Joe Biden is sure that “we’ll know” when Iran builds a bomb, but with Iran’s fissile material challenge now all but overcome, how justified is this confidence? The IAEA applies safeguards to Iran’s known fissile material and production facilities, but these methods are not flawless. The IAEA has some continuous video monitoring of some parts of some facilities, but the Iranians deny the Agency real-time access, instead requiring inspectors to visit in person to review the tapes. Since it is widely believed that the IAEA’s figures for the amount of material needed for a weapon are inflated – and the time needed to produce one is thus actually shorter than the official “conversion time” figures around which the Agency organizes the periodicity of inspections – there is certainly cause for concern. (And did I mention that Iran sometimes delays providing inspectors with visas?)
In any event, the IAEA can only monitor what it knows about. Iran has publicly claimed to have workable laser enrichment technology – which is far more concealable than centrifuge cascades – but refuses to respond to IAEA inquiries about it. Iran has also claimed that it intends to build multiple new centrifuge enrichment plants, as well as new research reactors that would provide additional “justification” for HEU production, but again has provided no further information. With U.S. intelligence having assessed in 2007 that Iran had secretly acquired some fissile material on the black market – albeit not at that point enough to build a bomb – it’s worth reminding ourselves about how little we actually know about how ready Tehran is for a final “sprint” to The Bomb, and about how much warning we are likely to get.
Ultimately, in fact, the problem goes far beyond Biden’s glib assumption that it’s a question of “knowing” versus “not knowing.” In the real world, “knowing” is very likely to be only an inference or a probability. Perhaps we would indeed attack Iran if it suddenly expelled the IAEA and called for weaponization. But can anyone really imagine the Obama administration going to war if Iran “temporarily” suspends IAEA visits after concocting some allegation that one or more inspectors secretly work for a Western intelligence service? What if Tehran starts enriching up to 90 percent HEU, still under IAEA safeguards, allegedly to provide fuel for a planned new research reactor, or invokes a provision of its safeguards agreement that would permit it to remove uranium from safeguards for a “nuclear submarine”?
This sort of thing represents, of course, just the kind of gamesmanship one might expect if Iran really does aim to buy time in which to present weaponization as a fait accompli. However, one sees little evidence of the moral courage necessary to meet such challenges in Obama’s narcissistic self-regard or Biden’s smirking condescension. Biden wants us to believe that the Obama administration would not just use force against Iran in extremis, but in fact that it would be willing to use force in such ambiguous circumstances. Few people are likely to believe that.
Biden is dangerously overconfident that “we’ll know” when Iran is building its bomb, but he may be even more wrong to suggest that the Obama administration has the spine to act upon whatever warnings we are likely to receive. If you want swift action, then America needs a new president.
