A big item in the news is the release of the public iteration of the latest National Intellegence Estimate, proffered as a sort of consensus of the United States' various intellegence agencies.
Considerable time and effort have been expended in the 'soft news' media speculating on just what the significance of the NIE position that the government of Iran suspended its nuclear weapons program in 2003 is.
Thus far, most of what I've heard centers on either the NIE's Department of State authors being wrong, intentionally or not, or that US intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq forced Iran's ostensible decision in this matter.
Not being a member of Iran's theocracy, I certainly can't speak for them. However, listening and reading about this, I see another possibility.
They may have very well suspended development of a nuclear weapon in 2003. This is actually very scary!
I'm a project person, historically full of ambition that most people see as very lofty. I can speak for my own experiences when I tell you that any significant endeavor has several stages of development. One starts with an idea. The idea is ruminated on and expanded into a plan. The plan is researched to one extent or another, perhaps to determine if it'll even work, how much it'll cost, if it can be done better, or maybe just even learning about the subject matter in order to develop a functioning plan. Let's say you decide you'd like to build a house someday. You can't start this afternoon! In reality, it's likely to be a few years at least before you're ready to move in. There's a lot of things you need to do before you make any material progress. Selecting and acquiring the rights to the site (presumably by purchasing them!) comes to mind, but how about deciding exactly what kind of house you want to build? This alone can take months - or years - before you've comfortably settled on what you want. Of course, the site itself will have at least some bearing on what the house can or will be, and until you've got the site, you can't factor that into your decision. So, you'll need to either wait until you get the land first, or you'll have to know what you want, acquire the real estate on which to build it, and then revise your idea so it'll work with the land you bought. Then, if you're not already familiar with carpentry, you're going to have some serious learning to do! Thousands of hours are likely to be spent before you've got your house if you're truly starting from scratch as a novice. And, of course, you'll have to pay for it. See how complicated this can get? How many places along the way will you have to stop for awhile until you can proceed? You might have a good idea of what style of house you want, and you might even have a floor plan in mind. But if you know nothing about residential construction and have to learn that, you're effectively stopped until you've learned enough about carpentry to move on. If you're all set to go except for the land, you're not doing much else until you buy your lot. If you've got the lot, you're going to need to file for your building permits and buy materials, or perhaps hire out certain specialty trade jobs if you're acting as your own general contractor. Don't have the money to spend yet? Then you're waiting until those arrangements are made before any work begins!
The Iranians may have learned all they need to know to build an atom bomb. It's entirely possible they reached the point where the bulk of the research phase is complete, and it's time to make it happen. However, one just doesn't drop by Home Depot to pick up nuclear weapon components. The United States' early efforts used Uranium-238 as fissionable material. It was, if I recall, either naturally occuring or was a slightly refined version of Uranium-235 that was. It's been years since I've spent any time thinking about it, so I'd have to go back and look it up. Two problems: U-235/238 was not only quite rare and hard to gather, it isn't very effective, either. The 'Fat Man' and 'Little Boy' bombs we deployed over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan were huge - in size and weight. They were each something like twelve thousand pounds and quite bulky. It seems to me that the yield equivalency in trinitrotouline was still estimated in kilotons. Iran may have uranium within its borders, but it isn't likely to do them much good. A rapid, uncontrolled nuclear reaction such as that of an atomic bomb requires very pure fissionable material, whereas a mere reactor built to generate heat to make steam for turbines can function well with much less potent fuel. Various techniques of enhancing uranium ultimately convert it into the synthetic element Plutonium. Think about it: a synthetic element. It doesn't exist anywhere that we know of unless we make it. You can't break down molecules of any other substance to isolate it because it's not in any other substance. It has a very high molecular weight - over 100, I believe, and it's very unstable, meaning it's highly radioactive. And you don't have much of a weapon unless you've got Plutonium, often described as 'weapons grade'. Iran may be at a total impasse with their weapons program until they've got enough Plutonium synthesized to do the job. Wouldn't that be reason enough to suspend the program?
