Defining World Wars Down

Our President: "So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

Two points. One: This is inane. World War III? Against Iran? Really? Because Iran seems a lot like a medium-sized middle income country with few military capabilities rather than a near peer-competitor of the sort against which you might fight a world war.

Two: Note where Bush has placed the goalposts here. Not preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Preventing Iran from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I'm not sure what the significance of that switch is, but it seems significant.

Comments

It's a certainty that they possess the knowledge necessary to build a nuclear weapon. It's too late to prevent that.

Posted by Joel | October 17, 2007 2:44 PM

I, personally, have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.

I guess they'll have to bomb me.

Posted by Cervantes | October 17, 2007 2:44 PM

> Two: Note where Bush has placed the goalposts
> here. Not preventing Iran from having a nuclear
> weapon. Preventing Iran from having the knowledge
> necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I'm not sure
> what the significance of that switch is, but it
> seems significant.

It puts the town where Richard Rhodes lives at risk for saturation bombing.

Seriously - the knowledge needed to build nuclear explosives (and to develop weapons from them) has been out in the world since the 1960s. There is nothing on earth that can stop a mid-sized nation with some spare money and national will from building them - except _diplomacy_ and _mutual interests_.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 17, 2007 2:45 PM

I thought Matt would have noticed exactly where the goalposts were --

But this -- we got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel. So I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from have the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon

Israel -- now one of the triggers for an American world war.

Posted by P O'Neill | October 17, 2007 2:48 PM

God, this guy is so fucking unserious. Doesn't he know we're most of the way through World War IV already?

Iran would be probably be World V, or maybe World War VII if you wanted to skip a version number or too.

Posted by DavidS | October 17, 2007 2:52 PM

Pardon me while I step out for a minute -- I'm going to put my modern physics textbook in the neighbor's dumpster. I swear, I never read any of it.

Posted by alkali | October 17, 2007 2:53 PM

reventing Iran from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I'm not sure what the significance of that switch is, but it seems significant.

Anyone who's had to deal with export controls on seemingly innocuous technology, including non-security-related software, should have a sinking feeling at this point. . .

Posted by RSA | October 17, 2007 2:54 PM

I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge. It must be classified.

Posted by Redshift | October 17, 2007 2:57 PM

As more than a few physicists who were part of the Manhattan Project pointed out, there is no "secret" when it comes to the processes that result in the rapid fissioning of the Uranium atom that is called the atomic bomb.

It's just physics.

Physics is physics in Germany and Japan in the 1940s, which is why both countries were researching their own atomic bomb.

Physics is physics in India and Pakistan, which is why they have their own atomic bombs, as does the U.K., France, Russia, China, Israel, North Korea and South Africa. Of course, South Africa has openly rejected nuclear weapons and dismantled the infrastructure.

And physics is physics in Iran today.

Oh, and whoever mentioned Richard Rhodes, nice reference!

Posted by Chris Tucker | October 17, 2007 2:59 PM

Since America's Banker, Hu Jintao, has been silent on the matter, Bush's soulmate, Pooty Poot, has put his foot down.

If only there was someplace for all those unemployed Russian nuclear engineers to find work?

Posted by mrs. ibrahim al-jafaari | October 17, 2007 3:00 PM

Once again, these nitwits might not be as out to lunch as you think. But of course, they've got the wrong stinin' country (again). Check out Part 3 at:

www.asecondlookatthesaudis.com

for a primer on what our "friends and allies" in the Kingdom have been up to the past few decades. They certainly are putting the "global" in "global jihadism."

By contrast, Iran sponsors Hezbollah, and Hezbollah carries out terrorist attacks against Israel. So yes, they are sponsors of international terrorism. But that is pretty much it, unless I'm missing something (aside from a lot of trumped up BS about EFP's in Iraq, arming the Taliban, etc., etc.).

Posted by Bill in Chicago | October 17, 2007 3:03 PM

Onward to Canada!

http://www.kashmiri-cc.ca/quarterly/kq2-4/NUCLEAR.htm

Besides, Father Pod told us this was WW4. Bush is such an idiot.

Posted by bdr | October 17, 2007 3:05 PM

Actually, Chimpy could start Dubya Dubya Three by nuking Iran.

Because the Russians and Chinese would probably nuke us in return. Putin is already warning us.

World War Three only means ONE thing to most Americans. It means a full-blown nuclear exchange. And since Russia and China still have plenty of nukes, it can i>still happen.

As for Chimpy and idiot Repukes using WW3 to mean anything else, they're morons.

Posted by Tom3 | October 17, 2007 3:06 PM

I think there are technical tricks necessary to efficiently run a fuel creation process, and that's what's being referenced by "knowledge." My recollection is that this has been the Israeli govt. and American Likud position for months, at least. I think Lake has said the same on bloggingheads. And I thought the Administration had said the same in the past. If there's any significance to Bush's statement, it's as a tip as to who has his ear at the moment.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 17, 2007 3:08 PM

Not that evidence matters to the regime in the slightest, but the significance of his remark is that the burden of proof drops to zero. The only way to be sure someone does not have knowledge is to kill them.

Posted by RLaing | October 17, 2007 3:09 PM

SCMT is right in that constructing a nuclear weapon requires a certain amount of practical experience that can only be gained by doing.

However, nevertheless, the statement was extraordinarily stupid. We're talking 1950s-era technology, here. The NPT was based in the realization that anyone who wanted a nuclear weapon could probably get one. More specifically, that you couldn't prevent anyone from getting the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon and it was pointless to try. Ugh.

I now understand why Bush has such contempt for the people with Ph.D.s that serve as his advisors-- they're probably the people most like to say, "please to not stay stupid things in my presence" to his face.

Posted by Tyro | October 17, 2007 3:14 PM

Iran has an annual GDP equal to Alabama. Yes, that Alabama.

And yes, that's total GDP. Imagine what those numbers look like per capita...

Posted by CKT | October 17, 2007 3:14 PM

"I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge. It must be classified."

I think it is called the "No Child Left Behind" program. No, wait, that's not from the Pentagon. Maybe it is one of the abstinence education programs? No, those are State progams funded by the Federal Government. Huh, guess it is a classified.

Posted by brownbuffalo | October 17, 2007 3:16 PM

brownbuffalo must be destroyed. The program *was* classified.
aimai

Posted by aimai | October 17, 2007 3:18 PM

Iran has been quite honest about their nuclear ambitions, in the short term at least. They want a civilian nuclear programme capable of the full fuel-cycle. This would take about a decade to really get up and running, even with international blessing.

Of course, at that point it would take on order of a year to create a weapon if they decided it worthwhile to go for an all-out weapons programme. Without the civilian programme in place, they are probably 5 to 10 years (more towards the 10 than the 5) from being able to create a nuclear weapon.

