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Creative sanctions could work on Iran

By PETER D. ZIMMERMAN
Published February 12, 2006

LONDON - There is ample evidence that under the former Shah of Iran, Iraqi nuclear scientists were well supported in their efforts to build nuclear weapons. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, however, most of that work stopped because Ayatollah Khomeini apparently opposed atomic arms. His successors, however, harbor nuclear ambitions. Iran protests that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful. The smell of cordite is in the air, however, and that object on the table looks a lot like a Glock.

At Natanz, Iran is building a plant to enrich uranium, and at Isfahan it is building conversion plants to make the feed gas for the enrichment plant. Iran plans to construct 50,000 centrifuges, just enough capacity to keep the power reactor it is building at Bushehr fueled, or to produce 10 or 12 nuclear weapons a year. For 18 years Iran concealed its uranium enrichment activities from the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Iran has obtained documents telling it how to cast hemispheres made out of highly enriched uranium. I know of no use for such hemispheres except in a nuclear weapon. Iran has also produced large quantities of the radioactive isotope Polonium-210, whose principal use is in triggers for nuclear weapons. The available facts do not prove that Iran is building a nuclear weapon, but they are consistent with it, and they are not disputed by Iran. Perhaps most telling is Iranian behavior toward the IAEA: Iranian officials have left unanswered many critical questions, for example, regarding the weapons design information they have received, the procurement of more powerful centrifuges, and the purchase of special alloys that are very useful in centrifuges.

In short, the IAEA was right to report Iran's behavior to the U.N. Security Council, but also right to build in one final month in which to persuade Iran to terminate enrichment activities. If there is no resolution to the problem when that month expires, Iran will go on the Security Council's agenda for international action.

The question for the Security Council is apt to be "now what?" International economic sanctions are likely to lead to misery and corruption. Iranian recalcitrance may ultimately require such coercion, but there are some more creative options to think about first. There is a more modern tool available: communications bans. By flicking a few switches and altering a few lines of code, Iran can be dropped back to the 1970s. Only a few communications satellites serve the country, and only a few transponders on those are used. Insist that satellite operators turn off the links.

The Internet is not merely a place to get e-mail; it is an essential research tool, and a critical inter-tie for the global financial networks and trade. It is also relatively easy to deny it to a country. The Net's master servers could readily be programmed to reject any connections from Iran and any communications destined for it. Indeed, the Net is likely so flexible that it could turn off only computers associated with the government, the financial establishment and the oil industry while still letting most citizens have limited access.

During a communications and information blackout, if the Iranians wish to purchase anything from diapers to diamonds, let them put a paper check in the mail and send it off. If some country wishes to buy oil from Iran, it can put a purchase order in an envelope. If a mullah makes an international call, it ends in a busy signal. Such sanctions would not eliminate Iranian trade and commerce, merely retard it and do so in a way calculated to remind every member of the government and elites, every day, that Iran is what it most wants not to be: a pariah state.

Sanctions which exclude Iran from the global information flow will first annoy and then bite hard, but they should do comparatively little to harm the average Iranian, not depriving him or her of food, water or medicines. I would expect Iran to seek to hack its way around the cutoffs, but with the hardware and the best hackers in the hands of the states imposing sanctions, hacking will be extremely difficult.

If the Iranians do not agree to terminate their uranium enrichment activities by next month, action by the U.N. Security Council will be in order. Creative sanctions aimed at Iran's status in the world and its links to the rest of us are worth contemplating and trying.

-- Peter D. Zimmerman, a nuclear physicist, is professor of science and security at King's College London. He was previously chief scientist of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee and science adviser for arms control at the U.S. State Department.

[Last modified February 13, 2006, 12:21:23]