Slashdot Mirror
How Close Is Iran, Really, To Nuclear Weapons
Lasrick writes "A Reuters blog post by Yousaf Butt explains the science, or lack thereof, behind recent claims that Iran is closer to building the bomb. Butt has been writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, most recently blasting the unsourced AP 'Iranian graph' that claimed to show nuclear testing activity as well as the Washington Post story about Iran's alleged order of 100,000 magnets for their centrifuges."
I want to make a joke about his name, but I just can't bring myself to take such an easy shot.
I suspect if they stopped exporting their sweet, sweet oil then they would get closer to nuclear weapons at approximately Mach 3 speed.
Don't worry, Obama promised us that he will not allow Iran to have nuclear weapons.
Last year in an IAEA report they said that iran doesn't refine its uranium to weapon's grade but to a metallic form that can be used in reactors but can not be refined further. Now Aljazeera writes: The IAEA's report showed "no evidence of diversion of material and nuclear activities towards military purposes,"
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/02/2013221224353882956.html
It seems that the IAEA has in all their reports strong indications that the nuclear program is peaceful. So IAEA officials have been denied access to military installations which are not covered by the Nuclear non proliferation treaty. And even then, Iran has allowed inspections at a later date even though the IAEA has no right to do so (it wouldn't have in any other nation as well).
I have the distinct feeling that western media is very biased. But it was with Iraq's WMDs (or lack thereof) as well.
Israel has them... and if Iran squeaks loud enough, Israel will have no difficulty really giving it to them.
(It's all in the delivery.)
Does Iran know how to build a basic weapon? Yes. But then again, so do a lot of others.
Does Iran have the technological skills to make a war head small enough to be delivered on one of their missiles? Debatable, but inevitable and practice makes perfect. They could use some help with the CEP and range of those missiles too.
Does Iran have anything other than a uranium based bomb available? Not at this time. And the chemical reprocessing necessary for irradiated fuel out of Arak or the TRR is not a layup. Years, if not a decade.
How long will it take Iran to enrich to 90%+ their current LEU? A couple of months, tops. Most of the SWU's are spent just getting to LEU.
Of course, left unsaid in all of this is... would Iran ever use a nuke? Given that India and Pakistan have not (and there is certainly no shortage of nutters in those countries), that Israel has 2-300, the USSR a few thousand... I think the resounding answer is no. Persians exports are carpets and pistachios, not glass.
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Who cares how close they are. In fact lets just stop dealing with it and give them one so they feel good about themselves. We are wasting so much time and energy on something they will eventually get anyway, the problem isn't having a nuke the problem is using it. As long as we are hypocritical in keeping them ourselves we don't have a leg to stand on in denying them to other countries and they will do everything it takes to get one.
Oh and giving them a nuke is with the understanding that if it is ever used outside their own borders we genocide their people and glass thier country. Apply the same to North Korea and anyone else who wants a nuke,
Iran is developing nuclear power plants because it doesn't generate enough electricity to (efficiently) create nuclear weapons. Iran will use this time to provide more On-the-Job-Training for its nuclear engineers.
Looking at his bio, most of his work for FAS seems to be arguing against missile defense. He seems to be a bit of an activist. Basically, he comes across as a bit of an ostrich about Iran's nuclear program: nuclear weapons are bad, and war is bad; therefore if the Iranians are seeking nuclear weapons, it justifies ballistic missile defense (which he's against) and possibly an attack (which he's against) to stop Iran from reaching their goal; therefore Iran must not be seeking nuclear weapons. Not exactly a scientific chain of argument, but it seems to be the path he's on (based on that last link, and two of his other articles that I read through).
-- Two men say they're Jesus. One of them must be wrong. - Dire Straits
What's the distance to North Korea? That's how close Iran is from having nuclear weapons TODAY.
Given their clear intentions, how close should we be willing to let them get? If a thug on the street says he wants to kill you and claims he has a knife, do you call his bluff, turn around and walk away, or do you prepare to defend yourself?
In fact, as close as Iraq previous to the US invasion. There is no better prediction than the one that you make it happen.