Anyway, BushCo is being slightly more honest... and moving the goal-posts. A civilian Iranian nuclear programme (which is perfectly within their rights under the NPT) is more about the knowledge and capability to build a bomb in a much shorter time than actually building a bomb.

I for one advocate actually helping Iran with their civilian nuclear programme so we are in a better position to discourage (or at least detect) a weapons programme. We could also do some real good helping secure nuclear materials so that the risk of a rouge faction or theft resulting in loose materials (for a dirty bomb or maybe even a fission bomb) getting into the hands of non-state actors or real rouge states.

Posted by travc | October 17, 2007 3:23 PM

I guess Wikipedia needs em some bombing as well?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design

Posted by BFR | October 17, 2007 3:23 PM

Wait, I thought Norman Podorhetz has called war on Iran is World War 4. Aren't we in World War 3 right now with G.W.O.T./G.S.A.V.E.?

I'm losing track, to tell you all the truth...

-

Posted by Hank Essay | October 17, 2007 3:29 PM

"I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge."

They have one, but so far they've only tested it on themselves.

Posted by Peter Principle | October 17, 2007 3:30 PM

"I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge."

Well there was apparently a test program during Vietnam that involved a pilot from the Texas Air National Guard. It was a smashing success.

Posted by Rob | October 17, 2007 3:36 PM

I have to agree the first line about israell should not have been removed. The selective quote loses some of bush's focus

Posted by why the edit? | October 17, 2007 3:37 PM

"I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge. It must be classified.

Posted by Redshift"

Nonsense! It's called movement conservatism!

Posted by Nunya | October 17, 2007 3:39 PM

Arms Control Wonk

about ACW

* All the stuff about WMD, intel and the national security bureaucracy by Dr Jeffrey Lewis and friends too wonky or obscene for publication.

http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/

If they are afraid, I'm afraid. They aren't afraid yet.

Posted by nunya | October 17, 2007 3:45 PM

"weapons of mass destruction program-related activities"

Is our people learning?

Posted by b. | October 17, 2007 3:51 PM

The United States should stop worrying about World War started by small military powers. According to GlobalSecurity, Iran spends less on the military than Sweden.

Posted by Bengt Larsson | October 17, 2007 3:58 PM

Every country that had enough fissile material to build an atomic weapon, and the desire to build it, has succeeded in detonating one. It's easy. I could build you an atomic bomb if you gave me sufficient plutonium and some C-4.

Posted by Charles | October 17, 2007 4:01 PM

There is nothing on earth that can stop a mid-sized nation with some spare money and national will from building them - except _diplomacy_ and _mutual interests_.
Cranky

And complete devestation caused by war.

there is no "secret" when it comes to the processes that result in the rapid fissioning of the Uranium atom that is called the atomic bomb.
It's just physics.
Physics is physics in Germany and Japan in the 1940s, which is why both countries were researching their own atomic bomb.

Hardly, it's not "just physics". It is highly complex math, engineering, materials science, chemistry being applied as well as physics. A simple gun-type weapon of HEU is feasible, but anything above that is exceptionally hard to develop indigenuously. Pakistan got it's implosion weapon design from China, we now have confirmed. Iran can build primitive bombs that are still enough to wipe out Israel, or several major cities in the West or Asia, however.

Fusion in the sun is "just physics", getting a workable fusion reactor has stymied us for 60 years.

Actually, Chimpy could start Dubya Dubya Three by nuking Iran.
Because the Russians and Chinese would probably nuke us in return. Putin is already warning us.
World War Three only means ONE thing to most Americans. It means a full-blown nuclear exchange. And since Russia and China still have plenty of nukes, it can i>still happen.
As for Chimpy and idiot Repukes using WW3 to mean anything else, they're morons.
Posted by Tom3

The ignorance of this poster is staggering.

No one is talking about using thermonuclear weapons to stop Iran's atom bomb program. Conventional munitions are what the discussion to prevent Islamist Iran's nukes is about.

China and Russia would nuke America and in turn see their civilizations wiped out by us in counterstrike if we attack Iran??? Willingly die in the hundreds of millions to avenge their good Iranian Islamist pals?? Ummm, don't quit your day job at the organic food store to start looking for a military strategy job, Tom3.

WWIII would be a proper name to chacterize actions and scale of war AFTER Iran gets the nuke bomb and they use it on anyone. Because, even if it was limited to the ME being nuked in various areas, in a few days the death toll could exceed not only Vietnam, Korea, but also WWI's carnage.

Somecallmetim - I think there are technical tricks necessary to efficiently run a fuel creation process, and that's what's being referenced by "knowledge."

Correct. Losing the AQ Kahn network's help in Iran's fuel creation process - after Libya decided to come clean seeing how fast we ended Iraq's regime in our initial invasion - makes Iran's bomb materials creation work a lot harder than it would have been otherwise.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 17, 2007 4:11 PM

And still impeachment remains off the table.

At the point when a large number of Americans reach a state of genuine alarm at how crazy, violent and dangerous Bush and Cheney have become, will it be too late to act? I suspect it will.

It may well be that the only force standing between the people and the cliff are some generals willing to risk the consequences of saying, "No, you've gone far enough, Bush, no more."

Posted by megisi | October 17, 2007 4:17 PM

SCMT is right in that constructing a nuclear weapon requires a certain amount of practical experience that can only be gained by doing.

This is obviously right, and it's odd that someone appeared to take a contrary position to this while citing Richard Rhodes, given how much of the book is about the engineering hurdles which they had to solve while trying to develop a working bomb.

No one is talking about using thermonuclear weapons to stop Iran's atom bomb program.

But Seymour Hersh did report that someone (*cough*Cheney*cough*) is talking about using atomic bombs to do so.

Posted by washerdreyer | October 17, 2007 4:20 PM

Matthew, I think you missed the significance of his remarks. No, war with Iran wouldn't constitute World War III on its own. He's threatening Putin, after the Russian leaders remarks yesterday. And threatening in an absolutely crazy, terrifying way.

Posted by Gabriel | October 17, 2007 4:22 PM

South Africa was not exactly a leading first-world nation when it designed, built, and tested an atomic weapon including the use of a uranium separation method that had been rejected by the Manhattan Project as being infeasible. Guess it wasn't infeasible when death was on the line(*).

Cranky

(*) That's a /Princess Bride/ reference.

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 17, 2007 4:28 PM

We must stop Iran from getting The Google where they may gain the knowledge to build a nuclear bomb. If they get The Google, or possess it already, we will be forced to start WWIII...with Russia!

Posted by carsick | October 17, 2007 4:33 PM

I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge. It must be classified.

You gotta be kidding me. It's name is George W Bush. I can feel my IQ dropping every time his voice comes on the radio. If I hadn't developed a quick instinctive reaction allowing me to switch channels instantly whenever it comes on, I'd have regressed to goo goo ga ga by now. You can see the effect it's had on the rest of the country.

