Iran Can Now Make glowing Mickey Mouse Watches
Despite all the sloppy and inaccurate headlines about Iran "going nuclear," the fact is that all President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday was that it had enriched uranium to a measely 3.5 percent, using a bank of 180 centrifuges hooked up so that they "cascade."
The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.
The crisis is not one of nuclear enrichment, a low-level attainment that does not necessarily lead to having a bomb. Even if Iran had a bomb, it is hard to see how they could be more dangerous than Communist China, which has lots of such bombs, and whose Walmart stores are a clever ruse to wipe out the middle class American family through funneling in cheaply made Chinese goods.
What is really going on here is a ratcheting war of rhetoric. The Iranian hard liners are down to a popularity rating in Iran of about 15%. They are using their challenge to the Bush administration over their perfectly legal civilian nuclear energy research program as a way of enhancing their nationalist credentials in Iran.
Likewise, Bush is trying to shore up his base, which is desperately unhappy with the Iraq situation, by rattling sabres at Iran. Bush's poll numbers are so low, often in the mid-30s, that he must have lost part of his base to produce this result. Iran is a great deus ex machina for Bush. Rally around the flag yet again.
If this international game of chicken goes wrong, then the whole Middle East and much of Western Europe could go up in flames. The real threat here is not unconventional war, which Iran cannot fight for the foreseeable future. It is the spread of Iraq-style instability to more countries in the region.
Bush and Ahmadinejad could be working together toward the Perfect Storm.
posted by Juan Cole @ 4/12/2006 06:10:00 AM
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27 Comments:
Despite all the sloppy and inacurate headlines...
Do you really believe those are sloppy? I see the MSM leading the charge against Iran just as they did against Iraq. It's deja vu all over again.
As Billmon points out, Americans seem ready to swallow this line too. Surely the present US regime will attack Iran. I certainly pray that they do not use nuclear weapons. Frankly I do not believe in the efficacy of prayer.
The Oil Lobby has never had it so good and would be happy to see more chaos in the Middle East and the accompanying rise in oil prices.
The far-right wing Israel Lobby would just like to see more chaos and destruction amidst their neighbors.
The War Lobby would just like to see more war.
All three of these players believe they have something to gain and nothing to lose with more war in the Middle East.
As far as what the results of their naked greed are for Iran and Iranians, Iraq and Iraqis, even Israel and Israelis, they care not. They clearly care not one fig for America or Americans, as the 2359 dead and 17829 wounded Americans and the $9 trillion dollar debt they have left us with attest.
They think that they personally can escape whatever is the result of their actions, so many billions will they have.
Jack Straw has said that attacking Iran is nuts, but these nuts have made billions so far and are looking for more where those came from.
And the MSM is playing hand-glove, just as complicit as they were with the shocking, awful invasion and occupation of Iraq.
Won't they be thrilled to have a real, live mushroom cloud on the front pages and tv screens.
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Never Mind the Facts, Listen for Heavy Breathing
When any leader gets low in the polls, he looks around for a crisis.
Remember what 9/11 did for W.'s low ratings? W. can never thank ObL enough, and certainly hasn't been ungrateful enough to take him in.
So the question in the next few months is, can the boy w.ho cried "W.olf" so often, get away with it again?
If it's to be done at all, it will be done with hype and hyperventilation, as the facts don't support drastic action at the present.
So look for scary maps, with red missile-ranges rings eminating from Tehran, not the reverse maps with missile ranges eminating from Tel Aviv targetted on Tehran. The range is the same either direction, and which would you think has the better technology?
After three decades of trying, Iran is close to having a peaceful nuclear power reactor at Bushehr, built by others.
Couldn't manage it themselves over decades, can't build a decent petrochemical refinery themselves, but able to whip up a deployable nuclear weapon right now?
Unlikely, but that won't stop some people from trying to bomb or invade. This will take a lot of hyperbole and hysteria, but that is one thing this administration, to use the word loosely, has proven itself capable of.
So as the war drumrolls build to a crescendo, try to keep your wits and sense of proportion and plausibility about you. It won't be easy.
