On the technicalities of the Iran deal and the bigger picture
I’ve spent countless hours reading about and trying to understand the technical parts of the Iran arms deal—the details of the proposed inspections, what that actually means, and whether it all would be adequate in terms of stopping Iran from duplicitously evading the deal’s requirements or of stopping Iran from having the capacity for nuclear weapons very soon (a short “break-out time”) even if it complied completely with the inspection requirements.
But I find myself coming up against the stumbling block of scientific complexity. This is true whether we’re talking about inspections concerning future actions by Iran, or concerning past actions (Parchin and the “side deal”). I try to learn before I write, but there’s a limit to what I can learn, and there are time pressures. After all, I’m not writing a book, or even a magazine article. I’m writing a blog.
For example, I learned a lot yesterday researching this post I wrote on Parchin. I found some supposed experts about nuclear arms development who wrote the equivalent of “don’t worry about it, it’s fine, and so are the regular inspections under the deal.” That doesn’t change a host of other things not of a technical nature about the deal, of course, such as the lifting of sanctions and the intent of the Iranian regime and the keeping of the four prisoners, for example. Nor does it address the competence of the IAEA to do what it says it will do. It doesn’t even tell us who these experts are and what their political agenda is, something I’ve learned can be very very important in evaluating things.
It also fails to answer questions about what the experts leave out of their explanations. For example, when I did my research I could find no attempt in the pro-deal literature to respond to an important point made by Senator Menendez in his speech, when he wondered why the administration, in allowing Iran control over soil samples etc. in the side deal, chose to forego getting reliable forensics to find out something about Parchin that has been the goal of the international community for years: “to determine how far along [the Iranians] were in their nuclear weaponization program so that we know what signatures to look for in the future”¦it makes a difference if you are 90 percent down the road in your weaponization efforts or only ten percent advanced.”
And so today when I saw this post by Josh Marshall it seemed relevant. In it, Marshall (a liberal/left guy) tells us:
The opponents of the Iran nuclear deal are doing fairly well in the media-pundit-sphere. But they’ve had an extremely difficult time making substantive arguments against the deal because according to almost all technical experts it is about as tight and comprehensive and total a surveillance regime as we’ve ever seen. Ever. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon under any circumstances for 10 to 20 years. Unless they choose to cheat. And if they do, the U.S. and the international community will almost certainly catch them and catch them before they’re able to weaponize. But here’s the problem ”” that’s only the opinion of people who actually know what they’re talking about…
Let me share with you a deep truth: The nuclear stuff is complicated.
Indeed it is complicated in the technical scientific sense (at least, to those of us who aren’t scientists). And although that’s relevant, nowhere near all the objections to the deal are either technical and scientific (I’ve already listed some that aren’t; there are others). Among other things, one gets into the realm of wondering why we should trust a couple of experts whose politics and biases we know nothing about, and who although expert are hardly error-proof. Experts have been proven wrong time and again (in another passage in his speech, Menendez addresses that fact). Experts also might be naive in terms of their imaginative powers concerning how they might be deceived and in what creative ways a determined group of people can do so.
People can be forgiven for not trusting those experts who have proven wrong in many ways. People can be forgiven for thinking that no inspection regime, no matter how supposedly rigorous, can stop an enemy bent on evading it or even on merely defying it and saying “So, what are you going to do about it?” People can be forgiven for believing that Iran means exactly what it says when it repeatedly calls America the Great Satan and screams for its death (and for the death of the Little Satan, Israel, and celebrates a special holiday dedicated to its obliteration).
Omri Ceren discusses a different set of problems with the Parchin side deal, the lies that have been told so far:
The Obama administration spent the last two years telling lawmakers and reporters that any deal with Iran would require the Iranians to provide International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors robust access to the Parchin military base, where the Iranians conducted hydrodynamic experiments relevant to the detonation of nuclear warheads. The IAEA needs the access to determine how far the Iranians got as a prerequisite to establishing a verification regime. Here’s Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman in 2013: the Joint Plan of Action requires Iran to “address past and present practices… including Parchin”; Sherman in 2014: “as part of any comprehensive agreement… we expect, indeed, Parchin to be resolved”; State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf in 2015: “we would find it… very difficult to imagine a JCPA that did not require such [inspector] access at Parchin”; etc…
White House officials and validators continued to declare that in no way would the IAEA ever agree to that kind of arrangement, since it would preclude the agency from securing a chain of custody over the evidence. But the administration refused to transmit the side deal to Congress””which would have resolved the debate””and instead claimed that the U.S. couldn’t get the text because it was a confidential Iran-IAEA bilateral agreement. Business Insider confirmed that in fact U.S. diplomats can call for the agreement at any time because Washington sits on the IAEA’s Board of Governors. Nonetheless Kerry told Congress that not only did the U.S. not have the text, but that he hadn’t even seen the final wording, though he added that maybe “Wendy Sherman may have” (she subsequently clarified she hadn’t either).