The point is to start a war with them to suit Israel.
End of story.
If they aren't careful!
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy." Hamlet (I, v, 166-167)
It depends on how much money could be made from invading, dismantling, and rebuilding that region. If the probable amount of money that can be made is high enough someone somewhere will find out they are manufacturing a bomb that could vaporize the entire planet.
The point is to ascertain as much accurate info and opinions as possible so the world has an informed response to Israel attacking Iran.
So let's see, one activist scientist against, well, pretty much everybody else. I don't think the world is going to do much after Israel conducts air strikes against Iran.
...about 50 countries are estimated to have it. Sometimes called "Latent", but I prefer the "Threshold" term, it has the right connotation of stepping right up to the line and voluntarily stopping.
Nation that CAN build a bomb in months flat = Nation not to stage a major invasion of. (By the time Russia, Pakistan, or the US could marshal up forces to take on a nation of 70 million, the first bombs are coming off the line).
Nation that HAS built a bomb = target
And Iran knows it.
Understanding that doesn't involve liking or trusting them. Meanwhile this has to be the ninth time in a dozen-odd years that the "Attack Iran" nuts (after their Iraq debacle, "nuts" is the only appropriate word) have played Lucy and the Football with gullible US conservatives. The big windup, then no bomb.
if you have intestinal worms, you take a tablet to fix the problem.
iran with even the possibility of nukes is an intestinal worm.
take care of the problem before it's too late.
period.
They're bleeding staff right now. Statistics show how their coverage chagned when Bush threatened to bomb their headquarters. It was probably a bluff to manipulate them, but still, a distinct change shows some bias. The real question is "who's funding them and what's their motive?" just like Fox News' pretend right-wing slant and MS-NBC's pretend left-wing slant.
its an irrelevant question that only we are asking. we sanction the country into poverty in the hopes we can reign in a rising power that would upset the 'regional balance' of american dominance that ensures cheap oil and compliance through a network of corrupt foreign leaders. after ensuring everything from banking to foreign trade is nearly impossible, we rest our head in our hands and wonder, 'when will iran create this horrible weapon they seek to use against the world?'
Good people go to bed earlier.
I see everyone's worried about Iran being able to produce nuclear weapons but nobody says anything about US already HAVING nuclear weapons, i think that being the US the only ones that used nuclear bombs in actual war, they are the ones the world should be worried
... because they're different from us, have no way of credibly causing us major damage, and because we NEED an enemy to justify the billions which are being spent on kickbacks and slush funds in the weapons industry.
Some of those billions actually get through to the factory floor and turn into weapons, so we need to test them as well...
Well, a difficulty is the lagging of the Islamic world in science and technology-- they are very short in the skilled people needed for making a credible nuclear technology infrastructure, although Iran possibly slightly less than much of the rest of the middle East. Religious fundamentalism doesn't serve well as a way to educate scientists and engineers (...and that should be a lesson for the US, not just Iran.)
There was a good article "Why the Arabic World Turned Away From Science" recently:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science
(Yes, I know that Iran is not Arabic, but Persian. The article title is somewhat misleading; it discusses Persian science as well as Arabic.)
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
A pre-emptive strike is the only way to go in this situation.
Excuse me, I've got a call coming in from General Jack D. Ripper ...
Actually, I suspect that you misunderstand their objective. Oh, maybe stopping a US invasion is a secondary objective, but I don't think that's their primary objective. Their primary objective seems to be (if you take their word for it) bringing about a new Caliphate under Shi'a dominance.
Just as a note; they wouldn't be interested in a Caliphate; that was an Arabic hegemony. Iraq might like to see a new caliphate, ruled once again from Baghdad, but Iran wouldn't. They would like to restore the Persian empire.
--Basically, though, having the bomb would make them the big bullies on the block. It's more of the 90-pound-weakling-wanting-to-become-Charles-Atlas thing: once they have the bomb, they figure nobody's going to kick sand in their faces any more, and the world will pay attention to them, putting them back in (what they perceive to be) their rightful place as big boys deserving respect.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
There's nothing scary about a country like Iran acquiring nuclear weapons. What would they do with them anyway? Use them? 70 years of history show how ridiculous that idea is.
