A five page article from RAND researcher Gregory S. Jones released late last week reaches a grim conclusion: that without an immediate US military occupation of Iran, the Islamic Republic will have a nuclear weapon in two months.
The report is entirely a mathematical exercise, using the latest IAEA report on Iran as source material for data. It concludes that Iran will have enough 90% enriched uranium to make a nuclear warhead in just eight weeks.
Of course, one mustn’t forget that the IAEA report is two weeks old, so that knocks the time down to six weeks. And those figures weren’t fresh the day they were published, so its even less than that. Time, the biologist concludes, is running dangerously low.
The mathematics of the claim are not the core of the problem, but the assumptions underlying them. Iran’s centrifuge program has struggled mightily to create 19.7% enriched uranium (useful for medical purposes) and they have never even attempted the creation of 90%+ weapons-grade uranium. The report assumes that they could do this with perfect efficiency, no reconfiguration time, and run all the centrifuges 24-7 while making all these switches.
Of course it was only a year ago that the White House was scoffing at the claims Iran was going to create the 19.7% enriched uranium, and the nation appears to have surprised everybody by, after some 18 months, making a small amount of it. The notion that this translates into an ability to create 90% enriched uranium with absolute perfection in a matter of weeks is nonsense well beyond even the most absurd claims of the Obama Administration about Iran’s “threat.”
Just proves that you don't have to be a Mathematician to be a good war-monger. In fact the less you know the better it is.
Obama has said several times, during his campaign and as President, "Iran is developing nuclear weapons". Why ? To justify what will come from the Peace Prize winner? Vanunu should have had that prize instead.
Yes, the war mongering B.S. from mass murderer obomber and his fascist lackeys gets worse all the time ! The good news is that the obomerbots and war mongering repubs can down down with the ship; caz the empire IS collapsing- fast !
This is what happens when Feds restrict medical marijuana.
Who is that dude, anyway? According to the paper, he is really busy at pumping out the scare stuff ("in eight previous reports"). What a crank.
He's a biologist? Ah that makes him a well regarded expert on the complex process of nuclear fuel enrichment, doesn't it?
How does the IAEA know what Iran is even doing? Most of Iran's facilities are secret and deeply buried inside mountains. It is just as likely that Iran already has a few nukes as that they are a year away.
And no, a military occupation is NOT needed to stop Iran. And another trillion dollar war is the very last thing we need right now. All that is needed to stop Iran is MTB – Massive Thermonuclear Bombardment. Simple, cheap, and effective.
Fascist.
Andrew, you ask first how the IAEA know what Iran is doing, then you state that they have secret facilities deeply buries. Who should I believe? you or IAEA?
My advise to you is to stop watching CNNABCFOXBBC and try to use the God's gift called a brain.
OMG! I hope you are being ironic, sir. No sane person–especially in the region of AntiwarDotCom–could possibly offer this as a serious answer to anything. You are courting the end of the world on the basis of.. saving money????? Yes, you are either being ironic or you are insane. If you are being ironic then I apologize for saying you are insane. If not, not.
No Andrew – most if not all of Iran's facilities are known to the west because the Iranians have revealed there presence to the IAEA as they are required to do. Don't you think Hillary Clinton would be out there all guns blazing if she had any real evidence of any secret facilities?
Perhaps you wouldn't mind the Iranians blowing the shit out of whatever rock you live under – you know, the old Christian crap of "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you."
Ummm…why?
i think england should be bombed with hydrogen bombs-about 100 such like-into oblivion-that is the msot evil. country int he world which prompts usa to wage wars agasint otehr races for benefit of anglosaxon evil.
You suggest we or Israel (armed to the teeth with nukes) fire the first shot in nuclear war — so it's come to this. Utter madness. Nuclear winter. Riding the bomb like a cowboy into the beyond – for what, pray tell? For jollies? For false piety? For the Holocaust victims now in their graves who would not be grateful if they were alive? It makes no sense.
Andrew: Your solution is nuclear genocide on the Iranian people, on the very slim chance that they may, sometime in the future, develop a nuclear weapon? Why?
Very small penis. In short, The "anti-Wiener".
America, america I am fed up with this notion as America is not God and is dying super power with no ethic, moral or justification. One thing is clear that america has killed civilians around the world with no justification.
Iran is well awrae of the dangers and america can,t take and will take no risk to deteriot the american economy which will never survive.
Will the bullsh-t never end on this phony Iran nuke scare ?
In the words of a former world leader, "So what?"
If the Iranians were to appear ,yesterday, with an atomic arsenal that rivalled that of the former USSR, it would only be another 'targetting exercise' for the armada of mirved ICBM's and other nuclear weapons with which the USA 'safeguards our freedom'.
Having a nuclear arsenal and being adventurous enough to consider actually using it, are also good topics for mathematical modelling. So far the ONLY atomic power on earth that has shown that peculiarity isn't Iran, or the USSR for that matter. And that's concerning, in light of who's doing this 'study' and where they'd like it to go.
LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES LIES O AND I FORGOT LIES.
good
No doubt the idiot who wrote this report is also a firm believer in the efficacy of torture so I think that it is important to establish that he really believes what he writes, so I say water-board the f$%^&*, oh about 183 times. If he is still claiming it is true after that he would have a bit more credibility, but that doesn't mean I would believe him.