Do it anyway.
Agree.
Order Up More Garlands, and Kool-Aid
Having just finished the astonishing fifth comment on the 4/11 posts and the links, one needs to recall:
The idea of simple air strikes on Iran solving anything is preposterous.
They will strengthen the current regime immensely (think Pearl Harbor.)
Whether there is one nuclear strike or hundreds of nuclear and conventional air strikes, the inevitable follow-up will have to be invasion. The idea that there can be an air strike without an invasion is just the come-on. (No, they won't find it possible to do a non-nuclear strike; nuclear weapons contractors need contracts too. More brutally, power just needs to be demonstrated, even if the demonstration is futile and counterproductive over even the near haul.)
And it's not just in the fine print, it's in big bold print at the top of the contract: Regime change for all "terrorist" states.
Invasion just won't be mentioned until the inevitable sequelae of the air attack phase become unmistakeable, and everyone "understands" that we just have to "finish the job" and "stay the course."
Buy into the air-head solution if you want, but don't be surprised when we really do have to invade after all.
And don't bother learning Farsi, either, it just won't be needed for our purposes.
I have been pretty certain our (US) rulers would attack Iran ever since I realized that our people are sick with fear believing:
"There is little doubt among Americans about Iran's intentions. Eight of 10 predict Iran would provide a nuclear weapon to terrorists who would use it against the USA or Israel, and almost as many say the Iranian government itself would use nuclear weapons against Israel. Six of 10 say the Iranian government would deploy nuclear weapons against the USA."
Unless people understand that the era in which the US could enjoy a practical monopoly of force in the world is over, we're screwed. And our rulers will commit another crime against humanity, on top of their existing war crimes.
I found Narges's comments quite moving. She seems better informed about her country than most Americans are about our own. Best of luck, Narges--I hope nothing bad happens.
Despite Bush's low polling numbers, there are still a lot of people who support him; I see many an SUV tattooed with Bush bumper stickers. And the attitude of the mainstream news media is still one of normalcy--they still seem to regard the administration's pronouncements as trustworthy and worthy of respect; they don't take any of the major players to task: no feet are being held to any fire.
This morning I thought of the final scene in "The Deer Hunter," in which those desperate, fragile, utterly overwhelmed characters sing "God Bless America" because they need to hold onto something larger than their own mangled lives (even though they cling to the thing doing the mangling). The news media and the "W '04" SUV drivers make up a similar chorus, I think.
Great comments, Juan. Definitely worth linking to on every blog that follows this story!
Professor Cole -- I'd love to hear your response to this claim from Hersh's article by former CIA officer Robert Baer:
“Ahmadinejad and his Revolutionary Guard colleagues in the Iranian government ‘are capable of making a bomb, hiding it, and launching it at Israel. They’re apocalyptic Shiites.’”
No, it's not just a far-Right lobby trying to sow chaos, raise oil prices, stir hysteria over Mickey watches, or improve standing in the polls. Nor is it merely a fuzzy "ten years down the road" hypothesis.
First of all, these next ten years are almost certain to feature continued turmoil over oil access and geopolitics. An unstable Iraq only worsens the problem. There is no way for the US simply to go home, go fishing, and forget about how to keep the gas tank full.
Once Iran's reactors go on stream, an effort to "take them out" entails a toxic Chernobyl type outcome, showering a vast region with long term radioactivity. This becomes an enormous deterrent. That's why Israel bombed Osirak before it went hot. Centrifuges can be hidden, blended with decoys, or perhaps placed right beneath the reactors, making them invulnerable. Thus, once the process starts, there is no longer any way to stop it.
Economic sanctions against Iran are more or less out of the question. China, Russia, and others will not simply say "No," but "Hell, no."
A single A-bomb on a single missile, programmed to hit Tel Aviv, would give Iran a 100% check on any US action in the Gulf to defend oil resources. It could be hidden amidst 100s of decoys. Iran's "doomsday" plan could be complemented by conventional attacks on neighbors' oil facilities, and a missile / torpedo shutdown of the Straits of Hormuz. No amount of Venezuelan or Nigerian oil could make up the difference.
