A new report from the Institute for Science and International Security is following up gloomy predictions of Iranian nuclear arms by saying, worst case, Iran would have enough weapons-grade uranium in a month.
Even conceding this as a “worst case” scenario, the report claims don’t appear to hold water, and seem in great measure to be an extension of a recent IAEA report, which was itself extremely misleading about Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium.
Iran has no weapons-grade uranium, and has never attempted to make it. The report bases the idea on Iran converting every single gram of uranium in their existing stockpile to weapons-grade. There is a big jump from having uranium enriched to 2-3 percent and weapons grade, which is above 90%.
The IAEA’s report on the 60% uranium seems a part of that, though, as they claimed the stockpiled “quadrupled” since May, which sounds bad until one realizes that Iran literally just started the process in late May.
The “worst case” was a combination of quadrupling, of the stockpile being 10 kg, and the hypothetical quadrupling on that to 40 kg would be enough for a weapon (albeit not weapons grade).
In reality, the 10 kg took the entire summer, and Iran has shown no interest in expanding that rate. There is no reason to think rapid expansion is going to happen.
Even if it did, turning weapons grade uranium, which Iran doesn’t have any way, into a weapon is no small task, adding many months onto the equation. On top of that too, this stockpile is based on one weapon, meaning a hypothetical test would destroy all the uranium and put them back at square one.
The reports never hold water. Period. The latest on North Korea is that it tested along range missile, which suggests that they have the bomb and are going to kill us all next month.
We have 5800 nukes and a delivery system. Israel has their nukes. France, Russia, China, etc have their nukes. Sheesh.
Sounds like par for the course from the lead clown: https://militarist-monitor.org/profile/david-albright/
David Albright, founder of Institute for Science and International Security who believed a warehouse near the Euphrates was a British-designed MAGNOX nuclear reactor built by the Syrian with support from the DPRK.
The land on which it was built has been under the control of the Washington-backed SDF for several years. Has the CIA or any or any other of the eighteen constituent parts if the US IC visited it to see if it was what David Albright claimed it was? Nah, of course not which suggests that the US IC never believed it was a nuclear reactor.
The site can be seen here.
Whether the report is false or not no longer matters. It’s out there. No retractions that will be posted in paragraph 20 of a 20 paragraph article will matter either. The well oiled propaganda machine knows this.
Didn’t we hear similar fairy tales when Israel was urging the 2003 War on Iraq?
While this is true, we should keep in mind what just happened in North Korea and elsewhere in the Middle East.
Delivery systems need not be ballistic missiles. They can be the cruise missiles of which a new model was just displayed by North Korea, or the attack drones so active in the Gulf waters, or even aircraft delivery which can go much further and much faster if it is only required to go one way (as was US Cold War planning for some fighter-bombers, not suicide just ejection and escape planning/hopes/dreams).
The discussion of Iranian nukes has little to do with reality on either side of the discussion.
Most of all, those who pretend to be horrified by the prospect are really just manipulating the prospect for other purposes. The main driver is what it always was, expansion of the Israel Project in defiance of its own “justifications” such as the Balfour Declaration — “it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine” who were then 90% of the population. That is a laugh.
Iran is the most powerful remaining state objecting to those abuses, and as such it is the current target. Once it is destroyed, then of course we will be on to the next targets, a never ending list.