40 Middle East & Africa The EconomistNovember 9th 2019
T
he fordownuclear plant in northern
Iran would make an ideal lair for a Bond
villain. Russian-made surface-to-air mis-
siles guard the skies around it. The facility
itself is buried under a mountain. Several
hundred feet down, in two cavernous halls,
neat rows of centrifuges spin uranium gas
to produce fissile isotopes, which could be
used for nuclear energy—or, if concentrat-
ed enough, a nuclear bomb.
Such activity is prohibited under the
deal that Iran signed with six world powers
in 2015. Iran agreed to cease enrichment at
Fordow for 15 years, keeping only 1,044 cen-
trifuges spinning for scientific purposes.
But on November 6th it began injecting
uranium gas into those centrifuges for the
first time in four years. The move heralds a
new, more dangerous phase in the crisis
over Iran’s nuclear programme.
The trouble started last year, when Pres-
ident Donald Trump removed America
from the nuclear deal and reimposed sanc-
tions on Iran. For a year Iran continued to
abide by the agreement, hoping the other
signatories—Britain, China, France, Ger-
many and Russia—would provide eco-
nomic relief. But it lost patience in April,
when America ended waivers that allowed
some countries to import Iranian oil.
Since then Iran has been taking steps
away from the nuclear deal. In June its
stockpile of low-enriched uranium exceed-
ed the limit set under the agreement. In
July Iran breached a cap on the purity of
that uranium, enriching it to levels slightly
closer to weapons-grade. Last month Iran
began using quicker-spinning centrifuges.
(It has also cancelled the accreditation of
an inspector with the International Atomic
Energy Agency, which monitors Iranian
compliance with the nuclear deal.) The
idea is to put pressure on America to end its
campaign of “maximum pressure”, which
has crippled the Iranian economy. gdpis
expected to drop by 9.5% this year.
Each of Iran’s steps shortens its “break-
out time”: how long it would take to pro-
duce a bomb’s worth of highly enriched
uranium. They also make it increasingly
hard to resuscitate the nuclear deal. The
decision to restart work at Fordow is Iran’s
most defiant gesture yet. “I think that for
the first time, Iran has decided in an explic-
it and blunt manner to leave the [nuclear
deal], which marks a profound shift,” said
President Emmanuel Macron of France.
The move is also rich in symbolism.Fordow was built to withstand Israeli and
American air strikes. Referring to the deal’s
signatories, President Hassan Rouhani of
Iran said: “I understand their sensitivities
toward Fordow and its centrifuges. But
whenever they meet their promises, we
will cut back gas injection.”
Iran is raising hackles elsewhere for
other reasons. Massive protests in Iraq and
Lebanon have been directed at corrupt pol-
iticians and their foreign backers, above all
Iran, which sponsors powerful militias in
both countries. “Iran out, out!” chant prot-
esters in Baghdad. In the holy city of Kar-
bala they attacked the Iranian consulate.
Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most prominentcommander, was dispatched to Baghdad to
help quell the unrest. Iranian-backed mili-
tias have been accused of killing protesters.
Iran’s nuclear and regional problems
are connected. “Its way of countering the
maximum-pressure campaign has been
twofold: dial down compliance with the
nuclear deal and dial up pressure on the re-
gional front,” says Ariane Tabatabai of the
rand Corporation, a think-tank. She
points to recent attacks, allegedly by Iran or
its proxies, on commercial shipping, Saudi
oil facilities and the area around America’s
embassy in Baghdad. Such incidents will
seem even more troubling the further Iran
moves away from the nuclear deal. 7Iran’s nuclear programme takes a
dangerous stepIran and the bombUndone deal
W
alking throughtheMinharot
Olam (Perpetual Tunnels) project
in Jerusalem is like navigating a massive
honeycomb. The developers have cut a
mile (1.6km) of tunnels through the earth
that are over 50ft (16 metres) high. Some
are 18 storeys below ground. Within each,
giant drills have burrowed thousands of
holes into the walls and ground. Soon
they will be filled not with honey, but
bodies: 23,000 of them, to be exact.
This subterranean city of the dead,
inaugurated on October 30th, lies be-
neath Har HaMenuchot, Jerusalem’s
largest cemetery, which is nearly full.
Other local graveyards are already out of
space; hence this novel solution. In some
parts of Har HaMenuchot the dead are in
high-rise structures. But these are costly
and still take up a lot of space. Building
down leaves more land for the living.
That is crucial for Jerusalem, where a
growing population competes for scarceland—eventhepartsnotimbued with
religious meaning. A Jewish preference
for burial (rather than cremation) sharp-
ens the problem. Thousands of graves
must be dug every year. “We’ve dreamed
of going underground for 30 years,” says
Hananya Shachor of the Jerusalem Com-
munity Burial Society, a non-profit outfit
that commissioned Minharot Olam. “But
we had to wait until the engineers could
come up with a plan to do it at a manage-
able price.”
Mr Shachor says it will cost around
$70m. Special equipment drilled the
rows of graves into the rock at a specific
angle to avoid seepage of decomposing
bodies. Smells are a worry, so filters will
refresh the underground air four times
an hour. Three large-capacity lifts will
ferry funeral parties down. The tunnels
are designed to let the elderly trundle
through on their mobility scooters.
Israel’s pension scheme covers the
basic costs of funerals, and burial societ-
ies must provide free plots. But many
Jews want to be buried in specific
places—next to a spouse, perhaps, or
with a view of the holy city. They are
usually willing to pay extra: 40% of those
buried in Jerusalem have bought their
plots in advance. Official prices range up
to $6,000. The rights to prime spots can
change hands for much more.
Minharot Olam’s administrators
believe that a cemetery sheltered from
the weather, with fixed temperatures and
round-the-clock lighting, will appeal to
customers. But no one has bought a plot
there yet. Still, Mr Shachor is confident
he will soon be digging deeper down.
“This is the only way we can ensure that
the dead’s final resting place doesn’t
come at the expense of the living.”180 feetunder
Jerusalem’s new necropolisJERUSALEM
How the holy city is dealing with a grave shortageThe plots thicken