Ordered by the House of Commons to be published on 28 January 2014
Oral evidence, 28 January 2014.
Witness
Mark Fitzpatrick, Director, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament Programme, International Institute for Strategic Studies, gave evidence.
Chair
Our next witness is Mr Mark Fitzpatrick, who is director of the non-proliferation and disarmament programme at the International Institute for Strategic Studies? May I welcome you, Mr Fitzpatrick, and apologise for the fact you had to wait? I hope you agree that we have just had a very interesting session. Is there something you would like to say by way of opening remarks?
Mark Fitzpatrick
Yes, Mr Chairman. I thought I would speak for a couple of minutes about my impressions of the joint plan of action that was being discussed towards the end of that previous session. I am positive for the short term. Under the joint plan of action, Iran’s nuclear capabilities are capped. The time to produce a weapons-worth of highly enriched uranium will double instead of being halved by next December as had been projected. The threat of war has been put off. Iran’s pragmatic new President delivered on his promise to start dialling back sanctions, and his negotiators made most of the compromises. Neither side has any incentive to cheat. The wind has come out of the sails of the US Congressional push to adopt new sanctions, which would scuttle diplomacy in my view. There is growing recognition that to be politically viable, any final deal would have to allow some degree of enrichment on Iran’s soil. But I am pessimistic about the long term. The two sides are simply too far apart in their demands for what a comprehensive deal must entail. The west wants deep cutbacks, elimination of the vast majority of the centrifuges and Fordow and Arak facilities and for the period of limitations to last up to 20 years. It also wants clarity concerning the evidence of Iran’s past weapons development work. Iran does not want to dismantle anything or to give up its capability to be able to produce nuclear weapons. It is willing to make tactical adjustments, but it seeks limits that last only a short time. In exchange, Iran wants all sanctions lifted. There are technical solutions, as Lord Lamont mentioned. Rather than being dumbed down, Arak can be upgraded to a light-water reactor with conditions that make it proliferation-resistant. The time frame for the limitations can be left up to the IAEA to apply neutral objective criteria. If Iran accepts and fully implements the additional protocol, after a few years the IAEA could draw up conclusions about no undeclared nuclear activity. Whether the solutions are politically acceptable to the key capitals, however, I doubt. My best guess is that the negotiators will not produce a comprehensive agreement and that at the end of the six months the interim period will be rolled over, probably with some further incremental limits to both the nuclear programme and to sanctions. Whether it can be rolled over for more than another six months is too early to tell, especially in the light of the mid-term US elections in November.
Chair
Thank you very much indeed, Mr Fitzpatrick. I know you were listening to the last session and heard the members of the all-party group. Do you agree with their assessment right at the end that if Mr Ahmadinejad was still the President there would have been no agreement and no joint plan of action?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I think that is a fair assessment. He could not have still been President because the term of election was eight years, but Mr Jalili, who was presumed to be the front-runner, supported by the Supreme Leader, would not, I think, have made this deal.
Chair
Who is in charge of the nuclear programme now?
Mark Fitzpatrick
That is a tough question. There is a kind of consensus way that decisions are made in Iran. Ultimately, of course, the Supreme Leader has the say and nothing will happen of this importance without his agreement, but he alone cannot make a decision that is contrary to the views of the others in what is sometimes called the elite. So there are various circles of power and a kind of consensus. Who is in charge of the nuclear programme? On the one hand it is the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran, led by an ally of the President, but I do not think that they are in charge of the weaponisation work of which there has been evidence in the past. I think military organisations are in charge of that which run—or have run—parallel operations.
Chair
Do you buy the argument that there are factions in Iran who will actively try to prevent a deal from being done?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I am certain that there are opponents to this deal and they probably could be described as factions. Parts of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps are doing very well under the current sanctions regime: they reap the black market profits from the sanctions when private businesses cannot compete. I think, just for pure commercial reasons, they might oppose the deal, but they might also oppose it because they do not like the west—the United Kingdom and the United States—and they do not want to do business with us.
Chair
Last year, you told us that Iran was capable of producing enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb within months. Is that still your assessment?
