Thoughts on the Middle East, History, and Religion
Juan Cole is President of the Global Americana Institute
Someone is not a team player.
Screenshot from google.news, 3/1/09 4 pm ET:
cf: "Iran Nuclear Program Hyped Again"
and
"IAEA Inspectors: Iran not Producing Weapons-grade Uranium."
End/ (Not Continued)
posted by Juan Cole @ 3/01/2009 04:15:00 PM
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Winner, October 5, 2007, Scott Nearing Award for Courageous Scholarship (Awarded by the Graduate Students of the Political Science Department, University of Pennsylvania).
Winner, 2005 James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, Hunter College.
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13 Comments:
What a disappointment it must be for some of our military heads to be told that their next glorious conquest is just slipping out of their reach.
Gates jumped in immediately afterward and neutralised the comments by Mullen. The odd part is Mullen had sounded relatively rational in the past.
- - - - -
Iran "not close" to nuclear weapon: Gates
Sun 01 March 2009
Iran is not close to having a nuclear weapon, which gives the United States and others time to try to persuade Tehran to abandon its suspected atomic arms program, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday.
"They're not close to a stockpile, they're not close to a weapon at this point, and so there is some time," Gates said on NBC television's "Meet The Press."
Gates' comments followed a televised interview with Adm. Mike Mullen, head of the U.S. military Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told CNN's "State of the Union" that he believed Iran has enough fissile material to make a nuclear bomb.
Full piece Here.
.
Sir: You need to read this bit about Iran having enough material for a bomb very carefully. From what I've read, they have REACTOR grade uranium, which is generally 3-5% U-235. This is a very long way from the 90%+ that is needed for a fission weapon. I suspect that Gates is correct.
Also, they will want more than one bomb - one wants several (a dozen?), or you lose your country on first use. That means much more U stockpiled.
Actually, if Iran were to try to bomb Israel with a nuclear weapon, they will lose Iran anyway.
I think this whole thing is unnecessarily alarming. Iran probably wants deterrence. Which, from their viewpoint, makes a lot of sense.
Although the echo-chamber media repeatedly regurgitates the fear and hysteria caused by even the mere thought of a nuclear Iran, I have to ask why would it be so bad?
It would provide a nice deterrent to the lunatic Israelis, who have amassed an unquantifiable amount of nuclear WMDs and who brag publicly about committing war crimes.
It would help to mitigate the fatalistic dreams of hegemony that the United States has been pursuing.
Well, Saddam had enough yellowcake to make a bomb, too. It's just that you can't actually *make* a bomb from yellowcake ore, you have to enrich it. Similarly, the enriched uranium that Iran has cannot be used in its present form to make a bomb--it has to be enriched. They are nowhere near actually making a bomb yet.
We've trying to untangle this in an entry "Engagement, Hysteria, and Muddle":
"This was either 1) an Admiral being manoeuvred into a very silly mistake or 2) another example of the US military trying to bump others in the Obama Administration into a harder line."
http://enduringamerica.com/2009/03/02/obama-and-iran-engagement-muddle-and-hysteria/
I'd be very surprised if Israel has even 10% of the viable nuclear weapons it prefers to be ambiguous about having/not having. Few, if any, projects funded from the public purse in Israel yield products or work of a high quality. Israel has an unenviable reputation for being the home of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-contractor.
It is quite within the realm of probability that it has NO viable nuclear weapons - the loud and beathless saga of 'whistleblower' Vanunu notwithstanding.
Clinton has doubts that she will succeed in Iran for obvious reasons. She has a Pro-Israel attitude and has selected Ross who is very Pro Israel. This is all a farce. President Obama should leave Iran alone and get on with the work of getting the US economy in order. This is our biggest problem. Who cares if Iran makes a few atom bombs. They are not stupid to think of using it as a first use weapon unless Israel attacks them with Nuclear weapons.
Several others chimed in with Mullen, though not as hysterically. It's time for Obama to put an end to this war-hyping re. Iran, or else he owns it.
regardless of the facts on the ground, maybe it's not such a bad thing that Iran doesn't know our true position/intention? Eisenhower did this with China and it helped....
Dear Professor Cole
Having one nuclear weapon is a real pain.
You have to let it go bang under a mountain somewhere to prove that it works.
and then you have none.
Both Admiral Mullen and Sec. Gates are correct.
They are saying the same thing two ways.
Mullen is pointing out that Iran has accumulated sufficient low-enriched-uranium (call LEU) to create an atomic bomb. This LEU could be converted to High-enriched-uranium (call HEU) bomb fuel in just over 3 months.
BTW- people without technical understanding of the enrichment process mistakenly believe that it is hard to upgrade LEU to HEU. Completely untrue. It is EASIER than making LEU from uranium ore (which Iran has already done), and no real modifications needs to be made to its centrifuges (or to any clandestine machines).
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On the other hand, Gates is pointing out that while Iran has accumulated sufficient low-enriched-uranium (call LEU) to create an atomic bomb, it needs to enrich it to HEU to create a sufficent stockpile of bomb fuel, a process that takes more than 3 months, giving at least a bit of time to force a solution to the problem.
Also, testing is not required (altho very useful). It appears that Iran was supplied the plans for the Chinese HEU implosion warhead. Testing of the non-nuclear components - which the UN/IAEA has evidence for - is enough if push comes to shove.
What else to divert attention from our immediate clear and present dangers? The downed economy, ruined health care, infrastructure in shambles,useless education stratospheric deficit, etc. Why does Iran have such high priority? Unless we need another world war to get out of our mess, aka 1941?!
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