Obama Administration Prepares Six Nuclear Limits for Tehran
The White House’s "Iran: End of the Road Document” paper is taking shape in the hands of the president's top adviser on nuclear proliferation Gary Samore and Undersecretary for Political Affairs Wendy R. Sherman. (DEBKA-Net-Weekly's Washington sources exclusively revealed the work on this document in our last issue, 558 of September 28.)
Our sources report this week that President Barack Obama has decided how he wants to use it:
1. For presentation to Tehran straight after his reelection for a second term on Nov. 6. If he is defeated, the document will be shelved.
2. To give Tehran a built-in timetable for implementation: By late March, four months after its presentation, Iran must say yes or no to the document – or let’s negotiate further.
3. Iran’s failure to meet that deadline for a response, which would be par for the course, would leave President Obama free to choose his next course – the pursuit of military action against the Iranian nuclear program, or letting it stand.
4. Further uses are embodied in the six already finished clauses of the document:
A binding four-month deadline for Tehran’s response
a) The P+5 (The 5 Security Council permanent members plus Germany) will formally recognize Iran's right to conduct a civilian nuclear program and enrich uranium according to the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty-NPT to which Iran is a signatory.
b) Iran will agree to export to other countries its entire stock of enriched uranium of all grades – from 3.5 to 20 percent for conversion to “fuel plates,” from which it is very hard to produce nuclear weapons.
c) Iran will sign the NPT's Additional Protocol which authorizes the UN nuclear agency, the IAEA, to conduct snap inspections without prior notification of all the signatory’s nuclear activities, including projects unrelated to the fuel cycle.
Tehran has so far refused to approve this protocol.
d) Iran must submit to the IAEA detailed construction plans of the IR-40 heavy water reactor at Arak. The US and Israel suspect this plant is being built to secretly produce plutonium in addition to enriched uranium for fueling a nuclear weapon.
e) Iran must surrender to the nuclear watchdog detailed plans relating to a 360MW light water reactor under construction at Darkhovin south of Ahvaz, on the Karun River. The US suspects this of being a military nuclear reactor.
f) Nuclear agency monitors must be given free access to the Parchin military compound near Tehran where, according to US intelligence, tests were conducted on nuclear triggers and nuclear explosives.
Iran must come clean on Arak and plutonium program
On three main points, the White House has not yet decided how to proceed:
– How to prevent Iran from pulling off the same ruse as India and Pakistan. They spent years building nuclear bomb components and, only at the last moment, assembled them for nuclear tests.
– What to do about the fast, IR-1 and IR-4 centrifuges Iran is building and has started using? Once they are in full operation, the Fordo enrichment plant can at least triple its output of 20-percent grade uranium or even refine to higher levels.
Many experts maintain that until there is a decision about the disposal of the rising stocks of enriched uranium, the End of the Road Document will have few applications.
– Iran is playing hide and seek over its heavy water reactor in Arak. If as the US and Israel suspect, it is being built to produce plutonium for nuclear bombs, Iran would need to have a separate reprocessing plant for the product. Israel and US intelligence agencies are certain that such a plant is tucked away or being built somewhere in Iran. If they only knew where!