In response to our post, “Is the U.S. ‘Offer’ to Iran on Medical Isotopes a Pretext for More Coercive Action?”, it was suggested on another website that the current worldwide shortage of medical isotopes is only temporary and that, therefore, the Obama Administration’s offer to ensure that Iran has the opportunity to purchase medical isotopes on the world market is both serious and well-motivated. We thought that these points deserved a response and further amplification from us, particularly in light of the Western media’s easy penchant for accepting at face value the Obama Administration’s claim that its generous “offers of engagement over Iran’s nuclear ambitions” have been “spurned” by Tehran.
In a narrow sense, the current shortage of medical isotopes is likely to be temporary, in that the return of Canadian and Dutch reactors to service later this year will boost the supply of Molybdenum-99. But this kind of shortage is now occurring on a regular basis—there were similar “temporary” shortages in 2007 and 2008. This trend reflects the ongoing reality of a tight international market for medical isotopes, characterized by growing worldwide demand for these materials and a finite number of small and aging research reactors that supply them, as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has documented. Moreover, the kind of shortage that the world is experiencing now, even if “temporary” in a narrow sense, will recur; just last year, the IAEA warned that “the issue of medical isotope supply shortages stands to be a recurring theme”.
The only plausible long-term solutions to the problem are to construct additional, new research reactors and to upgrade existing reactors that have not been involved in isotope production so that they can fulfill that purpose—which is precisely what Iran has been working to do with the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR). Relying solely on imported medical isotopes (as the United States does, consuming by itself half of the available world supply in the process) is wasteful (especially for a developing country like Iran) because of the short (literally hours-long) half-life of the materials involved. Furthermore, to suggest, as the Obama Administration does, that Iran can continue to rely completely on the international market for medical isotopes with confidence of assured supply is simply not consistent with the realities of that market. And, we have yet to see a persuasive refutation of the point on which we quoted Geoffrey Forden:
“The real benefit to Iran for completing this deal, however, will not be the savings of a few million dollars or even the savings of nearly half the imported diagnostic radioisotopes from unavoidable wastage due to decays during shipment. The real savings will be the foot up Iran gets in its health care from starting to develop its own nuclear medicine industry. The discrepancy between the use of diagnostic isotopes in Iran and the developed world can, and should, be dramatically reduced, as it should for the entire world.”
–Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
Hi folks
does anybody of has information about the ability of iran to produce the fuel for the TRR on its own? The western governments dispute Irans ability to do so. What is your opinion?
Arnold – I think you’re right. It depends on how much help Iran wants with their programme, and probably nothing else, unless the US is genuinely prepared to realign their regional strategy with the views of the general public in the Middle East.
I have to say I think that is the type of mission Obama could consider to be worthy; it’s just whether it is politically realistic.
James:
Does anyone have details on the Turkey or Japan offers? I haven’t seen how they are much different from what was offered in Vienna.
Can Iran trust Turkey to return its LEU if the fuel is not delivered? If it can, then what is the difference between doing the swap on Iranian soil? If it cannot, then what is the difference between doing the swap under the original terms?
Alan:
I’d think there may be ideas that Iran would have accepted in 2005 that it would not accept today.
James — it can make sense to ignore the offers of Japan and Turkey to act as middlemen if the offer was never intended to be accepted by the US, and was instead a cynical attempt at tainting Iran as the “intransigent” party. There are lots of potential solutions to the nuclear standoff that have been ignored by the US. Iran’s offer to operate its nuclear program as a multinational venture, for example. The ONLY logical conclusion is that the nuclear issue is pretextual, and the US would not accept any nuclear program in Iran, no matter how well-inspected or controlled or monitored, because it needs to artificially keep the nuclear issue alive as a rallying cry. Remember, wmds in Iraq were similarly pretextual. Saddam Hussein filed 22,000 page report detailing how he had gotten rid of the wmds, and was promptly vilified for filing such a voluminous report. You can’t win, if the other side doesn’t want to resolve a conflict.
Why won’t the US take up Turkey’s offer? Because Obama’s offer to negotiate with Iran was made in bad faith. They made an offer Tehran had to refuse and then blamed Iran for refusing it.
Power is not having to listen. The US has no intention of listening to Iran. Period.
I join James C. in wondering why the Turkish offer in particular is apparently getting little follow-up. Any thoughts, folks?
Anthony
Spangler is a fiction novelist, not a political analyst, probably aiming to get a job at Newscorp.
Non of his stuff is worth reading.
I continue to be fascinated by the Obama administration’s reluctance even to discuss the Turkish and Japanese offers to act as middleman for an exchange of Iranian LEU for the 20% U. How can it make sense to ignore the offers?
