CISAC and FSI Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker has been awarded the prestigious Science Diplomacy Award from the American Association for the Advancement of Science for his dedication to building bridges through science.

Hecker, director emeritus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory and CISAC co-director from 2007-2012, was honored at the AAAS’s annual conference in Chicago for his “lifetime commitment to using the tools of science to address the challenges of nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism and his dedication to building bridges through science during the period following the end of the Cold War."

In nominating Hecker for the 2013 award, Glenn E. Schweitzer, director of the Office for Central Europe and Eurasia at the National Academies, noted that Hecker has been particularly effective in working with government officials and scientific colleagues in Russia, Kazakhstan and North Korea.

"For over two decades, Dr. Hecker has worked on international nuclear security activities and fostered cooperation with the Russian nuclear laboratories to secure and safeguard the vast stockpile of ex-Soviet fissile materials," said AAAS Chief International Officer Vaughan Turekian.

Schweitzer wrote in his nomination that Hecker's activities can be judged on two outcomes: responsible handling of nuclear materials and prevention of dangerous materials from falling into the wrong hands. "On both counts, he scores very high on anyone's ledger," Schweitzer wrote. "In addition, his openness and respect for the views of others have won important friends for the United States around the world."

More details about the award and Hecker's work can be read here.

Please join CISAC in congratulating Hecker for this honor.

Iran should move beyond its "false nationalism" and embrace the significant benefits of a peaceful nuclear approach, Stanford scholars say.

In return, professors Siegfried Hecker and Abbas Milani wrote Jan. 21 in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the West should neither isolate nor attack Iran  – those approaches would not necessarily stop Iran from weaponizing its nuclear program if it chose to do so.

Interestingly, the Iranian government republished the Hecker-Milani article in Farsi on at least one official website. That could reflect, the scholars say, a "genuine internal debate" in Iran regarding its nuclear future directions.

Hecker is a professor in the Department of Management Science and Engineering, a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the institute's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He is also a former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory. Milani is the director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University and co-director of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution. He is also an affiliated faculty member of FSI's Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law.

In an interview, Milani expressed cautious optimism. "Clearly, this is an important fact that they allowed this article to be posted on an official website. They are rethinking their nuclear program. But there are many others who will oppose it as well."

He added that Iranian reformers – who won the last presidential election – understand that the confrontational approach of Iran's hard-liners was not working. Many people are hurting due to the economic sanctions: inflation is at least 35 percent by official measures and may actually be twice that, Milani said.

South Korean model

As Hecker and Milani wrote in the article, South Korea in the last few decades has become one of the world's preeminent peaceful nuclear energy countries by focusing on the profitable parts of the middle nuclear fuel cycle — reactor component fabrication, fuel fabrication and reactor construction.

However, Hecker acknowledged, there has been talk that South Korea may be seeking consent from Washington for enrichment and reprocessing options beyond peaceful uses. He pointed out, however, that South Korea has had a peaceful nuclear program for four decades.

The problem with a weaponized approach is that it steals away the resources and expertise needed for a civilian-minded energy program, the authors stated.

"For Iran, the lesson of the South Korean experience is clear: Tehran should decide to abandon its enrichment efforts because the costs – technological, economic and political – are not worth the price of keeping the nuclear weapon option open," Hecker and Milani wrote.

When Iran's covert nuclear program was discovered in the early 2000s, the West enacted crippling economic sanctions against the country. Despite oil revenue windfalls, Iran has an economy riled by inflation and on the verge of collapse. 

There is hope. An interim nuclear agreement between Iran and the United Nations Security Council plus Germany that went into effect Jan. 20 consists of a short-term freeze of portions of Iran's nuclear program in exchange for limited sanctions relief for Iran. The idea is to give the countries time to work toward a long-term agreement.

Milani said that after the short-term agreement was reached, Iran's inflation rate began to moderate and its currency rate began to stabilize. That small bit of economic relief may bolster the reformers' argument in favor of a civilian nuclear policy.