Posted by DrBB | October 17, 2007 4:34 PM

He has referenced knowledge and "know-how" before.

April 28, 2006
"It should remind the Iranians that the world is united and concerned about their desire to have not only a nuclear weapon, but the capacity to make a nuclear weapon or the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, all of which we're working hard to convince them not to try to achieve."
January 13, 2006
And countries such as ours have an obligation to step up working together, sending a common message to the Iranians that it's their behavior -- trying to clandestinely develop a nuclear weapon, or using the guise of a civilian nuclear weapon program to get the know-how to develop a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. And Germany has played an incredibly constructive role in this dialogue. And I want to thank the Chancellor for continuing that dialogue."

Posted by No-How | October 17, 2007 4:38 PM

He has referenced knowledge and "know-how" before.

April 28, 2006
"It should remind the Iranians that the world is united and concerned about their desire to have not only a nuclear weapon, but the capacity to make a nuclear weapon or the knowledge to make a nuclear weapon, all of which we're working hard to convince them not to try to achieve."
January 13, 2006
And countries such as ours have an obligation to step up working together, sending a common message to the Iranians that it's their behavior -- trying to clandestinely develop a nuclear weapon, or using the guise of a civilian nuclear weapon program to get the know-how to develop a nuclear weapon is unacceptable. And Germany has played an incredibly constructive role in this dialogue. And I want to thank the Chancellor for continuing that dialogue."

Posted by No-How | October 17, 2007 4:39 PM

According to GlobalSecurity, Iran spends less on the military than Sweden.

The Viking Menace must be stopped! Millions of Scandiofascists are just waiting to harm America! Death to IKEA!

Posted by James Gary | October 17, 2007 4:40 PM

The war on smarts. Hell, I know how to build a nuclear weapon.

Posted by scarshapedstar | October 17, 2007 4:41 PM

Evidently, nobody explained to George W. Bush that a World War has to take place on at least three different continents to qualify as such. Since Iran lacks the capability to attack us at home (unless they have a really awesome air force and navy that I haven't heard of) war with them would at best be another Vietnam/Iraq-style failed police action.

Posted by Lev | October 17, 2007 4:48 PM

Fuck that! We must have war to prevent them from having knowledge of the necessary knowledge. We know that if they don't know they can know, then we can be sure they won't know. We might know, though, they that the suspect that they can know that they can know, which is almost bad as knowing the things that they might know to...ah fuck. Just shoot them all.

Posted by noone | October 17, 2007 4:50 PM

"I haven't heard anything about a Pentagon program to develop a weapon that destroys knowledge."

I thought it was called Republicanism.

And thanks to Peter Principle, roy, and DrBB for their hilarious comments.

Posted by bartcopfan | October 17, 2007 4:59 PM

"Prevent them from having the knowledge necessary"

Maybe that means we should bomb their college campuses, burn their books, and perform secret pyschological operations to confuse them about basic math and physics?

Posted by theGris | October 17, 2007 5:00 PM

No one is talking about using thermonuclear weapons to stop Iran's atom bomb program. Conventional munitions are what the discussion to prevent Islamist Iran's nukes is about.

You can argue about whether this administration--even this administation is crazy enough to actually do it, but it's certainly been talked about. About 10 seconds on google:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/04/09/wbush09.xml

Posted by rea | October 17, 2007 5:07 PM

"Prevent them from having the knowledge necessary"

Maybe that means we should bomb their college campuses, burn their books, and perform secret pyschological operations to confuse them about basic math and physics?

No, just enroll them in the graduate program at Regent University.

Posted by a1 | October 17, 2007 5:09 PM

The war on smarts. Hell, I know how to build a nuclear weapon.
Posted by scarshapedstar

Given the average Lefty stopped at Algebra II because their brain hurt, I doubt it.

Give 12 Lefties all the materials for a simple HEU gun-type device and they have as great a chance of building a working bomb as 12 African witch Doctors do of building a F-16 out of basic tools and materials furnished them.

However, Muslims are much smarter and come with the right "hard science degrees" to make a national program work - if they are not interfered with for many years.

It's easy. I could build you an atomic bomb if you gave me sufficient plutonium and some C-4.
Posted by Charles

Another Lefty rocket scientist. First of all, C-4 is completely unsuitable for nuke weapons because it has too fast a shock wave to be used in the critical mass compression sequence. Plutonium is unsuitable for a "gun-type" weapon, you must use an implosion device or linear compression device far more complicated than an implosion weapon. For a compression explosive lens, you need slower det speed TNT, with pockets of explosives that have an even slower shock wave to shape the compressive power right and to hold the mass compressed long enough to ensure enough chain reaction generations occur to achieve significant nuclear fission energy release. Otherwise, it fizzles.

Second, you omit the minor matters of the tamper, what lens precision model you would have to build from scratch for an implosion device, the neutron gun, the controlled use high speed electronic switches you would need to fire off other components you omit like the neutron generator plus the detonators around the sphere that have to fire off simultaneously down to the 10E^-3 nanosecond.

Oh, and 3rd, what special beryllium alloy you need for the reflector mechanism, the vacuum assembly, and how you alloy and transform the plutonium to tetrahydal crystal metal state so the assembly deforms perfectly elastically in the initiation and does not shatter. With all components made to near optical precision...a single piece out by 1/1000th of a mil may make it inoperable. And with about 10,000 man-years of advanced math calculations and engineering specs and quality control specs to ensure a working design.

Other than that, genius, you and your lump of plutonium and C-4 are good to go. With any luck, you will create a premature criticality with maybe 5,000 watts of power. Enough to blow the critical assembly apart and kill anyone within 200 feet from prompt gamma and neutron exposure - but not more than that.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 17, 2007 5:29 PM

The president of the united states talks about World War III -- not as a joke like Reagan did off-mike, which was scary enough -- but as a policy decision and no one says a friggin' thing?

Not one damned question? Not one reporter jumped on that for follow-up? Even clarification? No one expressed alarm at that utterance?

It blows my mind. The President delivers a false dilemma to the American People -- one that involves nuclear war -- and no one calls him on it???

What the hell is wrong with those dumbass press reporters?

What the hell is wrong with the media?

What the hell is wrong with this country?

Posted by binzinerator | October 17, 2007 5:41 PM

Lev - Evidently, nobody explained to George W. Bush that a World War has to take place on at least three different continents to qualify as such.

Darn, I missed that some dumb, vapid prick somewhere has published an official "world war" definition book!
How does that fit with the WW Mongol Horde, or Alexanders WW - both conducted in Europe, Africa, and Asia.
Who knew the Spanish War was a World War, being fought from the Philippines to the Coast of Spain on 4 Continents?
Not to mention the global wars between colonial Powers like Queen Anne's War, ..that hit all continents but Australia and Anarctica.

