The U.S. and the Origins of Iran's Nuclear Program

[Comrade-Z]

The Nuclear Client State Gone Awry: Iran's Reasonable and Determined Drive to Acquire Nuclear Capabilities, and the History of U.S. Nuclear Assistance During the Shah's Reign that Legitimizes Iran's Ongoing Nuclear Project and Exposes the Hypocrisy of Current U.S. Rhetoric

by Comrade-Z

“They're already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. Nobody can figure why they need nuclear as well to generate energy.”—such is the current rhetoric of Vice President Dick Cheney, despite the fact that Cheney, along with many other current top figures in the current Bush Administration, had been working in top posts under President Ford at the very time that the Ford Administration was making the opposite case in favor of giving U.S. support to an Iranian nuclear program that the U.S. trumpeted as essential.1 Such historical inconsistencies on the part of the U.S. government cut to the heart of the current debate over whether Iran should be allowed to have its own independent civilian nuclear energy program. Iran currently insists, as the U.S. did 30 years ago, that it needs a nuclear program for economic purposes—is this true? How can we determine the main factors that motivate the current Iranian nuclear research efforts? Obviously, these questions are extremely relevant to current U.S. foreign policy considerations and world diplomacy in general.

This paper aims to inform this debate by looking at the origins of the Iranian nuclear program during the Shah's reign and exploring the original motivations for Iran's nuclear research efforts (as articulated by both Iran and its American partners) as well as the history of U.S. assistance in this field. First, there will be a brief summary of the joint U.S.-Iranian efforts towards an Iranian nuclear program during the reign of the Shah, for even the outlines of this history may not be familiar to most readers (such is the current administration's silence on this issue). Then, more importantly, it will be demonstrated that the pursuit of a nuclear program was, in fact, a pivotal aspect of Iran's prospects for economic development. It will also be clear that these economic motivations for Iran have not changed since the revolution in 1979; in fact, they have only become more pressing, despite what the current U.S. government would like to allege in its efforts to salvage an uncomfortable situation that it helped create by aiding Iran's nuclear program during the reign of the Shah, only to have that assistance backfire on U.S. hegemonic plans for the region. In short, this paper will demonstrate that current U.S. rhetoric is not where one must look to find an accurate analysis of Iran's motivations for nuclear power; instead, when trying to assess whether Iran is entitled to develop its own nuclear program, one must look to the origins of Iran's pursuit of nuclear power, its original motivations, and the history of assistance that the U.S. originally provided in support of this nuclear program. Consequently, the paper will conclude with a suggestion that the U.S. deal honestly with the world and give due credit to the original economic motivations for Iran's nuclear program rather than ignore or deny the existence of these economic motivations, as the U.S. has recently had the tendency to do.

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]First, the record is quite clear that the U.S. and Iran were intimately involved in building Iran's nuclear program. U.S. nuclear aid to Iran started with President Eisenhower's “Atoms for Peace” initiative in the 1950s.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]2[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] This initiative was designed to encourage disarmament for the countries that possessed nuclear weapons and to channel the disarmed nuclear material to other countries in peaceful, internationally-supervised ways for civilian nuclear power. Iran immediately signed up in 1957 in order to obtain “American help in building its own civilian nuclear power program,” to which the U.S. agreed.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]3[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] By 1959 Iran had established the Teheran Nuclear Research Center (TNRC), which by 1967 was “equipped with a U.S.-supplied 5MW nuclear research reactor” using “highly enriched uranium.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]4[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]By 1968, the Shah was ready to move past the research stage and progress to the construction of actual commercial nuclear power generation, to which the U.S. agreed.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]5[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In May 1974, the Nixon Administration sent Dixy Lee Ray, the chairwoman of the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), to Tehran in order to offer the AEC's services as a “clearinghouse” for Iranian investments, and in order to expedite the site selection process for nuclear plants.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]6[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] This same year, Iran hired the Stanford Research Institute to oversee the construction of nuclear power plants in Iran, and right around this time Henry Kissenger issued National Security Decision 292, entitled “U.S.-Iran Nuclear Cooperation,” which set out the details of the sale of American nuclear equipment to Iran.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]7[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] By 1977 Iran had three nuclear power plants under construction.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]8[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Simultaneously, the U.S. sold “hot cells” to Iran[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]9[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]—radiation-shielded rooms that could be used for separating plutonium from spent fuel (and thus potentially for the accumulation of the plutonium needed for a bomb).