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Produced by the Middle East Broadcasting Networks (MBN), this podcast brings clarity to the complexities of the Middle East. Each episode, host Andres Ilves sits down with regional experts, analysts, and insiders to unpack the stories behind the headlines. From politics and security to culture and social change, "MBN The Podcast" goes beyond the surface to explore what’s really driving events across the region.
Welcome to the latest edition of
Conversations with Andres Ilves, where we
talk to people who break the news, make
the news, help us make sense of the news,
trying to understand what's going on and
what might What's going to happen next.
With me today is Henry Sokolsky, the
founder and executive director of the
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center.
He has a long history working in the
Pentagon for various US administrations,
is really one of the world's experts on
the issue of non proliferation of
nuclear weapons.
Why are we talking about it today?
Because the issue of Iran, nuclear
weapons, Israel, America is
constant in the headlines.
And today we're going to try to understand
a bit more about what's going on behind
the scenes and what might happen.
Henry, welcome.
Thank you for having me.
It's great to have you here.
If you'll indulge me for a moment, I just
want to go back for a few years to when
this all started, because it's easy
to look at the latest developments.
It's always in the news,
but there are various assumptions.
One of them is that this is a new issue
or it's only been around for a few years.
But actually, technically, the
Iranian nuclear program started in 1957
under President Eisenhower's
Adams for Peace program.
So something was already going on.
Now, obviously, there's been a
lot of water under the bridge.
There's been the Iranian Revolution and so
on, and things have taken
a different turn over time.
But when did you first become concerned
about the Iranian nuclear program?
Well, I think many people
took the Shah of Iran pretty seriously
when he made it very clear that he had
aspirations to get a very large,
so-called peaceful
nuclear program that involved
making nuclear fuel, which is the thing
that brings you to the
brink of building bombs.
To give you some idea, our current
Secretary of State refers to making fuel,
in the case of uranium, as weaponization.
That's how close he thinks it is.
I think he's right about that.
It's been in the bloodstream of the
chattering class for many decades.
Personally, I remember being tasked to
evaluate how
competent the Iranian industrial sector
was, and I think that was in 1993.
I remember looking at it then and saying,
Well, they have the will,
but they're not quite organized because
they have too many subunits industrially.
Well, they cleared all that up.
They understood that, and they've
gotten quite organized in many fronts.
The first point that's worth recognizing
is we've been wringing our hands about
the possibility of Iran getting a bomb
for for at least 30 years.
I always like to comment what's
perhaps more interesting than when they're
going to get it is why
they haven't already.
Well, and that's a very interesting point.
It really became a serious
issue if you decades ago.
Then it started heating
up President Ahmadinejad.
It was in the headlines all the time.
People who had never even thought about
this, who were interested in Iran,
generally, were suddenly memorizing
things about yellow cake uranium.
Having to look in the details of this,
as, of course, do the people who tune in
the news, and they want to know what's
really going on in a way
that makes sense for them.
How are the different
approaches of the US government.
We know we have President Eisenhower,
yay, Adams for Peace, for the Shah.
Iranian Revolution happens.
There's concern about what
they might do with it.
How have different US administrations,
let's say in the past few decades,
buried in their approach to
the Iranian nuclear program?
Well, I think,
generally, the approach has been to try
to choke off lines of supply of various
nuclear-related technologies
and goods and materials.
But of course, you can delay, but
not actually suffocate a program that way.
The Iranians have demonstrated that.
They're very persistent.
That was certainly the first effort
to get it, to pledge not to get nuclear
weapons and to work with Russia and other
nuclear supplier states to agree
not to send certain things.
That went only so far.
I think certainly by
the 2000s, it was becoming clear
that was not going to be sufficient.
You have this accommodation.
Could you please agree not to do certain
things with your nuclear program.
That's been the mode pretty much
for the last 20 years or so.
What's interesting is the current
administration has been rather strident,
and I think actually factually correct, in
saying, Well, if you're making nuclear
fuel, which is something they
do, they enrich uranium, and that's
a fuel you can make to power reactors,
but also to arm a nuclear weapon.
That's weaponization.
They said, You have to stop doing that.
I am going to wager that if there is a
deal, and I don't know that there will be,
they're not going to be able to to
convince the Iranians to give that up.
And so we're betwixt in between.
I think roughly now,
to paraphrase Jefferson in this reference
to slavery, we have a wolf by the ears
You either have to draw a line and somehow
impose severe penalties, sanctions,
military action, or you have to accept
that Iran may engage in this activity and
be very, very close at any time
if it chooses to get nuclear weapons.
