Why West struggles to rein in Iran's nuclear program

Making dire predictions about Iran's nuclear programs has been a parlor game since the mid-1980s.

Jane's Defence Weekly, a well-respected military-related publication, in 1984 estimated that the Islamic Republic was two years from making an atomic bomb. By 1992, the CIA was predicting an Iranian nuclear weapon by the end of the decade. In 1995, Israel agreed. The breathless warnings have almost never stopped.

Today, Iran's potential to soon join the nuclear club is informed by the latest US estimate that Iran may be one year away from having enough enriched uranium for a weapon, though actually making one – if Iran wanted to – is still years off. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is set to attend the Non-Proliferation Treaty conference next week in New York with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who has called for stricter sanctions.

What does Iran teach us about how much a determined nation can achieve despite concerted efforts by many world powers to stop it? In recent decades, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea have all in secret become nuclear weapons states.

Iran case highlights flaws in safeguards

Iran says it only wants peaceful nuclear power and that nuclear weapons are forbidden by Islam. But the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says a number of issues remain unresolved with Iran about possible weapons-related work.

"The Iranian case really highlights shortcomings in the safeguards system," says Shannon Kile, a nuclear arms expert at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute in Sweden. Even though Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its nuclear material is under IAEA watch, Iran's decision in February to boost enrichment levels – in defiance of United Nations Security Council resolutions – was significant.

"If Iran is now producing 20 percent enriched uranium ... frankly, they would be able to take that up to [weapons-grade] 90 percent within one month," far faster than an IAEA quarterly review could detect it, says Mr. Kile. And even with the no-notice inspections provided under the NPT's Additional Pro­tocol (which Iran no longer observes), "there are ways that a country can operationally hamper, limit, and restrict the IAEA's investigative authorities," he adds. "There really needs to be a comprehensive review of the statutory authority of the IAEA to go in and investigate where there is credible evidence to suspect" that a nonnuclear state is developing atomic weapons.

That issue is likely to rank high on the agenda at the NPT review, slated to begin May 3 in New York. But few expect IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano to be granted greater power.

Since the Security Council first imposed sanctions on Iran in 2006 and insisted that Tehran stop enrichment activities, Iran has increased the pace of enrichment and promised to expand its program. Still, experts say that US-led unilateral measures to undermine Iran's nuclear program have taken a toll.

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