Nuclear experts are lauding the Iran nuclear deal for ensuring a major turnaround in Iran's production of plutonium, a key concession ignored by critics of the deal.  

Since the Iran nuclear agreement was announced in July, numerous nonproliferation and national security experts have praised the deal for being “about as good as any real world agreement could be.” Diplomats from around the world recently told Congress that the Iran deal “is as good a deal as you could get,” and nuclear and military experts have said it is “the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.” Nevertheless, conservative media have used falsehoods to try to discredit the deal and pushed for its rejection, claiming it could start “World War III”.

According to a September 8 report from The New York Times, nuclear experts are praising another part of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran's plutonium concession, as “an incredibly big break through” and a “real success,” explaining that it will end the country's ability “for making substantial amounts of bomb fuel” from plutonium -- which 95 percent of nuclear warheads rely on to ignite. The experts explain that Iran was “perhaps only months from” producing plutonium, but “as negotiations gained momentum” the country agreed to a redesign that “would end the facility's potential for making substantial amounts of bomb fuel,” which experts say was a “major turnaround”: 

Of the 15,000 or so nuclear warheads on the planet, atomic experts say, more than 95 percent rely on plutonium to ignite their firestorms.

As a fuel for weapons, plutonium packs a far greater punch than uranium, and in bulk can be easier and cheaper to produce. Which is why some nuclear experts voice incomprehension at what they see as a lopsided focus on uranium in evaluations of the deal reached with Iran -- under which Tehran would forsake the production of plutonium.

“It was an incredibly big breakthrough,” said Siegfried S. Hecker, a Stanford professor and former director of the Los Alamos weapons lab in New Mexico, the birthplace of the bomb. “But nobody seems to care.” 

[...] 

In secret, three decades ago, Iran began exploring the plutonium path and was perhaps only months from inaugurating a plant for its production when, last year, as negotiations gained momentum, it abruptly agreed to a fundamental redesign that would end the facility's potential for making substantial amounts of bomb fuel.

Tehran's vow was a major turnaround, say nuclear experts, who express frustration that political jousting and technical naïveté have largely obscured what they call one of the accord's main triumphs. 

“It's a real success,” said Frank N. von Hippel, a physicist who advised the Clinton administration and now teaches at Princeton. “I was surprised that they were willing to give it up.”

Richard L. Garwin, a principal designer of the world's first hydrogen bomb and a longtime adviser to Washington on nuclear weapons and arms control, called the redesign “a great achievement.” He and other scientists signed a letter to President Obama last month praising the Iran deal as innovative and stringent.