That's a fair conclusion from the latest report by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency. Among other disclosures, the IAEA found that Iran has produced more than 1,000 kilograms of low enriched uranium (LEU), enough for a single bomb's worth of uranium after further enrichment. The IAEA also found that Iran had underreported its stock of LEU by about 200 kilograms, which took the agency by surprise partly because it only checks Iran's stockpile once a year. This is the basis for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Michael Mullen's weekend acknowledgment that the U.S. believes Iran has enough fissile material to make a bomb.
Iran now possesses 5,600 centrifuges in which it can enrich uranium -- a 34-fold increase from 2006 -- and plans to add 45,000 more over five years. That will give Tehran an ability to make atomic bombs on an industrial scale
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Ryan Thunder wrote:So, remind me again of why nobody's air-struck the shit out of these facilities yet?
I imagine Israel is already making preparations.
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Ryan Thunder wrote:Who said anything about war? War implies that they can fight back!
Are you nuts? The Iranians could flood the Arabian Gulf with enough mines to paralyse shipping for months if not years!
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Iran could undo most of the progress that has been made in Iraq so far and they could attack Israel with missiles both from their homecountry and from Lebanon and they could make a big fucking mess in the gulf as was already mentioned. Even Bush and Cheney werent crazy enough to allow the Israelis to execute this attack, I doubt Obama would allow it either, hes knee-deep in shit already with the current crisis.
cosmicalstorm wrote:Iran could undo most of the progress that has been made in Iraq so far and they could attack Israel with missiles both from their homecountry and from Lebanon and they could make a big fucking mess in the gulf as was already mentioned. Even Bush and Cheney werent crazy enough to allow the Israelis to execute this attack, I doubt Obama would allow it either, hes knee-deep in shit already with the current crisis.
Edited for accuracy.
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Well, that does imply that they still have a navy to deploy said mines with at that point.
'course, you'd need a fuckton of planes or destroyers...
They happen to have a few diesel submarines which can go lay down mine fields. And it takes time to destroy their navy. In that time, they could float out quite a few mines to make things nasty for all of us.
STGOD: Byzantine Empire Your spirit, diseased as it is, refuses to allow you to give up, no matter what threats you face... and whatever wreckage you leave behind you.
Kreia
We are in no situation to begin a pissing match with Iran, but this still should not be a suprise. The doom-and-gloom reports about the Iranian nuclear program have continually proven to be bogus (as in, overstated), and we can see them progressing at a much less moustache-twirling diabolical rate, even if they are continually pouring cash into it.
The fissile material is itself not suprising either, it doesn't take all that much material to build a bomb, it just has to be highly enriched, which it isn't yet, and certainly wouldn't be for some time. We've still got time for talks before we need to send in the daisy cutters.
I've still not heard how they're going to turn spent fuel into plutonium, it's not exactly as simple as fishing around through the spent fuel for little plutonium nuggets, like they're a prize in a box of cereal. They're going to need a big ol' reprocessing center as well. And why in the world would the Russians, who I thought were overseeing this and providing them with the fuel, not request to have the spent fuel sent back with them for containment or at least oversight? It seems like there would be an obvious way to continue to monitor their fuel use.
Failing all of that, with Iran denying access to all relevent facilities, talks failing to have a positive effect, and Iran retaining the use of the fuel once it has gone through part of a cycle, while continually building centrifuges, it's abundantly clear that they aren't going to even bother having a rational discussion before putting their bomb-building facilities online. It's not like them having a nuke is the end of the world any more than it was the end of the world when Pakistan or North Korea or Russia got the bomb, but this is clearly a "throw down the gauntlet" situation. Would the West even have much of an option besides some kind of surgical military solution? We could cut off their fuel supply, but can't you buy Uranium on the black market with enough Oil money?
Yeah, there´s no way that there´s going to be any serious discussion with them. They want that bomb and they need that bomb. That´s the only way they can keep us of their asses. The spread of nukes to all sorts of countries is a serious problem on a global scale, but from a national point of view it´s a simple matter of survival.
salm wrote:Yeah, there´s no way that there´s going to be any serious discussion with them. They want that bomb and they need that bomb. That´s the only way they can keep us of their asses. The spread of nukes to all sorts of countries is a serious problem on a global scale, but from a national point of view it´s a simple matter of survival.
And from our (NATO) point of view, it is unacceptable. If the consequences of that aren't enough to deter them from constructing the bomb, they're just going to have to live with it.
Phantasee wrote:Christ on a stick, are you one of those people who think diplomacy is for losers?
