Analysis: Iran's Nuclear Program Has Been an Astronomical Waste

Lasrick writes: Business Insider's Armin Rosen uses a fuel-cost calculator from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to show that Iran's nuclear program has been "astronomically costly" for the country. Rosen uses calculations from this tool to hypothesize that what Iran "interprets as the country's 'rights' under the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty is a diplomatic victory that justifies the outrageous expense of the nuclear program." Great data crunching.

Comments

Re:Stuxnet

[vikingpower]

Quite decisive. One of my customers is Siemens, who built and delivered the centrifuges that were spun to death by Stuxnet. I am not allowed to give numbers here, other than the fact that more than half of the centrifuges were destroyed, basically doubling the lenght of the gas enrichment process. Not to mention the great cost and difficulty of repairing the centrifuges with their own, somewhat primitive technology.

Now for the most interesting bit: successors of Stuxnet, stealthier than their ancestor, may still be lurking in some parts of Iran's nuclear infrastructure, says my well-informed source @Siemens.

Re:Iran is not trying to save money

[Beck_Neard]

I guess America's only true experts in nuclear weapons production - the scientists at LLNL and LANL - must have been wrong then when they analyzed the Iranian nuclear deal and concluded it would eliminate all paths to a nuclear weapon. Thank's Tablizer, you have enlightened me with your knowledge of nuclear weapons.

Don't ignore recent history

[Required Snark]

Remember that during the Iran/Iraq war Saddam Husein's regime used poison gas against Iranian troops and civilian populations.

After Iran sent chemical casualties to several Western nations for treatment, the UN dispatched a team of specialists to the area in 1984, and again in 1986 and 1987, to verify the claims. The conclusion from all three trips was the same: Iraq was using chemical weapons against Iranian troops. In addition, the second mission stressed that Iraq’s use of chemical weapons appeared to be increasing. The reports indicated that mustard and tabun were the primary agents used, and that they were generally delivered in bombs dropped by airplane. The third mission (the only one allowed to enter Iraq) also reported the use of artillery shells and chemical rockets and the use of chemical weapons against civilian personnel.

How did they get this capability? Countries from all over the world helped them, including the US, France, England, Germany and China.

As part of Project 922, German firms such as Karl Kolb helped build Iraqi chemical weapons facilities such as laboratories, bunkers, an administrative building, and first production buildings in the early 1980s under the cover of a pesticide plant. Other German firms sent 1,027 tons of precursors of mustard gas, sarin, tabun, and tear gasses in all. This work allowed Iraq to produce 150 tons of mustard agent and 60 tons of Tabun in 1983 and 1984 respectively, continuing throughout the decade. All told, 52% of Iraq's international chemical weapon equipment was of German origin. One of the contributions was a £14m chlorine plant known as "Falluja 2", built by Uhde Ltd, a UK subsidiary of a German company; the plant was given financial guarantees by the UK's Export Credits Guarantee Department despite official UK recognition of a "strong possibility" the plant would be used to make mustard gas. The guarantees led to UK government payment of £300,000 to Uhde in 1990 after completion of the plant was interrupted by the first Gulf War. In 1994 and 1996 three people were convicted in Germany of export offenses.

France also provided glass-lined reactors, tanks, vessels, and columns used for the production of chemical weapons. Around 21% of Iraq’s international chemical weapon equipment was French. 75,000 shells and rockets designed for chemical weapon use also came from Italy. About 100 tons of mustard gas also came from Brazil. The United States exported $500 million of dual use exports to Iraq that were approved by the Commerce Department. Among them were advanced computers, some of which were used in Iraq’s nuclear program. Austria also provided heat exchangers, tanks, condensers, and columns for the Iraqi chemical weapons infrastructure, 16% of the international sales. Singapore gave 4,515 tons of precursors for VX, sarin, tabun, and mustard gasses to Iraq. The Dutch gave 4,261 tons of precursors for sarin, tabun, mustard, and tear gasses to Iraq. Egypt gave 2,400 tons of tabun and sarin precursors to Iraq and 28,500 tons of weapons designed for carrying chemical munitions. India gave 2,343 tons of precursors to VX, tabun, Sarin, and mustard gasses. Luxembourg gave Iraq 650 tons of mustard gas precursors. Spain gave Iraq 57,500 munitions designed for carrying chemical weapons. In addition, they provided reactors, condensers, columns and tanks for Iraq’s chemical warfare program, 4.4% of the international sales. China provided 45,000 munitions designed for chemical warfare.

So given this history, is it irrational for Iran to want to get the biggest baddest weapon of mass destruction they can, no matter what the cost? A rational cost analysis is irrelevant under these circumstances.

A significant number of the world's major powers

Re:Really?

[PopeRatzo]

Barry M. Rubin

Horse shit.

Iran was a pro-Western, pro-American country until we sent the CIA to overthrow their government in 1953 and installed the Shah. If you're going to quote an Israeli PJMedia/Fox News propagandist, you might want to find one with more credibility than Barry Rubin.

Re:Nope!