[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]10[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] On the human personnel front, the U.S. started enlisting the help of MIT in the summer of 1975 in order to provide Iranian nuclear physics students with the training that would be needed to run Iran's nuclear project.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]11[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In October 1977 the U.S.-Iranian nuclear cooperation looked to have as much momentum as ever, as Mr. Sydney Sober of the U.S. State Department triumphantly announced that the Shah's government was about to purchase eight more nuclear reactors from the U.S.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]12[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In July 1978, the final draft of the U.S.-Iran Nuclear Energy Agreement was signed, stipulating, “among other things, American export of nuclear technology and material and help in searching for ura[FONT=Times New Roman]nium deposits.”[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]13 U.S. and European nuclear assistance had been so generous that, by 1979, “Iran's nuclear program was considered one the most advanced in the Middle East.”14[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][FONT=Times New Roman]
The economic rationale behind Iran's nuclear program has several aspects. First, Iran had an incentive to choose nuclear power, in fact, simply because the cost of nuclear power was lower when all factors were consider[/FONT]ed. So far the majority of electricity in Iran has been produced by oil and gas.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]15[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The U.S. was, in fact, partly responsible for convincing Iran to look towards nuclear power for cheaper electricity that could be scaled up to the extent that Iran's growing economy would need. The Stanford Research Institute published a report concluding that “Iran would need, by the year 1990, an electrical capacity of about 20,000 megawatts.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]16[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Iran's electricity needs were growing at yearly rate of six to eight percent, and its population was expected to reach 100 million by 2025.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]17[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Iran's population already increased from 37 million to 64 million between 1979 and 1995, and 45% of Iran's current population is of age 14 or younger.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]18[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In 1963, Iran had fewer than 500,000 electricity consumers; by 1976, there were two million.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]19[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Considering these facts, it is clear that Iran has had (and continues to have) every economic incentive to pursue civilian nuclear power.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]One objection that is commonly raised to this conclusion, despite the facts above, is the assertion that continuing to rely on natural gas would be cheaper and more efficient. However, a recent study by two MIT professors indicated that “the cost of producing electricity from gas (and oil) is comparable with what it costs to generate it using nuclear reactors,” not to mention “the adverse effects of carbon emissions or the need to preserve Iran's gas reserves to position Iran in 20 or 30 years as one of the main suppliers of gas to Europe and Asia.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]20[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In addition, many of Iran's gas-powered generators have been aging and need periodic rebuilding and maintenance work.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]21[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] With all these cost factors taken into account, nuclear-powered electricity might even beat gas-powered electricity in simple cost terms alone.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The second distinct reason behind Iran's pursuit of nuclear power was economic diversification in preparation for oil depletion. In 1974 the Shah poetically encapsulated a key reason for this with the proclamation, “Petroleum is a noble material, much too valuable to burn.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]22[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In practical terms, this meant that the more electricity Iran could produce from nuclear power, the less oil and especially natural gas Iran would have to use for electricity generation, and the more oil and natural gas Iran could export. As Marvin Miller, a professor who taught Iranian nuclear students at MIT, notes, “There was a push to say, 'Hey, now you have a lot of money but the oil is going to run out eventually. Why don't you build nuclear power plants?'”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]23[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The scary reality for Iran is that its oil production has already declined from its peak production level of 6.0 million barrels per day in 1974,[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]24[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] with little prospect of ever climbing from its current level of 3.5 million barrels per day to reach anywhere near that peak value again.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]25[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] It is often touted that Iran possesses the third-largest oil reserves in the world, and this is true, but this misses two key points: declining flow rates and increasing domestic demand, both of which may combine to reduce Iran's oil exports by 10 to 12 percent per year over the near future.