The rise of ISIS

[Rostere]

The hawks are completely right in that once you have the full "production chain" needed to supply civil society with the isotopes needed, going from there to a nuclear bomb is not that hard. However intelligence agencies also all agree that there is zero hard evidence Iran is developing a nuclear weapon.

 

And all this time, nobody has been complaining about all the other countries which have parts of the facilities needed to produce nuclear weapons. We will simply have to assume they are innocent before they are proven guilty of developing a nuclear weapon. Otherwise there are loads of nations which would be much more important to keep our eyes on.

 

Even if Iran should acquire a nuclear weapon, I don't think they would have anyone to use it on, recognizing that such an attack would render them enemies of basically the rest of the world. What's most likely is probably just that some people who want sanctions for the sanctions themselves are exploiting fear of the situation where Iran has the tech and facilities to produce a nuclear weapon in short time, should they want to. This is pretty much where we are now though. Sadly the equipment required to produce the fuel for nuclear weapons is the same, and indistinguishable, as that for producing fuel for civilian purposes.

 

So essentially, the sanctions are aimed at Iran discontinuing nuclear industry altogether (even though their stated purpose is not that - that is what Iran must do in order to completely guarantee they are not able to quickly produce a nuclear weapon). Unfortunately, we cannot hope that any country completely gives up the applications of modern sciences. That is why I think this effort is more than just a bit quixotic. Instead, the international community should focus on spamming Iran with inspectors and utilizing espionage to know for sure when they really are producing nuclear weapons.

[Walsingham]

Checking.

[213374U]

The hawks are completely right in that once you have the full "production chain" needed to supply civil society with the isotopes needed, going from there to a nuclear bomb is not that hard.

 

Yep, that's Japan's situation IIRC. Nobody seems to care that they could just start pumping out bombs tomorrow. And hey, turns out their rhetoric (good ol' Abe's mostly) has been getting more aggressive of late. Also, Israel. Ho-hum.

 

Regardless, I find it difficult to believe that Iran is really pursuing 100% peaceful nuclear power applications, without any intention whatsoever of securing a strategic deterrence element as well.

 

Oh, and since apparently nobody mentioned it and the idea that civilian nuclear power entails nuclear arms is taken as gospel by most people, I'm going to be a hipster and point out that Thorium power is an alternative to that. Or rather, it could be if somebody bothered to invest in and develop it to make it competitive. No nukes out of it though, and that makes both petty autocrats and grand western democracies go all sadface and less inclined to throw buckets of cash its way.

[Walsingham]

You fellows do appreciate this isn't Judge Judy? We're talking about the state that is actively sending volunteers to support Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons themed love in.

 

Likening it to Japan just because Japan has nuclear power can't be a serious point, can it?

[213374U]

Serious point? Was I making that? Oh **** I must be getting old...

 

In Japan's case it's a done deed though. They already have the industrial/logistical train to manufacture nuclear arms so the point is moot. Best we can hope is that stuff in the Sea of China doesn't escalate.

 

And let's not get into the who-sends-volunteers-where game. That's never pretty.

[Mor]

You've raised some good points but we differ on Iran's international intentions. I believe that they want sanctions lifted and they want to be part of the international community again. In order to do this they are prepared to make serious concessions around there nuclear program, these concessions are tangible and needed. Now they could be lying and planning to somehow develop nuclear weapons, not nuclear technology needed for a source of energy, but we will have to wait and see.

What we differ on is not on whether Iran want the sanctions lifted(they most certainly do), but whether they are planning to make any serious concessions. All you need is learn from history, read a summary of IAEA reports concerning North Korea... the name of the game is public opinion attrition. There the USA also took upon itself to play direct negotiations and a lot of PR, BS and several years later, there are retards who actually think that North Korea was the good guy in the story... (at least until the next crisis)

 

Also we can't wait and see, because as the saying goes, once you go "nuclear" you are never going back. Which is exactly what the NPT and IAEA is suppose to prevent.