Thursday the AP revealed that its reporters had””in contrast””seen a draft reflecting the final language, and that they were in a position to confirm the concessions made to Iran…
On a political level, that absurdity will confirm suspicions that the IAEA has been pressured by parties who want to put aside substantive concerns over the viability of the nuclear deal in order to preserve it at all costs.
Those are the sorts of considerations that are ignored by the “experts” and by Josh Marshall in his piece suggesting that we should just trust that they are doing what’s in our best interests, and that we are too stupid to know better.
Neo – it sounds like you ought to read this book, and apply it the conundrums you’re so strongly wrestling with:
“Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Fail – and Why We Believe Them Anyway” by Daniel Gardner.
Neo,
Its probably easier to think of this as a criminal proceeding and disregard the science for a moment.
What the US agreed to is something that is completely illogical. It is the equivalent of a police force (IAEA) walking up to a house and serving a warrant. Then walking away and asking for the subject of that warrant to turn over the evidence that was requested. In in 24 days. And if they do not. There is essentially nothing we can do about it. And no way to verify what was turned over was actually what was requested.
I can see why the Dem’s support it. The person they want as their presidential candidate seems to have mastered this type of evasion. But for the rest of us. This is the single, most one sided agreement that I know of the US ever entering into.
ANYONE who purports to be an expert and supports this deal is a LIAR (who are you going to believe, the ‘experts’ or your lying eyes?) and, in lying… is committing treason.
Nor is that assertion hyperbole. Iran’s mullahs believe that they have been commanded by Allah to destroy any party that is in fundamental opposition to Islam. America’s founding precepts are in total opposition to Islam’s foundational tenets. Thus, however much we may deplore it, unalterably making Islam, America’s enemy. Providing aid and comfort to an enemy is the very definition of treason.
This has been the reality between America and Islam from the very beginning;
“In March 1785, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy, ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). When they enquired “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”, the ambassador replied: “It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”
To deny that this deal provides aid and comfort to an existential enemy of America is to, whether through simple denial or active mendacity, to engage in de facto treason.
“After all, I’m not writing a book, or even a magazine article. I’m writing a blog.”
The venue makes no difference. Haphazard crap is both routine and abundant in the NY Times, WaPo, etc.; ditto boilerplate jive across the wide spectrum of ‘talking head’ shows – broadcast and cable MSM.
Re Josh Marshall:
“Again, basic premise: The nuclear stuff is complicated. The nuclear scientists understand it better than Hannity or even Wolf Blitzer. Listen to the nuclear scientists.”
Anyone would be more than hard pressed to find anything so inane as that at NEO-NEOCON. Ever.
George Pal:
Well, Marshall is also writing a blog 🙂 .
And yes, even though this is just a blog, I try my best to do good research for it and not make stupid comments. My point is not that magazine article writers generally do good research, however, it is that if I were writing a magazine article I’d have lots more time to research. . Magazine writers have a whole lot more time to do research because they are getting paid a great deal more per article and their deadlines are far more distant. They’re not writing several articles a day.
This agreement will be as worthless as the agreement Jimmy Carter negotiated with North Korea in 1994. They got a working bomb in 2003. I’d be surprised if the Iranians, as members in the Axis of Evil, didn’t have a working arrangement with the Norks for development and testing of bomb components, if not an actual bomb.
The Iranians have nothing but contempt for Obama and will walk all over him plus take advantage of the weakness of the Democrats.
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/top-iranian-official-obama-is-the-weakest-of-u-s-presidents/
Many experts are solely experts in their own mind. I have read everything I could find on the inspection regime. Expertly in my own mind I think of this ‘deal’ as the nuclear jihad protocol. Plus, there must be other bad bargains in this disaster that we still don’t know about as is typical of all things obama.
“Let me share with you a deep truth: The nuclear stuff is complicated.” True for Josh Marshall, but by the time I was getting my PhD in High Energy Physics forty years ago nuclear physics was considered a back water for second raters. Face it, a bomb is seventy year old technology and virtually everything is known about how to build one.
There is no new science or engineering involved and the only difficult part is accumulating enough of the right isotopes of either Uranium or Plutonium. It was about half the cost of the entire war effort during WWII. With today’s modern technolgy it is probably the equivalent of a huge automobile factory and much less costly.
Nuclear thorium reactors which do not create fissionable materials for orthodox bombs or backpack nuclear power plants, are not old technology though. It’s been either suppressed or has been crowded out due to government funding.
The many nuclear reactors created expressly to create plutonium or other similar bombs, were controlled and funded from the top. Which means that private investment was kicked out to the curb. Government power made sure of that, just like with NASA.
Josh Marshall:
“But they’ve had an extremely difficult time making substantive arguments against the deal because according to almost all technical experts it is about as tight and comprehensive and total a surveillance regime as we’ve ever seen. Ever.”