Well, a difficulty is the lagging of the Islamic world in science and technology-- they are very short in the skilled people needed for making a credible nuclear technology infrastructure, although Iran possibly slightly less than much of the rest of the middle East. Religious fundamentalism doesn't serve well as a way to educate scientists and engineers (...and that should be a lesson for the US, not just Iran.)
There was a good article "Why the Arabic World Turned Away From Science" recently:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/why-the-arabic-world-turned-away-from-science
(Yes, I know that Iran is not Arabic, but Persian. The article title is somewhat misleading; it discusses Persian science as well as Arabic.)
Meh, just have one of the major clerics suddenly reinterpret a key religious text to indicate nuclear weaponry is divine will and then silence anyone who questions this. Hey presto, you've got yourself a country dedicated to develop nuclear weaponry!
Incidentally, that's also the answer to the article's headline: "One reinterpretation of a religious text away".
Gotta love it when some random person out there thinks they have all the information, thinks that a UN organization would have all the information even as they are denied inspections. Its laugable at best to think that either one of them would have the intelligence from all the individual world governments. Wake up people! In this age, information is power, its not going to be shared with you, me, or ineffective UN agencies.
They've been claiming their regional rivals have been a year away from an evil nuke for probably 10 years now. Israel needs to STFU and worry about the 200 or so unreported nukes they have in flagrant violation of the same international laws they want Iran eviscerated under.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
It's sad that so many people refuse to deal with a problem until it can bite them in the arse, them personally, even though this problem enslaves millions of people on the other side of the world...
--libman
i don't know where iran is on it's bomb making or lack thereof, and, outside of a select few in tehran, no one does
but i do know this: i don't trust a theocracy with nukes
saying this does not make me a warmongerer, a zionist, or a neoconservative
i could say "i don't trust a theocracy with nukes" as a citizen of russia, thailand, or even iran. i could say "i don't trust a theocracy with nukes" as a pacifist, a buddhist, or a muslim
i don't trust a theocracy with nukes
i'm sorry, i just don't
and no: neither israel, usa nor pakistan are theocracies
the government of iran is specifically structured such that ultimate power rests with clerics. that's a specific problem for me. and no, it is not about islam. i would have the same problem with a christian theocracy with nukes. it is about being a theocracy that makes it a problem to me. a bunch of grumpy old men who believe they have a monopoly on the word of an omnipotent being, with nuclear weapons? hell no!
i do not trust a theocracy with nukes, and this is a specific problem above and beyond all other declared, undeclared, or potential nuclear powers
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Is to provide "open arms support" for Iran and their nucleaur energy program. Provide a treaty that states that UN nucleaur proliferation experts open access to all facilities in Iran, while the UN and the US will broker a deal to help them get their nucleaur energy program up and running. This would benefit the US as a means of nucleaur export (de-weaponizing our current nucleaur arms that are apart of the de-weaponizing treaty), as well as provide a watchgroup to oversee the program. The US should also provide the engineering and material capacity to help out (education / infrastructure) so that a.. shall we say.. nucleaur mishap doesn't occur due to the low-quality parts that Iran must use currently due to sanctions.
This would do several things:
1) If Iran says no, then we can say.. then you MUST be building weapons.. we invade you now, lulz.
2) If Iran says yes, then we come off as the "good guy, we help those that don't agree with our "way of life"". We can then monitor their nucleaur program within the country, and openly. We also have a way to export all the nucleaur nasties that we currently have in stock, with no way to get rid of them. At this point, we can then further a bit more open discussion around better "green" technology / energy.
