A Letter to Elias Khoury from Jeremy Bernstein

A letter from Jeremy Bernstein, the author of our latest release "How Iran Got the Bomb" to Lebanese writer Elias Khoury:

Dear Elias Khoury;

First let me express my appreciation for the talk you gave at NYU last Friday. It was the most lucid discussion of the Arab spring that I have heard. I did want to raise some issues about the Iranian nuclear program but decided that that was not the venue. Hence this note.               

First a note about myself. I am a theoretical physicist. While I have never worked on nuclear weapons I have had contact with many people who have. I did spend some time at Los Alamos and in the summer of 1957 witnessed two nuclear tests. This brings up an important point. The number of people who have actually witnessed nuclear explosions diminishes all the time. On the one hand this is good, but it means that even to the decision makers nuclear weapons become more and more of an abstraction. I was a friend of Stanley Kubrick and he told me that one of the reasons he made Doctor Strangelove was exactly his concern about this abstraction  which he felt was analogous to our psychological denial of our mortality. 

Over the years I have written a good deal about nuclear weapons including several blogs in the New York Review of Books. The last of these  about Iran was a couple of weeks ago. As I am sure you know the response to these blogs is vigorous and over the years I have received dozens. I can now classify the response to my Iran blogs into three categories, a,b and c. 

a.   The Iranian program is entirely peaceful and the fact that you claim otherwise proves that you are part of the Zionist conspiracy.

b.    The Iranian program will end up with the production of a nuclear weapon, but the Iranians are entitled to do this as a matter of self-defense.

c.    The Iranians must not be allowed to have a nuclear weapon even if this means employing force to stop it.

I thought that you were b’ish while I am more c’ish. Let me now adumbrate beginning with a. 

Leaving out the matter of the Zionist conspiracy I think that people who espouse this simply do not know what they are talking about. They have not or will not consider the evidence. I will make only two points in the service of brevity although they are long enough. 

The Iranians bought the same package from A.Q.Khan as the Libyans did. We know what was in that package because the Libyans gave it to us. There was the prototype material for constructing a centrifuge and there were the Chinese plans for a nuclear weapon. This was a uranium device and it or something like it was used in the first Chinese test. This is what the Iranians have. Then there is the matter of enrichment. To make a nuclear device you need some quantity of what it known as “fissile” material. Plutonium is an example and so it the isotope of uranium-uranium-235. But the uranium that comes from a mine has a concentration of  about 99% uranium-238. Hence the 235 must be separated from the 238-hence the centrifuges. A nuclear weapon requires a concentration of about 90%. What then do we know about the Iranians? 

As far as we know they have two centrifuge centers. One is at Natanz and the other near Qum. These centers have several thousand operating centrifuges. They have produced two different concentrations. Most of the material is about 4% enriched and some is about 20% enriched. Twenty percent is the line between low enriched uranium and highly enriched uranium. The Iranians are entitled to enrich up to 20% staying within international norms. The 4% enriched uranium is what it used in power reactors. But the one that is operating uses Russian fuel so what use is there for the 4% enriched uranium? More interesting is the 20% enriched uranium. The Iranians claim that this is for medical isotopes. These isotopes are made in the Teheran Research Reactor which uses 20% enriched uranium and needs to have its fuel elements updated. As far as I can see the Iranians have already made more than enough 20% enriched uranium for the TRR. Why make more? It is known to everyone in this business that it is less costly in centrifuge separation power to go from 20% to 90% than from 1% to 20%. You can draw you own conclusions. I also highly recommend the most recent report of the International Atomic Energy Agency where more reasons to be concerned are given. Now to b.

People who adopt b-that is accept the fact that Iran is going to get nuclear weapons and learn to live with it, give various arguments. One common one is that the Isrealis have probably hundreds so Iran is certainly entitled to a few. Another is that the Iranians are not crazy and they must realize that if they use one their country will be set back to the stone age. On the first, the Israelis have not said in pronouncements from their government that Iran is a “cancer” which must be cut out. The Isrealis view the Iranian nuclear program as an existential threat. On the second I am not sure that the Iranians fully understand this. This goes back to what I was saying above. What do these people really understand about the effects of nuclear weapons? In any event there is the issue of proliferation. The North Koreans provide an instructive example. They were helping the Syrians make a reactor which could be used for making plutonium when the Israelis bombed it out of commission. What would things look like if the Syrians  had made a nuclear weapon? The Saudis have said that if the Iranians get one they will get one too. They do not have the infrastructure to do this but they can certainly buy what they need from somewhere. And the terrorists? 

So we come to c. I do not think that sanctions will work. There is no opposition in Iran to the nuclear program. On the contrary and I think sanctions which are imperfect will  not change this. Note that the Indians say that they will continue to buy Iranian oil since their refineries are set up for it. A line in the sand must be drawn. If, for example the IAEA inspectors are kicked out or if there is evidence that the Iranians are enriching above 20% then the Isrealis for one will not sit still. I am not sure how they will go about it and the retaliation will be terrible but they will go about it. Maybe the Iranians will come to their senses before it is too late, but I am not betting on it. 

- Jeremy Bernstein

Jeremy Bernstein's essay "How Iran Got The Bomb: The Twisted Path to a Nuclear Weapon" can be purchased for Kindle, Nook and iPad through Amazon, iTunes and Barnes and Noble.