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| Is Iran's current intent to make nuclear weapons? |
| Yes, and that's bad |
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45% |
[ 15 ] |
| Yes, and that's good |
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3% |
[ 1 ] |
| Yes, but I don't know how I feel about it |
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6% |
[ 2 ] |
| No, let's everyone get off their backs already! |
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6% |
[ 2 ] |
| No, but I still think they should play nice... |
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9% |
[ 3 ] |
| Not sure |
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30% |
[ 10 ] |
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| Total Votes : 33 |
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Ya-ta Boy
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
Location: Established in 1994
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 Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 4:03 am Post subject: |
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The EU members
(England, Germany, and France) are simply back-pedaling in a futile effort to mollify Washington and Tel Aviv. |
Does that argument really convince anyone except for the professional anti-American conspiracy crowd? |
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Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
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| Posted: Wed Aug 10, 2005 8:17 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| Teufelswacht wrote: |
I am more interested in the "Israeli factor" in all of this. I read something last night that the IDF has submitted a report saying it would only take 2 medium sized nukes to cripple the country. There is a real fear in Israel of openly hostile Arab/Islamic states going nuclear. I have no doubt this is weighing heavily on the minds of IDF planners.
Wasn't the recent AIPAC - Pentagon spy scandal about Israeli attempts to get information from the Pentagon re. Iranian capabilities?
The problem for the U.S. in all of this is if the Israelis conduct a strike in Iran, the U.S. will be seen as approving it - regardless of whether the Administration did or not. |
I'm curious as to your thoughts about the feasibility of such an attack. The Israelis do not border Iran, and they would have to fly through a bit of hostile airspace to get there. And any operation against the Iranians would likely have to hit multiple, heavily defended sites (I was under the impression that the Iranians are suspected to have highly processed uranium dispersed among several underground sites). Even still, an attack may only delay the inevitable, since without overthrowing the regime Iran can still try again. And perhaps even try again a second time with Russian or Chinese support (overt or covert).
Here's another article on the subject to add to everything that has been posted here. |
I really can't comment accurately on the feasibility/success of a strike. I/We would have to be in the "hip pocket" of the planners to see what they see. I do remember that Iraq does not border Israel and yet the Israeli AF was able to conduct operations against the French built nuclear facility in Iraq back in the 80's.
Dispersal of processed uraniumn will, of course, be an added measure of protection for the nuclear development program. However, when developing a target folder and doing a vulnerability assessment, the entire process of developing the weapons is examined. The assessment and analysis determines the critical nodes that can be taken down and still meet the statement of requirements for the operation.
For example, let's say you wanted to take down a satellite tracking facility. According to Hollywood you would get a bunch of guys with green makeup and bad attitudes to run around the facility like keystone cops blowing shite up. Or maybe expend several million dollars worth of ordinance and risk billions of dollars in aircraft to drop a few PGM's. Or, you can get a couple of guys, dressed like locals, with a sniper rifle to stand off a ways and put one $2.98 AP round through the heat exchanger and thereby shut the system down for a minimum of a year. This accomplishes the same thing without collateral damage and attendant media hysteria. Al Jazeera is not going to be able to make much of a story out of a quarter sized hole in the side of a non-descript piece of equipment on some site, somewhere.
Now I am no expert in nuclear weapons development - although I do make a mean chili that can clear a room with the gas it gives those who eat it - but I would suspect you could hit the program without having to touch the uranium. There are other facilities above ground and vulnerable, I would think, that can be damaged in a way as to retard the nuclear weapons development process. There may be multiple facilities, but there are only a few critical ones. It all has to do with how they mesh together in the program. It may be as simple as assassinating a few scientists or taking out a research laboratory or two or even taking out highly sophisticated metal fabrication facilities - who knows.
I am willing to bet there are governments out there that would turn a blind eye to Israeli A/C crossing their airspace. And then cry bloody murder AFTER the operation about Israel violating their airspace. Plus I'm sure IDF/Mossad SF troops can get in if need be.
Of course, the Iranians can try a second or third or fourth time. There is no preventing that.