"There are many people in Iran who want to see this issue resolved peacefully," said Milani, explaining that the hard-liners are associated with the clergy and Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

How close is Iran to a bomb?

Hecker and Milani warned of a "breakout scenario" in which Iran's centrifuge program could make enough highly enriched uranium (90 percent uranium 235) for a nuclear bomb "in a matter of months or even weeks."  The Iranian scientists would still need to craft a bomb and develop the means to deliver a nuclear weapon, which requires a high level of miniaturization.

"Iran would need a number of years of research, development and testing before it could have a reliable, missile-deliverable nuclear warhead," they wrote, noting the periodic missile threats made by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard against the United States and Israel.

In an interview, Hecker said the primary challenge now is no longer how to keep Iran from the capability, but rather "how to convince Iran it is not in its interest to build the bomb."

He noted that Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Mohammad Zarif told him that it was not in Iran's security interest to build the bomb. "In fact, he added, even the appearance of pursuing the bomb was bad for Iran's security."

As Hecker explained, completely getting rid of the Iranian bomb option is not possible through military action or sanctions with political pressure. "The only chance is through diplomatic means. We need to make it clear to the Iranian regime that they are better off without pursuing the bomb."

For now, Hecker and Milani wrote in their article, the interim agreement will temporarily prevent Iran from reaching a breakout scenario. While a delay is good, more must be done to actually stop the Iranians from militarizing their nuclear program. After all, external pressure did not stop Israel, Pakistan, India, South Africa or North Korea from building nukes.

"Such a decision, we believe, must be made internally, not externally driven," the two Stanford experts wrote.

The Iranian elite should take note of the scant returns of the country's nuclear efforts to date. "After 50 years, Iran has very little to show for its nuclear pursuit," they said.

Iran has one commercial reactor, built by the Russians and only partially ready for electricity production. Another reactor, used primarily for medical isotope production, is on its last legs. The new Iranian reactor planned for Arak is not of modern design nor suited for medical production, and presents serious proliferation concerns because it will produce plutonium suitable for bombs.

"Iran's pride and joy, the uranium centrifuge program, can enrich in one year only as much uranium as the European consortium Urenco can produce in about five hours," wrote Hecker and Milani.

Change in government

The timing may be right for a new nuclear approach, Hecker and Milani wrote. In his September 2013 speech at the United Nations, Iran's new president, Hassan Rouhani, acknowledged that other nations could have "legitimate concerns" about Iran's nuclear program.

"That admission opens up the possibility for objective debate within Iran on the economic and technical costs of its current nuclear trajectory," wrote the Stanford professors. Such a debate would include business leaders, intellectuals and a broad spectrum of civic groups advocating on behalf of the "enormous benefits" of a safe, peaceful nuclear program.

"For this to happen, the international community must of course provide reliable access to uranium and enrichment services," they wrote.

Hecker added that Washington must demonstrate that it is prepared to cooperate with Tehran on a "peaceful nuclear pursuit, and not continue to isolate it."

As for Iran, it would need to operate transparently and implement specific protocols to assure the international community that it would not return to the nuclear weapons option. Both the West and Iran need to save face on such a deal, Milani said.

He noted, "The Iranians need to make a deal that has some real concessions, but they need to sell it at home as a victory."

As Hecker put it, if the Iranians want nuclear energy and relations with the West, they need "nuclear integration, not isolation."

Clifton B. Parker is a writer for the Stanford News Service.

Nuclear energy is an essential engine that has helped to power South Korea’s industrialization and economic miracle. South Korea has become a world leader in both the domestic utilization of nuclear energy and its export potential. That journey began 40 years ago with the U.S.–South Korea Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation Agreement (the so-called 123 Agreement). 

Despite its meteoric rise in nuclear power, South Korea faces serious challenges: It must demonstrate that nuclear power remains safe; that the government can convince the public to accept interim spent fuel storage and long-term geologic disposal; and that its choices of nuclear fuel cycle technologies do not compound global nuclear proliferation concerns. 