A better definition of World War might be total war with the full resources of nations directed to it, involving major powers on each side and spanning several countries, with a death and damage toll at least equivalent to The Great War - before it was renamed in hindsight WWI.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 17, 2007 5:42 PM

What binzinerator said. There was a time when any president of the US declared a likelihood of World War III -- i.e., the nuclear annihilation of the human race -- in a press conference, you know, that might be considered a pretty big deal. Ho hum.

Posted by jim | October 17, 2007 5:58 PM

"And with about 10,000 man-years of advanced math calculations and engineering specs and quality control specs to ensure a working design."

Uh, no.

It didn't even require 10,000 man-years of advanced math calculations for the Manhattan project, Chris, and that was in the age of the slide rule. My laptop has more computational power than was available to the Manhattan project.

Moreover, the cat's out of the bag. The specs are worked out. It is a solved problem, and if you don't think there aren't enough soviet, Pakistani, Indian or Chinese nuclear engineers that can be purchased for this purpose, you're as naive as you are ignorant. If Iran wanted to do it, it has the money, engineers and computational power to be successful, all of your silly bafflegab nonwithstanding.

But nice try. Do play again sometime.

Posted by Joel | October 17, 2007 5:58 PM

Given the average Lefty stopped at Algebra II because their brain hurt, I doubt it.

...down to the 10E^-3 nanosecond.

If you feel compelled to bury others in minutiae, it would serve you to know that writing 10E^-3 is redundant: its either 10E-3, or 10^-3. Also, Prafessah, the value '10E-3 nanosecond' is more properly referred to as a picosecond. Not fun, is it?

P.S. - Who are these 'Mus-lims' you speak of? I thought we were talking 'bout Islamoids...?

Posted by EpicureanQuaker | October 17, 2007 6:01 PM

Bush is correct is saying that the Iranian situation could be the trigger of WW3--if the United States decides to start it. Whether Iran has a nuclear weapon or not is beside the point: by using it they would be destroyed. Their leaders are not crazy, so they won't attempt any kind of first strike. (No one but the US has ever done that.) And Iran hasn't started a war since 1785.

If only the same could be said about the US. Bush will have to make a decision soon about whether the US is determined to control Iran's gigantic energy resources or let the oil and natural gas flow to countries of Irann's choosing. If he chooses to try to gain control over Iranian energy, then Iran will almost certainly use conventional firepower and attempt to set the West's Persian Gulf gas stations ablaze. They devastated Iraq's oil infrastructure and export facilities in the 1980's, so this is an entirely predictable outcome, though never mentioned in the mainstream media. WW3 could be over in a matter of hours but, if Iran's retaliation is successful, the devastation will be felt for generations. Is Bush really crazy enough or desperate enough to risk that?

Posted by JohnH | October 17, 2007 6:04 PM

If we don't bomb Iran, its president will be invited to speak at Columbia University again [shudder].

Posted by Christian in NYC | October 17, 2007 6:21 PM

"China and Russia would nuke America and in turn see their civilizations wiped out by us in counterstrike if we attack Iran??? Willingly die in the hundreds of millions to avenge their good Iranian Islamist pals?? Ummm, don't quit your day job at the organic food store to start looking for a military strategy job, Tom3."

If we play our cards right, we can get a nuclear winter out of this baby. Was Serbia a serious state in 1914? Did WW (then, without a number yet) start?

In discussion, I developed a vision of possile excalation all the way to thermo-nukes. As it is our divine right, we bomb Iran, somewhere. They should down a tanker AND our naval vessels. Russian missiles are used.

We demand that Russia cease and desist supplying those dastardly weapons, and we accuse that Russia passed the position of our ships to Iran. Putin encourages Chimpy to take a hike.

Antother US Navy vessel hit. In retaliation, we destroy a Russian spy satelite.

Putin retaliates, their spy satelites are gone, and so is our GPS system. Chaos ensues as drivers have to learn how to read maps. Carnage of US roads. A warning missile is send to an uninhabitated part Russian territory.

Russian are rather paranoid about our first strike capabilities and put their big guns, 10-warhead beasts of megaton loads, on hair trigger alert. The trigger is triggered.

A month later, some mopping-up operations are dispatching remaing islands of surviving civilization. It will take at least a year until the Sun will be visible in the northern Hemisphere.

Posted by piotr | October 17, 2007 6:24 PM

If I remember correctly, there were similar movements of the goal posts in the lead up to the Iraq war. When it was becoming painfully obvious that the inspectors weren't finding anything WMD releated in Iraq, Bush's language subtlety dropped the WMD aspect and just cited Saddam's 'failure to disarm'.

Back in the 70's I read a science fact article in a science fiction magazine that laid out how to build a nuclear bomb. So I guess they need to make sure that no middle-age sci-fi fans ever visit Iraq.

I used to crack up laughing ever time I'd hear some bit of BS about how Country X 'could have a nuclear weapon in six months IF they had fissionable materials'. Three rednecks with access to a Home Depot could have a nuclear weapon if they had access to the fissionable material, and if it took them 6 months to build it I'd laugh at their incompetence. Its the getting of the fissionable material that's the hard part. That's a bit like saying I could be a millionaire in six months if someone would just give me a million dollars.

Yeah, this is scary. Basically Bush has moved the goal posts to a position where there is no way possible Iran could meet his demands. Which is just what he did with Iraq. And its exactly the technique Hitler used in his negotiations in the 30's with countries like Czechoslovakia.

Posted by Dude | October 17, 2007 6:44 PM

There is a long-standing program already in place to destroy knowledge. Its called the American media.

Sufficient time of hearing only about OJ, Anna-Nicole, the latest blond girl to go missing and the constant commericials will successfully destroy all knowledge and the ability to maintain critical and independent thought.

Posted by Dude | October 17, 2007 6:53 PM

@Chris Ford, Armchair Nuclear Physicist

I'm so impressed by your "slow det speed" and "plutonium to tetrahydal crystal metal state" and stuff. You're the expert on how to make a nuclear device! You've got the knowledge!

Pity you didn't realize you're demonstrating the other guy's point: The knowledge is already out there.

Attacking a nation for having just the knowledge to build a bomb will hasten the erosion of any barriers that slow the spread of nuclear weapons, not strengthen them.

Slagging Iran's universities, labs and physicsts won't stop them from acquiring one; it will only make it an absolute certainty.

And Iran won't be the only one to respond that way. Are you then going to demand an attack on every one that does? How many people do you advocate killing?

You advocate war crimes of an unimaginable scale. You would have many thousands, perhaps millions, killed for their thoughts alone. You advocate mass-murder for thoughtcrimes.

We are seeing Orwellian nightmares come out of the dank places of twisted minds, take shape and walk the earth.

These foolish fantasies of World War III will bring us to a real world war.