Anyways, I guess we'll just have to wait and see. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 9:56 pm Post subject: |
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| Joo Rip Gwa Rhhee wrote: |
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| The focus here is on avoiding a world riddled with several dozen states with nuclear weapons. Allowing such a world multiplies the chances of a nuclear mistake where two parties do not act rationally, and through fear, suspicion, or simple error, provoke a nuclear exchange. I admit, the US's policies vis-a-vis Israel and the development of a first-strike tactical nuclear weapon puts it on shaky moral ground. But if a nation uses another nation's indiscretions to justify their indiscretions (which are not thereby directly necessary and absolutely defensible), it seems like two wrongs occurring instead of merely one. |
Not such shaky ground. Cause Israel has nuclear weapons to defend itself. Iran wants them so it can increase hostile acts against Israel or even to destroy Israel in a nuclear exchange.
Iran having nuclear weapons is not the same as Israel having them.
as for the US developing small nukes - that is not a violation of the NPT ,and if the US doesn't then countries will feel secure in hiding WMDs or terrorists deep underground where they know conventional explosives can't reach.
The US could exchange them for something but it should never give them up for nothing in return.
NK and Iran started their nuclear programs way before the US started working on small nuclear weapons |
Well, Israel hasn't signed the NPT. Iran has. In that sense you're right, Iran has at least that obligation above and beyond Israel.
I agree the US could exchange them for something and now that it has embarked on such production should only reduce production in exchange for something else.
But Israel simply doesn't need nukes. They are given billions of dollars a year by the US, surely the nuclear behemoth that is the USofA will be able to retaliate for its little Jewish cousin. |
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Teufelswacht
Joined: 06 Sep 2004
Location: Land Of The Not Quite Right
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| Posted: Thu Aug 11, 2005 10:42 pm Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
| But Israel simply doesn't need nukes. They are given billions of dollars a year by the US, surely the nuclear behemoth that is the USofA will be able to retaliate for its little Jewish cousin. |
The U.S. most assuredly would be ABLE to retaliate. The question for Israeli military leaders in whether they would be WILLING to retaliate. The Israeli leadership is, in my opinion, faced with two uncertainties. The first is the willingness of the Arabs to go nuclear (once they possess the capability) and the second is the willingness of the U.S. to respond in kind. The perceived waffling of past and present U.S. administrations in their support of Israel may place the seed of doubt in Israeli minds as to the willingness of the U.S. to go all-out for their "little Jewish cousin."
A way for the Israelis to answer these questions of "willingness" is to develop and control their own nuclear weapons.
Just some thoughts. |
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bigverne
Joined: 12 May 2004
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 12:16 am Post subject: |
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| But Israel simply doesn't need nukes. |
If there is one country in the world that does need nukes it is Israel. |
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matthewwoodford
Joined: 01 Oct 2003
Location: Location, location, location.
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| Posted: Fri Aug 12, 2005 4:36 am Post subject: |
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| There are not sufficient grounds for going to the UN security council over Iran's reneging on its agreement not to pursue a peaceful nuclear programme since it was voluntary. Not that the US has let the UN stop it in the past. However, given Iran's record perhaps the next thing will be to get them to agree to weapons inspections...I can just imagine a scenario where the US is screaming 'They have nuclear weapons! They have nuclear weapons!' and it'll be true but no-one will believe it. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:09 pm Post subject: US and EU-3 to confront Iran |
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NYTIMES: US & Allies Warn Iran over Nuclear Deception
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[A]t an economic summit meeting, American, British and French officials declassified some of their most closely held intelligence and scrambled to describe a multiyear Iranian effort, tracked by spies on the ground and satellites above, to build a secret uranium enrichment plant deep inside a mountain.
The new plant, which Iran strongly denied was intended to be kept secret or used for making weapons, is months away from completion and does nothing to shorten intelligence estimates of how long it would take Iran to produce a bomb. American intelligence officials say it will take at least a year, perhaps five, for Iran to develop the full ability to make a nuclear weapon.