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve]

This. I've also always wondered why the U.S. put all its money on the Arab countries instead of Iran. Iran at least has basic level of Democracy with presidential elections. Irans youth is, in general, more progressive and open minded that in most other islamic countries. The U.S. big ally and arch-enemy of Iran, Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, is a practically an absolutist monarchy practicing extremely conservative interpretation of Sharia law. It's also interesting to point out that many high-profile terrorists, such as Osama bin Ladin, were Saudi Arabians. I wouldn't be surprised if elements in Saudi Arabia's government secretly support or at the very least condone IS in Syria and Iraq. They seem pretty single-minded about supporting Sunni Islam against everything Shia.

Basically significant segments of the Iranian government and a good number of the population (not necessarily a majority, but enough to have influence) have anti-Americanism as their raison d'être. Khomeini hated America for supporting the Shah and he passed that hatred down to his disciples. His disciples continue to be the true powers in Iran. These people have merged religion with anti-Americanism so to them, not being anti-American is like rejecting Islam. It will probably be decades before enough time has passed for mullahs to come into power in Iran who have no personal animosity towards America. Consider too that among people old enough to remember the Iran hostage situation that there is some severe hatred towards Iran so that makes it difficult for the US to make friends with Iran as portions of US power (some people in Congress and various government agencies) will never trust them because of that.

To be honest, the US would probably like to be friends with Iran, but the mullahs can't and won't allow it. The US really would be better off backing the Shiites like Iran as they are somewhat less troublesome to deal with than the Sunnis, but they can't publicly say that because the Sunnis have the numbers. Numbers of followers alone make it in the US's best interests to try to deal with Sunni governments, many of which hate the US and do things that support terrorists indirectly if not directly. The Saudi government has been pretty good friends with the USA, but unfortunately they support a version of Islam that over time has become more and more intolerant of non-Muslims and is directly or indirectly responsible for groups like ISIS and Al Queda. The Saudi rulers need US support to stay in power and the US needs them lest Saudi Arabi turn into an even bigger headache for the US than Iran.

The US governments under George W. Bush and Barack Obama have had unrealistic expectations of Middle Eastern democracy. The idea was that if given the opportunity to freely elect their leaders that they would be so grateful to the USA that they'd become our best friends. Instead it has become apparent to me that if given a free choice, the majority of Muslim voters will willingly vote to take away their own rights under oppressive religious governments and those that hate the US will come out of the shadows and work to attack the US. The only country that went through the Arab Spring and maybe came out on the better end was Egypt and they had to beg the military to overthrow the legally elected government.

Re:Self centered morons

[drinkypoo]

Actually the problem with Iran has nothing to do with the US.

Bull. Fucking. Shit.

Iran was getting its shit together and we took a gigantic shit on it on purpose, to prevent that from happening.

It's *still* a stupid scare

[whitroth]

First of all, Iran COULD NOT USE the bomb if it had one.

Why?
1. They can't bomb Jerusalem, which is as holy to them as to jews and Christians. Their own
              people would slaughter them. AND they'd kill most of the Palestinians in the Occupied
              Territories of the West Bank.
2. Israel is smaller than the US state of New Jersey. At one point, I believe it's a total
                of ->17mi- wide. What this means is using the bomb *anywhere* in Israel means
                fallout on Jerusalem.
3. Following 2, it *also* means fallout on the Palestinians.
4. Oh, yes - the winds would mean that fallout would COME BACK TO IRAN.

Therefore, the ONE and ONLY purpose that Iran would want the bomb is MAD with Israel (who has a bunch of bombs, and would cheerfully use it on Iran, if they didn't think there'd be no Israel left afterwards.

Oh, yes, and with all the climate-change deniers here, *no* *one* could imagine that maybe Iran's worried about when their oil fields are played out, and planning to do things with the money while they have it to prepare for the future, no, no, that's *way* more than next quarter....

                        mark

Re:It's *still* a stupid scare

[Theaetetus]

First of all, Iran COULD NOT USE the bomb if it had one.

Why? 1. They can't bomb Jerusalem, which is as holy to them as to jews and Christians. Their own people would slaughter them. AND they'd kill most of the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories of the West Bank. 2. Israel is smaller than the US state of New Jersey. At one point, I believe it's a total of ->17mi- wide. What this means is using the bomb *anywhere* in Israel means fallout on Jerusalem. 3. Following 2, it *also* means fallout on the Palestinians. 4. Oh, yes - the winds would mean that fallout would COME BACK TO IRAN.

Therefore, the ONE and ONLY purpose that Iran would want the bomb is MAD with Israel (who has a bunch of bombs, and would cheerfully use it on Iran, if they didn't think there'd be no Israel left afterwards.

Oh, yes, and with all the climate-change deniers here, *no* *one* could imagine that maybe Iran's worried about when their oil fields are played out, and planning to do things with the money while they have it to prepare for the future, no, no, that's *way* more than next quarter....

mark

Although I agree with your overall points and analysis that Iran, at best, wants a bomb for defensive Mutual Assured Destruction purposes, I will point out that they don't give a flying fark about the Palestinians. Specifically, Iran is 90-95% Shi'ite, while Palestine is primarily Wahhabi Sunnis. Although they're both Muslim, it's like Catholic vs. Protestants in Ireland. In fact, not just 'don't give a flying fark' - Iran would gleefully wipe out Palestine if they could, but that (i) prevailing wind and (ii) mutually assured destruction from Israel are insurmountable problems.