Common Sense Political Thought

From Styx at Reclaim Conservatism came the reference to this story:

Iran said to have enough nuclear fuel for one weapon
By William J. Broad and David E. Sanger
Published: November 20, 2008

Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make, with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic inspectors.

The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.

Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to breach its international agreements and kick out the inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.

“They clearly have enough material for a bomb,” said Richard Garwin, a top nuclear physicist who helped invent the hydrogen bomb and has advised Washington for decades. “They know how to do the enrichment. Whether they know how to design a bomb, well, that’s another matter.”

The first caveat is the obvious one: further enrichment of the nuclear materail must be done before Iran has weapons grade material.

Iran is thought to have about 3,800 centrifuges. The fissile isotope Uranium235 occurs at a rate of 0.72% in natural uranium. Most natural uranium consists ot the isotope U238, which cannot sustain a fission chain reaction. In the Manhattan Project, the United States managed to separate out sufficient U235 to produce just one bomb, which was used on Hiroshima. Centrifuges were used to separate out the very slightly lighter U235 from U238 in uranium hexaflouride gas.

Weapons grade uranium would have to be enriched to about 85% U235. Nations with advanced, sophisticated nuclear weapons programs could build a working atomic bomb from material not as highly enriched, but such would (probably) be beyond Iran’s capabilities. Plutonium239 is fissile, and can be produced in a nuclear reactor fueled by reactor grade uranium, more easily than U235 can be separated out, but producing a nuclear bomb from Pu239 not only requires an enrichment process itself, but is much more technically challenging.

Seymour Hersh wrote an article in which he warned us that the nefarious Bush Administration, under the direction of the evil Vice President Cheney, was planning a strike on Iran, to eliminate the danger to Israel posed by a nuclear-armed Iran:

Shifting Targets
The Administration’s plan for Iran.
by Seymour M. Hersh

In a series of public statements in recent months, President Bush and members of his Administration have redefined the war in Iraq, to an increasing degree, as a strategic battle between the United States and Iran. “Shia extremists, backed by Iran, are training Iraqis to carry out attacks on our forces and the Iraqi people,” Bush told the national convention of the American Legion in August. “The attacks on our bases and our troops by Iranian-supplied munitions have increased. . . . The Iranian regime must halt these actions. And, until it does, I will take actions necessary to protect our troops.” He then concluded, to applause, “I have authorized our military commanders in Iraq to confront Tehran’s murderous activities.”

The President’s position, and its corollary “that, if many of America’s problems in Iraq are the responsibility of Tehran, then the solution to them is to confront the Iranians” have taken firm hold in the Administration. This summer, the White House, pushed by the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, requested that the Joint Chiefs of Staff redraw long-standing plans for a possible attack on Iran, according to former officials and government consultants. The focus of the plans had been a broad bombing attack, with targets including Iran’s known and suspected nuclear facilities and other military and infrastructure sites. Now the emphasis is on “surgical” strikes on Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere, which, the Administration claims, have been the source of attacks on Americans in Iraq. What had been presented primarily as a counter-proliferation mission has been reconceived as counterterrorism.

I have an article scheduled to appear just as Barack Hussein Obama is being inaugurated as the 44th President of the United States, asking if the Bush Administration actually launched the attack Mr Hersh said might occur.

But whether Mr Hersh’s overblown rhetoric turns out to be prescient or poppycock, there really is a significant question concerning the probability of a nuclear-armed Iran in the next few years. This problem will be left to our incoming president, and not solved by the outgoing one. While some have speculated that Israel will take action on its own, the Israeli government is in shambles, with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert acting in a caretaker role as Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and opposition Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu battle it out in the upcoming elections scheduled for February 10, 2009, three weeks after Mr Obama is inaugurated.