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Iran Complies With Nuclear Deal; Sanctions Lifted (nytimes.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Iran has shipped most of its nuclear fuel out of the country, destroyed the innards of a plutonium-producing reactor and mothballed more than 12,000 centrifuges. This compliance with the nuclear accord struck in July has caused the U.S. and Europe to lift financial sanctions on Iran, releasing ~$100 billion in assets. "Under the new rules put in place, the United States will no longer sanction foreign individuals or firms for buying oil and gas from Iran. The American trade embargo remains in place, but the government will permit certain limited business activities with Iran, such as selling or purchasing Iranian food and carpets and American commercial aircraft and parts. It is an opening to Iran that represents a huge roll of the dice, one that will be debated long after Mr. Obama he has built his presidential library. It is unclear what will happen after the passing of Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has protected and often fueled the hardliners — but permitted these talks to go ahead."
It won't matter if a Republican president takes this step. It will just mean more business for the EU, Russia, etc. No one outside the US takes this buffoon seriously, and Iran's demographics make the theocracy's grip on power increasingly tenuous. Wouldn't a future with good relations between US-Israel-Iran be so much better than one with the disgusting Saudi regime?
Perhaps, but enriched fuel is HARD to make. The technology is quite.. finicky and specialized and not available to you and me.
To enrich uranium to weapons grade requires centrifuges, a lot of them (because it's the only way to separate U-235 from U-238). Civil enrichment uses a few centrifuges to none (there are designs that don't need enriched fuel). But that's because they only need 5% U-235 to work. Weapons grade is 40% or higher (and bombs need almost pure - 90%+), which requires a stunningly large array of centrifuges at which point it's really hard to do and keep a secret underground - it's going to be a huge facility.
And let's not forget that the world IS watching and monitoring. You cannot detonate a nuclear bomb anywhere without it being detected by third parties. Underground? The earth is covered with seismographs recording everything from earthquakes to nuclear bombs. There are isotope detectors scattered around detecting the products of the nuclear reactions. And you can't do it out in the open because a lot of satellites carry detectors.
Plus, nevermind the intelligence capabilities of everyone - think of what it would take to design something like Stuxnet to only fire at the right target configured a certain way. Chances are, if there is such an underground facility, it's well known. You can't really hide such a facility - having to dig out lots of earth and then moving it places means it's captured on satellite photos and everything. And such a facility requires a lot of infrastructure and likely will generate quite a bit of heat, which shows up nicely on thermal cameras, again on satellites.
And if it really posed a threat, well, a "bomb" will be accidentally dropped on it. After all, it landed out there in the middle of the desert where there was nothing there.