INTRODUCTION
B. Development during the Shah’s Reign
The Shah continued to push for nuclear energy development in Iran throughout the 1970s, thinking that this would be one of the quick- est ways to modernize Iran. Money was no object. With the coun- try’s booming oil export trade, the Shah was willing to invest almost unlimited resources in Iran’s nuclear energy program.15 At the peak of Iran’s economic development during the Shah’s reign, Iran was ac- tively cooperating with the United States, China, Brazil, Japan, and
11. Contract between the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran and the United States of America for the transfer of Enriched Uranium and Plutonium for a Research Reactor in Iran, U.S.- Iran, Dec. 22, 1967, 1967 U.N.T.S. 112.
12. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, at 53 (2012).
13. Muhammad Sahimi, Atoms for Peace, Cairo Rev. of Global Aff., July 21, 2013.
14. Id.
15. Id. at 20– 21.
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other countries, arranging visits and exchanges.16 Relations were es- pecially good between the United States and Iran during this period.
U.S. President Richard Nixon and the Shah were close friends, and Nixon approved of the idea of Iran acting as a “regional policeman”
of the Middle East.17
In the early 1970s, Iran’s nuclear program continued to grow and develop with the support of the United States and other Western powers. In 1973, the U.S.- based Stanford Research Institute as- sessed Iran’s nuclear energy needs and “recommended the building of nuclear plants capable of generating 20,000 megawatts of elec- tricity before 1994.”18 In 1974, France helped Iran to establish the Esfahan Nuclear Technology Center (ENTEC), which would work to develop the complete nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium enrich- ment, inside of Iran.19 Also in 1974, the Shah established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) and made substantial plans for development of the Iranian nuclear program and completion of the fuel cycle, including plans for the construction of twenty- three nuclear plants, which would generate around 23,000 megawatts of energy over a twenty- year period.20
Western support during this period included specific support for Iran’s uranium enrichment program. On March 14, 1975, in a National Security Study Memorandum 219, U.S. President Gerald
16. Id. at 36.
17. Id. at 49.
18. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Tackling the Iran- U.S. Crisis: The Need for a Paradigm Shift, 60 J. Int’l Aff. 73, 80 (2007).
19. Muhammad Sahimi, Atoms for Peace, Cairo Rev. of Global Aff., July 21, 2013; see also Mark Hibbs, U.S. in 1983 Stopped IAEA from Helping Iran Make UF6, 28 Bonn Nuclear Fuel 16 (Aug. 4, 2003). U.S. President Jimmy Carter opposed this bilateral agreement between Iran and France, and objected to France’s plans to help Iran produce nuclear material. Facing U.S. opposition, France stopped assisting Iran with enrichment activities but did continue to help with production of UO2 fuel and had plans to help Iran with purifying uranium until the time that work was halted at ENTEC because of the Iranian Revolution. Id.
20. Solving the Iranian Nuclear Puzzle, Arms Control Association 33 (September 2013).
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R. Ford directed “a study of the issues involved in reaching an ac- ceptable agreement with the Government of Iran which would allow nuclear commerce between the countries— specifically, the sale of the U.S. nuclear reactors and materials, Iranian investment in the U.S. enrichment facilities, and other appropriate nuclear transac- tions in the future.”21 In National Security Decision Memorandum 292, dated April 22, 1975, President Ford further determined that the United States would “permit U.S. materials to be fabricated into fuel in Iran for use in its own reactors and for pass- through to third countries with whom we have agreements.”22 In addition, the United States offered Iran uranium enrichment and reprocessing technologies, as well as the opportunity to invest in U.S. enrichment facilities.23
During this period of cooperation, Iran also contracted with a German firm, Kraftwerk, to build two 1,196 MW nuclear power re- actors at Bushehr, on Iran’s southwest coast.24 Construction on the Bushehr reactors began that same year, with a German subcontrac- tor, ThyssenKrupp AG, carrying out the construction.25 Kraftwerk estimated that the first reactor would be completed by 1980 and the second reactor by 1981.26 At the time of the 1979 Revolution, the first reactor was 85 percent complete.27
Iran had nuclear cooperation agreements in place with a number of other countries as well during this period. In June 1974, Iran struck a deal with France for two 900 MW reactors, a supply of ura- nium, and the future construction of a nuclear research center.28
21. Muhammad Sahimi, Iran Has a Right to Enrich— And America Already Recognized It, Nat’l Interest, Nov. 19, 2013.
22. Id.
23. Id.
24. William O. Beeman, Does Iran Have the Right to Enrich Uranium? The Answer Is Yes, Huffington Post, Oct. 31, 2013.
25. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, at 36– 37 (2012).
