Secret Enrichment Facility in Iran?

The big news this morning is that Iran may have a second enrichment facility that has previously been unreported to the UN.  According to the New York Times, President Obama, along with Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain and President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, will go public with the accusation today.  According to the report, the US has known about the facility for some time, but is just now deciding to come forward:

American officials say that they have been tracking the covert project for years, but that Mr. Obama decided to make public the American findings after Iran discovered, in recent weeks, that Western intelligence agencies had breached the secrecy surrounding the project.

After learning that the US was aware of the facility, Iran attempted to preempt the US announcement.  According to the AP:

[A] diplomat in Vienna and another European government official told The Associated Press on Friday that Tehran has informed the IAEA that it has a previously undeclared uranium enriching facility.
The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the information was confidential, said Iran revealed its existence in a letter sent Monday to Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the atomic energy agency.

The facility is reportedly located about 100 miles southwest of Tehran and could be operational next year.

This revelation could have a number of impacts on the upcoming negotiations and the continuing standoff between Iran and Western powers. It will be much more difficult for Iran to argue that they are only seeking peaceful nuclear enrichment.  The clandestine facility is in direct violation of the NPT and has not been subject to IAEA inspections.  An administration official told the NYT:

They have cheated three times...And they have now been caught three times.

The facility is also suspicious.  It is built inside a mountain near the ancient city of Qum and could hold about 3,000 centrifuges.  Again, according to the NYT, this could be extremely difficult for Iran to explain:

Iran is a different kind of case: Inspectors have been in and out of the country for several years, always assured by Iran that it had come clean about its facilities after hiding them for nearly 18 years. Thus, the newly discovered facility could be difficult for Iran to explain: It is too small to be used efficiently to produce fuel for power plants, and appears to have been designed in such a way that its operations could be hidden.

This information could change the calculus on a new round of sanctions.  The US has proposed new sanctions on imports on gasoline imports into Iran and has been trying to get UN support.  While Russia has shown some willingness to support new UN sanctions, China has continued to oppose sanctions.   However, if the US, France, and Britain can convince them (and the rest of the international community) that Iran has been lying to the IAEA and is likely trying to pursue a nuclear weapons program, it will be able to place a lot of political pressure on Russia and China.

Separate from sanctions, tangible evidence that Iran is pursuing a secret nuclear program could cause suppliers (like Russia) to be more hesitant in supplying nuclear technology to Iran.  Iran's nuclear facilities have been dependant on outside help from the beginning.

Evidence of a clandestine facility also has an interesting effect on the possibility of US or Israeli strikes.  On one hand, it may make strikes more likely.  The US and Israel could feel that Iran will never pursue only peaceful enrichment and determine strikes are the only option.  On the other hand, one of the main arguments against military strikes is that the presence of multiple clandestine facilities would make a strike futile.  It would do little to set back Iran's program and cause them to redouble their nuclear efforts.  So the question is:  is the US confident that this is the only secret facility?  Or could there be more?  Fortunately, military strike are still probably unlikely as both Israel and the US are committed to pursuing additional UN sanctions, but this revelation could have an effect on internal debates.

It will be interesting to see how the US, Iran, and the rest of the international community react.  The same NYT article points out:

The Clinton administration accused North Korea of having an underground nuclear facility in 1998; by the time American inspectors were let in, the facility had been cleaned out

A number of questions will be answered in the next few days and weeks:  Is the US intelligence credible (it seems likely if Iran has acknowledged the facility)?  Will Iran be able to cover up the facility or convince the international community that it was designed for peaceful purposes?  Will there be new sanctions?  Will the US and Israel ever be able to trust that Iran is pursuing peaceful enrichment?