Iran's nuclear programme: Facts and fictions

It was in 1992 that then-parliamentarian Benjamin Netanyahu warned the Israeli Knesset that Iran was “three to five years” away from reaching nuclear weapons capability, and that this threat had to be “uprooted by an international front headed by the US”. In 1996, he went to Washington and gave an ominous warning to Congress: the day Iran would become a nuclear country was getting “extremely close”, and that day would bring catastrophe not just for Israel but for all mankind.
In 2012, Netanyahu gave an address to the United Nations in which he emphatically stated that Iran would have the ability to construct a weapon within roughly a year, illustrating his point with a drawing of a bomb with a red line to show how close Tehran was to weapons-grade enrichment.
Fast forward to early this month and Netanyahu, once again, arrived in Washington to give a passionate warning to Congress about the apocalyptic consequences of a deal between the US and Iran on nuclear disarmament. 
Netanyahu’s stance on Iran’s nuclear programme has recently drawn harsh criticism.  Some say he is “crying wolf’ and “fear-mongering”. But is he simply leading the US and the world up the garden path using false pretences?
Not quite.
Iran first came to the negotiating table in 2003, though European countries took centre in the talks rather than the US. At that time, Iran agreed to cap its centrifuges at about 3,000, slightly below what it already had. The Iranian negotiating team headed by Hassan Rohani, now president, and Javad Zarif, now foreign minister, was described by its European counterparts as reasonable and straight. The talks would have come to a mutually beneficial conclusion, had it not been for president George W Bush vetoing the deal. He explained that permitting Iran, a country he had placed in the “axis of evil” in 2002, to operate several thousand centrifuges was too great a risk for the world. Instead he opted for harsh sanctions against Iran, and the world followed his lead.
In the ensuing years, Iran steadily built up its nuclear programme.  By 2013, when Rohani and Zarif returned to government, Iran had about 20,000 centrifuges installed at two major sites, one of them deep underground, and it possessed substantial stockpile of up to 20-per-cent enriched uranium – close to weapons grade.
However, it is worth noting here that while Iran does not lack the ability to develop nuclear weapons, it appears to lack the willingness to cross that threshold.
But why?
CNN’s Fareed Zakaria, an insightful observer, reckons that Iran had figured out, rightly, that the benefits of not having nuclear weapons far outweighed possessing them. In fact, in April of 2010 the supreme leader of Iran, the Ayatollah Khamenei, issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons. In it, he described use of the weapon as carrying “ruthless consequences” that could wreak “irreparable losses” on future generations. “There s no winner in a nuclear war, and entering such a war is irrational and inhuman,” he said. As of today, the US, European and Israeli intelligence communities have concluded with a high degree of confidence that Iran has so far decided not to build a bomb.
The current round of negotiations, the second since 2003, are approaching the finish line at the end of this month. Details have yet to fully emerge, but it is known that Iran has agreed to full and unscheduled vigorous inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and that it has already ceased development of its heavy water reactor at Arak, which can produce plutonium – the shortest route to nuclear weapons. Also, it agreed to halt the production of fissile material and make permanent modifications to render Arak incapable of being used to build bombs. In exchange, Iran asked for the lifting of international sanctions so the country could move forward as a responsible and contributing member of the international community.
What next?
It is rather hard to predict the final outcome of the current nuclear negotiations between the US and Iran. But if the letter to Iran’s leadership from 47 Republican senators (empirical evidence of the bankruptcy of American politics), has any bite, the talks will break down once more. And the loss will not belong to Iran, but to the US and the world.
Why?
Economically, Iran has weathered the severe sanctions for two decades and survived. Nowadays, about 70 per cent of Iran’s 75 million people are below the age of 20. They were born under the sanctions, so they will not feel any more pain from a continued boycott. Under the prospect of prolonged embargoes, Iran will have no incentive to allow the IAEA’s continued inspections, or to keep all the IAEA’s monitoring cameras in place. It may go back to its enrichment programme at an accelerating speed, believing that it truly needs the nuclear bombs for protection. Tehran will no longer see the need to seek full membership under the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to which it is already a signatory. Concerted military strikes against Iran may delay its nuclear programme only for two-three years, and will drive Iranians deeper underground in their effort to protect future sites from destruction.
Meanwhile, the Israeli and US desire to further isolate Iran in a bid to ensure the elimination of its entire nuclear capability, is a pipe dream.  The regime already possesses the know-how and there is no way to get the genie back into the bottle.
The irony of it all is that if Israel and the US hardliners get their wish, they may create a security threat far greater than the limited one that they are trying to prevent.