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]26[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The declining flow rate is occurring because of a combination of natural depletion dynamics and the fact that Iran has had difficulty maintaining existing facilities and making new oil investments over recent years, partly thanks to sanctions that have somewhat obstructed needed foreign investment.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]27[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] As for domestic demand for oil, it's “not just growing, it's exploding, driven by a subsidized gasoline price of about 9 cents a liter.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]28[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] This has led to a 6 percent yearly growth in domestic demand for oil, the highest in the world.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]29[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In all, demand has increased by more than 280 percent since 1979.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]30[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] This is why it is important to monitor not just total oil output, but net exports in general, for net exports can decline alarmingly fast when beset with the twin obstacles of oil depletion and booming domestic demand. The stark reality for Iran is that, if current trends were to continue, Iran would become a net oil importer by as early as 2015,[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]31[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] a “catastrophe for a country that relies on oil for 80 percent of its foreign currency and 45 percent of its annual budget,”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]32[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] as well as for 90 percent of its budget when oil and gas exports are taken together.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]33[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] It is just this situation that Iran and the U.S. had been seeking to avoid when they decided to work together towards nuclear power in Iran. Why should Iran not take the U.S.'s former advice and, indeed, follow the U.S.'s own example and diversify its energy portfolio to include renewable nuclear energy in order to stave off depleting its precious nonrenewable oil and gas sources that it needs for export? When the current U.S. administration now claims that Iran, a state well-endowed with petroleum, could not possibly need nuclear power for economic or civilian energy reasons, this current U.S. administration is suffering from both a lapse of rationality and from a bout of selective amnesia of its own advice to Iran, as well as the U.S.'s own practice. (The U.S., by the same measure, is also a country well-endowed with oil and has been for the least 70 years. Yet the U.S. did not hesitate to take advantage of civilian nuclear power. Yet it expects Iran to do so?)[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Considering the evidence above, it is understandable that the pursuit of a nuclear industry was not an afterthought for the Iranian government—it was a centerpiece of their plans for progress. As Mohammad H. Kargarnovin, a graduate of the Iran exchange program at MIT recounts, “All of a sudden...we were told, 'You are responsible to take on this, to take the needle from zero to 100.'”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]34[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] According to another Iranian nuclear student who studied in the MIT program in the late 1970s, “We would have had five or six nuclear power plants functioning in Iran by now, or maybe more”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]35[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]—that is, if it hadn't been for the diplomatic falling out between the U.S. and Iran after the 1979 Revolution. In 1974 the Shah declared that he planned to have more than 20 nuclear reactors constructed, once again re-iterating that “they would cover domestic energy needs and free up oil for export.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]36[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Iran was clearly ready to plunge into a massive nuclear power build-up, possibly to develop a near-first world nuclear power industry, if only the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the ensuing geopolitical fallout with the U.S. hadn't derailed these efforts.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Likewise, the U.S. government had “boundless optimism” for nuclear power in Iran; their stated reasoning was, in t[FONT=Times New Roman]he words of Edward Mason, former head of the nuclear engineering department at MIT, “...O[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]ne way to have peace [in the Middle East] was to put nuclear[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]reacto[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]rs there, raise people out of poverty, make the deserts bloom.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]37[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][FONT=Times New Roman] It has also been argued that, in general, U.S. nuclear assistance for Iran began “within [/FONT]the framework of turning Iran the way of Israel, into a regional and nuclear power for containing the movement of Arab Socialism” and for preventing Iran from orienting itself towards the Soviet Union.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]38[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Certainly, U.S. actions in general during this time were focused on procuring stable client regimes around the perimeter of the Soviet Union to contain the Soviet bloc's influence and in order to give U.S. forces (especially aircraft) staging areas in the case of war with the Soviet bloc.