Interview: nuclear security

A recording of my conversation with nuclear security expert Laura Holgate, covering Iran and other things to keep you up at night

You might remember—though it seems to have passed quickly from the national conversation—that a few weeks ago the United States joined Israel in bombing Iran’s nuclear development sites.

Plenty of questions remain. Did the bombings make the world safer? What is Iran really up to with its nuclear program? What comes next? And what else is happening in the realm of securing us from threats posed by use of nuclear materials, be they military or civilian, for weapons or energy?

For answers, I spoke this Monday with Laura Holgate, a former U.S. ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), among her various impressive roles over the years.

We discussed the questions above, as well as the ongoing relevance of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the recent State Department firings, the Trump administration’s abandonment of America’s soft power, and more. I’m afraid you may finish with more worries by the end than when you began.

This one is for everybody, and you’ll find a transcript below. But some future interviews will be for paid subscribers only; so please consider becoming one if you’re interested!

Bernstein: So I want to ask you about Iran first, and then a couple of other sort of general things. But on Iran: for the near term, can we at least feel like the world is a little safer from Iran's development of its nuclear program than we were before the Israeli and US bombings? Can we at least take that comfort, at least?

Holgate: I don't take that comfort. The setback is overstated. What we were talking about before the Israeli and US attacks was, maybe as quick as a week to 10 days to further enrich their stock of 60 percent material up to the 90 percent that's usually understood as weapons grade. But then it would take months after that, likely, to transform that material into a weapon itself. You can't do anything with 90 percent enriched uranium gas, which is what you end up with at the end of that seven- to 10-day period. You have to turn it into metal. You have to machine that metal into parts. You have to select a design, and you have to know what kind of delivery system you want to use. If you're using an air-dropped bomb then you have a little more leeway on the design, because it can be really big; but if you want to put it on the front end of a missile, that's a much more sophisticated design that requires less material, smaller size. And you know, countries typically do nuclear tests before they deploy such weapons, and Iran has not tested anything.

Bernstein: I'm sorry to cut you off, but I saw sort of conflicting things going on, and I'm just looking from the outside, but on what the intelligence was, both in the United States and elsewhere, about whether Iran had even made that decision to move forward turning this enriched uranium into actual usable weapons program. Was there clarity on that?

Holgate: The US assessment on that, that's been unclassified or declassified for a while now, although it doesn't change, had been no, that the Iranians had not yet decided. This is a very difficult concept for commentators and officials to hold in their head. I don't know why. But Iranians were pursuing a policy of ambiguity, on purpose. The metaphor I've been using has been they wanted to dance on that fence between non-weapons and weapons, right on that fence edge, as long as they could.

Bernstein:.Is this all a little reminiscent of before we launched our attacks on Iraq and the Bush administration was saying: “well, if they didn't have WMDs, why wouldn't they let us in?” And people who I was talking to, who were more experts in the field, were like: “you have to be able to look at it from their perspective. There are actual reasons why they wouldn't want to definitively show that they don't have them.” You know, is it a similar feeling as we had back then?