Mark Fitzpatrick
Yes, but, as I mentioned in my opening statement, that time period will probably double under the joint plan of action, because the 20% enriched uranium will be eliminated. That makes it take longer to produce the fissile material.
Mr Baron
Not so long ago, and staying with Iran’s capacity to produce a nuclear bomb, opinion was cleanly divided between those who thought that Iran had made the decision and was in the process of taking on a nuclear weapons programme, with it being a question of time, and others who believed that they were just trying to get to the point of capability without having made the decision to take the next step. What is your assessment?
Mark Fitzpatrick
My assessment is that Iran has had a nuclear weapons capability for some time. It is not one point; it is a continuum, and they have wanted to be able to produce a nuclear weapon in a short amount of time if they make the political decision to do so. I have seen no evidence that they have made that decision. So I would say that they wanted to get that capability better and better so they would have it if circumstances were to mean that they wanted to go the rest of the way.
Mr Baron
What is your answer to those, including the western powers, who looked at the last IAEA report—going back to November 2011—and concluded from that that Iran had definitely made a decision to go for it, despite there being no smoking gun?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I am not aware of too many analysts who were so certain that Iran had made a decision to produce nuclear weapons. Most of the analysts I respect voiced opinions similar to the one I did: that they wanted to get to the point where they could make a dash for it, if they made a decision to do so.
Sir Menzies Campbell
Who would you say made the running and can claim the credit for the plan for the discussions that led to the joint plan of action? Where did the impetus come from?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I think that there are probably multiple impetuses, but I would say that the sanctions were certainly part of it. They created a political environment that helped Rouhani win the election. In the election debate, the nuclear issue came up, as did the sanctions. If you take a poll in Iran, you will find, as some pollsters have, that most people do not say that they voted for Rouhani because he wanted to get rid of sanctions. They ascribe other reasons, but sanctions certainly were part of it and his desire to turn a corner was another part of it. He was interested in a pragmatic way of moving forward. He wanted to be able to retain the capability, but to be willing to make tactical adjustments that would allow sanctions to be lifted.
Sir Menzies Campbell
And on the other side of the argument?
Mark Fitzpatrick
Certainly the six powers are all led by Governments that wanted to make a deal, and obviously they have.
Sir Menzies Campbell
I am just interested in what the dynamic was. How was it that something which had seemed impossible until Rouhani’s election—
Mark Fitzpatrick
I think that one could make a distinction with a year and a half ago, when the negotiations were going on in a series of capitals—Baghdad, Istanbul and Moscow. In each of those capitals the six powers came with a proposal and Iran did not want to negotiate. They offered a completely unrealistic set of demands. They weren’t really negotiations. Iran changed its President and he was willing actually to negotiate, to be transactional. That is the biggest factor.
Mike Gapes
May I take you to the joint plan of action? What are the main concessions that the western side has made to get this agreement and—the same question I asked the parliamentarians—can you see any obvious loopholes or problems?
Mark Fitzpatrick
The west started off with some demands. Remember the three famous demands: stop, ship and shut. Stop the 20% enrichment, ship out the accumulated stockpile of 20% and shut down Fordow. They got “stop”, they didn’t get “ship” or “shut”, so you might say that they made concessions in their demands. They didn’t get everything that they asked for, nor did they get the amount of clarity about the past work at places like Parchin. They made concessions on sanctions, but I would argue that what they gave up is rather minuscule in contrast to the amount of sanctions that Iran remains under. The loopholes that I worry about a little bit are that Iran is allowed to maintain R and D on advanced centrifuges. They are allowed to keep some of the second, third and fourth generation—even sixth generation—centrifuges spinning at the pilot plant at Natanz, and they will be doing development work somewhere else.
Mike Gapes
May I ask you about this question of concealment of sites? The Fordow facility was not acknowledged, it was discovered late, in 2009. Could we make an assumption that there might be other secret sites that we do not know about that might yet be disclosed or detected, and blow apart the whole deal?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I think it is a pretty fair assumption that there are some other facilities that have not been revealed, because it is Iran’s policy not to reveal nuclear facilities until such a time as they are about ready to come into operation. That is their policy, so, yes, I think there very well could be other facilities. Now, would the discovery of those facilities lead to the deal being blown up? Quite possibly, depending on how far along they were. If they had centrifuges running in violation of IAEA safeguards requirements—they have to declare before any centrifuges actually run with uranium in them—then that, I think, would blow it up. If there were empty halls, maybe it wouldn’t blow up the deal, but it would certainly create some trouble.