Because South Korea’s ascendency in nuclear power was built on close cooperation with American companies and was initially based on American technologies, its nuclear fuel-cycle choices remain in large part dependent on U.S. concurrence. 

The extent of U.S. control and influence of South Korea’s nuclear choices is the crux of the current negotiations for the renewal of the 40-year old agreement, which has been extended for two years until 2016. The position of the U.S. government appears to have been forged primarily on the pillar of nonproliferation. South Korea, on the other hand, views energy security, competitiveness of the industry, and its national security as equally important. The politics and symbolism of the negotiations appear to have obscured a rational analysis of South Korea’s nuclear future and its cooperation with the United States. 

A team of researchers led by me and others here at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) collaborated with a team from South Korea’s East Asia Institute, led by Professor Ha Young-Sun. Together we co-wrote a report, designed to look at these issues from both South Korean and American points of view.  

The CISAC team stepped back from the political stalemate and analyzed South Korea’s nuclear future based primarily on technical and economic considerations, but informed by the political situation. It conducted a TEP (technical, economic and political) analysis of the entire fuel cycle, which includes the front end (uranium mining and conversion; enrichment), the middle (fuel fabrication; reactor fabrication and construction; spent fuel storage) and back end (fuel reprocessing; spent fuel disposal; high-level waste disposal).

South Korea’s strategy of building a nuclear industry by focusing on the middle of the fuel cycle during the past several decades was brilliantly conceived and executed. Its nuclear industry is now among the best in the world. However, South Korea is advised to move to the construction of a centralized, away-from-reactor, dry-cask storage capability as quickly as possible. The TEP analysis finds it inadvisable for South Korea to pursue domestic enrichment in the short term because of the low technical and economic benefits, the ready global availability of enrichment services, and the substantial political downsides of pursuing such an option. In the longer term, if South Korea finds it needs enrichment capabilities as a hedge against supply disruption, large price fluctuations, or to enhance its reactor export potential, then it should pursue these strictly through international cooperative ventures.

South Korea’s strategy of building a nuclear industry by focusing on the middle of the fuel cycle during the past several decades was brilliantly conceived and executed."

 The TEP analysis also indicates that reprocessing spent fuel, either by the conventional PUREX process or by pyroprocessing, is not critical to South Korea’s short-term domestic program or its export market. Even if pyroprocessing can be shown to be technically and economically viable, its commercial development cannot be achieved rapidly enough to deal with South Korea’s near-term spent fuel accumulation problem. Moreover, the deployment of pyroprocessing faces considerable U.S. opposition. 

The best short-term option is to continue a robust pyroprocessing research program, preferably in cooperation with the United States as it is currently envisioned in the 10-year joint R&D program. In the longer term, the best prospects for the application of pyroprocessing are as a part of a fast reactor development program. The South Korean research team believes that pyroprocessing is an economically attractive alternative even for their current once-through fuel cycle; that is, it need not await the development of fast reactors because of the high cost of spent-fuel storage and eventual disposition in South Korea. 

Regardless of future fuel cycle choices, it is essential for South Korea to take immediate actions to restore the public’s trust in the nuclear industry. The government must deal resolutely with the industry’s alleged corruption problems and strengthen the government’s regulatory organizations dealing with all aspects of South Korea’s nuclear industry, as well as instill greater transparency and attention to quality matters in the Korean nuclear industry. This issue is closely tied to nuclear safety, which must remain the nuclear industry’s highest priority. 

Although the prospective terms for renewing the 123 Agreement were not a direct part of this study, we offer some overarching observations. First, the renewal should strive to develop a South Korea–U.S. partnership that reflects the enormous progress made in South Korea’s economic, political and industrial standing in the world since 1974. 

Second, Washington should not insist on the so-called nonproliferation “gold standard” adopted for the United Arab Emirates, in which countries developing nuclear energy pledge not to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium. Instead, the United States should strive for a criteria-based standard that better reflects a country’s technical, political, regulatory, and industrial capacity, as well as its nonproliferation record. 