But the finding so cemented a sense of what Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain called �the serial deception of many years� that it led to a rare Russian rebuke of Iran, and a milder warning from China, two countries crucial to Mr. Obama�s efforts to back up diplomacy with far tougher sanctions. |
WAPO: Britain, France Join in Demanding That Tehran Allow Inspections; Ahmadinejad Disputes Charge
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It began in 2002 with revelations that Iran was building an underground enrichment facility in Natanz. The United States said it was designed to provide fuel for nuclear weapons, which Iran denied. Years of sparring over IAEA inspections of the facility and Iran's insistence that its output would be used only for nuclear power led finally to the establishment of international safeguards over the plant. The world's established nuclear powers, with varying degrees of commitment, continued to push Iran to provide more access and information.
The United States, even as it acknowledged in a December 2007 intelligence estimate that Iran had stopped a separate program to build a nuclear device, insisted that Tehran was continuing efforts to produce highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium. According to intelligence officials who briefed reporters Friday, they finally found signs of additional enrichment efforts on a base belonging to the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps outside of Qom, a city in north-central Iran and a center of Shiite Muslim scholarship and education.
As construction in deep tunnels continued, U.S. intelligence agencies began to exchange information with their French and British counterparts, and "we all became increasingly confident that the purpose of the facility was uranium enrichment," one official said. The officials provided few details about how they gathered information, saying only that "we have excellent access and multiple, independent sources of information that allow us to corroborate."
Their determination of its purpose was largely inductive, officials explained, based on what one called a "detailed understanding of the design of the facility," and that its 3,000 centrifuges were too few to supply "regular fuel reloads" for a nuclear power plant. Iranian officials have pointed to the Natanz facility's size -- it is designed to accommodate 54,000 centrifuges -- as evidence that the facility is intended to produce fuel for power generation.
Most significant, U.S. officials said, were Iranian efforts to conceal the site near Qom. "During the course of this year, the confidence of our team and the intelligence services increased with respect to the precise purposes of this site," a senior administration official said.
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By summer, they concluded that the facility would become operational in 2010. An offer by the P5-plus-one negotiators to negotiate nuclear and other issues with Iran remained on the table, along with a threat to impose more severe economic sanctions. In July, Obama and other leaders agreed to "take stock" of the situation by the end of September. The United States, Britain and France did not share their information on the enrichment facility with Russia and China. |
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Koveras
Joined: 09 Oct 2008
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| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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| Am I the only one who thinks it's unlikely that Muslims would ever nuke Palestine, or that Iran would nuke Iraq? |
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Reggie
Joined: 21 Sep 2009
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| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:42 pm Post subject: |
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The logical thing to do would be to require Israel and Iran to undergo identical inspections and prohibit both of them from having nuclear energy, but that would probably be considered anti-semitic. 
Also, we need to pull out of Iraq and Afghanistan. It doesn't matter if it's an adorable kitten or a mean snake cornered by a big dog, both will show their teeth and hiss, which is probably the nature of Iran's posturing lately. If Americans, Israelis, and Iranians don't consult a shrink and get their heads out of their asses, they'll shatter the economies of dozens of nations between the three of them. They've already gotten a good start. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Fri Sep 25, 2009 8:55 pm Post subject: |
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I suppose interjecting the US and Israel was inevitable. But I thought we might focus on Iran's violation of the NPT and the likely consequences.
It appears Russia is on-board for sanctions. China is the wildcard.
http://www.economist.com/world/middleeast-africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14529841&source=features_box1
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Western diplomats hope that if Russia agrees to more punitive measures, China would not oppose them alone. But for the moment Beijing is wary. China imports much of its crude oil from Iran and recently signed a deal to sell back refined fuel. Its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said the issue of Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved through �peaceful negotiations�.
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I personally doubt the Chinese will back Iran here. |
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ubermenzch
Joined: 09 Jun 2008
Location: bundang, south korea
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:35 am Post subject: |
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| Kuros wrote: |
It appears Russia is on-board for sanctions. China is the wildcard.
http://www.economist.com/world/middleeast-africa/displayStory.cfm?story_id=14529841&source=features_box1
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Western diplomats hope that if Russia agrees to more punitive measures, China would not oppose them alone. But for the moment Beijing is wary. China imports much of its crude oil from Iran and recently signed a deal to sell back refined fuel. Its foreign minister, Yang Jiechi, said the issue of Iran's nuclear programme should be resolved through �peaceful negotiations�.