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]39[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The U.S., along with European countries and even the Soviet Union, also arguably had an interest in keeping the Persian Gulf region free from disruption (which meant enlisting Iran's help since it straddled the most strategic territory around the Strait of Hormuz),[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]40[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] and Iran under the Shah was a willing and trusted volunteer.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]41[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Therefore, any measures that would contribute to Iranian economic (or military) hegemony in the region would have been seen as viable options by the U.S. The Shah, seeking to strengthen his hand and Iran's hegemony in general, accentuated this argument by explaining to the United States that the U.S. would receive a backlash of enmity from citizens in the region if the U.S. interfered too directly in the affairs of the Middle-East; therefore, the U.S. would be better able to maintain its “global leadership” if it would let Iran have a free and firm hand to deal with regional security problems by proxy.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]42[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In other words, the U.S. needed to do what it could to strengthen Iran in order to help Iran “radiate stability” throughout the region,[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]43[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] even if that meant providing Iran with sensitive technology in order to jump-start its nuclear energy industry.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]The private sector in the U.S. also certainly had much to gain. It is estimated that U.S. companies “stood to gain $6.4 billion from the sale of six to eight nuclear reactors and parts.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]44[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Consequently, not only was there enthusiasm for the Iranian nuclear program within the U.S. government, but the American private sector was also excited about the progress in Iran and eagerly pointed to its nuclear program as an example of a country boldly showing the way forward, as evidenced, for instance, in the following advertisement for nuclear power in the U.S.:

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[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Figure 1: Various New England utility companies (Boston Edison, Eastern Utilities Associates, New England Power Company, Public Service Company of New Hampshire, and “New England Gas and Electric Companies,” see bottom of advertisement) exhort Americans to follow the Shah's example and pursue nuclear power.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]45[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]One might have thought that the U.S. would still be worried that Iran might use its nuclear energy program to pursue nuclear weapons, for it stands to reason that Iran would have almost just as much incentive to acquire weapons then as it does now. Yet when Henry Kissenger, Secretary of State in the Ford Administration, was afterwards pressed on this issue in an interview with Dafna Linzer of the Washington Post, Kissenger replied simply, “[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]I don't thin[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]k the issue of proliferation came up.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]46[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] When asked why he felt differently about Iran's nuclear program in the 1970s, Kissenger replied, “They were an allied country, and this was a commercial transaction. We didn't address the question of them one day moving toward nuclear weapons.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]47[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The U.S. deputy ambassador to Iran in the 1970s, Charles Naas, acknowledged that technical experts were paying attention to the issue of proliferation, but remarked likewise, “the nuclear deal was attractive in terms of commerce, and the relationship as a whole was very important.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]48[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Likewise, it seems amazing now to discover that the Ford Administration was willing to grant entire “closed fuel cycle capabilities” to Iran in exchange for having Iran do business with U.S. nuclear firms and for having Iran cooperate with U.S. objectives regarding the regional nuclear situation between India and Pakistan.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]49[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] This closed fuel cycle capability is, of course, “precisely the ability the current administration is trying to prevent Iran from acquiring today.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]50[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] In June 1974, the Shah even openly admitted that he expected Iran to be able to develop nuclear weapons “without a doubt and sooner than one would think.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]51[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Iranian and Israeli officials had even discussed a plan “to adapt for Iranian use surface-to-surface missiles that could be fitted with nuclear warheads.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]52[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] As a matter of fact, Iran was spending a surprising amount on its military in general: 13.1% of GDP by 1975,[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]53[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] and, in absolute terms, $18.07 billion in 1976.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]54[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Nowadays the U.S. would probably find that quite alarming, but it did not significantly jeopardize U.S.