Iran's vow to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants will give impetus to big power talks on new sanctions, and if the ambitious expansion happens it will increase the risk of a military attack on the country. Iran's announcement is a gesture of defiance, two days after the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog, rebuked Tehran for building an uranium enrichment plant in secret near the city of Qom. “It's a crazy idea ... But you have to look under the surface. They're mad about the IAEA resolution ... It's playground behaviour in a way,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington. “From a political perspective (Tehran's announcement) is going to aggravate existing tensions,” said Jacqueline Shire, a senior analyst at the institute. Outgoing IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei had warned last week that Iran could react with “more hawkish counter-measures” if the six world powers censured it, and said the IAEA resolution could damage diplomatic efforts. Tehran has already vowed to downgrade its cooperation with the agency. The IAEA, which had asked Tehran to clarify whether it had any more nuclear facilities or plans for any after the secret site came to light, did not know of Iran's latest plan, according to a senior diplomat close to the Vienna-based agency. Iran says it has already chosen five sites for the new plants, suggesting that at least some of them have been in the planning stages for a while and that the announcement is more than just an empty threat to the West. But it would take Iran years to have such sites up and running and the scope appears overly ambitious given the technical restraints on Tehran's nuclear work. “Announcing 10 new sites is typical braggadocio,” said Mark Fitzpatrick, chief proliferation analyst at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies. Shire said the announcement smacked of “posturing” and that Iran did not have enough uranium ore to sustain an enrichment program of the size it was proposing. Albright said Iran was incapable of building 10 new uranium enrichment plants. “They don't have the capability,” he said. Iran faces other technical issues. It has levelled off the number of centrifuges operating at its Natanz uranium enrichment plant, which the new sites are supposed to resemble, and it has been having difficulty obtaining materials and components abroad for its atomic program because of current UN sanctions. “It is unlikely that Iran will have the capacity to outfit and operate additional industrial-scale facilities for some time,” Fitzpatrick said. Nevertheless, Iran's defiance and the threat of an even larger uranium enrichment program could make it easier for Western powers – the United States, Britain, France and Germany – to get Russia and China to back a new round of biting sanctions against Tehran's lifeblood energy sector. Russia and China, which both count Iran as an important trade partner, have largely been reluctant to back harsher measures against Tehran in international bodies. But they have moved closer to the other four powers, at least at the IAEA level, since the revelation of the plant near Qom and Tehran's apparent rejection of an IAEA-brokered fuel supply deal, intended to prevent it from diverting its stocks of low-enriched uranium for possible military use. Tehran currently lacks a fuel fabrication facility to turn its low-enriched uranium into civilian power plant fuel and its expansion plans will increase Western suspicions it is pursuing a bomb-making agenda under the cover of an atomic power program. Tehran says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. If uranium enrichment continues to expand unchecked and it builds more sites, Tehran could face military action from Israel, which sees the nuclear program as an existential threat given Iranian comments calling for the destruction of the Jewish state. Israel has not ruled out military strikes against the sites. “I am sad to say that Iran's announcement makes a military attack on the facilities more likely. If so, it will be a more target-rich environment,” Fitzpatrick said.