Of course, even if they have, or when they do finally have, the Plutonium they need to build an atomic weapon, how are they going to know it's any good? The early nuclear powers had desolate, remote territory where atomic test explosions could be unleashed. In the last forty some years, all tests have been deep underground. Iran has some desolate areas, but they're not all that remote, at least not by atomic standards! Underground it is. Maybe they've done all the digging they need. Maybe they've got some way to go still. It's a lot of work to make that happen.
All nuclear programs have been conducted in the utmost of secrecy, and all were tremendously expensive. Generally a nation requires a highly industrialized society in order to have the wherewithal to pull off such a stunt. Iran might just have gone broke to the point they couldn't sustain their project for the time being. Their revenue is oil, but their problem is that oil drilling equipment is only manufactured in about three countries, none of whom will export to Iran. I believe the US and Japan are two, and I'm thinking either Canada or the United Kingdom might be the third. Iran, which continues to rely on its existing equipment, which is archaic and downright antiquated. Consequently, they're pumping far below capacity. The nation is a fiscal wreck!
The politics of nuclear weapons aren't what a lot of people think. Yes, we don't want to see more nuclear weapons in the world. We're trying to get rid of the ones we've already got! Doing it in a fair, secure manner is the tough part, sort of an international game of 'chicken'. You first! No, after you, we insist... As far as who has them goes, we're not too worried about well adjusted countries with sound, elected governments, or at least those with relatively stable governments operating in a bureaucratic, 'committee' mode. It's the countries where one person or just a small handful of people have ultimate control over everything, or places where security of the weapons is questionable. Britian, France, and Israel having nuclear arsenals doesn't alarm us too much. Russia actually wasn't that bad despite all of the cold war hype - we had our tensions, but the USSR was at least somewhat predictable and it wasn't one person running the show by any means. China was and remains a similar case, with 1,500 or so members of the Central Communist Party collectively making most major decisions. Pakistan and India are somewhat more concerning. Iraq, when it was under Saddam Hussein, North Korea under Kim Jong Il, or Iran under the Ayatollah, well, that's just not good!
Here's the ultimate deal with nuclear weapons: like most anything, it's all about power. If you have them, others are definitely going to think twice about interfering with your affairs! While it'd be great if we could somehow 'disinvent' them, the technology is ultimately here to stay. So, who should and who shouldn't have them? Tough call. Some suggest any existing ordnance should fall under the jurisdiction of the United Nations. Sounds good in principle, but the way the UN's gone the past few decades, can they be trusted with them? Hardly. We just don't want those things disappearing. They're bad enough when we know exactly where they are, and much worse when we can't figure out where they went! That situation has far more to do with the US's involvement in Iraq than most people realize, and there's a reason it's just not being talked about. The government of Iran as well as Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have stated in the past that they have 'just as much right to possess nuclear bombs as any one else does'. Really? Let's talk about rights. People and nations have the right to defend themselves. Defending yourself, legally, means preventing someone else from depriving you of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness without due process. If someone is attacking you in such as way that you reasonably fear for your health or your life, you are justified in using the appropriate force necessary to stop the assault. This is part of the reason the US Constitution has the Second Amendment in the Bill of Rights. Ultimately, YOU are responsible for your own - and your family's - safety, not the government or your community. Countries may be allies with a larger, more powerful nation, but they're responsible for their own safety in the end. You just can't trust someone else with that completely, can you? But with rights come responsibilities, and your rights end where other people's rights begin. By and large, you are entitled to own appropriate weapons to use as threat management tools. However, you are expected to keep and use them in a lawful, responsible manner and not misuse them to wrongly deprive others of what is rightfully theirs, whether its their property, their lives, or their right to not live in fear of losing either. If you are convicted of a felony, it's because you were doing something to deprive others of these things. Your right to defend yourself in the future stops where other people's right to not be hurt by you begins. If you're a convict, you've established that you can't be counted on to leave other people alone. Why should the rest of the world trust you if you've already proven you can't be trusted with the freedoms you were granted as an American citizen? Likewise, when other countries and organizations prove that they don't make a consistent attempt to operate in a reasonable, fair manner, why should they be trusted?
But, people will be people. Those who seek ultimate power and world domination are always going to want what they shouldn't have, the very same thing that motivates people who shouldn't have dangerous items such as weapons, automobiles, and other adult 'toys'. It's all about power, my friends.
The TiGor
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