Holgate: It's not really analogous, in my view. Because unlike Iraq, Iran up until these strikes did allow extensive IAEA presence at their sites. The IAEA had eyes on the material. We know there was 400 kilograms of 60 percent material before the strikes. We know there were significant enrichment capabilities. All of that is true, and that's much more clarity than was had on the Iraq situation, because they had not allowed for inspections. Because Iraq had a different view. They didn't want to be ambiguous. They wanted to act like they had weapons without paying the price. That is not what Iran is doing. Iran wants to be seen, have their weapons program be seen as peaceful. And to give extensive, up until recently—extensive, but not complete—access to IAEA. And they were using, in my view, the enrichment levels as a communication mechanism with the West. There is no logic for them to have any highly enriched uranium at all. Of any level. The logic of 20 percent is questionable. Anything over 20 percent has no technical purpose. And there's no reason to stop at 60, except that it's not 90, which might be seen as provoking. There's no technical reason. And so they had to have the IAEA present to be reporting out these enrichment levels, in order to support their goal of ambiguity and of keeping everybody on edge, and keeping attention on them. Creating the space for them to implement their regional activities through Hezbollah and Syria and the Houthis and other proxies. What's different now is that they know that that ambiguity did not deter attack, right? And so now they have to think: ambiguity is no longer a safe space for them. So they have to think about which side of the fence do they jump off? Do they now make a sprint for a weapon? Depart from the NPT, nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, and the commitment that it made there not to have nuclear weapons? Or do they decide that the only safe solution is to enter into some kind of negotiation that preserves some level of peaceful nuclear technology under international supervision. The reason, to your original question, the reason I don't feel safer is that a month ago, I was confident that Iran was pursuing this ambiguity thing, and that they had every reason to stay on the 60 percent unless they were given a better deal to jump off the fence on the side of negotiations. Now they have to make a choice. There's a lot of pressures inside Iran, and there's no guarantee that the choice they make will leave us any safer than we were a month ago.

Bernstein: And what are the signals coming in? Because I, again, just on the outside, reading an occasional report, first they're saying, we're not going to let the IAEA in, then we are. And then, just most recently, some of the moderates signaling that they want to reopen negotiations with the US, but there's a lot of fear about them, like you said, dropping out of the Non Proliferation Treaty. How do you read these signals? Is it just sort of a battle going on inside Iran right now?

Holgate: Yeah, I think the Iranians are still battling it out. And I think, I mean even the press report that I read this morning from the AP quoting their foreign minister was that they still haven't had a full damage assessment themselves of the facilities. They don't know what’s still there. They don't know whether there's unexploded ordnance that's there. They don't know whether there's contamination. Now, I've been spending a lot of time reminding people that highly enriched uranium is not very radioactive, so you're not going to get radioactivity problems from that. But it is, in a gaseous form it is mixed with fluorine, which is extremely toxic if you breathe it. And they may have had other kinds of nuclear materials, more industrial type materials, at some of these facilities, which could be more radioactive. So I think there's a reasonableness—I don't love the tone, but there's a reasonableness of their decision to pause IAEA presence at these sites until they themselves get a handle on what's happened. It does further break the continuity of knowledge that the agency has, and that's not a good thing. But it was a predictable thing before these strikes happened. I don't want to suggest that they've been perfect, that Iran has been perfect in terms of its dealings with the IAEA. There are a number of historical questions that the IAEA has been investigating that Iran has not been forthcoming on, and those questions do have implications for what current activities they may have. And there may be covert facilities. That's, to me, the biggest deal, is that there may be facilities that were not discovered by Israel's espionage, that were not revealed to the IAEA. And that would be a violation, by the way, if they had those facilities and they weren't revealed, that's not okay. But if they have them and they weren't damaged then, and they were able to remove the highly enriched uranium before the bombs fell, then maybe they are able to, maybe they're already starting on that enrichment sprint right now.

Bernstein: I saw in the last, just in the last day or two, there's talk of some of the European countries talking about imposing sanctions, snapback sanctions, under the JCPOA. And then Iran today, I think, warning that there would be repercussions if that happens—which, frankly, those of us in the United States, we thought the JCPOA had died seven years ago, right? So, how is that? Is that part of the calculations going on? Is that part of what you're watching?

Holgate: Absolutely. So, no, the JCPOA, to the degree that elements of it were embedded in UN Security Council resolutions, still lives. And the Europeans, anyway, have continued to abide by the sanctions relief that was granted by those resolutions. The opportunity to snap back those sanctions ends in October, when that Security Council resolution expires. So this was a decision made, five years or 10 years ago, that this October would be the last moment in which sanctions could be snapped back. Now, we didn't really envision that the US would walk away from the deal, and then that Iran eventually would blow past every limit that the deal can take. But that's been kind of the ultimate hammer that has been behind the various diplomatic moves that have been made, both at the IAEA and the Board of Governors meetings, and the various resolutions and joint statements. And then finally, this most recent determination, that Iran was in fact out of compliance. The goal had been to give them incentives and opportunities to get back on the right side of their requirements— their non-JCPOA requirements—with the IAEA and thereby, perhaps, avoid a snapback. So now we're in a short timeframe to figure out which side of the fence is Iran going to jump off of. And so that may actually be like one tiny little shred left of ambiguity that the Iranians can play with, is what the world is going to believe between now and October.