Bushies. Insecure, foolish and sociopathic, all of 'em.

Posted by binzinerator | October 17, 2007 7:14 PM

Chris Ford
Your comments are wrong.
Here is an article about a Pentagon experiment in the 1960s to see if two freshly minted Physics PhDs could come up with a design for a workable nuclear bomb.
Since the "gun-type" was too easy they decided to try to design an implosion device. They succeeded.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,983646,00.html

Posted by NYT | October 17, 2007 7:24 PM

I'm starting to think that Al, Fred and some of the other regular right wing trolls created the "Chris Ford" personae to make them look relatively sane and reasonable

Posted by Eric K | October 17, 2007 7:32 PM

"Israel -- now one of the triggers for an American world war."

Israel's been a potential, probably the most likely, trigger for a world war since the 50s. This is not a Bush innovation.

Posted by Knemon | October 17, 2007 7:45 PM

So, now you know: They're planning to bomb the libraries and universities.

Posted by Avedon | October 17, 2007 8:00 PM

From Josh Marshall at TPM:

A Question to You, Rudy - er, scratch that - A Question to YOU, MATT:

This is a follow up on yesterday's episode of TPMtv, in which we ran through the list of foreign policy fanatics and Iran-war-mongers Rudy Giuliani has advising him. Now normally it's not reasonable to hold a candidate to every policy and particular embraced by their named advisers. But the case of Iran is unique. Rudy's key adviser on the issue is Norman Podhoretz. And as we showed in yesterday's episode, Podhoretz doesn't think we should threaten Iran with military action or leave it on the table or whatever the phrase may be. He says we must go to the war with Iran. We have to do it.

Nor is Iran just any foreign policy issue. It is the central foreign policy question before us right now. Rudy's key advisers says war is a must. And his adviser on Iran particularly, Michael Rubin, seems to lean strongly in the same direction, though I'm not sure if he's addressed the issue recently in public, as Podhoretz repeatedly has.

So, for Rudy - er, MATT - do you believe we must go to war with Iran as your key advisers say they do?

Yet to the best of my knowledge no one has asked Rudy this question, even though he's interviewed regularly these days. So who will ask it? The question is so central and his advisers' position is so clear, it's simply a journalistic responsibility for any reporters who gets a chance to ask it not to.

--Josh Marshall

Yeah, I'd say getting Matt to answer that question has been a lot harder than asking Rudy. I least we KNOW what Rudy's said, and what his advisers say.

We STILL don't know what Matt thinks.

It's like pulling Dracula's teeth to get a straight answer out of Matt.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 17, 2007 8:39 PM

"Hezbollah carries out terrorist attacks against Israel."

Slight correction: it doesn't.

It carries out military actions - such as the capture of Israeli soldiers - against the Israeli military in the hopes of a) forcing the return of the Shebaa Farms area, and b) forcing the release of Lebanese prisoners illegally held by Israel.

Hizballah and Israel are technically at war, as neither has signed a peace agreement, and technically Hizballah probably can't even sign one as it is not considered an apparatus of the Lebanese state. If one prefers to consider Hizballah a "terrorist group", feel free - but it is more precisely a Lebanese/Shia nationalist resistance group.

Unless you count the launch of more or less imprecisely targeted rockets against Israeli locations - many of whom contain Israeli military facilities located next to civilian populations.

When Hizballah does this (if they do), it's called "using civilian populations as shields." When Israel does it, it's called "Hizballah terrorism".

Various peace groups regard Hizballah's rocket attacks on Israel last year as "war crimes" - and they are. However, they killed 43 Israeli civilians while Israel's ridiculous aerial bombardment of Lebanon killed over a thousand Lebanese civilians.

I have to agree that launching imprecisely targeted rockets at areas near civilian locations must be considered a war crime. I also have to agree that aerial bombardment of cities is also a war crime.

Personally, I think Hizballah's use of rockets launched against locations in Israel to be an utter waste of time and money, tactically and strategically. Far better to spend the effort on weapons and tactics needed to shoot down Israeli aircraft, helicopters, and take out Israeli tanks and personnel.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 17, 2007 9:33 PM

Chris Ford babbles thusly:

"No one is talking about using thermonuclear weapons to stop Iran's atom bomb program. Conventional munitions are what the discussion to prevent Islamist Iran's nukes is about."

No, it isn't. The use of nuclear bunker busters is most definitely under discussion. Estimates are that the use of such weapons against Iran's nuclear energy program could cause the deaths of tens of thousands of Iranian civilians near the sites, and the potential deaths of up to THREE MILLION people over Afghanistan, Pakistan and India as a result of radioactive fallout and increased incidence of illness as a result of the attack.

A simulation of RNEP used against the Esfahan nuclear facility in Iran, using the software developed for the Pentagon, showed that 3 million people would be killed by radiation within 2 weeks of the explosion, and 35 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation.

The Union of Concerned Scientists has an animated explanation of this situation here:

http://www.ucsusa.org/global_security/nuclear_weapons/nuclear-bunker-buster-rnep-animation.html

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 17, 2007 9:44 PM

Even right-wing internet trolls appear to have the knowledge necessary to build a nuke.

Posted by tps12 | October 17, 2007 9:48 PM

Now I hate to do it, but I have to agree SLIGHTLY with Chris Ford that it isn't as easy as some people think to make a nuclear weapon - or at least one that will work reliably first time, every time.

So it's not as easy as three rednecks, some plutonium and some C-4. Just learning how to handle the plutonium or other radioactive material without killing yourself requires some smarts. People did DIE during the development of the US atom bomb.

But it's also not as hard as some other people think. Certainly Iran could do it with the level of knowledge they have and the fissionable material. And they could get the fissionable material IF they really wanted it. The fact that they haven't really does indicate that they don't really have a weapons PROGRAM at all.

Now, I WOULD expect their MILITARY to have a nuclear weapons INTEREST - and an active PROGRAM to learn more about them. That's any military's JOB - to know that stuff.

So I'm not surprised that the IAEA has questions about the Iranian military's involvement in nuclear research in the past.

But that is NOT the same thing as having a nuclear weapons PROGRAM NOW actively intending to develop and possess indigenously-produced nuclear weapons in order to have a nuclear weapons arsenal.

There is ZERO evidence for that in Iran. The IAEA is very clear about that.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 17, 2007 9:54 PM

But a gun-type U-235 bomb is enough, isn't it Chris?
Who needs a fusion bomb when you aren't trying to wreck hardened silos and compromise retaliatory capability? We're talking about a plan that goes something like threating population centers in order to prevent bloodthirsty couch-warriors such as yourself from sending somebody else's kids to wreck a country full of people who make you feel uncomfortable.

Step away from the DVD player -- this isn't Global Thermonuclear Exchange. You're going to have to confront the Islamojihadoliberalabortionists overwhelming preemptive strike capability on your own dime.

