25-30 nuclear weapons each year.

That might explain why President Bush has endorsed the compromise.

If the proposal keepts Natanz from opening, it has major merit.  There are two principle drawbacks.  If the Russians allow Iran to continue producing uranium hexafluoride, then Iran will in principle, be capable of producing feedstock for a clandestine uranium enrichment program.  Iran, operating through the joint venture, will also gain expertise operating a centrifuge facility, which might also be useful in conducting a clandestine uranium enrichment program.

Assessing the Risk



An agreement in this case can provide three things: First, negotiating an agreement with Iran may create a bureaucratic constituency within Iran for compliance.  A joint venture might transform the scientists and bureaucrats in the nuclear complex from advocates for weapons (as they were in India), to zealous protectors of their international collaboration.  Argentine and Brazilian scientists, for example, opposed military interest in bomb programs because they didn't want to be excluded from the international scientific efforts.

Second, a negotiated solution would impose monitoring on Iran that would improve our chances of detecting a secret nuclear program.  Whether we can limit the risk from a clandestine enrichment program will depend on the details of any verification protocol and answers to technical questions.  For example,  can the IAEA monitor Iran's production of UF6 to prevent the diversion of enough UF6 to support a clandestine centrifuge program?  No one thinks that Iran can, except over a very long period of time, divert enough UF6 to enrich into a bomb -- but Iran might be able to use the feedstock in secret research on a hidden centrifuge program. in Iran.  Similarly, will the IAEA (and various intelligence services) be able to detect a clandestine centrifuge program in Iran?  At extremely intrusive levels of access -- like those imposed on Iraq after the Gulf War -- the odds are good.  How intrusive the monitoring regime in Iran will be, remains to be seen.

Finally, an agreement exists to create support for more coercive measures if Iran is caught cheating.  That, oddly, is probably why the Bush Administration supports the Russian proposal.  Paul reported that "United States and Europeans are supporting Russian diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis partly because they believe that Russia will support a referral if those efforts fail."

All in all, the Russian proposal offers a way out of the current impasse, but at some risk -- risk that is really about the growing competence of Iranian scientists and engineers.  The latter question -- will the economic and technological development will bring Iran into comity with the international community or simply give Tehran more tools to threaten its neighbors -- is one of the great unanswered questions about globalization.