Bernstein: Let me ask on a more general level: from what we've been seeing in the Trump administration this year, we just had these massive layoffs at the State Department, domestically; there's still talk that we'll be seeing some internationally, layoffs at embassies around the world, still to come; we had, earlier this year, DOGE cuts to some of the nuclear security programs; we had the firing of Christopher Hansen from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission just last month, I think. How concerning is this all to you, both from a general diplomacy perspective, but also from the nuclear security aspect?

Holgate: Well, it's hugely concerning. I mean, it's one thing to change policies. And there can be different views on the rectitude of policy choices. But to destroy the diplomatic and technical capability to make a new deal, which the Trump folks seem to say they want. That's what they say the bombing was about, was forcing Iran off the fence, onto the negotiating side. But when I look at the team, or the names that I'm aware of from the press that would be involved in negotiating this, it's just shocking, it’s shocking to think that they're going to get a good deal out of an Iranian team that is deeply, deeply expert, knowledgeable, and experienced in the JCPOA negotiations themselves.

Bernstein: And aside from the people at the top, I had read previously, before the bombings, there were really no subject-matter experts, or very few involved in those negotiations. It was all very top level.

Holgate: And you need that. It's kind of interesting. It just turns out that I happen to be reading right now William Burns’s memoir, called The Back Channel, which I commend to you, if you haven't read it, it's super fascinating. But he's just at the beginning of the quiet talks that preceded the JCPOA, the actual negotiations. And there is this diplomatic tension of, do you need to build knowledge up from the working level up, or do you need top-down blessing that will then motivate the working level experts. And I feel like right now, with both countries in an authoritarian phase, that you’ve got to have that high-level buy-in that, yes, both sides agree that a deal is, at least in principle, possible, before you can get the experts working. Because otherwise the experts are going to be so afraid to show any negotiating room, if they don't know that the bosses really want it. So it's a challenging thing. The more authoritarian the senior leadership is, the more challenging it is for working level people to really work towards a solution.

Bernstein: I have seen in the news, and I don't know how closely you know or follow about it, but a deal on nuclear weapons use and so forth was recently struck between Britain and France. And I'm wondering, aside from any details of that negotiation and the deal, is there reason to be concerned that we're seeing that kind of bilateral negotiation on these topics, rather than including the United States and working through NATO, or whatever it might be? Or am I reading too much into that?

Holgate: Well, it's certainly a symptom of the worry in Europe that the US will not hold up its treaty responsibilities under NATO. And so, yeah, it's a concern, in that it's a symptom of something bad. Given that that US commitment has been called into question. I think it's not a surprise that countries in Europe would be looking for ways to re-establish or to bolster nuclear deterrence vis-a-vis Russia. And it is a very significant thing that the UK and France are cooperating about that, because France has famously been very loath to connect its nuclear capabilities directly under NATO control. I don't know what this bilateral thing will mean, whether it's envisioned that it would take place under existing NATO command systems, or in the instance that the US fails to play its expected role, or whether they're envisioning just a simple bilateral thing on behalf of the rest of Europe. I don't know. The goal is, I mean, one, the goal is to re-establish deterrence vis-a-vis Moscow. But I also think it's important that it re-establish deterrence without Germany or Poland or Turkey getting tempted that they need to do their own nuclear weapons programs. You know that has been one of the less visible benefits of the NATO Alliance, and the strength of Article Five and the nuclear capabilities that sit behind it, has been the thwarting of nuclear ambitions in Europe that have been visible in the past and that are now being talked about again.