It is telling that during the Iran Iraq war, when Iraq used chemical weapons on Iranians, Iran did not respond in kind. In truth, it seems likely that many in the Iranian political class look at weapons of mass destruction with disgust. That said, they are obviously pursuing nuclear weapons to some degree. A source that I have, who is quite plugged into these things thinks that Iran wants to get a few months away from having nuclear weapons, and then hold short.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
www.keshefoundation.org
Buried deep in the website there was talk of the recent US drone Iran had captured with Keshe's pantented technology. It is nuclear technology per se, but, safer, cleaner, and much more affordable. As all things in life, it can be used as a weapon, or as defense. All what is claimed is rather sensational, to see it in action and own such technology would be nice!
no one pays much attention to Pakistan on the world stage with its nuclear bombs. Now why do you think it would be different for Iran. They simply want to stop the world's "super powers" from meddling in their affairs.
We have a presence in Pakistan, a country hostile to US interests who sheltered Bin Laden. So I guess the nuke may not always forestall us. Iran is more isolated, however.
The problem with openly having bombs to bully people with is that the Saudi defense budget is 7X that of Iran. They can plunk down $50b on their own nuclear weapons program with only minor belt tightening elsewhere.
It is entirely plausible that Khamenei has made the very rational choice that having capability without weapons is the long-term sweet spot. Military confrontation (short of a massive, regime changing invasion) runs of the risk of tripping escalation. Iran's short term deterrent is to threaten to shut down all traffic through the Straits of Hormuz.
A photoshopped nuclear program, or an honest to goodness if we build this as horribly wrong and fake because we don't understand science as that "stealth fighter" they will probably darwin award themselves out of the arms race nuclear program?
The fear scenario is always that the Iranians will leverage a nuke into closure of the Straits of Hormuz. But what does this really mean?
The problem with using nukes as a threat is that it has to be plausible that you might actually use them and that there's some end game after the mushroom cloud.
With the US and Soviets this was plausible -- both countries had massive stockpiles of weapons, global delivery systems, hardened command and control systems, public commitment to MAD, and some kind of plan for post-nuclear exchange (even if it was unrealistic).
With Iran the problem is that they can't step up to the MAD plate. They don't have global delivery systems, they don't have a nuclear-hardened command and control systems. There is no end game after setting off a nuke. The outcome for Iran after using a nuclear weapon is obliteration, the functional end of "Persian" as a meaningful culture and the end of Iran as anything more than a name on a map for a place that's not able to sustain people anymore.
The Iranians would be MUCH better off with a distributed conventional cruise missile system if they want to try to close the straits. Sinking a couple of ships with cruise missiles would demonstrate their capability and will without inviting apocalypse. The US and its allies will have to think many times before retaliating and be willing to commit themselves to a sustained and difficult conventional war with strong asymmetric/terrorist possibilities. They want to fire a nuke? Push the red button over there, wait 20 minutes until you hear the bell sound. Your glass surface won't be fully cured for 24 hours, though.
Given the right commitment from the West, the Iranians STILL may face obliteration, but it seems a lot less likely that pusillanimous politicians would have the guts to, say, carpet-bomb Iranian cities and cause massive civilian casualties. You'd more than likely see major air strikes against predominantly military targets followed by a bunch of diplomatic action designed to negotiate something before Iran lost its territorial integrity or internal political control (which they might lose via civil unrest anyway).
How are "specialized" magnets used in a centrifuge? Just Curious.
And after we illegally and immorally invaded, found out that Hussein was talking about them most heavily to influence Iran, with whom they'd fought a truly bloody war that lasted years, to prevent further attacks?
I'd expect them to be using 90+% of their effort for nuclear power, and a tiny bit elsewise for PR purposes, and aren't really interested in them.
Why do I think that (since this is slashdot in 2013, not 2001, I have to say that)? Simple: what would they target? Israel? Where? They can't target Jerusalem, where most of Israel's government is, because the city is sacred to Muslims, as well, and doing so would bring the entire Muslim world down on them, as well as a good part of their own people.
Anywhere else in Israel is almost as bad, since (after the ignorant idiots here look at a map of Israel and the scale) Israel is actually about the size of New Jersey, and the fallout would do almost the *entire* country, Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Oh, yes, and the winds would blow fallout towards Iran.
So the *only* purpose they'd have to build one is for MAD (not the magazine, kiddies) with Israel, and it costs a *lot* less to pretend to be doing it.
mark
Once again, where did the first claim of Iran's nuke development capabilities originate?