The US would not be eager to see Israel use the threat of a massive counter-strike against Iran. That would not stop Iranian sabotage of the oil flows. Israel's retaliation would certainly involve a lot more too. Were it to obliterate other cities and religious sites in the Middle East, or maybe even Iran-cozy Russia, that would throw the the world into a century of chaos.
No religion easily embraces nuclear weapons into any concept of "just war." But clerics tend to be malleable. An Egyptian authority recently proclaimed sculpture to be unislamic, condemning sculptors to hell, but the country is not about to smash its statues.
Pakistani imams have not declared their own bomb "unislamic." An Iranian cleric would probably also find a way to justify defense of the regime by generous measures, and true believers will not be deterred if Israeli massive retaliation were to confer a divine reward of massive martyrdom. If US analysts cited by Hersh really consider the Iranian leaders to be crazies, there won't be much appetite to test their zeal--once it's too late.
Bush has been wrong about just about everything. Even some of his Base has started to falter. He probably sees himself like Hadleyville's forsaken Sheriff Cain, left alone just as the trainload of killers is about to arrive. Evidently, even Graham Allison agrees that the stakes are quite high. Hersh also seems cautious not to pooh-pooh the underlying issues.
I've said many times that Bush and 'the terrorists' need each other.
Exhibit A: Where's Osama? It just wouldn't do if Big Brother actually captured Emmanuel Goldstein.
Hi Jaun,
I just watched the White House Press conference and it seemed like the Press Corps is swallowing the Administration's rhetori, as most of their questions revolved around trying to bait Scott McClelland into discussing how President Bush could possibly believe that diplomacy could stop a "crazy" man like Abazirjad(president of Iran-sorry about spelling) and how long was the President going to wait before he took action. This is getting scary. How could we fall for the same scam all over again especially in light of everything that has happened? Thanks for your post though.It helped to clarifiy the issue(for me at least).
sandskeptic, given that the US Army is at or beyond the limit of its capability sustaining its troop numbers in Iraq, an invasion of Iran of sufficient scale to effect regime change is just not going to happen prior to a massive drawdown in Iraq, or institution of a draft. I think we know where Bush stands on the former - he considers it an issue for the President after him. And the latter, short of another mass casualty attack inside the US, is very unlikely to fly electorally. So despite their intent, I suspect air-strike sabre rattling is all the US can offer at the moment.
I'm more interested in the assumption that turns this issue from unfortunate nuclear proliferation amongst states to one of a terrorist-related crisis - that a nuclear armed Iran is an Iran that will provide these nuclear weapons to terrorists. Because that's what authoritarian regimes do all the time: hand over their deadliest, most precious weapons to people or groups outside their most strict command and control? huh? Maybe Juan can shed some light on this.
Gawd, this reminds me of the "Iraq could launch bio/chem weapons in 45 minutes" line:
Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says
April 12 (Bloomberg) -- Iran, which is defying United Nations Security Council demands to cease its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days if it goes ahead with plans to install thousands of centrifuges at its Natanz plant, a U.S. State Department official said.
``Natanz was constructed to house 50,000 centrifuges,'' Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow. ``Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days.''
...
[buried down at the end of the article:]
Rademaker said the technology to enrich uranium to a low level could also be used to make weapons-grade uranium, saying that it would take a little over 13 years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon with the 164 centrifuges currently in use.
...
Iran has informed the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to construct 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz next year, Rademaker said.
``We calculate that a 3,000-machine cascade could produce enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon within 271 days,'' he said.
So the whole 16 days thing actually means, "Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, Once They Finish 10 Year Construction Project"
I'm sure our liberal media won't read that far...
"...Communist China, which has lots of such bombs, and whose Walmart stores are a clever ruse to wipe out the middle class American family through funneling in cheaply made Chinese goods."
How does this wipe out the middle-class American family?