Bernstein: So now I have to worry about lots of other countries, possibly…

Holgate: Yes, yes you do.

Bernstein: …and looking at the Iran example, and saying…

Holgate: And that had nothing to do with the Iranian issue.

Bernstein: Although Iran sort of demonstrated there that, well, if you're trying to get nuclear weapons, you get bombed. Those who have nuclear weapons haven't been bombed. You know, nobody's been bombing Pakistan. So there's some sort of incentive problem there.

Holgate: No, it's not a good message, that's for sure.

Bernstein: What about nuclear security, aside from the weapons, but in terms of moving to nuclear power around the world. The United States, the Trump administration and DOGE was, I think, pretty clear earlier this year that we need to stop worrying about all this regulatory stuff when it comes to nuclear power plants, does that sort of have a spreading effect worldwide, in any sense, in terms of the security, and the way that other countries go about building and operating their plants?

Holgate: Oh gosh, this is…

Bernstein: Have I opened up a whole different can of worms here ?

Holgate: I just got back from a meeting last week that happened to be in Ethiopia, not because of Ethiopia itself, but it's the 18th meeting of the track, what we call a track one and a half conversation. If government-to-government is track one, and non-government to non -government is track two, track one and a half is blending non-government experts with government officials in an off the record kind of way to try to develop, new ideas and generate official support for paths forward. And it was a very gloomy conversation, The decline, I mean, the US has been the global leader on security of nuclear materials and facilities, whether they are military or civilian, since the collapse of the Soviet Union. It's not that the US had to be, but since we were and since we're as big as we are, we dominated the conversation. And then Obama's six-year focus on nuclear security through the Nuclear Security Summits, from 2010 to 2016. Since the summits, interest has been declining. Progress has been slowing. There's any number of gauges and judgments of that. And I now fear that the US is just stepping away, in so many data points that add up to a real inability to lead ,and an unwillingness to get other countries to aspire to the kind of continuous improvement that you need. The nuclear security threats are always evolving. The bad actors are always changing. You never finish your nuclear security project. And so I'm deeply worried both about facilities at home and about the US influence abroad, and particularly if we don't take security—and oh, by the way, IAEA safeguards—seriously in the design of these new reactors that we're planning to export to the world. That makes it even more challenging. I am a firm believer in nuclear energy done right. We need it for climate. There's no way around it. And there's other good reasons too: energy security, a whole range of reasons. But if we don't do it right, the consequences can be extreme, and I'm deeply concerned that the US is stepping back, both substantively in terms of our domestic regulations, and globally, in terms of our global leadership.

Bernstein: If I can ask you on that general topic, just one more thing before I let you go, and I appreciate you taking all this time, but I've written a couple of times this year about the concern about soft power. The United States, the Trump administration doing real harm to the soft power that the United States has put a great deal of effort into building up over the years, whether we're talking about the USAID or, a million different ways, these cuts of the State Department and so forth. You, if I understand correctly, have been an advocate of soft power approaches. Am I right to be as concerned as I am about soft power? Is that something that you think is being destroyed and will have serious consequences going forward?

Holgate: Well, yeah, leading the witness, my friend. Absolutely, I'm concerned about that. Even though I've only been a diplomat for three and a half years of my 30 year career, I've been on the soft power agenda, from the Pentagon to the Energy Department to the NSC and outside of government as well. And it's just, it's just deeply discouraging to see the US voluntarily step back from the leadership role that the world has come to expect of us. And it's not always that they love it, that other countries love our leadership role. But when we're not there, no one else steps up. And I've spent a lot of my soft power time trying to recruit others to share the burden, not just financially, but in terms of time and energy, and silver bullets that you spend to get something done. It's very clear to me that in the absence of US leadership on this issue, that the global backsliding that we've already been seeing will just accelerate, and US’s own behavior could be part of the problem.

Bernstein: Well, I appreciate you giving me plenty of new things to worry about going forward.

Holgate: Welcome to my world.