Clinton appointed republicon, Cohen, as his SecDef, who appointed Chris Mellon (perhaps you've heard of Bank of New York Mellon, and the Mellon family????) to a high position in the DIA, who then, around 2001/2002 period, sounded the "alarm" about Iran's so-called nuke capability (Iran and consulted with a Dick Cheney-led company, Halliburton, illegal under the existing sanctions, about future development and they recommend Iran develop its second most abundant resource, radium for a nuclear power industry).
Chris Mellon would later leave when Mellon merged with the Bank of New York, to become the largest depository bank in existence.
Ain't facts grand?
Why is it so hard for other countries to build a nuclear bomb? Isn't this about 70 year old technology by now?
Lack of evidence is not the problem - the problem is that the IAEA is blocked from inspecting facilities part of Iran's nuclear program. There are only two plausible reasons for this: either you have a nuclear weapons program, or you want the world to think you have one. It makes no difference which is the case.
Don't think for one moment that if the USA really wanted to invade your pissant country, even if you had nukes, that it would stop us. We have more, ALOT more.
Whenever some country comes close to the final development of nuclear bombs, the Americans and the Russians send a special ambassador to them to have 'the talk'.
The talk goes something like this:
"Well, we have been able to detect that you are close to developing a functioning nuclear weapon. Don't deny it, just shut up and listen.
We and the Russians (or the Americans, depending on who's talking) have constructed a situation between ourselves where we both have enough hydrogen bombs to kill every living thing on earth and still have enough left over to blow up the moon. You, on the other hand, will so have enough nuclear weaponary to blow up a shopping mall and its parking lot. We and the Russians (or Americans, as the case may be) have our weapons set on hair-trigger automated response so that anything from a flock of geese to a stray alpha particle could set the whole thing off and take everybody with it. We're not exactly proud of this situation and would like to tone it all down a bit. But it has taken on a life of its own and basically, at this point, we're stuck with it.
In this situation as it is and will continue to be, there's no room for half assed clowns like you. You are a pissant wild card that could easily blunder into fucking up the balance and causing the entire destruction of world civilization. We know that you don't think this way, and you believe that you have legimate reasons for making this nuclear bomb, but, frankly, you and any of your reasons don't mean shit to us or the Russians (or Americans).
So here's the deal. You're not going to like it. But you don't have any choice. You are a third world peasant of no real consequence and we are the two countries that have 15000 hydrogen bombs between us. That means we rule the world that you live in and we decide the way things are going to be.
We can't afford to have ANY nuclear event horizon happen that might escalate into global nuclear exchange. We aren't going to let August 1914 happen again where the assassination of minor playboy prince dominoed into a World War.
So, if ANY nuclear event happens in your corner of the world, by anybody, for any reason, we are going to assume YOU are responsible and we and the Russians (or the Americans, again, depending on who's delivering 'the talk') are going to nuke your entire country past present and future into sparkling glowing dust.
In other words, if you go ahead with this program of making a nuclear device, and then announce to the world that you have a bomb, and actually do a successful test of it (and we will know if you have), then you are going to have to take control and responsibility of all the crazy fools in your part of the world who also might somehow get a rogue nuclear device. And we all know that you have a lot of crazy fools in your part of the world.
That's the way it is. The choice is yours.
Have a nice day. "
Basically the USA:USSR has given this talk to the Israelis, Japanese, Pakistanis, Indians, South Africans, and North Koreans so far. The Israelis and Japanese were smart enough to never acknowledging their bombs or (in the case of the Japanese) their ability to build one in a short time. The South Africans gave up their nuclear bombs when apartheit ended. The Pakis and Indians are happy to accept their own destruction if it means the destruction of the other Pakis and Indians because they believe that they'll just go to heaven and the other Pakis:Indians won't. And the North Koreans are too bat-shit crazy to care about anything anyway.
This is just conjecture, but the Iranians will most likely accept the terms of 'the talk' and then settle into the nuclear community background like the Chinese, British, and French have. Basically a "don't fuck with us and we won't fuck with you" Golden-Rule stance that seems to work the best in this bad situation that we have all lived with since the 1960s.