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I personally doubt the Chinese will back Iran here. |
I hope you're right. But it seems it would be in their national interest to oppose punitive measures.
This is from an older article (2004), but the facts stated remain the same.
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An oil exporter until 1993, China now produces only for domestic use. Its proven oil reserves could be depleted in 14 years, oil analysts say, so the country is aggressively trying to secure future suppliers. Iran is now China's second-largest source of imported oil.
The economic ties between two of Asia's oldest civilizations, which were both stops on the ancient Silk Road trade route, have broad political implications.
Holding a veto at the U.N. Security Council, China has become the key obstacle to putting international pressure on Iran. |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55414-2004Nov16.html
It will be very interesting to see how all of this unfolds. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 10:43 am Post subject: |
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Apparently I'm not the only one suffering from d�j� vu.
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/09/26/iran/index.html
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The Chinese, one administration official said, were more skeptical, and said they wanted to look at the intelligence, and to see what international inspectors said when they investigated.
The lessons of the Iraq war still lingered.
"They don�t want to buy a pig in a poke," the senior administration official said.
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China.. Good for China. Maybe our looming Sino Overlords will be a healthy bunch.
The whole post by Greenwald is a must read.
Ok, so another war eh? We're gonna close down the most important oil route on earth. Ok. So I'm actually going to stock canned food now. |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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Wow. It is 2003 all over again!
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/postpartisan/2009/09/with_iran_the_cuban_missile_cr.html
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With Iran, 'The Cuban Missile Crisis in Slow Motion'
Graham Allison, a Harvard professor who is one of America�s leading security strategists, likes to speak of the U.S.-Iranian nuclear confrontation as �the Cuban missile crisis in slow motion.� Well, on Friday morning, that slow-mo process started moving a little faster, as President Obama issued a stark warning about a secret Iranian project that poses a �direct challenge� to the international order.
Allison�s Cuban analogy may strike some people as alarmist (Mises edit: ME, because it IS alarmist!), but it seems more and more apt to me. The United States and its allies have caught Iran cheating, again, on International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards -- this time by building a second undeclared enrichment facility in a mountain near Qom. It was an Iranian effort to gain leverage, reminiscent of Moscow�s moves in Cuba in 1962 as described by Allison in his classic book, �Essence of Decision.�
If the negotiations fail and Iran makes a further breakout toward weapons capability, �we could always escalate,� says the senior administration official. It�s hard to see how this one will end short of military confrontation if the Iranians don�t start bargaining for real. |
Will they just trot out the same name? Money is tight, so Madison Ave might have to recycle an oldie but goodie:
Operation Iranian Freedom!
I know. All the serious people are serious about this. They blew their 'serious' load while cheerleading for invading Iraq. I protested then and I'll protest again. This time, I suspect there will be far fewer beside me as leftists mimic rightists in following their messiah into another pointless gift to arms firms. |
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Kuros
Joined: 27 Apr 2004
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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Mises,
We're not even near any point where people are talking about invasion, so I'm afraid I don't know what to make of your post. The report states that there's a hidden centrifuge complex in Qom in addition to the one at Natanz. There are it seems to me three issues:
a) whether Iran has violated provisions of the NPT
b) whether Iran's behavior (over the past decade) has been duplicitous enough to merit sanctions whether or not Iran has violated provisions of the NPT
c) whether sanctions against Iran will be beneficial or effective |
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mises
Joined: 05 Nov 2007
Location: retired
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| Posted: Sat Sep 26, 2009 6:55 pm Post subject: |
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It is the drumbeat Kuros. Did you see the WaPo article I posted above? Could have been from 2003 if you changed a few "q"' and "n" around. I remember it all so well. We all know where this goes.
But maybe we'll get off easy and they'll only use some guided bombs. And then Iran will strike back in Europe/America and most strongly in Iraq against American forces. After that, we get to have another quagmire. |
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