In the mix in all of this, of course, in
a sense, it goes without
saying fear of nuclear weapons.
What might they do with it?
When did it first become apparent that
they might actually be threatening Israel?
Has that always been the assumption, is
that that would be one of the targets of
a nuclear program on their part?
Well, clearly not under Shah.
The Shah and Israel actually were
co-conspirators in doing
any number of things.
I think it came with a revolution.
I'm not a regional expert, but
from people who
are more expert than I, the story
basically is Iran's desire to lead
the Islamic world in a way that would
appeal not only to Persians and
Shia, but Suni.
That then became a question of dealing
with the question of Jerusalem.
So in they go, claiming to lead
on that, and that brings them
directly at blows with Israel.
We have a new administration.
It's the same President who was in office
two administrations ago.
What's different now, as you can that we
can tell just from the few months that
President Trump has been in office?
What's different in his approach to the
nuclear program from his first term?
Well, we don't yet know because
we haven't quite seen the deal that may
or may not be agreed to.
But we do know that
facts on the ground are different.
What's changed,
and I think is very important, is
Saudi Arabia and I believe Saudi Arabia's
neighbors, are not as eager
to be combative against Iran.
In fact, they seem more to be lost if
there is fighting or bombing or strikes
associated with the
nuclear program, then somehow looking
the other way and letting things slide
with regard to nuclear activities.
I think that's a big difference.
I think the Saudis, in particular, also
have it in their mind that they can always
somehow get close
or actually get nuclear weapons
themselves, and that somehow, magically,
this will neutralize the problem.
Therefore, the urgency to take Iran out is
no longer as great as it was previously.
I think this has to do with
their desire to deal with domestic things,
which is more pronounced
now than it was before.
They want to improve, particularly
in Saudi Arabia conditions.
They don't want to have trouble.
They have a Shia population
that could be trouble.
They want to consolidate domestically, and
therefore, they're not
eager to spoil for a fight.
I suppose, in addition,
their confidence in relying simply on what
America might do is less, and it's
less for a variety of reasons.
That's different.
I think it's going to color and
already has what the United
States will bargain for.
I don't think we're spoiling for
a fight either for that reason.
We've, in fact, told the Israelis,
Please stand down attempting
to do any military strikes.
We need to see what we
can do diplomatically.
I think that means roughly, I'm going to
say something rather glib, I think,
a bit of a can kick
that we're buying time, and I'm not sure
exactly for what, but we don't want war.
I've seen in your writings, of course, you
have brought up the fact, as you just
mentioned, Saudi Arabia, that
it's not just about Iran.
I mean, there are lots of other countries
that have nascent nuclear programs,
countries that are certainly, we figure,
interested in it, Turkey, Egypt,
South Korea.
So of course, this is a general problem,
and that is, of course, what you
address in your work in general.
I know that one of your concerns is about
Iran withdrawing from the
Nonproliferation Treaty.
You've written about what happened when
North Korea withdraw from the treaty in
2003 and then exploded their
first nuclear weapon in 2006.
Can you talk us through
what it would mean?
Well, let's start with what is the
likelihood, the possibility of Iran
withdrawing from the treaty, and
what the ramifications would be?
Yeah, a good question.
The probability is, I think,
about at least 50/50.
It's pretty high.
The reason why is they certainly have
threatened to do this
repeatedly, to leave.
If they didn't get this,
which would be a recognition of their
right to enrich, if they didn't have the
sanctions dropped,
which have been imposed on them because of
their nuclear program and other
activities, they might leave.
It's ever present as a possibility.
Having seen someone,
or I should say, some country that they're
close to, which is North Korea,
they do have a lot activities that they
share information on, not the least of
which are some of the missile programs.
They diplomatically deal with one another
as they assist Russia in fighting Ukraine.
So their paths crossed.
North Korea left in 2003,
and then subsequently got a
nuclear weapon, and did so with unity.
It was very embarrassing
because it suggested that the treaty
was a paper tiger.
It was not something that
had any real backing.
It will take another hit if Iran leaves,
and I don't know how many hits it
can take before it becomes history.
You don't want that,
and I'll tell you why.
There are a fair number of countries.
A good example would be Japan,
where they're not getting a bomb, mostly
because they believe in the rule of law.
Now, not everywhere is the power of
law is strong, but in some very
important countries, it's quite strong.
It's stronger maybe
than what we're used to.
If it looks like
the treaty that they've signed on to is
not being complied with and is repeatedly
violated, then
something that is unthinkable, Japan
getting nuclear weapons,
becomes totally plausible.