Iran is only one year away from building the bomb...
and so it was 1998, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2005, 2010 and 2011...
see http://http//www.salon.com/2010/12/05/israeli_predictions_iranian_nukes/
its an irrelevant question that only we are asking. we sanction the country into poverty in the hopes we can reign in a rising power that would upset the 'regional balance' of american dominance that ensures cheap oil and compliance through a network of corrupt foreign leaders.
You realize you are misguided, right?
Other than the current expeditionary military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq, the U.S. is independent of Middle East oil; the protection of the flow of oil there is to benefit (primarily) European interests, since they are highly dependent on Middle East oil. Why do you think France was so friendly with Libya, or that the British were willing to turn the Lockerby bomber over to them?
The US military has been accounting for about 50% of US oil consumption since this while thing began, which is one of the things which has driven the domestic oil costs so much higher, since only about 35% of the oil they are using is actually coming from the region: an active petroleum-based military eats a LOT of oil.
Everyone thinks the US is over there for oil: in part it is, but it's oil for its allies in Europe. Mostly it's there to try to stabilize the region (which I admit, is a losing proposition; enforced Globocop mutual security games are typically unstable). In the long term, it keeps Europe and China for competing with the US for South American oil -- but that's really, really long term.
Dirty little "secret": politicians aren't that good at thinking past the next election, any more than boards of directors can think past the next quarter, CEOs can think past the next 6 months, or line managers can think past the next year. The effect is called a "fiscal horizon", and it limits how far into the future anyone is willing to plan. So for politicians, that's 12 years for senators, 4 years for congressmen, 8 years for a president/political party.
PS: One of the biggest reasons for the First Gulf War dragging on as long as it did was the attempt by Iraq to establish an exchange not based on dollars, which would have detached the value of the US dollar from the price of oil. Oil is the defacto replacement for silver, which was the explicit replacement for gold, as a limited controlled resource used to prop up the value of a currency, rather than letting it float to market levels. We should only be thankful that DeBeers wasn't involved.
I'll answer your question, and set some of the background in (very) layman's terms.
It's a gas centrifuge. Uranium + impurities are dissolved in acid to get Uranium HexaFlouride gas, and then it's spun to high speed, with the tendency being to move in a straight line, in accordance with Newtons laws of motion. The resulting centripetal acceleration results in a stream that can be inertially deflected to separate out the heavier (U-238 HexaFlouride) from the lighter (U-235 HexaFlouride), effectively enriching the uranium. The resulting gasses are further processed with more highly electronegative materials to remove the Flourine, resulting in purified Uranium. The process is described in some detail here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas_centrifuge
The electromagnets are used for the rotors and the motor, both of which require a highly precise rate of movement of the material within the system. This is used because, despite machining the centrifuges to tight tolerances, the electromagnetic controls are required to achieve the necessarily precise through on the mass difference such that it hits the band-gap aperture for the purposes of separation.
The control systems which control these electromagnets to such a high degree of precision were what was attacked by the Stuxnet virus, introducing a "wobble" in the centrifuges that resulted in less precise material flow through the system, and thus a much lower yield on enrichment.
Since the centrifuges are typically arranged in a cascade, the number of elements in the cascade, compared to the specs on the centrifuges, gives an external indication of exactly how far the enrichment process is intended to proceed: i.e. is the facility built to refine to power plant grade U-238, or is it built to refine to weapons grade U-238?
The point is actually relatively moot, in any case, since even power plant grade U-238 could be subject to an additional gaseous diffusin refining process: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaseous_diffusion at another facility to process it into weapons grade U-238. Or the power plant grade U-238 could be used in a breeder reactor to produce Pu, which could then be refined to weapons-grade, so it is a matter of latency, not of capability, between power plant grade fuel and weapons grade material.
One of the primary nonproliferation enforcement tactics which was used was to offer to sell them power plant grade U-238, in exchange for material accounting and prevention of use of breeder reactors. In other words, accept additional oversight and external regulation in exchange for cheap power plant grade U-238.
