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Iran Admits Stuxnet Affected Their Nuclear Program
plover writes "According to this article in the Guardian, 'Ahmadinejad admitted the [Stuxnet] worm had affected Iran's uranium enrichment. "They succeeded in creating problems for a limited number of our centrifuges with the software they had installed in electronic parts," the president said. "They did a bad thing. Fortunately our experts discovered that, and today they are not able [to do that] anymore."'"
This is a funny thing to say about harming a program designed to build weapons commonly associated with the end of humanity.
We're crying in the rain we can't push the jews into the sea, or burn them. More than likely. After all it's the defacto policy of hizbullah and hamas to kill them, with no peace ever.
Om, nomnomnom...
Ah a well informed person. Do you know the death-rates between the parties in the last 20 years? Every year it is something like: Palestina: 700+ more than 200+ children, more than 200+ woman. Israel: 0-15. Always soldiers. But good to know you are informed!
Apparently. Check amnesty and the red cross. You will get more accurate numbers that way.
We're crying in the rain we can't push the jews into the sea, or burn them. More than likely. After all it's the defacto policy of hizbullah and hamas to kill them, with no peace ever.
Ah a well informed person. Do you know the death-rates between the parties in the last 20 years? Every year it is something like: Palestina: 700+ more than 200+ children, more than 200+ woman. Israel: 0-15. Always soldiers. But good to know you are informed!
It's true that the Israelis kill an awful lot of Palestinian civilians and that the situation in Gaza and the occupied territories is something Israel should be ashamed of. But claiming that Hamas, the al-Aqsa brigades et al. only kill soldiers is a blatant falsehood. Every time one of those bozos blows him self up on a bus it's not soldiers that get killed. On the other hand, every time the Israelis decide to 'defend them selves', drop a lavish amount of ordinance on the Gaza strip or Lebanon, send in the tanks and kill a whole bunch of civilians and a few guerillas, a thousand new recruits join Hamas and Hezbollah. The longer I watch the Israelis and the Palestinians go at it the more it becomes clear that neither party actually wants peace. They have become so used to living in state of perpetual war it's hard for them to imagine a world without it. The Palestinians are dominated to a large extend by militant religious fundamentalists and the Israelis have developed a political system that is so dominated by hard nosed ex-military types it's hard to tell where the armed forces stop and the nominally civilian government starts.
Two weeks ago, people talked about the diplomatic problems this worm attack would cause for Israel. There was even a few people that didn't think Iran was trying to make a nuclear bomb. What a difference two weeks makes. It turns out (from the Wikileaks release a couple of days ago) that the entire Middle East (except for the usual suspects like Hamas and Hezbollah) thinks Iran's nuclear bomb program is far more worrisome than Israel. The King of Saudi Arabia asked the US in April 2008 for military strikes against Iran's nuclear program. The UAE stated in the beginning of 2010 that it is expecting some sort of war involving the US or Israel against Iran.
From an analysis of the Stuxnet worm, it turns out to target a frequency converter made by a Iranian company that the Iranians kept secret from the IAEA. That's the agency which is supposed to be inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities and which should have been informed of this technology.
Finally, we have assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. If you think putting a worm into a uranium enrichment plant is diplomatically upsetting how about killing people? Also, there's a lot more players who can kill people than who can write sophisticated worms that only target particular systems.
I think this is going beyond diplomacy. A lot of governments agree that Iran is working on a nuclear bomb. The clever finesse moves, such as fancy computer worms, are probably exhausted. Trade blockades probably won't work (especially with China having special deals with Iran). But what will still work is destruction of the facilities and killing of the staff who work there. To be blunt, I favor this approach.
My view however is that Obama won't do it. That means then that we'll have a nuclear Iran, then nuclear Saudi Arabia and Egypt. Even if you don't give a hoot about the Middle East, it'll worry Europe and Turkey. I see expansion of nuclear forces in the EU as a distinct possibility. Turkey is one of many tricky spots. Russia will freak out if Turkey gets nukes. But how will Turkey defend itself, if a major war with a nuclear armed Iran occurs?
This is the thing that people don't get about proliferation of nuclear weapons. The fewer countries that have nuclear weapons, the easier they are to control. Conversely, once a dangerous country like Iran gets them, then all of their neighbors are going to want them as well for self-defense. Israel has been nuclear armed for perhaps forty years, but the Middle East is worried about Iran.
Just disconnect any sensitive nuclear facility from the freaking Internet. Are they so stupid?
They did. And yes, they are. Just like everyone else.
Because when you make something foolproof, God (or Allah, in this case) will just invent a more ingenious fool.
And even then, you can't actually make anything that's malice-proof.
it would be pretty shitty for the arabs if the persians AND the jews had nukes, since both groups have no priblem killing an arab for getting uppity