26. Id. at 38.
27. Id.
28. Id. at 39; see also Mohammad Javad Zarif, Tackling the Iran- U.S. Crisis: The Need for a Paradigm Shift, 60 J. Int’l Aff. 73, 80, at 80 (2007).
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Additionally, Iran purchased a 10 percent share in Eurodif, a French uranium enrichment enterprise.29 Iran also decided to source uranium from abroad, contracting with South African companies Nufcor and Rossing to supply 13,000 tons of uranium between 1978 and 1990.30 Iran further contracted with a Belgian company, Belgonucleaire, for a 30 MW research reactor.31
The official U.S. posture toward Iran during this time was gener- ally hopeful and cooperative. A 1978 U.S. State Department mem- orandum stated regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions: “we have been encouraged by Iran’s efforts to broaden its non- oil energy base. We are hopeful that the U.S.- Iran Nuclear Energy Agreement will be fi- nalized soon and that American companies will be able to play a role in Iran’s nuclear energy program.”32
Throughout the 1970s the Shah publicly maintained that he was pursuing nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.33 In his autobi- ography, Mission for My Country, the Shah contends that he was de- veloping the nuclear program “for a future of prosperity and peace, not of war and devastation.”34 He stated that his chief goals for the program were economic and industrial. He saw nuclear energy as a source of cheap power that could improve his country’s economy and meet its growing energy demands. He further saw nuclear power as a means of aligning Iran with the industrialized countries of the West.35
29. Id. at 80.
30. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, at 44 (2012).
31. Id. at 46.
32. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Tackling the Iran- U.S. Crisis: The Need for a Paradigm Shift, 60 J. Int’l Aff. 73, 80, at 80 (2007).
33. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, at 51 (2012).
34. Id.
35. Id. at 28– 29. Critics of Iran’s current nuclear program have alleged that Iran’s facilities far exceed its energy needs. For example, in the Washington Post in 2005, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger wrote that “for a major oil producer such as Iran, nuclear energy is a wasteful use of resources.” Mohammad Javad Zarif, Tackling the Iran- U.S. Crisis: The Need for a Paradigm Shift, 60 J. Int’l Aff. 73, 80, at 81
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Privately, however, the Shah may also have wanted to at least keep a nuclear weapons option on the table. After the 1974 nuclear weapon test by India, the Shah began to question the prudence of re- maining in the NPT and wondered if Iran, too, should pursue nuclear weapons. When the French news source Les Informations asked the Shah shortly thereafter if Iran would pursue nuclear weapons, the Shah responded, “without any doubt, and sooner than one would also think.”36 The Iranian embassy in France downplayed this state- ment and stated that the French media had fabricated it. But the statement, if essentially accurate, does seem to suggest that the Shah was at least considering the possibility of nuclear weapons develop- ment, as of course were many other countries during this period.37 Nevertheless, the Shah continued to state publicly that it was unnec- essary for Iran to develop a nuclear bomb due to the country’s strong conventional military capabilities. In 1975, he told the Washington Post that “[t] he best guarantee that I do not want nuclear weapons is the program I have launched in conventional weapons. I want to be able to take care of anything by non- nuclear arms.”38
(2007). However, Mohammad Zarif contends that nuclear reactors would provide a necessary substitute for Iran’s diminishing stock of oil and natural gas. He suggests that “Iran’s nuclear program is neither ambitious nor economically unjustifiable.
Diversification— including the development of nuclear energy— is the only sound and responsible energy strategy for Iran.” Id. at 79– 80. Interestingly, when Kissinger was secretary of state for President Ford, he wrote that “introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran’s economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals.” Id. at 81. Kissinger further explained that the issue of proliferation did not come up at this time because Iran was an ally of the United States. The change in Kissinger’s view over the succeeding decades strongly suggests that U.S. concern with Iran’s nuclear expansion is neither based on a lack of energy demand nor on proliferation concerns, but rather on the ebbing of political relations between the United States and Iran. Id.
36. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, at 59 (2012).
37. See Joseph Cirincione et al., Deadly Arsenals, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Threats 333 (2d ed. Carnegie Endowment 2005); Ariel Levite, Never Say Never Again: Nuclear Reversal Revisited, 27.3 Int’l Security 59– 88 (2002– 2003);
Carey Sublette, Nuclear Weapons Archive, http:// nuclearweaponarchive.org/ . 38. David Patrikarakos, Nuclear Iran: The Birth of an Atomic State, at 65 (2012).
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