Posted by Lefty Physical Chemist, Bitch | October 17, 2007 10:34 PM

And if you go the breeder-reactor Plutonium route, don't you think there are 650 C furnaces, gloveboxes, and X-Ray diffractometers all over the bloody world? You can get the crystalline form of Pu that you want, and you can avoid breathing the dust as you do so. Explosive lens? Mathematica handles 3D harmonic equations, and the various time-rate properties of explosives are published in detail. CNC mills can be purchased on eBay. High speed switches? Any microprocessor will do.

Sure, it looks like the North Koreans muffed the reflected-neutron boosting of their device, or maybe they didn't synch two different sources, but if optimization is not the goal, and if convincing a crowd of people that you can get a yield among them is...

Posted by Lefty Physical Chemist | October 17, 2007 11:10 PM

Chris Ford
Your comments are wrong.
Here is an article about a Pentagon experiment in the 1960s to see if two freshly minted Physics PhDs could come up with a design for a workable nuclear bomb.
Since the "gun-type" was too easy they decided to try to design an implosion device. They succeeded.
ttp://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,983646,00.html
Posted by NYT

No, my comments are right as directed towards technologically illiterate Lefty posters here who say "I could (leave my job at the Gap) and build a nuke bomb - from a piece of plutonium and a piece of C-4.
My point was that it is a complex task that requires state resources. It is like the classic Milton Friedman tale of a pencil - anyone can design one - but doing the detailed specs, materials, engineering and manufacturing is impossible for a small group to gather basic materials and creat.
Your two physics PhDs took two years to come up with a design, but keep in mind that they heard from one guy that it was workable and somehow, their design was done without hundreds of explosive tests to work out the lens math and composition, and without multidisciplinary teams collaborating to work out engineering, electronics, metallurgical specs. Color me skeptical.
Remember, I said - unlike Lefties - Muslims are smart enough and have enough hard sciences people to assemble a team to make a functional bomb within the 1st 1-5 tries. Lefties would have as much luck as African witch doctors.

*************************
binzinerator - You advocate war crimes of an unimaginable scale. You would have many thousands, perhaps millions, killed for their thoughts alone. You advocate mass-murder for thoughtcrimes.
We are seeing Orwellian nightmares come out of the dank places of twisted minds, take shape and walk the earth.

My advice to you is lay off the methedrine.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 17, 2007 11:37 PM

Chris Ford
I think the point of Matthew's post was that Bush has moved the goalposts to Iran having the knowledge to produce a nuclear weapon.
As the article I posted shows they almost certainly already have this as does almost any non-basket case country in the world.

If you want to be sceptical about Pentagon experiments that's up to you.

Posted by NYT | October 18, 2007 12:11 AM

I think Hilary Clinton actually wants to bomb Iran to prevent anyone there from ever thinking about acquiring the knowledge to build a nuclear weapon.

These days I am often reminded of this Full Metal Jacket exchange:

Pogue Colonel: You write "Born to Kill" on your helmet and you wear a peace button. What's that supposed to be, some kind of sick joke?
Private Joker: No, sir.
Pogue Colonel: You'd better get your head and your ass wired together, or I will take a giant shit on you.
Private Joker: Yes, sir.
Pogue Colonel: Now answer my question or you'll be standing tall before the man.
Private Joker: I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir.
Pogue Colonel: The what?
Private Joker: The duality of man. The Jungian thing, sir.

Posted by Private Joker | October 18, 2007 1:49 AM

Two: Note where Bush has placed the goalposts here. Not preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. Preventing Iran from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon. I'm not sure what the significance of that switch is, but it seems significant.

this isn't a shift - Pres. Fredo said the same thing in April, 2006.

http://radamisto.blogspot.com/2006/04/more-idiocy-from-pres-fredo.html

Posted by Steve J. | October 18, 2007 2:08 AM

Ford burbles:

"My point was that it is a complex task that requires state resources."

And as usual, your point is wrong. The "state resources" have ALREADY designed bombs, and the information is available.

NOW all you need is the information, the technical skill, sufficient computer power and certain materials which, while not all that EASY to come by or engineer, are not that HARD to come by or engineer either.

You need state resources to DESIGN bombs - not to BUILD them. And the design has already been done.

In any event, the point was that the Iranians certainly have the knowledge, so the whole argument is irrelevant to the issue - which was and is: you can't prevent people from knowing HOW to build a bomb.

If Bush bombs Iran, he will certainly prevent Iran from building a bomb - this week or maybe this month or even this year.

What about next year? Or five years? Or ten?

Once the Iranians bury their program deeper into rock than any non-nuclear earth penetrator can go, that will be the end of that strategy.

You can prevent the Iranians from having nuclear ENERGY forever by bombing - simply because nuclear energy projects need facilities which are not easy to bury.

But a nuclear WEAPONS project IS easy to bury - the North Koreans did it. The Iranians can do it.

And if you bomb them for having a nuclear ENERGY program, they WILL do it (assuming the Ayatollah's fatwa against it can be reversed by him.)

So the end result of Bush's concept is that Iran will decide to go for nuclear weapons, bury the project so it cannot be stopped by anything short of nuclear attack (and possibly not even then - you can bury a project so it will need several multi-megaton attacks to take it out), and then find and transport to Iran the materials necessary to build a bomb - or several.

Bottom line: the guaranteed way to get Iran to build a bomb is to try to stop them by attacking them.

And by bombing their nuclear ENERGY program - not to mention the rest of their infrastructure - you will produce a nation determined to bleed the US to death with 4th Gen war and terrorism AND eventually to possess a nuclear weapon.

What these nitwits are proposing is to simply keep bombing Iran FOREVER - an actual unending war against Iran until it either collapses into the Stone Age with millions of civilians dead (like WWII), or there is "regime change" (good luck with that one), or they simply surrender and give up.

And of course, that will be great for the military-industrial complex: war for the next ten or twenty years will mean massive profits for them. The oil companies will love it - the oil price will stay spiked for the next ten years at $150-200/barrel.

Everybody else, of course, is fucked. China dumps the US dollar, the US economy collapses, there's a draft (because the war WILL go to the ground and thus require another half million US troops to fight the several million the Iranians can raise), and the cost of the war will be, say, three to four times what we're spending on Iraq. Not to mention that Iraq will STILL be going on, because the Iraqi Shia will be supporting Iran in the war!

Yeah, real smart move.

If you want to destroy the American "Empire", this is definitely the way to go.

Which is why I probably should be supporting it...

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 2:20 AM

Since lefties cannot design nuclear weapons, obviously the USSR's and PRC's nuclear weapons did not exist and the Cuban Missile Crisis was a gigantic fraud!