And I think we underrate
the power of that point.
A lot of so-called realists
pooh-pooh these treaties.
It's a mistake.
They're pretty important
for very important cases.
Not in every case, but enough that you
do not want to see it get snuffed out.
And I think another withdrawal
all, threaten doing precisely that.
Obviously, we're talking about nuclear
power, nuclear energy, nuclear weapons.
It's the general nuclear field that
involves enrichment of uranium and so on.
You recently wrote,
Focusing on preventing only the final step
of weaponization is, and if I can quote
you, not just aspirational,
but delusional.
Can you talk us through that, this whole ?
How do we deal the
question of weaponization?
I think we compartmentalize
and fantasize our ability to stop
certain things when they're
so far along, you're kidding yourself.
A country that wants to get nuclear
weapons, let's say Iran, can actually use
a reactor that is for peaceful
purposes, Bushir, one they have.
They can have it safeguarded by
international inspectors, which they do,
and nonetheless use it as a procurement
front, which they have done to acquire
bits and pieces to make essentially bombs.
We discovered, I should say,
I and others on a commission that
was created some time ago by Congress.
We finally got access to a report
that spelled out that that's
precisely what the Uranians did.
By the time we found it out, it
was too late to do anything about it.
That's one of the reasons it was so highly
classified, because it was classified
embarrassing, if you know what I mean.
I think
the idea that there's a clear, bright line
between what's peaceful and what's
weaponization is an academic distinction.
In practice, it's much murkier.
I think our diplomats and our politicians
don't quite grasp that in many cases.
In the case of Iran, what's interesting is
the rhetoric now at least
says, well, any fuel making is a problem.
I would argue, if you're really
very, very hardcore, even a peaceful,
safeguarded large reactor is a
problem in the country like that.
It would be, I would argue, in a country
like Saudi Arabia,
where the desire to get nuclear weapons
has been professed by the heads
of the government publicly.
But we don't like drawing
the line that early.
We want to be able to have
our nuclear activities and exports and
commerce and be able to tell ourselves,
Well, that won't lead to
any weapon mischief.
I think that It has always been a
tendency that leads to disappointment.
In the end, you have these two forces, and
you have Iran saying that it has the right
to have some level of nuclear program.
Yes.
We certainly profess
only for peaceful purposes, but they view
that as a right that
they will not concede.
It's just not something that they're going
to give up as a sovereign state in
their view, their right to
develop a peaceful program.
The rest of the world is worried
about what they might do with it.
Can you ever really check?
Can you ever really have 100% certainty?
Because obviously, we've been through
various phases of having
inspectors and so on.
Can any form of inspection truly be
foolproof and be able to delve into every
last crevice of where some activity might
be going on that they're trying to hide?
It depends on the
activity and the material.
Very early on in 1946, there was a study
called the Atchison-Lilienthal Report, and
it was pretty much authored by
Jay Robert Oppenheim.
In many chapters.
He and the board of distinguished people
who knew a lot about
the Manhattan Project, because they
participated, made a distinction between
safe and dangerous nuclear
activities and materials.
I think that idea has
been honored in the breach.
We're not terribly constant on that point.
If a safe activity and material is
something so distant from being a bomb
that you can look at it
and reliably get early signals
of a possible diversion to military
purposes early enough that can intervene
and prevent it from becoming a bomb.
I'll give you an example.
If you go up to
Boston, there's a school there called MIT,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology,
and they have a reactor.
It's a research reactor,
but it's very small.
Now, it has material
that is nearly weapons-grade to power it.
Well, that could a problem.
On the other hand, there are other
reactors like that
that aren't powered with anything
weapons-grade in the way of uranium.
It takes, I don't know, 10 years to get
one amount of plutonium
that would be sufficient to make a bomb.
Well, that would be safe.
That would be an example
of something safe.
When you have a power reactor, every 18
months, you're talking about
a score or more a bomb's worth of material
coming out of that machine
that could be chemically stripped
out in a matter of weeks or days.
Not so safe.
You keep going through the declensions.
Enrichment of uranium.
Well, you can change the piping and the
speeds and various
parameters of the operation, and all of a
sudden, it's producing
weapons-grade uranium.
Similarly, if you You make fuel
using separated plutonium.
It's directly usable in a bomb.
Those things are not safe.
So you have to be very tough on yourself.
I would argue, in addition mission that
if you've got a country that's intent on
getting a bomb and you have a lot of
so-called peaceful activities,
you're making it difficult to discern
where the illicit activity might be if
indeed they're engaging in illicit So I
think we've given ourselves too much
leeway in promoting nuclear power.