-Iranian relations during the 1970s—indeed, the U.S. itself made $5.8 billion in military sales to Iran in 1977,[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]55[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] for strengthening Iran was in fact essential to U.S. hegemonic plans for the region, as discussed earlier. Nevertheless, it is still strange to see the U.S.'s standards for nuclear cooperation with Iran being so low back then and so demanding now. Nuclear expert Muhammad Sahimi has argued that Nixon and Ford “would not have minded if the Shah developed the Bomb because the Shah was a close ally of the United States. Remember, Iran had a long border with the Soviet Union. If the Shah did make a nuclear bomb, that would have been a big deterrent against the USSR.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]56[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The main nonproliferation official in the Ford, Carter, and Reagan administrations, Gary Sick, explains that, with the Shah, the nuclear deals were all based on “trust”—in his words: “The shah made a big convincing case that Iran was going to run out of gas and oil and they had a growing population and a rapidly increasing demand for energy...The mullahs make the same argument today, but we don't trust them.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]57[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Interestingly, at the same time, the U.S., citing concerns that Pakistan would use reprocessing facilities to develop nuclear weapons, was denying that Pakistan had the right to similar nuclear reprocessing privileges as Iran (regardless of the fact that Pakistan was pursuing these capabilities in cooperation with the IAEA and France).[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]58[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Then, as now, the U.S. had a marked tendency to take a hypocritical approach towards nuclear development issues, seeking to bend the granting of nuclear privileges in accordance with U.S. perceived strategic interests in the region. Hence, after the 1979 revolution in Iran, “The companies that had agreed to build reactors for the shah pulled o[FONT=Times New Roman]ut, and the US government used its diplomatic leverage to block all sales of nuclear technology.”[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman]59 Two reactors that the German firm Kraftwerk Union had agreed to complete were left partially unfinished, and when Iran demanded that the company at least “ship the reactor components and technical documents that Iran had paid for,” the U.S. pressured the German government Kraftwerk Union to refuse to “honor the contract or even return the money,” such that Iran was forced to file “a lawsuit in 1996 with the International Commerce Commission, asking for $5.4 billion in compensation” (to no avail as of yet).60 It is startling to see the U.S. encourage such flagrant transgression of contracts and property rights, but it makes sense in the context of the U.S.'s strategic interests in the region. The U.S. even “directly intervened” to persuade the IAEA to stop a joint Iran-IAEA initiative in 1983 to help Iran produce Uranium Hexafluoride (UF6).61[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][FONT=Times New Roman] The fact that the U.S. acted directly on the IAEA, an international body, to terminate the arrangement is undeniable—one unname[/FONT]d U.S. official later remarked, “We stopped that in its tracks.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]62[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] Later, in 1991 and in 1997, the U.S. intervened with Argentina and China, respectively, to prevent them from assisting Iran with similar UO2 and UF6 conversion technology.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]63[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Despite the U.S.'s attempts to stonewall Iran's pursuit of nuclear power, Iran remains committed to developing a nuclear energy industry, and understandably so, for the reality of the current situation is that Iran has every economic reason (and even arguably every military reason) to pursue an independent nuclear program, even more so now than in the 1970s when, as Muhammad Sahimi explains:[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]“Iran's population was less than half of its present 70 million, oil production was[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] about 5.8 million bpd (barrels per day), far more than the present daily production[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] of 3.9 million bpd, domestic energy consumption was less than a quarter of[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] consumption today...and unlike now, Iran's reservoirs were not in decline. This begs[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] the question: since the United States strongly pushed the Shah to build NPPs[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] [nuclear power plants] in the 1970s, why does it now believe that Iran does not[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] need NPPs, which, as this article shows, can be economically justified?”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]64[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]As one senior Iranian scientist once remarked to Harvard professor Richard Wilson, Iranians were only “trying to continue what they started 25 years ago...”