More realistically, the issue is not about access to nuclear weapons, it's about the decision to develop them. Note that every country which has developed a nuclear weapon, and has not been the focus of US displeasure at the time, has done so without anyone outside the US senior establishment knowing about it -- Britain, France, Israel, India, South Africa and Pakistan all surprised the world when they tested their weapons. (Now that I think of it, the US were a little startled by the Soviets and the Chinese, too.) Apparently not much was officially known about the Iraqi programme either. The Libyan programme came as a total surprise; everyone thought they were bullshitting.

There's a lot of covering up, and a lot of incompetence, involved. Meanwhile the bogey of nuclearity is waved like a bloody shirt whenever the US government wants more bloody shirts.

Posted by MFB | October 18, 2007 4:20 AM

Israel never conducted a nuclear test that anyone can confirm.

However, it is interesting that Israel formed its Atomic Energy Commission in 1952 - well before things like the 1967 war or later. According to the Federation of American Scientists, the IAEC chairman, Ernst David Bergmann, had long advocated an Israeli bomb as the best way to ensure "that we shall never again be led as lambs to the slaughter."

In other words, they were after a bomb from day one in their nuclear program. No nuclear energy program, this - it was military immediately.

Starting in 1957, "this complex was constructed in secret, and outside the IAEA inspection regime, by French and Israeli technicians at Dimona, in the Negev desert under the leadership of Col. Manes Pratt of the IDF Ordinance Corps.

Trouble arose in May 1960, when France began to pressure Israel to make the project public and to submit to international inspections of the site, threatening to withhold the reactor fuel unless they did."

Gee, where have we heard that before - recently? Ah, yes, Iran - and Russia.

"France would supply the uranium and components already placed on order and would not insist on international inspections. In return, Israel would assure France that they had no intention of making atomic weapons, would not reprocess any plutonium, and would reveal the existence of the reactor, which would be completed without French assistance. In reality, not much changed - French contractors finished work on the reactor and reprocessing plant, uranium fuel was delivered and the reactor went critical in 1964."

And, of course, Israel lied to the French.

"The United States first became aware of Dimona's existence after U-2 overflights in 1958 captured the facility's construction, but it was not identified as a nuclear site until two years later. The complex was variously explained as a textile plant, an agricultural station, and a metallurgical research facility, until David Ben-Gurion stated in December 1960 that Dimona complex was a nuclear research center built for "peaceful purposes."

There followed two decades in which the United States, through a combination of benign neglect, erroneous analysis, and successful Israeli deception, failed to discern first the details of Israel's nuclear program. As early as 8 December 1960, the CIA issued a report outlining Dimona's implications for nuclear proliferation, and the CIA station in Tel Aviv had determined by the mid-1960s that the Israeli nuclear weapons program was an established and irreversible fact.

United States inspectors visited Dimona seven times during the 1960s, but they were unable to obtain an accurate picture of the activities carried out there, largely due to tight Israeli control over the timing and agenda of the visits. The Israelis went so far as to install false control room panels and to brick over elevators and hallways that accessed certain areas of the facility. The inspectors were able to report that there was no clear scientific research or civilian nuclear power program justifying such a large reactor - circumstantial evidence of the Israeli bomb program - but found no evidence of "weapons related activities" such as the existence of a plutonium reprocessing plant.

Although the United States government did not encourage or approve of the Israeli nuclear program, it also did nothing to stop it. Walworth Barbour, US ambassador to Israel from 1961-73, the bomb program's crucial years, primarily saw his job as being to insulate the President from facts which might compel him to act on the nuclear issue, allegedly saying at one point that "The President did not send me there to give him problems. He does not want to be told any bad news." After the 1967 war, Barbour even put a stop to military attachés' intelligence collection efforts around Dimona. Even when Barbour did authorize forwarding information, as he did in 1966 when embassy staff learned that Israel was beginning to put nuclear warheads in missiles, the message seemed to disappear into the bureaucracy and was never acted upon."

In other words - the Israel Lobby stopped the United States from reacting to Israel's nuclear weapons program by lying to the President of the United States.

"Based on plausible upper and lower bounds of the operating practices at the reactor, Israel could have thus produced enough plutonium for at least 100 nuclear weapons, but probably not significantly more than 200 weapons."

And now Israel wants to stop Iran from doing what it did: constructing nuclear weapons in secret, and lying to the world about its intentions and its capabilities.

In other words, Israel is projecting its criminal attitudes on everyone else - just like one would expect from Zionist thugs with no intellectual honesty or principles.

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 6:32 AM

> and somehow, their design was done without
> hundreds of explosive tests to work out the lens
> math and composition,

The physics student from Princeton who designed a device in 1976 for his senior thesis (the one that Pakistan tried to buy a copy of) called up a duPont explosives salesman and said "I am a physics student at Princeton working on high density metals; what do you have that I can use" and the salesman sent him the information he needed with the comment "we sell the same configuration to the Atomic Energy Commission". After his story was published the DoE claimed that hole had been closed, but the point remains that the knowledge is out there and can be collected, analyzed, tested, and probably implemented by any determined mid-sized national power with enough desire.

Again, neither South Africa nor Israel were first-world high-tech powers when they developed their nuclear weapons.

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 18, 2007 6:44 AM

When is Israel going to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty by the way?

Cranky

Posted by Cranky Observer | October 18, 2007 6:46 AM

According to the insane bullshit Bush and his heirs believe or claim to believe because their base does, Iran is intimately connected to al-Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas, the Sunni insurgency in Iraq, the Shiite insurgency in Iraq, the anti Musharrif fundamentalists (and probably the anti Musharrif democrats) in Pakistan, the Taliban, PKK, Saddam's ghost, Muslim rebels in the Philippines, etc. Saddam was the leader of this global Muslim terrorspiracy, and when we brilliantly attacked the Islamofascism (I think I just lost 10 IQ points for typing it) hydra's Iraq head another head (Iran of course) just took over directing the beast. So it's not WWIII against just Iran but against every hostile Muslim group in the world, supposedly led by Iran.

Posted by aleks | October 18, 2007 7:47 AM

Chris Ford
I think the point of Matthew's post was that Bush has moved the goalposts to Iran having the knowledge to produce a nuclear weapon.
As the article I posted shows they almost certainly already have this as does almost any non-basket case country in the world.
If you want to be sceptical about Pentagon experiments that's up to you.
Posted by NYT

Lord knows what Bush really meant. I think he was alluding to that with the AQ Kahn Network exposed, Iran is dependent on either the NORKs who are on an ever-tightening leash, or their own Iranian ingenuity, to develop the weapons program centrifuge cascade they need to get the HEU to produce several nuke weapons a year.
We don't want Iran cranking out bomb fodder after being free to develop their knowledge base to get large quantities of HEU.
Bush, if there is any sense to his remarks, refers to Iran developing the knowledge to create large quantities of 95% U-235 bomb material. Not the 3% reactor grade enriched uranium.
They have no native program to get or refine plutonium. The Russian reactor is under a Russian commitment to run the fuel 12,000 Effective Full Power Hours - making the plutonium not usable for bombs because of bad Pu isotopes building into the fuel past 6,000 EFPH.
Not does Iran have a reprocessing facility.
Nor, for that matter to they have any nuclear program to fabricate fuel rods from their uranium enrichment program, no nuclear components manufacture program, no rad materials program.

