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Headlines : "War on Terror"How Close Is Iran To Getting Nuclear Bomb?
The US and UK went after a Middle Eastern country that had no weapons. Now a Middle East country with a wacky leader is outright bragging about its nuclear ambitions. Rose Gottemoeller, a former high-level U.S. nonproliferation official who recently became director of the Moscow office of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, talks about Iran.
[Posted By atrain]Republished from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
RFE/RL: The talk is now of Iran crossing a ‘red line’ in its nuclear program, with this step of going towards enriching uranium. What does this mean in terms of a timeline for Iran having the capacity to build a nuclear bomb?
Gottemoeller: This new reopening of their research program, removing seals from some of the experiments and moving in the direction of expanding research activities again, this is one in a series of ‘red lines’ that they have crossed. However, it is important, I think, to recognize that Iran is not in the same position that North Korea is in. North Korea has already produced enough plutonium for eight or nine bombs and, so far as we know, Iran has not yet produced a significant amount of either highly enriched uranium or plutonium — a significant amount is the [terminology] for the amount that’s needed for a bomb, usually about 25 kilograms of highly enriched uranium and eight or so kilograms of plutonium.
RFE/RL: There was some discussion after an article in “The New York Times” in November about Iran trying to design a compact warhead for use on the Shahab-3 missile. How much concern is there still about that particular…
Posted by atrain
Ari Paul has written for The American Prospect, In These Times, Tikkun, Z, Punk Planet, openDemocracy.net, Reason and other newspapers and magazines. He is also a reporter for The Chief-Leader, a New York weekly covering labor in the city.
Whadda ya expect, Saddam didn’t have jack-shit and it didn’t stop ‘em, maybe looking like a rabid dog will.
ETA: Nice work, atrain.
today on Democracy Now!
Crisis Over Iran’s Nuclear Program Intensifies: Iran threatened to halt snap inspections of its nuclear sites by the United Nations if its nuclear program is referred to the Security Council. The move came after the United States, Britain, France and Germany said Thursday that nuclear talks with Iran were at a dead end and the issue should be brought before the Council. We speak with Middle East and Iran expert Ervand Abrahamian of Baruch College.
Isotope separation through centrifuges is the boot strap to a nuclear program. It’s costly and dangerous to operate. Next phase is a breeder reactor and shutting down hexafluorure separation facilities. Any move in this direction will make many people nervous. This looks like the start of the cold war all over again. In this instance between Iran and Israel.
Looking back on the power of dissuation, well I hate to say it but it worked between the US and SSSR. They did fight by proxy many regional wars. But the scale of the conflict that was avoided …
Wether we are talking about one nuke or ten thousand, owning them implies a very large responsability. Thanks to human dynamics, we can expect many inside forces will want a handle on such a capability: military vs politician/clerics. I would expect the military to be the sane ones in this matter.
If it is a problem that Iran might develop nuclear capabilities, then it should be a problem that Israel has them, and is the only country in the world with nuclear weapons that has them with no international (IAEA) oversight or regulation like every single one of the other countries that have nukes are subject to. In fact, Israel still officially denies they possess nuclear weapons.
If it’s good for the goose, then it needs to also be good for the gander. If not it just makes the US and those who are crying about Iran possibly developing nukes even bigger hipocrites (sp) twoard “arab” nations than they already are.
Well, if it takes an Iranian nuke to bring Israel to the negotiating table about unilateral nuclear disarment, then all for the better.