Rand has been in the front pew regarding expansion of the US interferences worldwide for years. They juiced their "studies" back in 2002/2003 to make sure the US went to war against Sadam. So it should come as no surprise that they're pushing an immediate invasion of Iran. Noticeably absent, tho, are the flag-wrapped, report-waving GOPers in Congress screaming that "See, See!! We HAVE to invade now or Tel Aviv might disappear from the face of the earth under a massive mushroom cloud!! How can the 2nd Coming happen if Israel is no more!!??"
Laughable. I take it this report was brought to you by Bubu Netenyahoo, AIPAC, et al.
Gregory 'stupid' Jones issues a "five page article" that is a mathematical exercise in profound illogic.
8 weeks to nuclear weaponry? Oh horsewash! Jones works for Rand? Well there's some 'solid' credentials there boy. Can we all say warmongering insanity?
Maybe slow-walking Jones could 'mathematically' explain to our world what happened to those weapons of mass destruction that went so mysteriously missing in Iraq. Mathematically, nothing from nothing still leaves nothing. Which is exactly what Jones blathers on and on about.
I hope Iran gets their nuclear bomb because then the warmongerers in this country and Israel will shut the F up and settle for negotiation instead of threatening war and/or actually making war with Iran. One thing we have noticed and that is, nations that get the nukes are treated a little differently then the ones who do not. Do you think for one second the belligerents in the white house and Europe would stand one iota of a second with North Korea's behaviour? Hell no! Just look at the countries without Nukes who do not cow tow to the global corrupt establishment. They get regime changed, bombed, and thrown into the hague for war crimes. So, I say I hope Iran gets nukes.
Nima shows how the warmongers sine 80shave been claiming "Iran is about to build a nuclear bomb"
http://www.sodahead.com/united-states/the-phantom…
Also watch this revealing video
http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2011/6/3/seymour_…
So the Israeli assessment of Iran being able to manufacture nukes a few YEARS from now is incorrect? Doesn't this discredit their intelligence-gathering and reporting?
In the larger scheme of things, so what if Iran manufactures nuclear weapons? Who are they going to use them on? Why WOULD they use them, knowing a counter-strike is almost a guaranteed event either with nukes or with air/ground forces?
Pakistan is FAR more unstable than is Iran, yet we don't see a campaign of demonization against them for their having a nuclear arsenal- why is that?
John_Muhammad:
Pakistan is demonized all the time. Maybe not by the US Government, not officially and openly. But certainly in the mainstream corporate media and the popular culture in general, for many reasons, some of which are understandable.
Not fair, really, when you consider that the US now heavily invests in India's nuclear program.
Why isn't Pakistan demonized as much? Good question. Maybe because they really DO have atomic weapons and could defend themselves? Don't know for sure – it may be that nukes are over-rated anyway (not to under-rate them a la Ann Coulter), but suppose Pakistan really did nuke some city in India – hate to say it, but the sun would still come up in the morning.
What would Iran do with its nukes? Many who fear this seem to work on the assumption it would immediately zap Israel, I guess even Jerusalem, that Moslem sacred city or other places in Israel also claimed though not occupied by Muslims. Makes a lot of sense – not! – to nuke Israel doesn't it? When Iran might just really dislike some of the Israelis.
So this whole thing seems kind of irrational, attacking Iran to stop the nukes. Since it would shut down the Gulf and screw up oil extraction and sales to emerging superpowers like China.
Hey wait a minute….
How about going after the most dangerous/ deadly nation… the only one that actually murdered hundreds of thousands with its nukes ?!!
Don't we have enough countries of nuclear armed fanatics without imagining yet another?
yes we do. Which is why we should be concentrating on those fanatical countries that are already KNOWN to have nukes, rather than obsessing over a country that has NONE and has shown no evidence in recent times that it is even working on a nuclear weapons program. Israel, for example, is known to have a large stockpile of nuclear weapons and a large, completely unmonitored nuclear industry and weapons program. Not to mention chemical/biological weapons programs to go along with them. It cannot be ignored that a violent, racist, expansionistic settler state that is actively involved in ethnically cleansing the region's people from their lands, that has nuclear weapons, is a destabilizing and motivational factor for other countries in the region to try and acquire a nuclear deterrent, as they feel threatened by Israel. How about focusing on that?
Funny how its "okay" for America and Israel to have N.W. but not Iran.
It's not his fault if he's good in lying as long as the sheeple Americans believe him. I had this experience when I was arrested for terrorism. They kept hitting me with Saddam's WMD and the plains which OBL (DROVE) not flue..Imagine it was the Warden's words. Very uneducated with vocabulary. Let's admitted….We are minority here. Americans will never wake up unless they are hammered up on their empty heads.
Iran is next in line. As soon as Obomber declares "mission accomplished" in Libya.
I wonder.., which supermarket I need to go to and ask for that.., you know what.., marijuana – medicine that this guy is eating or injecting or perhaps smoking.., I am asking this because he dosent clearfy the nature of his intentions.., maybe he had to much to smoke.., At the same time Israel which already have the bomb.., I think US and EU need to occupy Israel before she is going to use it in USA or in London and say it was the Iranian who planted it no us.
Okay, so Iran will have enough stuff to make two bombs, therefore it should be destroyed with some of our bombs. What kind of sense does that make? Shouldn't the sensible nations of the world be invading and wrecking every nation that has atomic weaponry? They ought to all band together and just take us out, no?