Center for Security Policy Studies | In-Person for GMU students only

Description: Dr. Gregory Koblentz, Associate Professor in the Schar School and Director of the Biodefense Graduate Program, will present: “Crashing the Party? The Amad Plan and Iran’s Failed Sprint for Nuclear Weapons, 1999-2003.” The abstract for Dr. Koblentz’s paper appears below. The working paper is also available on request – please let me know if you want to access a copy. As usual, coffee and baked goods will be served!

Abstract — Between 1999 and 2003, Iran undertook an ambitious program, called the Amad Plan, to secretly construct an entire undeclared nuclear fuel cycle, including uranium mining, conversion, and enrichment facilities, as well as the full range of facilities needed to design, produce, and test nuclear warheads for delivery by ballistic missiles. While details about the Amad Plan were revealed in 2018 when Israel made public portions of the “atomic archive” stolen from Iran, the motivation for the program has remained a mystery. In the paper I argue that Iran launched the Amad Plan due to fear of a resurgent Iraq unconstrained by UN weapon inspections and sanctions. I also contend that Iran pursued a distinctive proliferation strategy, called crashing, that has not been the subject of study by the nuclear nonproliferation community. As a crash nuclear weapon program, the Amad Plan shared key characteristics with the Manhattan Project and the Soviet atomic bomb project after 1945. Iran’s Amad Plan, however, was ill-conceived and poorly executed, leading to its premature discovery which generated sufficient international pressure to force Iran to suspend the crash program in 2003. The publicly available portion of the atomic archive, along with other Iranian sources, provides a unique opportunity to study the decision-making of a nuclear proliferator from the inside. While Iran’s current security environment and domestic political situation are dramatically different from 1999, understanding Iran’s past decision-making is still important for understanding under what conditions Iran may decide to build nuclear weapons.

Event will take place @12pm, March 21st at VMH 602.