I would doubly say we're doing it too much
because in almost every case,
The purpose that's peaceful is to
produce electrical generating power.
And there are so many alternative ways of
doing it that don't run these risks, and
to be candid,
are increasingly much cheaper.
So I don't know.
I think we have this will
to do all forms of energy, and nuclear
energy is one of them that we just
can't resist promoting.
And, well, this comes with it,
these problems.
So here we are today.
There have been five rounds
of intensive negotiations.
Where do you think this is headed?
Well, it can only go in two directions.
I'm trying to get a piece published.
I don't know.
They're sitting on it, pondering whether
it can fit into the news cycle because
there's so much going on besides
Iran, at least in the United States.
But what I wrote is
certainly what I think.
And you either accept
that Iran will be able to continue to
enrich uranium and be within
days or weeks of getting what they need to
make a nuclear weapon
and assure yourself somehow, well, a lot
of people are looking at it, and therefore
It'll be very embarrassing
if they do that.
That's a pretty thin thing to lean on in
my book, but for some other
people, that might be enough.
We tried to do that with North Korea.
We tried to do that with India.
It didn't work.
But maybe the fifth or sixth time it will.
You don't want to be a curmudgeon
about this, but I am very skeptical.
Or you say, Well, You say
you have a right to something.
We don't think you do.
But of course, then that implies that
other countries maybe don't either.
You see, that's a little tough
because you now have to say, well, gee,
there are other countries that
enrich uranium and do this.
Maybe they don't have a
right to it if Iran doesn't.
That's a little unpleasant to raise that.
But you could say, Well, we don't
trust you, which I guess we don't.
We're going to
perhaps sanction you even more somehow.
I don't know how much more you can
sanction Iran, but people I know
say that they think they can.
I'm sure the President
would like to try that out.
Ultimately, unless
the country changes its internal
management or is forced to somehow give
up what they're doing because, I
don't know, the Israelis bombed something
or the other, I don't see Iran going
away from being a screwdriver's
turn away from a bomb.
I think they're going to be on the edge
of having a bomb for quite a while.
So living with that is
a little uncomfortable.
So what if you were behind the scenes
advising the
US in this case, what would you be telling
them to look out for and to
be thinking about?
Well, I think I am concerned about them
withdrawing from the treaty because that
has knock on effects for the neighbors.
And out of the region.
So at a minimum, I would cauterize that by
saying publicly now with as many friends
as we can find, If you leave,
here's what's going to happen.
Before you leave, you have to come into
full compliance with all of the agreements
you reached with the International Nuclear
Inspectorate, which is the
International Atomic Energy Agency.
Until then,
you're going to be under these economic
sanctions, and these will be in addition
to everything else that you've suffered.
Make it hurt to walk away from the treaty
and make it clear that you're doing this
not not because they're Iran, but because
they're a country, a member of the NBT,
doesn't have nuclear weapons,
and is not in full compliance with its
international atomic energy agency
obligations.
And you write country-neutral rules
for this case, and you say, Well,
this will apply not just to you, but
anyone else as well.
Now, we've tried to do this, but we
haven't persisted very much on this.
Maybe it's not
that feasible because Russia and China,
they're not going to deal
with the merits of the case.
In many cases, they're very political,
and I'll say, Well, this is a friend.
We don't want to have
them subject to this.
We won't go along.
But then that means we have to work with
our friends and say, Well, okay, maybe
you won't sanction them, but we will.
I think you have to start there.
That's number one.
Number two, I think you've got to say, if
you're engaged in taking this material and
putting it into non-nuclear components
that make it a bomb,
in other words, you have the fuel, but
you have to assemble it, you have to
pressurize it and make it
implode, if you will.
That weaponization activity is not
something any inspectorate is
authorized to look for.
We need to change that,
and I think we should take the to do this.
Finally, I think if we have
arguments against Iran enriching uranium,
we need to be consistent when we
go travel across the water to Saudi Arabia
and they say, Well, we want to win rich.
Watch.
I think maybe that gives us a taste of
why we might tolerate enrichment in Iran,
because we might want to
tolerate it in Saudi Arabia.
How that's going to make anything better
is a mystery to me.
But watch, that's a real possibility.
So it's a proliferation
for peace, which is something I want
to What I wanted to ask you about.
How does non-proliferation ever
really succeed in a perfect world?
Because the nuclear club has grown,
not necessarily always openly.
The development of the
programs was not open, and there have been
certainly decades ago, surprises.
Ha, ha, ha, guess what?
Now we have this capacity.