Charles Duelfer:
http://www.charlesduelfer.com/blog/
“Verification is wobbly. Yes the provisions are better than other IAEA systems, but this is nothing compared to the access and techniques used in Iraq.”
Marshall:
“Iran will not have a nuclear weapon under any circumstances for 10 to 20 years.”
Duelfer:
“The verification mechanism will probably achieve the limited goal of slowing the progress of Iran having a nuclear weapon. It cannot categorically inhibit Iran. … This slows Iran’s nuclear program, but when Iran wants a weapon, they can build it.”
Marshall:
“But here’s the problem – that’s only the opinion of people who actually know what they’re talking about”
http://www.charlesduelfer.com/index.php
“Charles Duelfer … was the top CIA officer directing the investigation of Saddam’s regime and its WMD programs.
… As Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence for Iraq WMD, Duelfer led the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) that conducted the investigation of the scope of Iraq’s WMD.
… In the 1990’s Duelfer was at the United Nations serving as the Deputy Executive Chairman and subsequently, acting Chairman, of the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) from 1993 until its termination in 2000.”
Marshall with the typical ‘your facts are opinions, my assertions are facts.’
All one needs to know in assessing the deal is the following:
1) secret side deals
2) Obama. The president is one of the biggest liars in American history, a man of questionable loyalty to the US, and someone with utter disdain for the Constitution and the American people.
stan is correct.
There is zero need to understand nuclear physics in evaluating this “deal” and I say this as someone educated in radiation physics.
The Josh Marshalls of the world use the gee whiz physics is tough to intimidate the low info folks. That would be the college graduates who majored in “Studies” or entertainment like anthro and sociology. The non-quants, in their tens of millions.
Obama and Kerry are totally venal; this deal is driven, IMO, by desires for personal enrichment. Baraq Hussein would like to be worth $100 million tomorrow; we owe him that for his greatness. And that sum is less than 0.01% of the monies Hussein is freeing up for Iran. What a deal for the ayatollahs!
Parchin = Los Alamos is the equation that must be memorized.
All the gibber jabber about hydro-dynamics is to side slip around the obvious fact that this facility was solely tasked with BOMB design.
Said design work is entirely oriented around getting the plutonium to implode — perfectly.
The best bombs require optical precision.
They look like Swiss watches// astronomical lenses.
That includes the nuclear explosive and the chemical explosive.
Getting it perfect is a HUGE chore. Theory will only take you so far. Then it’s test, test, test, test, test, test,…
Using non-exploding target metals.
This means that radiation garb, and all the rest, are MISSING from such sites. You can wander around with detectors to your hearts content and get no readings.
What Iran does not want discovered is the blast fragments that are residual to the implosion tests. These were driven into the nearby structures and soils.
Ultra high pressures CHANGE the micro-crystalline nature of metals and rocks. Iran does not want the IAEA discovering such stressed // shocked fragments. They would evidence that Iran has discovered ALL of the process steps that compress plutonium to densities that trigger nuclear detonation.
The fragments that would give the game away could be as small as a microscopic slide’s sample. Hence, Iran can’t ever be sure to cleanse Parchin.
So NOW you know why Parchin is perpetually ‘off limits’ as far al the Iranian team is concerned.
%%%
Stealthy conversion of enriched uranium to plutonium — weapons grade — is a peace of cake.
Iran could do so — the old fashioned way — that America used in the Manhattan project: swimming pool reactors.
These can be slipped under any substantial building — and no outsider would ever be the wiser.
The South African nuclear program was Iran in minature but with a genuine demilitarization. The Wikipedia description is not bad. I can vouch for a lot of it as I met some principals. They had several functional weapons which is what I’m sure Iran has now. They need the sanctions lifted for a few years for economic reasons and to build a more robust delivery and air defense system. The U.S. Should not only tighten the sanctions but rapidly build our own middle and air defenses
Frog: “The Josh Marshalls of the world use the gee whiz physics is tough to intimidate the low info folks. That would be the college graduates who majored in “Studies” or entertainment like anthro and sociology. The non-quants, in their tens of millions.”
No. Not to intimidate. To rationalize.
The “low information voter” label misleads for counter-Left understanding and efforts because the obstacle is not low information.
The obstacle is plentiful false information designed to spread a politically correct narrative that is rationalized as operative truth (whether it’s actually true is besides the point) by those who wish to quasi-religiously conform to the tribally approved zeitgeist.
The general will of We The People is a function of activism.
Non-STEM majors generally have enough elementary background in math and sciences through basic schooling and gen-ed requirements. And the science of nuclear weapons is not too complicated. (I say this as a poli-sci BA who took a course on WMD taught by a nuclear physicist for poli sci majors that had no prerequisite but still assumed a basic level of math, chemistry, and physics.)