Irans state problems with this deal are that: (1) the supply could be cut off at any point for political reasons; (2) they would not be self-sufficient in their supply chain (more than just the cut-off, a technology level issue); (3) without access to additional nuclear technological know-how, sciences such as nuclear medicine would be closed to them, and (4) only idiots like the US rely on straight U-238 power reactors and not reprocessing spent fuel instead of burying the waste under national parks
NB: Reprocessing of spent fuel instead of burying it due to executive order of Jimmy Carter would significantly stretch the U-238 supply. Breeder reactors are (effectively) self-fueling, and would stretch the "energy lifetime" of the U-238 supply from hundreds of years to 10's of thousands of years. After about 35,000 years, it's a pretty good bet that Fusion reactors would be some 50 years away.
They also want their own people to stop meddling in the oligarchical dictatorship's affairs, say by voting for the wrong person.
Iran is not working on building nuclear weapons. It is working on building the *capability* to build the weapons. Going from the capability to actual weapons would be very quick. At the moment conventional Iran cannot be contained (eg. look at its funding and support of brutal Hamas and Hezbollah; manufacturing and sending ammunition to extends the Arab vs African massacres in Sudan (where it created unmarked ammo so it couldn't be traced - it took quite a while to find the source was Iran). Then there are the Sahab missiles Iran has installed in venezuela, which will eventually be able to attack the US (when they are upgraded, and then get nuke warheads). Then we have the other attacks around the world it has conducted by Iran: Argentina, Bulgaria, Georgia, Lebanon, Syria, India, Thailand (where the Iranians were caught, so there is no question who it was).
Note also that the Iranian programme is spread over three dozen dispersed sites we know about. This is completely unnecessary for civilian research. You have to be willfully blind to think they aren't working on acquiring the *capability* of a bomb (which is pretty much the same as a bomb for those guys).
The Soviets were deterred by Mutually Assured Destruction but the mullahs of Iran are not. That ought to make you sh!t your pants at that thought. They believe that by bringing on global war they will hasten the return of the 12th "Hidden" Imam, known as the "Mahdi". Letting the Iranians get even close to a bomb is a colossal mistake that would completely destabilize the world we know (especially as the Saudis, Turks and Egyptians would then feel compelled to get their own nukes to counter the Iranians).
Also don't forget that Iran is working with North Korea. The North Korean's work on the nuke part (which means inspections find little in Iran these days), while the Iranians work on the long range missiles. Once they swap technology the world is in real trouble.
We attacked the one (Iraq) of the three that did not have nuclear weapons. And make lots of noise about the two (Iran, Korea) who do.
I Like Yousaf Butts and I cannot lie
On how much oil they have.
People will start paying a lot of attention to Pakistani nukes once they will officially have Salafists in charge of the country.
People paying attention to the nukes is a good thing. You don't want those things to go missing like when the USSR imploded. Lots and lots of fissile material went missing...
Related: Death Penalty for Atheists in Iran!
--libman
Terribly thin and unsourced as it is, Iran is about 20% slower than the worst (earliest) case scenario currently debated, more or less. The rest of this 'science' article is devoted to general purpose Jew bashing.
Just curious to know.
Casteism
Except for one fact about Iran that needs clearing up. This is a country with a very significant intelligent population, a population that was in finance, manufacturing and the arts for generations. The USA embargos have helped Iran immensely. Unemployment is down (all products have to be domestic), internally the economy rolls. People are not starving for food, though they may be starving for political freedoms. Iran is part of the middle east, and intends to be the USA of the middle east, just as the USA was the world power after the war.
The USA is today a middle power. It's economy in shambles, and its morality questioned. The Congress is no longer there for the people, the masses, but for confrontation with the democrats. Sadly, the line from the popular song reminds me of the USA. The line is "Slip Sliding away".
Read this weeks article from the Chicago Tribune. It reports about Canada, or it really reports what has happened to the USA, where confrontation takes priority over what is best for the population.
Did anyone else read the title as:
How Close Is Iran, Really, To Nuclear Windows
captcha: sideshow (Bob)
Nobody gives a shit about your goddamned captcha.