Only if they aren't listening. Which they aren't, from the looks of things...
And besides that, when their leader has obvious delusions of grandeur at your expense, its good to put him in his place. Or at the very least, send him a solid reminder of it.
Put him in his place: by this you mean...? Instead of just posturing (on the Internet!), how about you tell me what the hell you're going on about? 'Solid reminder'? Like, a bomb?
TheMuffinKing wrote:If they have nukes, then wouldn't Iran be part of the big bad MAD (mutually assured destruction) club?
Only if they also had ICBMs that could lift nukes across the world. Just 'Having nukes' doesn't mean that. Pakistan has nukes. THey'll wreck India to shit if they launch, but the weapons themselves won't hit many of the nuclear powers. The nuclear powers, on the other hand..
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Phantasee wrote:Put him in his place: by this you mean...? Instead of just posturing (on the Internet!), how about you tell me what the hell you're going on about? 'Solid reminder'? Like, a bomb?
Perhaps. Whatever's practical.
Right now, Ahmedinijad insults us while developing nuclear weapons in open defiance. Perhaps if we were to inform him that, due to his known ties with terrorist organizations, should he ever develop a nuclear weapon, we will assume he intends to use it, and pre-emptively destroy it.
SirNitram wrote:
Only if they also had ICBMs that could lift nukes across the world. Just 'Having nukes' doesn't mean that. Pakistan has nukes. THey'll wreck India to shit if they launch, but the weapons themselves won't hit many of the nuclear powers. The nuclear powers, on the other hand..
Did you miss Iran’s recent successful space launch? They’ve already got something more demanding then an ICBM working, and they’ve already begin building hardened sites for missile basing too.
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Phantasee wrote:Christ on a stick, are you one of those people who think diplomacy is for losers?
Only if they aren't listening. Which they aren't, from the looks of things...
And besides that, when their leader has obvious delusions of grandeur at your expense, its good to put him in his place. Or at the very least, send him a solid reminder of it.
I hate to remind you, but for most people of the world the last US president was having "obvious delusions of grandeur" at everyone else's expense. Furthermore, wasn't one of the US demands for Iran that they'd stop their nuclear development program before any negotiations for possible halt to Iranian nuclear development program could begin? I daresay that's a poor way to handle diplomacy.
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SirNitram wrote:
Only if they also had ICBMs that could lift nukes across the world. Just 'Having nukes' doesn't mean that. Pakistan has nukes. THey'll wreck India to shit if they launch, but the weapons themselves won't hit many of the nuclear powers. The nuclear powers, on the other hand..
Did you miss Iran’s recent successful space launch? They’ve already got something more demanding then an ICBM working, and they’ve already begin building hardened sites for missile basing too.
I don't doubt they're working on both. But I was answering the 'Nukes == MAD club?' question. I'm aware of the space launch. I'm curious how much the satellite masses; that's the important bit. If you can get it close enough to a warhead, then you're an ICBM power.
Even still, MAD requires rough parity. I'd assume the US' and Russian arsenals still would outgun them ridiculously.
Manic Progressive: A liberal who violently swings from anger at politicos to despondency over them.
Out Of Context theatre: Ron Paul has repeatedly said he's not a racist. - Destructinator XIII on why Ron Paul isn't racist.
Ryan Thunder wrote:So, remind me again of why nobody's air-struck the shit out of these facilities yet?
Besides the other reasons mentioned, because their facilities are hardened and dispersed and so forth precisely to make that difficult.
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SirNitram wrote:I don't doubt they're working on both. But I was answering the 'Nukes == MAD club?' question. I'm aware of the space launch. I'm curious how much the satellite masses; that's the important bit. If you can get it close enough to a warhead, then you're an ICBM power.
Even still, MAD requires rough parity. I'd assume the US' and Russian arsenals still would outgun them ridiculously.
Of course. But even a Hiroshima-level nuke landing in, say, Washington D.C. would be... unspeakably bad. It's the diplomatic value of such a threat that makes it unacceptable. They would be able to ask for, or rather, demand things that they could not before, and we would have to take them seriously. There would be no option to say the equivalent of "Uh, no, and fuck you," any more.
That, and they could do the same to us. It fucks with the balance of power in the Middle East as well.
Lord of the Abyss wrote:
Ryan Thunder wrote:So, remind me again of why nobody's air-struck the shit out of these facilities yet?
Besides the other reasons mentioned, because their facilities are hardened and dispersed and so forth precisely to make that difficult.
