Iran’s semi-official news agency has quoted an MP as saying that Iran intends to restart work on the Arak Heavy Water Reactor site, among to get it back to the state it was in before the P5+1 nuclear deal was reached.
Arak was intended to replace the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR), build by
the US in the 1960s, as a source of medical isotopes. Western officials
objected to the design, which was at the time still under construction,
so under the P5+1 deal it was agreed the existing site would be
scrapped in favor of a newer design.
The new design never happened, however, and Iran apparently had the foresight
to buy replacement parts for everything they had to dismantle under the
deal, in case of this exact situation. This is another move by Iran to
try to press the remaining parties of the deal to come through on
promised sanctions relief and trade protection.
The Arak facility would run off unenriched uranium and heavy water. Iran
has created a substantial heavy water production site. Western
objections were that the site’s waste would include byproduct plutonium,
and while Iran made no effort to build any facilities to process that
waste, it would give them access to plutonium, which if they started
enriching, could be weaponized. Again, Iran made no effort to process
the waste, let alone weaponize the plutonium, so this was all purely a
theoretical complaint.
Any nation that doesn’t want to get attacked by the US had best complete nuclear weapons before anyone notices.
Not going to work. You need 1) more than “a few” to threaten the US, and 2) you need to be able to deliver them against the US (or a major ally) before the US nukes you out of existence.
That ain’t gonna happen. The only reason North Korea wasn’t attacked by Trump is that the Pentagon told him there would be fifty thousand US casualties in the first ninety days – due to NK’s *conventional* military, not their nukes. Trump can’t risk that, so he negotiated. NK was smart to use the alleged “threat” of nukes to get the US to negotiate. Otherwise, their nukes are mostly useless except against South Korea in the event of a war in which the US doesn’t take part – which also ain’t gonna happen.
The only people who can use nukes as leverage against the US are Russia and China. Period. Everyone else with nukes are just wannabes including Britain and France.
Pakistan and India can only use them against each other; neither would threaten China with them.
Israel can use them as leverage in the Middle East – but primarily because they are under US protection. But even Israel can’t use them against any non-nuclear country because the rest of the world would come down on them like a ton of bricks and force them to disarm regardless of the US. So their nukes are only useful if somehow they get overrun by their enemies – which is unlikely as no military in the Middle East can match Israel’s in direct conventional war (probably not even any combination.) Hezbollah could mess up Israel’s economy but could never occupy the country. So Israel’s nukes are mostly just a deterrent.
Nukes exist primarily for two reasons: 1) Russia and China use them as a deterrent against the US; and 2) they get paid for, so someone makes a ton of money making them. Iran has no use case so will never spend that ton of money making them.
Interesting points, as were those from Traiano Welcome. There are numerous good reasons why THE NUCLEAR OPTION means (to all but the most insane sycophants) something so drastic that it should never be done in practice. None of us can fully predict the consequences, but we know for sure they would be extraordinary.