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]65[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The difference back then, of course, was that Iran was a “strong U.S. client,” easily the strongest U.S. client state within the Middle-East during the 1970s when judged on a number of statistical indicators[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]66[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]—whereas now Iran is ostensibly a geopolitical enemy of U.S. military objectives in the region. But is it fair to ordinary Iranians to let these geopolitical realities determine the course of their economic development and jeopardize their daily livelihoods? Granted, the point of this paper is not to make a political argument, but to simply point out a simple reality: that the U.S. should think twice before giving that sort of nuclear aid to prospective client state if the U.S. wishes to avoid the risk of legitimizing that state's pursuit of nuclear power in general, with or without the U.S.'s blessing. Likewise, it would be very easy to make the argument that the U.S. must not depend too heavily on the mechanism of empowering of client states and must not deal in double standards, as it has done, if the U.S. wishes to avoid the type of blow-back that has resulted from Iran after 1979.[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Indeed, many nuclear experts now see the U.S.'s nuclear aid to Iran as a mistake.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]67[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] This mistaken nuclear gamble with Iran under the Shah may also explain why the U.S. has opposed Iran so vigorously after the Shah's downfall—in order to shore up the U.S.'s geopolitical hold in the area after such a disastrous backfire. Yet the U.S. is stuck in a conundrum because it would be “unpopular among the parties of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty” to bring geopolitical rivalries into the debate over Iran's nuclear program since the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty “guarantees members access to nuclear power regardless of their political systems.”[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]68[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif] The U.S.'s current rhetoric is also undermined by its history of nuclear aid to Iran in another way. The U.S.'s publicly disastrous experience with providing nuclear aid to Iran goes against an argument that is often made by U.S. officials—the argument that the real danger of a nuclear Iran lies in the possibility that Iran will give nuclear weapons or nuclear technology to allies (both state and non-state). Yet Iran is in the best position to know the risks of blowback—allies can be unreliable (particularly non-state actors, it stands to reason), the winds of friendship may change, and if a nuclear regime is not careful, it may end up with its very own technology pointing right back at itself. Overall, the U.S.'s history of aiding Iran's nuclear program severely weakens its current stance against Iran's nuclear program, which is arguably why the current U.S. administration is loathe to reference this history, and thus why many people in the U.S. remain unfortunately unaware of it.[/FONT]



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[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Hibbs, Mark. “U.S. in 1983 Stopped IAEA from Helping Iran Make UF6.” Nuclear Fuel, 4 August 2004, 12. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ioannides, Christos P. America's Iran: Injury and Catharsis. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1984. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Jan van den Berg, Robert. “Iran's Nuclear Program.” WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor, no. 584 (Mar. 2003): 2-4. Available from http://www10.antenna.nl/wise/584/584.pdf. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Khan, Shahid-ur-Rehman. “U.S. Under Ford Offered Iran Closed Fuel Cycle Capabilities.” Nucleonics Week, 4 November 2004, 12. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Landau, Saul. “How the United States Supplied Iran With Nuclear Know How.” ZNet, 12 September 2005. Available from http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Conte...9/12landau.cfm. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Linzer, Dafna. “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy.” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Monthly Review, “Guess Who's Building Nuclear Power Plants”; available from http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ShahNuclearPlants.jpg. Internet; accessed 10 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Iran Profile: Nuclear Chronology”; available from http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/1825_1826.html. Internet; accessed 11 January 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Iran Profile: Nuclear Overview”; available from http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/1819.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ommani, Ardeshir. “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Iran and Iran's Nuclear Program.” Swans Commentary, 20 June 2005. [/FONT][FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Available from http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ommani01.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Rafizadeh, Mansur. Witness: From the Shah to the Secret Arms Deal: An Insider's Account of U.S. Involvement in Iran. New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1987. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Pan, Esther. “Iran: The Nuclear Threat.” Council on Foreign Relations, 6 September 2005. Available from http://www.cfr.org/publication/8830/. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Parsi, Trita. Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Sahimi, Mohammad. “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy.” International Herald Tribune, 14 October 2003, OPINION , p.8. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Sahimi, Mohammad. “Iran's Nuclear Program: Part I: Its History.” Payvand, 2 October 2003. Available from http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1015.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Sahimi, Mohammad. “Iran's Nuclear Program: Part II: Are Nuclear Reactors Necessary?” Payvand, 2 October 2003. Available from http://www.payvand.com/news/03/oct/1022.