Center for a New American Security

On Monday, The New York Times reported that Iran began successfully operating its first nuclear power plant. “The $1 billion, 1,000-megawatt Bushehr plant will be formally inaugurated Sept. 12, by which time it will be operating at 40 percent capacity,” the report said. According to the Times, “Experts say starting up the Bushehr plant will not bring Iran any closer to building a nuclear bomb, because Russia will supply the enriched uranium for the reactor and repatriate spent fuel that could be reprocessed into weapons-grade plutonium.”

However, on Saturday, The New York Times reported that international nuclear inspectors found that Iran has started operating “a new generation of equipment that over time should give it the capability to produce nuclear fuel much faster.” Understandably, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on Iran’s new equipment has made onlookers nervous: “What worries us is not what the Iranians show the inspectors, but what it tells us about what they know how to produce,” an American intelligence official told The New York Times.  What is more, “The [international inspectors’] report also warned anew of what the I.A.E.A. called ‘possible military dimensions’ of Iran’s program, including suspected work on a ‘nuclear payload for a missile, about which the agency continues to receive new information,’” according to the Times.

The announcement that Iran has started to successfully operate its first nuclear power plant represents a significant milestone for the country that is sure to continue to worry experts and security officials in Europe and the United States. Interestingly enough though, Iran seemed prepared to mollify those worries on Tuesday by declaring that it was prepared to allow international inspectors “full supervision” of its nuclear activities over the next five years “on the condition that the mounting sanctions against Iran are lifted.”  

Given the Obama administration’s purposeful plan to buy time with Iran’s nuclear program, it would seem impractical to lift sanctions against the Iranian regime, since many signs point to the fact that the sanctions have indeed helped Washington slow down Tehran’s nuclear program. What is more, Iran’s history with international inspectors is likely to raise suspicions. In the past the regime has refused to release documents to IAEA inspectors, restricted inspectors’ access to Iranian scientists and limited where they could travel. However, “If it means that inspectors could visit all the sites on their list, interview scientists who are believed to be linked to military work and review the documents that Iran has declined to turn over, it would mark a significant breakthrough,” The New York Times reported. “But as one American intelligence official put it recently, ‘We have a list of tunnels to look at that is so long, it would take years.’”

This Week’s Events

Today at noon, head to the George Washington University Law School for a discussion on The South China Sea: Increasing Maritime Jurisdictional Certainty or Complexity?

Tomorrow at 9 AM, the Press Club will host a conversation with NOAA Administrator Dr. Jane Lubchenco on the U.S.-EU Agreement to Combat Illegal Fishing on the High Seas and the Future of Fishing Worldwide.

Finally, on Friday at 2:30 PM, stop by  the George Washington University’s Elliot School for Reconstruction and Beyond: The Great East Japan Earthquake and Its Implications.