Have you guys read this piece by David P. Goldman? He seems to think that Obama is following an alliance strategy with Iran.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/spengler/2010/03/24/obamas-alliance-with-iran/
Does Iranian enrichment threaten Western industry? Could be. Just five reactors supply the world market for medical isotopes–a cozy little oligopoly. And many of those reactors are at the end of their useful lives, requiring huge investments to upgrade and replace them.
If Iran were run like a business, this would be the time to enter the medical isotope market. It would also be an excellent time to enter the reactor fuel and reactor construction businesses, since many Persian Gulf states are planning to acquire nuclear reactors of the own to supply electricity.
Were Iran able to bust the West’s cozy little oligopoly and the construction oligopoly that build the plants, it would not be good for Western companies’ profits. And you can bet they make that known in Washington, London, Paris, Amsterdam, etc.
Fiorangela asks a good question, one to which I too would like an answer. I have been following this issue with interest since it was taken up on this site, but have nothing of my own to offer, as my knowledge of the subject amounts to roughly zero.
If I recall correctly, Iran claimed that some 800,000 patients would be deprived of treatment if Iran were not able to replenish its supply of medical isotopes.
Even discounting for inevitable exaggeration, that’s a large number from a population of 70 million, of whom 60% are under 30, that is, born after the Iran-Iraq war, when so many Iranians were killed or chronically sickened by gas attacks.
My question is, are medical isotopes used extensively to treat the chronically disabling effects of chemical warfare that Iranians endured in the Iran-Iraq war?
Arnold – as you may be aware, Iran offered in 2005 to configure their enrichment in such a way to ensure large reserves of LEU never accummulated – they offered to set a ceiling to the LEU they would produce and would only produce more as the LEU stockpile was converted to fuel rods.
On the medical isotopes subject, strictly speaking the only way the West can interfere with the supply of the isotopes to Iran is by leaning on the companies that supply the finished isotopes. As the largest is an American company, Covidien/Tyco, it is perfectly possible they now decline to supply Iran to avoid any domestic hardship in the US. If that were the case, the US could have/be having an impact on supply to Iran, albeit thoroughly underhand.
The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, presented this latest metamorphosis of the administration’s thinking: that engagement is not necessarily about the two adversaries, but rather, about the worldview on America.
If “Israel lobby” allow “US” to engage with Iran without preconditions on the basis of mutual respect, this will produce results, which will be beneficial to America, Iran and Israel and will greatly enhance the worldview on America.
Let me add that the commonly heard explanation: that the West wants a period during which Iran has less than one ton of LEU in its domestic stock is of no value unless it is combined with a plan or intention to keep Iran at that level. By January 2011, at its current rate of production, Iran will have substantially more than one ton of LEU, even if it made the export under the terms the West asked for. It will not matter at all by then if at some point in April Iran had less than one ton.
The common explanation, again, only makes sense if the West believes that once Iran’s stock has been reduced, Iran can be pressured to leave its stock at a level acceptable to the West, which means an actual or virtual suspension (shipping LEU out on an ongoing basis as it’s enriched).
But given that at that point nearly the only leverage the West would have over Iran would be the delivery of the TRR fuel, what sense would it make for the West not to use that leverage?
If the West reaches a point where it is capable of withholding TRR fuel to pressure Iran to fulfill the West’s more important strategic objective regarding Iran, it is not plausible that the West would refrain from doing that.
Yet the deal is structured to require that Iran trust the West exactly to refrain from using the TRR delivery as a means to apply pressure.
The question that has never been answered is why it is non-negotiable that the supply of 20% enriched fuel comes after Iran has given up more than a full year’s production of LEU.
The only answer that makes sense is that after Iran has exported the uranium, the US will make a further suspension in line with the Security Council resolutions a condition for the full delivery of the reactor fuel. By this point Iran’s TRR situation will be more urgent and Iran will have fewer alternative options.
A pretext for delay, impurities in Iran’s LEU, financial difficulties, unnamed technological glitches, will be easy to concoct once Iran has made a commitment. Like Bushehr and the S-300s air defense system, Iran can reasonably expect delivery of TRR fuel to be delayed, under one pretext or another, until after Iran agrees to formal talks.
In that light, the deal was another way to apply pressure on Iran to suspend enrichment. My working theory as of now is that the administration believed it could “trick” the Iranians, or that after Qom, Iran would be so desperate to lower tension that it had no choice but to take a step down the path to full suspension of enrichment.
A severe misreading of the Iranian position, but one that fits the attitudes toward the Iranians I see in places like armscontrolwonk and in interviews with US proliferation officials.