Third, the agreement should not be constrained by the North Korean nuclear problem. Pyongyang has clearly violated the letter and the spirit of the 1992 North-South agreement. The nature of South Korea’s civilian nuclear capabilities has little, if any, influence on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. 

Finally, we should not allow the controversies over the terms of renewal for the 123 Agreement to overshadow what we view as the most important domestic and international consequence of South Korea’s meteoric rise as an industrial and nuclear energy power: It has emerged as a model state for future nuclear power aspirants by focusing on the middle of the nuclear fuel cycle. 

Iran has struck a historic deal with the United States and five other world powers (known as the P5+1), agreeing to temporarily halt its nuclear program for six months in exchange for limited and gradual relief of sanctions. Iran agreed to halt its uranium enrichment above 5 percent and the foreign powers agreed to give Iran access to $4.2 billion from oil sales. The six-month period will now give diplomats time to negotiate a more sweeping agreement.

We ask three Stanford scholars to weigh in on the technical and political merits of the agreement. CISAC Senior Fellow, Siegfried Hecker, has been working on Track II diplomacy with Tehran in recent years and was one of a number of Americans who met with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and his delegation of diplomats and nuclear scientists after the U.N. General Assembly meeting in New York in September. Iranian-American Abbas Milani is director of Hamid and Christina Moghadam Program in Iranian Studies at Stanford and a contributing editor at The New Republic. Ivanka Barzashka is a CISAC affiliate and a research associate at the Centre for Science and Security Studies, King’s College, London, who specializes in Iran’s nuclear capability.

Just how close did Iran come to being able to build a bomb?

Hecker: Very close, possibly weeks away from making sufficient highly enriched uranium bomb fuel, and six months or so away from building a nuclear weapon. Iran developed the nuclear weapon option under the umbrella of the pursuit of civilian reactor fuel. The technologies for developing reactor fuel and bomb fuel are the same, the difference is in the level of enrichment in Uranium-235: 3 to 5 percent for commercial reactors, as much as 20 percent for research and medical isotope production reactors, compared to roughly 90 percent for weapons. The IAEA reports that Iran has not satisfactorily explained nor given access to work and sites suspected of past nuclear weapons-related activities.

This leads me to conclude that Iran had likely previously done most of the work necessary to build nuclear weapons once it obtained the capacity to produce bomb fuel. Iran’s extensive missile development and testing program also points to Tehran pursuing the option of missile deliverable nuclear weapons.

Does the agreement make it more difficult for Iran to pursue the bomb?

Hecker: Yes, the agreement places temporary limits on the level of enrichment of nuclear material and provides for the conversion or dilution of the highest enriched material (20 percent). It will also temporarily halt Iran installing more or better centrifuges to produce enriched uranium at an increasing rate. Iran has also agreed to temporarily halt construction of the heavy-water reactor in Arak. These steps modestly increase the amount of time it would take Iran to obtain nuclear bomb fuel in a breakout scenario. In addition, increased monitoring of facilities as called for in the agreement will provide us with a better understanding of existing capabilities in known facilities and what may exist in potential covert facilities.

They were very close ... six months or so away from building a nuclear weapon."    - Hecker

Why is Iran’s heavy-water reactor in Arak of such concern?

Hecker: It provides a potential second path to the bomb. Iranian nuclear specialists recently told me in New York that they began to design that reactor 20 years ago to replace the old, small American-provided reactor in Tehran that was being used for medical isotope production and research. Construction is several years behind schedule, but I was told it is close to completion. When complete, it would allow Iran to produce badly needed medical isotopes. But concurrently, the choice of reactor design and power level also means that it will produce enough plutonium to fuel one or two bombs per year if Iran decided to extract the plutonium from the spent reactor fuel. The Iranian specialists told me that they are very keen to find a solution that provides them with the means to make medical isotopes and alleviates international concerns about plutonium production. That’s a worthy goal, but a tall order that was left for the long-term agreement.

What prevented Iran from building the bomb?