Mike Gapes
May I also ask you about Parchin? Perhaps you could clarify, because we got into an exchange earlier. Is the omission of mention of Parchin in the joint action plan a serious problem?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I don’t think it is a serious problem, because the E3+3 negotiations with Iran were focused on their current actions and activities and the future, as Mr Wallace said. There is a separate diplomatic forum to talk about the issues of the past. Those are the diplomatic discussions going on with the IAEA. You are certainly right: the IAEA has asked repeatedly to go to Parchin and the IAEA’s new deal, which they got with Iran recently, does not allow Parchin. I do not think even that is a show-stopper, because I don’t think the IAEA is going to find anything at Parchin even if they went.
Mike Gapes
Because they took all the earth away.
Mark Fitzpatrick
Yes, and they cleaned it out and so forth. So I wouldn’t make such a big deal about it. The main point is this: Iran has to explain these allegations of past weaponisation work. They have to be able to explain why there is so much evidence of that, even if it is not conclusive. Until they do, the IAEA won’t be able to fully come to grips with their programme. I don’t think that you could just sweep that under the rug and say: “Well, the past is past, they did weaponisation work in the past” and forget about it. You have to have a starting place to be able to evaluate future activities and whether that was really all in the past or whether it is present.
Mike Gapes
Another question that comes out of the joint plan of action is this agreement that they were going to dilute the uranium oxide back to a form which can be used in centrifuges. How long does that take and how easy is it to do? Can it be done secretly?
Mark Fitzpatrick
Perhaps I could just rephrase your question. The issue is one of reconversion of the oxide to the gasified form. How long does that take, could it be done in secret? There is debate about how long it can take. Most technical experts who understand how centrifuge and uranium enrichment work will tell you it doesn’t take too long at all, maybe a few weeks once you have a line established to do it. Setting up the line might take a few weeks and then actually doing it might only take a couple of weeks. Could it be done in secret? The activity could probably be done in secret, but probably not, because the material itself is safeguarded. The IAEA keeps watch on that oxide, so if it is taken away somewhere and done in a secret facility, the IAEA would discover that.
Mike Gapes
Finally, the joint action plan establishes a joint commission which is supposed to work with the IAEA to facilitate resolution of past and present issues of concern. You have alluded to some of these issues in the past; how will this joint commission work and what will it be dealing with?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I won’t be able to answer that question very well because that is one of the details that is not spelled out in what has been made public by the implementation plan. They just announced that there is going to be this body. It is pretty common in these kinds of negotiations to have some body, but I don’t have any insights into how exactly it will work.
Mike Gapes
Is it possible that there will be a separate, secret agreement about how it will work?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I wouldn’t call it a secret agreement exactly. It is established diplomatic process that when you have detailed negotiations such as this, some parts are not made public. It is actually an indication of the seriousness of the negotiators that they don’t run out and make everything public. I know that in my country, the United States, some legislators are demanding that it be made public because they fear that there might be some secret thing that could be to the detriment of their country, but as a former diplomat I do not think it is too unusual.
Chair
Do you accept that it might be possible to agree with the IAEA and not agree with the requirements of the joint plan of action?
Mark Fitzpatrick
This may not answer your question exactly—
Chair
You may rephrase my question if you want. I rather like that phrase.
Mark Fitzpatrick
Thank you—you are being very generous. I think there is an issue here that you are both touching on, that these two sets of diplomatic negotiations are not addressing the same set of issues and they could come into conflict, because the IAEA’s role is to clarify past activity, while the six powers are looking to the future and some of them might seek to forget about what happened in the past. I saw this happen in the North Korea negotiations. We never got to the bottom of what happened with North Korea’s past nuclear activity and the IAEA was excluded from being able to verify this when the US-North Korea agreement came into place. It only verified the new agreement, not the past. I hope that that does not happen with the Iran case.