Richard
Attacking Iran will Spoil our Morning Commute
We didn’t attack India, Pakistan or North Korea for breaking the rules and building their own nukes. But this administration is threatening an attack on Iran because they supposedly pose an imminent and dangerous threat to world peace.
And we all realize by now that our administration has proven itself dangerous and that it just might let loose an attack on Iranian enrichment facilities in pursuit of its neo-con vision of strategic world domination. (Plus in their skewed thinking, it might divert attention from the “thousands of tactical errors” in Iraq). An attack on the widely dispersed nuclear facilities in Iran will likely kill thousands of civilians while solidifying worldwide resentment against America—and could possibly lead to WW III.
It will also play hell with the morning commute. I don’t have the time, inclinational or firepower to take on the political moral, social and legal consequences of a pre-emptive attack on Iran. My focus is on the 150,000 or so commuters heading over the hill everyday from Santa Cruz, CA to Silicon Valley. Think of them as a metaphor for commuters everywhere.
What will happen when the gas stations run dry or are only open a few hours a day with prices rocketing above five bucks per gallon?—when you can get it! How about not being able to predict when you can fill up, calling stations and getting busy signals or a recording that says to check their website for the next shipment? What will happen to Santa Cruz commuters and the tech firms that they operate? What will happen to the US economy and our free transit-way of life?
And why do I think that the Air Force, Navy and Marines bombing the Hell of out Iran could lead to any of these doomsday outcomes?
First, Iran is the world’s fourth largest oil producer yielding about 3.75 million barrels of oil per day. Although we do not directly import Iranian crude because it is legally proscribed, Iranian exports of nearly 4 million barrels/day are a fairly sizeable chunk of the daily world crude oil consumption of the 76 million barrels/day.
Attacking Iran could reduce or eliminate their production entirely if 1) oil fields and facilities were damaged 2) the attacks resulted in internal turmoil within Iran 3) Iranian leaders decided to punish the US by embargo 4) Iran attacks oil tankers passing through the Straits of Hormuz 5) Iran attacks US warships using its new super-fast underwater missiles “flying boats” and top secret land to air missiles disrupting oil shipping. Any of these scenarios are possible.
Some of you may remember the Iranian oil embargo of 1973. I visited Honolulu at the time where the impacts were intensely felt and remember the hassle of planning a fill up. So an embargo might happen. After all is did once before. Iran might even launch a pre-emptive embargo just to give Americans a preview of the pain and suffering in store for commuters if we bomb(s) away.
Although Iran’s use of an embargo involves inherent internal risks because they are the only major oil exporter operating at a deficit, if sufficiently provoked or threatened they could be motivated to use their ace in the hole. Adding an unpredictability factor on when they cut and restore exports would be especially daunting to oil markets and traders.
The sad and frustrating part is that this could have all been avoided. Most of the world was behinds us after 9/11 and now most of the world is against us. Iran is emboldened by our botched occupation of Iraq. We not only eliminated Iran’s key enemies, Hussein and the Taliban, but we have unintentionally brought pro-Iranians to positions of leadership in Iraq.
Now Iran says let’s talk this out and the administration says no thanks but “all options are on the table—including military.”
The UN is hamstrung because of anti-US sentiment and the fact that Russian and China are sympathetic to Iran and will likely nix serious economic sanctions. Still Nobel Peace Prize winner General Mohammed ElBaradei persists in his efforts to negotiate a diplomatic solution and has asked both the US and Iran to tune down the rhetoric.
Does any of this sound familiar?
More from Ron S. Nolan is at http://www.solarmetro.com/blog.htm where he will often be found citing Juan Cole’s opinions.
(Feel free to edit this down if you wish to include it.)
Perhaps I quibble, but you mentioned Bush’s base somewhere in the mid 30s. I must respectfully disagree. In the latest ABC/Washington Post poll only 20 percent answered they strongly support the president. It is my opinion that that is his actual base of support, considering that only those individuals would remain steadfast in the wake of the devastating reports of criminality and/or incompetence, one after another after another, over the past six months.
If my premise is correct, we will continue to see more slippage in his approval numbers between now and November — and beyond. I suspect we’ll see somewhere between another 10 to 15 percent loss overall before he hits bottom.