Posted by Chris Ford | October 18, 2007 7:55 AM

Awesome nickname Chris. I'm going to totally start referring to the locals here around Seoul as the SOUKs.

Posted by aleks | October 18, 2007 8:02 AM

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION RELATED PROGRAM ACTIVITIES, BABY

OH YEAH!

Posted by zomgwtflol | October 18, 2007 12:55 PM

As usual, Chris is wrong.

Isfahan IS a nuclear fuel plant:

"Some information on the project was given by Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Vice President for Nuclear Fuel Production M. Ghannadi-Maragheh at the WNA Annual Symposium 3-5 September 2003 in London:

The projected annual production capacity of the Fuel Manufacturing Plant (FMP) is 30-35 metric tonnes in the preliminary phase, extendable to 120 tonnes of fuel production for nuclear power plants and 20 tonnes for research reactors.

A plant to produce fuel casings for uranium is close to completion in Isfahan in central Iran, according to Gholamreza Aqazadeh, the head of Iran's Atomic Energy Organisation. (Reuters Feb. 12, 2003)"

As for reprocessing, I found this:

"The existence of spent fuel from the Bushehr reactor, which would have to be stored on-site for
several years while it cools, would also be a concern. The Bushehr plant could be capable of
producing up to 180 kg of plutonium each year in its spent fuel.

Although it would be subject to IAEA safeguards, the spent fuel could potentially be diverted or stolen from the facility for use in a plutonium reprocessing plant. Such a scenario is a long-term concern, as Tehran does not presently have a large-scale reprocessing plant and is years away from having the technical capability to build one. Even if Iranian scientists do manage to build one, such a plant would have to be declared and safeguarded by the IAEA. Furthermore, clandestine reprocessing facilities are difficult to operate and hard to conceal due to the distinct isotopic signatures of elements released during reprocessing."

In other words, reprocessing is not that significant a concern for years, if at all, because it would essentially require Iran to withdraw from the NPT - which would be a clear signal of a nuclear weapons program.

At THAT point, it would be appropriate to deal with it - not now when there is ZERO evidence of any Iranian nuclear weapons program - other than Ford's paranoid suspicions.

As far as I can tell without being a nuclear reactor physicist, Iran's nuclear energy program has been one of exploring all avenues, depending on whether they were cut off from one avenue or another by the actions of the West. The US and the West in general have been operating to stop Iran even having ANY nuclear capability whatsoever. Thus, it does not surprise me that Iran has 1) been keeping what it is doing under wraps; and 2) has been developing as many different ways of using nuclear power as possible.

It also doesn't surprise me that they want a full fuel cycle program, because clearly relying on an external country to supply it nuclear fuel is a risky proposition - even with Russia, who could at any time be pressured by the US or its own interests to cut off that fuel supply - and the Iranians believe it has been on occasion.

Clearly, no sovereign nation is going to operate on that basis - especially one in the ME which is at odds which most of the West on many issues.

None of this provides ANY evidence that Iran is in fact conducting a nuclear weapons program or has any intention of developing nuclear weapons in the future.

And that should obviously be FAR from any justification for military action against Iran. Frankly, until Iran HAS a nuclear weapons program, has in fact nuclear weapons, and has in fact threatened to use them, and the UN has taken steps legally to prevent this, it will be illegal under the UN Charter to attack Iran at all.

If it is justified to attack Iran now, it is justified to attack Israel now - because Israel HAS a nuclear weapons program, has nuclear weapons, and has threatened to use them in past conflicts (not publicly though - look up the story about Kissinger and the Aswan Dam threat among others).

Posted by Richard Steven Hack | October 18, 2007 8:21 PM

Matthew: I am relieved to finally see/read/hear that someone (you) has noticed that Bush indeed has changed the "goal" for Iran to "gaining knowledge". Now....how do you prove that they do or do not have knowledge? Do you quiz all their professors, or stop people in the street and ask them? What? I think Bush is crazy and since not one reporter at his news conference yesterday either picked up on this note, or asked any questions about it, I think Bush thinks he was successful in changing the debate. This man is truly scary. May God protect us from him and the damage he can still do to us until he leaves office.

Posted by Sean Harrington | October 18, 2007 8:52 PM

Bush's latest statement about Iran's nuclear program causes me to wonder on what legal basis he is asserting "Iran must be prevented from having the KNOWLEDGE of making nuclear weapons." (sic)

Excuse me, but when did KNOWLEDGE become an international crime?

Am I the only one who finds this peculiar? Knowledge is the basis of freedom. Bush is asserting "Iran cannot be free." Knowledge provides the power of choice. You don't have a choice until you have the knowledge of how to do something. But just because you have the knowledge does not mean you will actually do it.

Crimes have always been actions, not KNOWLEDGE of actions. Knowledge must be free so we can be free to choose our own course in life, whether we are considering a choice as an individual or a nation.

The result of this kind of rhetoric is a justification for war based on a false idea, that we are better off ignorant. It is akin to a "thought crime" at the nation-state level of human organization.

Bush is telling Iran "Don't even think about making a nuclear weapon. We consider it a crime." That's a threat for war and Bush is totally wrong for making it. Nobody has the right to assert ignorance is necessary for another.

We must learn to develop human systems which "trust and verify" our abilities to make good decisions.

Trying to control access to knowledge is foolhardiness at best and a recipe for war at worst.

Bush is trying to assert the right to wage war based on "fear of knowledge."

Impeachment is necessary.

Justice requires it.

Steve Moyer

http://stevemoyer.us

Posted by Steve Moyer | October 19, 2007 4:38 AM

I wrote a lengthy post yesterday on this rhetorical shift with respect to Iran. It's important to keep an eye on the White House's attempt to change the debate by pretending not to change it-- wanting a weapon is not the same as having one!

Posted by David Bikman | October 19, 2007 11:39 AM

"I for one advocate actually helping Iran with their civilian nuclear programme so we are in a better position to discourage (or at least detect) a weapons programme. We could also do some real good helping secure nuclear materials so that the risk of a rouge faction or theft resulting in loose materials (for a dirty bomb or maybe even a fission bomb) getting into the hands of non-state actors or real rouge states." -travc

this was the only comment worth reading, with the rest of you bashing eachother/the current situation. thank you for providing an actual out-of-the-box solution that i hadn't considered before, travc.

Posted by EK | October 26, 2007 4:53 PM