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Sahimi, Muhammad. “Forced to Fuel: Iran's Nuclear Energy Program.” Harvard International Review 26, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 42-45. EBSCOhost. Database on-line. Academic Search Premier; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Sciolino, Elaine. “The World; Nuclear Ambitions Aren't New for Iran.” New York Times, 22 June 2003, sec. 4, col. 1, p. 4. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Stern, Roger. “Iran Actually Is Short Of Oil.” International Herald Tribune, 9 January 2007, OPINION, p. 6. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Stockman, Farah. “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT.” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1. LexisNexis Academic. Database on-line. General search; accessed January 9, 2008. [/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ul Haq, Noor. “Iran Nuclear Stand-Off.” Islamabad Research Policy Institute Fact Files, no. 78 (Sept. 2006): 1-104. Available from http://ipripak.org/factfiles/ff78.pdf. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]



[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][1]Dick Cheney as quoted by Dafna Linzer in “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][2]Sir Eldon Griffiths, Turbulent Iran: Recollections, Revelations, and a Plan for Peace (Santa Ana, CA: Seven Locks Press, 2006), 201-202.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][3]Ibid., 202.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][4]Ibid.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][5]Ibid.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][6]Farah Stockman, “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][7]Griffiths, Turbulent Iran, 202.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][8][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Ibid., 204.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][9]Ardeshir Ommani, “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Iran and Iran's Nuclear Program,” Swans Commentary, 20 June 2005. [/FONT][FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Available from http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ommani01.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][10]Dafna Linzer, “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][11]Farah Stockman, “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][12]Farah Stockman, “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][13]Mohammad Sahimi, “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy,” International Herald Tribune, 14 October 2003, OPINION , p.8.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][14]Nuclear Threat Initiative, “Iran Profile: Nuclear Overview”; available from http://www.nti.org/e_research/profiles/Iran/1819.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][15]Roger Stern, “Iran Actually Is Short Of Oil,” International Herald Tribune, 9 January 2007, OPINION, p. 6.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][16]Mohammad Sahimi, “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy,” International Herald Tribune, 14 October 2003, OPINION , p.8.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][17]Kaveh L. Afrasiabi, Iran's Nuclear Program: Debating Facts Versus Fiction (Charleston, SC: BookSurge, LLC, 2006), 19.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][18]Anthony H. Cordesman and Ahmed Hashim, Iran: Dilemmas of Dual Containment (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997), 83.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][19]Reese Erlich, The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle-East Crisis (Sausalito, CA: PoliPointPress, LLC, 2007), 20.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][20]Mohammad Sahimi, “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy,” International Herald Tribune, 14 October 2003, OPINION , p.8.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][21]Roger Stern, “Iran Actually Is Short Of Oil,” International Herald Tribune, 9 January 2007, OPINION, p. 6.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][22]Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, as quote by Griffiths in Turbulent Iran, 202.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][23]Marvin Miller as quoted by Farah Stockman in “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][24]Cordesman, Iran: Dilemmas of Dual Containment, 96.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][25]Mohammad Sahimi, “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy,” International Herald Tribune, 14 [FONT=Times New Roman]October 2003, OPINION , p.8.[/FONT][/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][26]Roger Stern, “Iran Actually Is Short Of Oil,” International Herald Tribune, 9 January 2007, OPINION, p. 6.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][27]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][28]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][29]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][30]Mohammad Sahimi, “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy,” International Herald Tribune, 14 October 2003, OPINION , p.8.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][31]Roger Stern, “Iran Actually Is Short Of Oil,” International Herald Tribune, 9 January 2007, OPINION, p. 6.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][32]Mohammad Sahimi, “Iran Needs Nuclear Power; Energy,” International Herald Tribune, 14 October 2003, OPINION , p.8.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][33]Cordesman, Iran: Dilemmas of Dual Containment, 91.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][34]Mohammad H. Kargarnovin as quoted by Farah Stockman in “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][35]Farah Stockman, “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.
