Aaron took a long weekend in Istanbul, but Jeffrey and Karl were hard at work!
Jeffrey talks to Christopher Bidwell, a senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists and co-author of a new report, Verifying a Nuclear Agreement with Iran.
The report concludes that any “agreement should require Iran to provide, prior to the next phase of sanctions relief, a comprehensive declaration that is correct and complete concerning all aspects of its nuclear program both current and past.”
Jeffrey recently wrote a column for Foreign Policy arguing that such a disclosure by Iran at the outset might actually be counterproductive. OMG TMI.
Listen to Jeffrey and Chris discuss how much Iran should disclose up front about what its done in the past.
Two things strike me as missing from this excellent conversation: the IAEA was mentioned only a couple of times in passing; and any declaration of PMD will need to be verified before it’s deemed sufficient – how do you do that? And who does it?
People who are familiar with the allegations, history of the programs, and weapons design sit down with them and determine if the declarations are sufficient (explain in enough detail) and complete (not hiding other programs or components). Also, review by documents experts in intel field, etc for telltale signs of forgeries or coverups etc.
I should really finish my R265 writeup.