Short Wave - A Brief History (And Some Science) Of Iran's Nuclear Program

Episode Date: January 28, 2020

With the Iran nuclear deal in further jeopardy, we take a look at how the country's nuclear program began with NPR's Geoff Brumfiel. (The United States has a surprising role.) We'll also hear how the 2015 agreement, putting limits on that program, came about, and what it means now that the deal is on life support. For more on Geoff's reporting on nuclear weapons, follow Geoff on Twitter — he's @gbrumfiel. Plus, you can email the show at [e-mail] pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Shortwave from NPR. Maddie Safaya here with Jeff Brumfield again. Hey, Jeff. Hi there. So you are one of our correspondents here on the NPR Science Desk. And as a part of that, you cover nuclear weapons. That's right. I've been covering it for many years, actually.

So we brought you on the show today because of the recent tensions between the U.S. and Iran. Yeah, so this is coming after the U.S. ordered this drone strike that killed Iranian general Qasem Soleimani. Video apparently from the afterman. shows burning wreckage near Baghdad's airport. That led to a sort of back-and-forth escalation that went on for a while there. The situation is settled down, but it's still tense. And what's important to keep in mind is at the heart of this conflict is Iran's nuclear program. Iran says it's peaceful, but President Trump doesn't buy that, and he's not a fan.

As long as I'm president of the United States, Iran will never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. So today in the show, we're going to sort out the facts about Iran's nuclear program, what they're doing, what it's for, and just how far away they are from a nuclear bomb. Okay, Jeff, here's what I know about Iran's nuclear program. They have one. There was a deal that President Obama made with Iran to limit that program, and then Trump pulled us out of that. And now things seem real tense. That's right. And we'll come back to the nuclear deal on the science.

But first, we really need to dig into the history of Iran's nuclear program. And to do that, I want you to meet Ari Tabatabai. She's an Iran expert at the Rand Corporation. And she's just written a book that will be out soon. That's called No Conquest, No Defeat. And the subtitle is Iran's National Security Strategy. So today, Iran is a conservative Islamic Republic. But when its nuclear program started back in the 1950s, it was a very different place.

It was run by a U.S.-backed dictator. Muhammad Rizasha, who was a modernizing strong man. He was continuing in the steps of his father who had started this very fast modernization process. Now, this was also a period when the U.S. was trying to export a lot of nuclear technology. World War II had just ended with the first atomic bombs being detonated over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. And now the U.S. wanted to show that nuclear could be good, too. It could be used for positive things like nuclear energy. At United Nations headquarters in New York, United States President Eisenhower arrives to make a proposal for the constructive use of atomic power.

And Iran was one of the recipients of nuclear technology from the United States at that point. Okay, so wait, the U.S. actually gave Iran its first nuclear technology. Yep, that's true. Iran's very first nuclear reactor actually came from America. And the Shah has this vision for using nuclear power to make Iran a modern, powerful nation. At the same time, though, it seemed like he was starting to think about nuclear weapons. And to get why, you have to understand that Iran for centuries has been surrounded by rivals. It has Russia to the north, the Gulf states to the west and south. The Shah thought nukes could protect Iran from these regional threats.

So he starts laying the groundwork for a nuclear weapons program, just looking into the tech while building these peaceful power reactors. And then the revolution happens. And that kind of puts stuff on hold for a while, right? Right? Yeah, that's right. This is a huge upheaval in 1979. The Shah has deposed. But the nuclear program does not go away. And we now know that it's restarted and throughout the late 80s and all the way into the early 2000s, Iran is really doing two things. It was working on getting the nuclear material it could use to fuel reactors or build bombs. But it was also developing actual nuclear weapons designs, blueprints for a small, nuke. So you're telling me that Iran has had a blueprint for a nuclear bomb. Well, they did. Yeah, I'm not quite sure what the status of that blueprint is, but there is strong evidence that they had a unified central design that they were thinking about building pretty seriously. You have to remember, though, Maddie, nuclear bomb technology is nothing new.

I mean, we're all used to the movies where people try and stop the nuclear secrets from getting out. But the truth is, it's kind of old technology. I mean, the first bombs were developed 75 years ago, the techniques are not all that complicated for actually building the bomb itself. Yeah, I'm fine. That's fine. That's okay. I'm not scared. Go ahead. Look, I'm not trying to scare you. And I don't mean to say that somebody could just like Google nuclear bomb design and get the plans. But the knowledge is out there. And a nation like Iran, it can get a hold of it if it wants to. Moreover, it did, apparently. And that's what brings us to the Iran nuclear deal. Okay, how?

Well, remember I said that Iran was working on a bomb design, but it was also working on getting the nuclear material for the bomb. Well, it turns out the material is actually the trickier part of the equation. Corey Henderson is at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, but she used to be at the Department of Energy during the Iran deal. The good thing for those of us who care about the spread of nuclear weapons is that there is no shortcut to nuclear material. In order to enrich uranium, you need devices, machines of one of a very small handful of technologies that exist. So basically, getting the material is harder than actually knowing how the technology works. I mean, that's what the experts say, yeah. Gotcha.