Mike Gapes
It is not a good precedent, is it?
Mark Fitzpatrick
No.
Sir John Stanley
Do you think that Iran may have a concealed plutonium route to a nuclear weapons programme other than possibly at Arak?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I don’t think it would be so easy to conceal a plutonium route fully because you have first to produce the plutonium in a reactor, and reactors give off signals of heat and they’re large. The better question might be, might they have a secret reprocessing facility so that they could take the spent fuel that comes out of Arak and make it weapons-usable? It is not so hard to have a secret reprocessing facility, but the IAEA will be safeguarding the spent fuel, so if it is diverted, the inspectors would know about that.
Chair
Are you confident that Iran will stick to the terms of the deal?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I think Iran has every incentive to stick to the terms of the deal, because they want these sanctions lifted. If they break the deal, not only would they lose the small benefits that they are getting, they would lose the hope of future benefits, and the sanctions would pile on. The United States Senate has additional sanctions on the shelf. If Iran breaks the deal, even the Obama Administration would be in favour of imposing new sanctions. The issue might be, though, would Iran do something in some other realm, such as secret facilities, that would scuttle the deal. They would not intend to do it, but they would do something that would have an external impact. It might not be secret nuclear facilities: it could be something in Syria. Say the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who are already assisting the Assad regime, assisted in a bigger way with more troops—right now, they are mostly putting in advisers. That could cause a backlash in western capitals.
Chair
They have to come back to the table within one year. Some people have said that actually all they want is six-month deals that just keep rolling over. Do you think there is any merit in that?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I do not think that Iran is the party that is most interested in rolling over the deal in order to, as is often said, buy time while they continue some nuclear work. They have already been continuing all their nuclear work with no negotiations, so having negotiations doesn’t give them any additional benefit: in fact, it caps their programme. They are probably the ones who are more in a hurry to get a final deal, even though they do not talk that way. They talk as though it is, “Oh well, maybe let the West be the ones”, but they have an incentive. The West probably has an incentive to keep it capped. If there is not a comprehensive deal struck in the next six months, it is probably to western capitals’ benefit to roll this over to keep the lid on the programme.
Chair
From what you were saying a moment ago, you seemed to acknowledge that the sanctions are working—they have had an impact—in negotiating terms.
Mark Fitzpatrick
Yes, that is my belief. The sanctions had an impact in persuading Iran to come to the table and to try to strike a deal quickly.
Chair
So it was a combination of Rouhani’s election and sanctions?
Mark Fitzpatrick
That is my answer, yes.
Chair
Can you see any viable alternatives to the joint plan of action?
Mark Fitzpatrick
No, I think the alternative to the joint plan of action is a no-deal and Iran shortening this period by which it could have a weapon and moving to a path toward war. The alternative of no-deal is a very scary path.
Chair
So you think we will do a deal, do you?
Mark Fitzpatrick
I am certainly in favour of it, yes.
Chair
But do you think it will happen? Do you think a long-term comprehensive agreement will be reached?
Mark Fitzpatrick
No, I don’t. I think it would be too difficult politically for Iran to accept the limits that would be required and for Washington to give Iran what it wants in terms of lifting sanctions. I was asked earlier what percentage I would assign to a comprehensive deal, and I said 10%. Then I was asked what percentage for another six-month deal, a roll-over. I said 80%. That leaves 10% for a total collapse and a calamity.
Chair
You said in answer to a question from Mr Gapes a moment ago that it was possible that there were hidden facilities. That, coupled with the fact that you give an 80% improbability of a comprehensive agreement being reached, is a fairly pessimistic picture.
Mark Fitzpatrick
These hidden facilities that are probably out there somewhere may not have too much equipment in them, and that alone would not scuttle the deal.
Chair
On that cheery note, I have to confess that you have been a Chairman’s dream. We have actually got the programme back on track today and you have answered all our questions succinctly and accurately. For that I thank you very much.
Mark Fitzpatrick
You are welcome. Thank you for having me again.
Chair
Thank you. Oral evidence: UK policy towards Iran, HC 904 28