Ahmadinejad was elected less than a year ago with 62% of the vote. I question your assertion, unsupported by any source, that his popularity is now 15%.
Whatever happened to Ghorbanifar? I can't believe he's not involved in the Cheney war scheme.
To me one of the most unsettling thing about the Iran discussion is that no one seems to expect congress to step up to its role.
You'd think that Bush would need a declaration of war, and that congress, having learned its lesson from Iraq would not support the declaration, and would also deny funds for any military operations. But I get the impression that Bush at least assumes he has congress in his pocket.
Now is the perfect opportunity for congress to take a stand against military action. Another Russ Feingold moment.
How can the US keep a massively destructive military option on the table and in Iran's face, and expect Iran to respond with anything less than a Manhattan Project?
Juan:
You mentioned that the hard-linbers in Iran have approval ratings that would make Dick Cheney laugh out loud. Where did you get this 15% figure?
Bush has always been a hell-raiser.
He was a hell-raiser as a young kid who liked to blow up frogs with firecrackers.
He was a hell-raiser as a drunk for over twenty years.
Now, he is the hell-raiser president.
Hmmmm, and with all this hell-raising, Bush still claims he is Christian?? Suuurrree.
But remember the important thing. When the US found 2 centrifuges gathering dust in a building in Iraq, we were told that meant that Iraq was within months or even weeks of having a nuclear weapon.
Juan,
I wasn't aware of the poll numbers in Iran, but everything else you wrote is what I have been saying also. It's all a political sideshow for poll ratings. Going into the summer of an election year especially.
John Koch said :
"That's why Israel bombed Osirak before it went hot."
Israel, unlike Iran a non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement with its stockpile of 200 nuclear warheads, wanted then to keep its nuclear monoploy in the Middle East intact, and now wants the United States to keep the Israeli nuclear monoploy in the Middle East intact.
John Koch continues:
" First of all, these next ten years are almost certain to feature continued turmoil over oil access and geopolitics."
Yes, as long as the US/Israel Axis continues for another decade to defend Israel's four decades of unjust policies and expropriation in Palestine there is very likely to be continued turmoil in the region.
The answer is not to embrace "death as a way of life" as the Israelis, or at least their far-right wing politicians have, and to let the bombs fly, to march grimly to Armaggedon.
The answer is to abandon the fundamentally unjust Israeli policy towards Palestine and the Palestinians.
The Israelis themselves will never do so as long as the Israel Lobby in the United States of America keeps delivering the means for them to continue their oppression at no cost at all to the themselves.
Hence it is up to us in the United States to cut off the flow of money to Israel, for it is costing us dearly, from the 3000 innocents lost on 9/11 to the 2359 lost since in Iraq, not to mention the treasure. Not to mention the loss of our very soul as a nation.
To embrace life over death as a way of life, creation over destruction as a value, and respect for others, if love for others is too much for our bitter Xtian souls, rather than the cynical hatred embraced not only by the Israeli regime but by our present regime in our United States as well is the way out of the shocking, awful era we find ourselves in.
There is not a moment more to lose.
I wouldn't be surprised if both Bush and Ahmadinejad were both heading towards internal coups over their extreme overheating of non-issues. The peoples of both countries do not see any need whatsoever for a war. Any attack by the U.S. would be wholly unjustified, yet Bush and Ahmadinejad seem to keep increasing the heat for such a thing.
Maybe its past time to forcefully remove these two respective traitors from their high positions.
That's right, I said it, both these leaders are grossly incompetent, and TRAITORS to their nations.
Eli,
Ahmadinejad got less than 20% of the vote in the first round, (check the numbers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iranian_presidential_election,_2005). The 61% in the runoff was just as much (if not more so) a vote against Rafsanjani as it was a vote for Ahmadinejad. Many Iranians opted to vote for an unkown outsider promising economic reforms rather than a establishment insider who they saw as corrupt. If there was a vote in Iran today, Ahmadinejad would not get anywhere near those numbers.
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