And so in this case, Iran is depending on a specific type of technology to make the material it needs for the bombs, and those are called centrifuges. Maybe you're familiar with those? Very familiar, yes. The ones I used to use in lab basically are just kind of instruments that spin stuff really fast and the heavy stuff goes down to the bottom and the less dense stuff goes up to the top. Yeah. I mean, that's basically the idea. There are two kinds of uranium.

Well, actually, there's a few more than two, but for our purposes, we'll say two in the world. So you can spin them in these centrifuges and the heavy stuff moves to one part of the centrifuge and the lighter stuff moves to another. And by passing them through a bunch of centrifuges, you concentrate more and more of the lighter stuff. that's the bomb-grade uranium or the nuclear fuel-grade uranium because it's the same process for reactors. And that sort of gives you what you need to either run your nuclear plant or build a nuclear weapon. And this process is another word I'm sure you've heard in all this. And that's enrichment. Yes, I have heard it.

Now I know what it means. Right. It's basically just spinning stuff and centrifuges separating the useful uranium from the heavy uranium. Got it. So in the 2000s, Iran was enriching a lot of uranium. People like Hindersstein were starting to get really worried because if Iran wanted to get enough uranium for a bomb, they could use their centrifuges and they could get there really, really quickly. It was on the order of weeks a couple of months. Wow.

That feels quick. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's real fast. It's about as fast as you can get. And as president, I decided that a strong, confident America could advance our national security by engaging directly with the Iranian. in government. President Obama was worried enough that he decides it's time to start talking to Iran. And together with Europe, China, and Russia, they sketch out this deal. Iran can get relief from economic sanctions, but in exchange, they need to stretch out how long it will take to get the material it needs for Obama, if it decides to do so.

From what Hindersstein was describing there, weeks, maybe a month, to one year. Okay. So they're basically just slowing down that material side of the equation. Exactly. So the negotiations begin, and here's how it works. The negotiators are sitting across from the Iranians in Europe, and the Iranians say we want this much uranium and this many centrifuges. And the diplomats write it all down and they send everything back to the Department of Energy to the scientists there. And they would run calculations during the workday in the U.S. so that when the negotiators in Europe woke up again, they had an answer. And there's a lot of back and forth, but eventually with the help of the scientists, they've reached this Iran nuclear deal in 2015. This is a good day because once again we're seeing what's possible with strong American diplomacy. Iran had to give up thousands of their gas centrifuges and thousands of kilograms of their enriched uranium. And with that, Iran sort of had its timeline stretched about a year. I'm grateful for all the assistance that we received from our allies,

and partners. So it would take him a year to get the material they would need for a bomb if the nation ever decided to go that way. Thank you so much. God bless you. God bless the United States of America. But then President Trump pulled out of that deal, right? That's right. Trump pulled out in 2018. The fact is this was a horrible one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made. It didn't bring calm. It didn't bring peace. And it never will. And I should say, I mean, the Trump administration was sort of looking at the whole picture with Iran. So they were upset about, you know, it's, it's militias in Iraq and its ballistic missile program. They sort of saw the nuclear program as part of a much larger set of problems. And that was part of the reason they pulled out of the deal. Gotcha. So where are we now? Iran has started accumulating more uranium. It's enriching. It's adding centrifuges back. And all that is affecting the math at the heart of this deal. That magic calculation. is now moving. I mean, there's disagreement by how much, but it's true that Iran is definitely less than a year away from getting the material for a bomb if it chose to go that direction.

So is Iran about to have nuclear weapons? Not necessarily. Our colleague, Mary Louise Kelly, a host of All Things Considered, spoke to Iran's former minister Javad Zarif earlier this month, and he had this to say. If we wanted to build a nuclear bomb, we would have done it a long time ago. Iran does not want a nuclear bomb. does not believe that nuclear bombs create security for anybody, and we believe it's time for everybody to disarm rather than to arm. And that's really always been the official line from Iran.

And Ari Tabadabai from earlier who just wrote that book on Iran's national security, she thinks there are probably plenty of people in Iran who do feel that way. But it's also true that Iran is under threat from rivals again, and it's feeling defensive. And she thinks leaders might be reconsidering, whether they want a nuke. They're thinking about whether a nuclear weapon would ultimately make them more secure, whether a nuclear weapon would make it more difficult for the United States to strike them,

or whether they're actually quite okay with what they have currently as a means to deter the U.S. and also Israel. And I think, Maddie, this is the big takeaway. For all the talk of technology and bomb blueprints and uranium, nukes are really a political choice. And we just don't know whether Iran is. going to decide to make that choice. Today's show was produced by Rebecca Ramirez and edited by Viet Le. Burley McCoy checked the facts. Natasha Branch did some great engineering.

I'm Maddie Safaya. This is Shortwave from NPR.