[/FONT][/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman][36]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][37]Edward Mason as quoted by Farah Stockman in “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][38]Ardeshir Ommani, “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Iran and Iran's Nuclear Program,” Swans Commentary, 20 June 2005. [/FONT][FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Available from http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ommani01.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][39]Mark J. Gasiorowski, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 93.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][40]Trita Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 36.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][41]Khosrow Fatemi, “The Iranian Revolution: Its Impact on Economic Relations with the United States,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 12, no. 31 (1980): 304.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][42]Parsi, Treacherous Alliance, 36.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][43]Christos P. Ioannides, America's Iran: Injury and Catharsis (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, Inc., 1984), 5.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][44]Dafna Linzer, “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][45]Monthly Review, “Guess Who's Building Nuclear Power Plants”; available from http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/ShahNuclearPlants.jpg. Internet; accessed 10 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][46]Henry Kissenger as quoted by Dafna Linzer in “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][47]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][48]Charles Naas as quoted by Dafna Linzer in “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][49]Shahid-ur-Rehman Khan, “U.S. Under Ford Offered Iran Closed Fuel Cycle Capabilities,” Nucleonics Week, 4 November 2004, 12.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][50]Dafna Linzer, “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][51]Erlich, The Iran Agenda, 18.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][52]Elaine Sciolino, “The World; Nuclear Ambitions Aren't New for Iran,” New York Times, 22 June 2003, sec. 4, col. 1, p. 4.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][53]Morteza Gharehbaghian, “Oil Revenue and the Militarization of Iran: 1960-1978,” Social Scientist 15, no. 4/5 (Apr.-May, 1987): 90.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][54]Parsi, Treacherous Alliance, 40.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][55]Fatemi, “The Iranian Revolution: Its Impact on Economic Relations with the United States,” 306.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][56]Mohammad Sahimi as quote by Erlich in The Iran Agenda, 22.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][57]Gary Sick as quote by Dafna Linzer in, “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][58]Khan, “U.S. Under Ford Offered Iran Closed Fuel Cycle Capabilities,” 12.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][59]Farah Stockman, “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif][60]Ardeshir Ommani, “U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Iran and Iran's Nuclear Program,” Swans Commentary, 20 June 2005. [/FONT][FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Available from http://www.swans.com/library/art11/ommani01.html. Internet; accessed 9 January 2008.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][61]Mark Hibbs, “U.S. in 1983 Stopped IAEA from Helping Iran Make UF6 ,” Nuclear Fuel, 4 August 2004, 12.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][62]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman][63]Ibid.[/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][64]Muhammad Sahimi, “Forced to Fuel: Iran's Nuclear Energy Program,” Harvard International Review 26, no. 4 (Winter 2005): 42.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][65]Farah Stockman, “Iran's Nuclear Vision First Glimpsed at MIT,” Boston Globe, 12 March 2007, NATIONAL, pg. A1.[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][66]Mark J. Gasiorowski, U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah, 22-27. The author weighs 58 countries with regards to the strength of their “client” relationship with the U.S. during the years 1954-1977 on the basis of a combination of U.S. economic aid (Iran is listed as 3rd in the Middle-East with $82.1 million listed), U.S. military trainees (Iran is by far 1st in the Middle-East with 459,000 trainees listed), and the existence of any defense treaties with the U.S. (Iran, which is listed as adopting a defense treaty with the U.S. in 1965, is listed as the first to do so among Middle-Eastern countries).[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][67]Dafna Linzer, “Past Arguments Don't Square With Current Iran Policy,” Washington Post, 27 March 2005, sec. A, p. 15.[/FONT][/FONT]

[FONT=Courier New, monospace][FONT=Times New Roman, serif][68]Ibid.[/FONT][/FONT]