So how do you stop it?
I mean, how do you prevent the nuclear
club from just continually growing?
Because it's not just about Iran, and you
mentioned some other countries as well.
But how do you stop it?
Well, I mean, I feel fortunate
to have been in the US government
running an office that has some success.
I think, in particular, Argentina
and South Africa
changed their minds, and they changed
their minds for a variety of reasons.
First, there were enticements.
Economic trade would be afforded them,
in one case, if they dropped the
program, but not if they pursued.
I think in addition, they understood that
they wanted certain things
that had to do with self-government
more than they wanted to be able to
threaten their neighbors with a weapon.
That also can work in your favor,
and it did in those two cases.
In other cases, such as Taiwan and South
Korea, which were friends,
we just made it very clear to stay friends
and to be safe under our protection,
they had to give up.
And they did.
That then depends on them
being convinced that when we say, You're
going to be safer under our protection
than not, that they believe it.
That is the next big hurdle going
into the decade or two ahead.
A lot of these countries look at the
United States and the protection that can
be afforded, and it's
not clear that they're convinced.
Now, that's not new.
They have been, in previous decades,
very apprehensive and wary about the
protection we claim we're
going to afford them.
So that's another challenge.
But that has worked to keep a good number
of countries from getting nuclear weapons.
And that includes not only South Korea
and Taiwan, but arguably Sweden, Italy.
I'm trying to think.
I'm probably not getting them all.
But those are interesting
cases, just those listed.
So you can have success.
And I think it's important, too, because
the problem with nuclear weapons, when
you speculate about how they can be used,
and I've run simulations with people in
the military
and diplomats from foreign countries,
The uncertainties once these things get
fired just overwhelm you.
And how these conflicts end is a mystery,
but it's a frightening one,
and it's best not to begin.
And it's interesting.
Even brutal rulers like Putin
seem to know this.
You'd think by now, with all the
threats, he would have used them by now.
You'll notice he didn't.
Well, what does that tell you?
Even people who are brutal
and blood thirsty,
even, know, you hope, their limits.
Now, counting on that
is a bet against the house.
I mean, the idea that everyone can be
counted upon to come to
that conclusion, maybe.
Not only that, but you can get started
with the best of intentions to try to,
as they say, use nuclear weapons to shock
everyone to stop fighting and not succeed.
So fewer weapons in fewer hands,
in my mind, commensensically, it's got to
be better for anyone who's
trying to keep the peace.
So As we begin to head toward the end,
I have just a question about Israel.
We talked about briefly earlier.
They, of course, are alarmed by a lot of
the developments in recent weeks, months,
talks between the US and Iran.
Prediction on your part,
what might Israel do next?
Well, I mean, Israel is chomping at the
bit to do some military demonstration.
I say demonstration because Having gamed
and commissioned research on
how probable it is to knock out
some of these hard nuclear targets,
it's not a very clear shot.
Some of these facilities
are buried in mountains.
If you're to believe the Iranians, and
maybe they're misleading us, but they're
talking hundreds of meters in down
and in hardened facilities to boot.
They use not only tunneling equipment, but
in some instances, what they call
super ultra a performance concrete, which
is very, very, very hardy,
not easy to break.
So whether or not and to what extent you
can be sure that you've knocked out some
of these facilities, even
with nuclear weapons, is not clear.
So what you're doing is showing
malice of intent, weakening
the country's military military
facilities, slowing down
their nuclear activity.
The Israelis refer to
this as mowing the lawn.
It sounds rather glib.
I say that because it doesn't sound right.
I mean, it could become a protracted war.
So far, they've taken pot shots at one
another, the Iranians and Israelis, with
large numbers of missiles, and
it hasn't produced a major war.
I don't know.
But again, I think that's the point.
We don't know, and we don't know what it
will take for
these attacks to lead to something bigger
than just a day or two of fighting.
Thank you, Henry.
I think you summed it up really
aptly by saying, We don't know.
We don't know what's going to be
the outcome of the negotiations.
We don't know what Israel might do next.
We don't know what Iran's real
intent is with this nuclear program.
You have enlightened, educated.
I really appreciate your time.
It's been a pleasure.
I hope to talk to you again soon.
Okay.
Thank you for listening to this
installment of Conversations
with Andres Ilves.
Today, we talk to Henry Sokolsky, a world
leader, world expert on
the issue of nuclear non- proliferation,
talking about what might happen next
between the US, Iran, Israel.
We just don't know.
Hopefully, we'll
approach it a lot better informed.
Thanks to you, Henry.
Okay.
Well, thank you for having me.