ABSTRACT
Denial of supply For many years, the US-led strategy for impeding Iran’s nuclear project was strictly supply-side, based on denying Iran the wherewithal to produce nuclear weapons. For nearly two decades, bilateral diplomacy to discourage potential suppliers coupled with multinational export controls effectively closed many of Iran’s avenues to dual-use equipment of proliferation concern. Concerns about Iran’s nuclear intentions grew in the 1990s, as evidence mounted about the country’s interest in acquiring experimental uranium-isotope-separation equipment and heavy-watermoderated research reactors that appeared to be mainly intended to produce weapons-grade plutonium. Iran also sought to procure ‘hot cell’- related equipment that would help its nuclear engineers learn how to process irradiated fuel to separate out the plutonium. There was even some evidence that Iran had sought to obtain fissile material or even nuclear weapons in the former Soviet Union.1 But throughout the 1990s, the US was able to persuade Argentina, China, Kazakhstan and other countries not to sell Iran facilities or material that could be used for uranium enrichment or plutonium production.2