Hecker: I believe Iran’s leadership settled for developing the option for the bomb, but has not yet decided to build or demonstrate the bomb. Until recently, it is also likely that Iran did not have sufficient bomb fuel to build the bomb. I believe they now have that capacity; therefore our focus should be on convincing them not to flip the bomb production switch.

Can you envision a long-term agreement that will prevent Iran from building the bomb?

Hecker: Completely getting rid of the bomb option is not possible through military action or sanctions with political pressure. The only chance is through diplomatic means. We need to make it clear to the Iranian regime that they are better off without pursuing the bomb. This will take time. Iran Foreign Minister Zarif told me that even appearing to pursue the bomb is bad for Iran’s nuclear security. Now if we can only get the Iranian leadership to believe that. If Iran wants nuclear energy and relations with the West, I believe we need nuclear integration, not isolation, such as those peaceful programs in South Korea and Japan.

Kerry's video message about the Geneva Talks 

Stepping aside from the leaders and countries involved, what do you think this six-month agreement means to the Iranian people themselves?

Milani: I think in the short run, it has brought them a double sense of joy and relief: joy that war might be averted, and relief that dire days of economic hardships might begin to end and that maybe the country will no longer be a pariah and join the community of nations. But I think there is also some trepidation: Will the interim agreements turn into an enduring policy or will the radicals use the interim sanction relief to get out of the current jam and then resume their policies?

Are you hopeful this is a significant step forward or is it too early to tell?

Milani: I think it is too early to be definitive but my sense is that momentum is building for the successful continuation of the thaw. Policies of the regime in the last years brought the country to the verge of the abyss. One could put a bit of Biblical touch to what President Rouhani himself says: men and women do not live by centrifuges alone. They need bread and freedom.

This is a win for Obama but it also appears to be a huge win for Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Do you believe he is sincere in his commitment to negotiate and keep the talks on track?

Milani: I think Rouhani is one of the cleverest, most cunning and brutality pragmatic leaders the Islamic Republic has seen. He understands that the status quo is untenable and fashions himself as its potential reforming savior. He needs to make this deal work – one that is acceptable to the West, and the international community and sellable domestically as at least a win-win agreement – if he is to politically accomplish his goals as a disciplined man of great ambitions.

The Israelis are up in arms and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the deal “a historic mistake” that gives too much to the Iranians. But shouldn’t they be pleased that Iran has stepped back?

Milani: Many in Israel are up in arms, yet others are confident that the U.S. and EU will pursue their interests while never making a deal that threatens Israel's security. In time I think the second narrative might even dominate Israeli discourse.

Is the deal nothing more than a successful confidence-building exercise?

Barzashka (As told to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists on Nov. 25): The agreement, the first in nearly a decade of confrontation over Iran’s nuclear program, is a win for diplomacy and proof that Obama’s strategy of direct engagement with Iran works. Enabled by high-level, face-to-face meetings between Tehran and Washington, the deal was struck despite significant opposition by hardliners in the United States, Iran and Israel.

The P5+1 and Iran adopted tangible, though modest, confidence-building measures that demonstrate both sides are serious about negotiations. The deal reflects reasonable compromises. For example, the P5+1 initially demanded that stockpiled, 20 percent-enriched uranium be shipped out of Iran, but exporting uranium was unacceptable for Tehran. Instead, the two sides agreed that Iran would convert 20-percent enriched uranium hexafluoride to uranium oxide or downblend it to below 5 percent—measures that still buy threat reduction without crossing Iran’s red line.

Finally, the agreement succeeds in building trust by leaving out the hard questions, such as Iran’s right to enrichment, which would be addressed during the next phase of negotiations.

CISAC Senior Fellow Siegfried Hecker and the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute (MEPhI) have launched a website to chronicle more than 20 years of nuclear collaboration between the Russian Federation and the United States.

This collaboration culminated in a conference in June 2013 on Russia-US nuclear cooperation. The website documents presentations, participants, and news from the conference in both English and Russian. Work from this conference will continue to strengthen the partnership between the two countries.