 

And all this time, nobody has been complaining about all the other countries which have parts of the facilities needed to produce nuclear weapons. We will simply have to assume they are innocent before they are proven guilty of developing a nuclear weapon. Otherwise there are loads of nations which would be much more important to keep our eyes on.

nobody has been complaining? well either we are biased or you are uninformed, you can educate yourself by going to the IAEA website and read about complains concerning various countries or just read the link I posted above with long summary(Iran like the rest has its section)

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Safety-and-Security/Non-Proliferation/Appendices/Nuclear-Proliferation-Case-Studies/

 

An IAEA report released to its member states in November 2003 showed that Iran had, in a series of contraventions of its safeguards agreement over 22 years, systematically concealed its development of key techniques which are capable of use for nuclear weapons. In particular, that uranium enrichment and plutonium separation from spent fuel were carried out on a laboratory scale. Iran admitted to the activities but said they were trivial. In June 2004 The IAEA Board criticised Iran for failing to cooperate adequately with IAEA investigations of its nuclear program. Something of a stand-off then ensued until in August 2005 Iran announced that it would continue its endeavours to enrich uranium

 

Iran defying UN Security Council resolutions..

 

--

 

In September 2009, when it learned that the matter was about to be exposed in the UN General Assembly, Iran told the IAEA that it was building another uranium enrichment plant, but gave no details. It is the Fordow plant, about 20 km north of Qom, in an underground tunnel complex on a military base. It is designed to have 16 cascades of about 3000 centrifuges and is reported to be under the control of AEOI. Evidently construction began in 2006 and it was expected to be operational in 2011.

 

Clearly Iran has played for time since the discovery in 2002 of its activities contravening its obligations under the NPT, and has developed its enrichment capacity to a high level meanwhile. The existence of the Fordow plant is particularly significant in that it would provide sufficient capacity to take a portion of the Natanz output of LEU up to weapons-grade.

 

--

 

Iran enrichment continues in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions. The Iran situation has revived wider concerns about which countries should develop facilities with high proliferation significance - such as enrichment and reprocessing, even under safeguards if there is no evident economic rationale. At some point in the future, such a country could give three months notice of withdrawal from the NPT and reconfigure its facilities for weapons production. The USA asserts that Iran has been in fact developing just such a breakout capability.

 

This contention was supported in February 2010 when the government ordered the AEOI to commence enriching Iranian uranium to 19.75%, ostensibly for the Teheran Research Reactor (TRR), thereby significantly closing the gap between its normal low-enriched material and weapons-grade uranium. International concern regarding the surge of activity in enrichment to about 20% U-235 is based on the fact that in terms of SWU (energy) input this is about 90% of the way to weapons-grade material, and thus would require only a small and possibly clandestine plant to bridge the gap.

So on top of: not dealing not in good faith for a decade, concealing its activities, defying UN Security Council resolutions, producing far far more than they would need for their "peaceful" program, making up excuse so that they can game the system getting closer to production of weapons-grade uranium, which has no economic rational to them(which is a big concerns) We also have close ties with North Korea -- who previously "cooperated", while developing nuclear weapons and ballistic technologies, while world attention was away -- and cooperation in ballistic missile development and likely Nuclear.

 

It is Iran who has been promoting radical Islam and.. well we already covered it on the previously.. and oblivious changing a figurehead that smiles and nods to appease the west, hasn't changed the underlying goals of Iran and the supreme leader Ali Khamenei..

Edited January 31, 2014 by Mor

[Rostere]

You fellows do appreciate this isn't Judge Judy? We're talking about the state that is actively sending volunteers to support Bashar al-Assad's chemical weapons themed love in.

 

Likening it to Japan just because Japan has nuclear power can't be a serious point, can it?

 

I don't think anyone is accusing the Iranian leadership of being 100% sensible. My point was that it's obvious this is about IRAN having nuclear technology, not about Iran having NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. It's first and foremost about Iran, not about the exact technology in question, which is relatively common these days. So it's really about the Iranian regime and not anything else. I just wish the proponents of sanctions (which as always might work initially, but might cause more harm than good in the long term, if they are held up...) would be clear about that point, at least those who actually understand the underlying technical questions.

 

In my opinion, Iran would have had nukes by now if they wanted to (although this would also be known by the intelligence agencies of the West). The only other option is what Brazil had suggested - Iran building reactors from which you cannot extract fissile material for use in weapons (although I'm not thinking of Thorium reactors - but now we're getting into the interesting technical stuff!) and them being supplied with fuel for those reactors. The problem here is that if Iran somehow (which is unlikely, but still...) managed to maintain secret nuclear laboratories, we would be handing them what can easily be turned to fissile material for weapons. So that is also problematic. Like I stated before, the only real solution is to make it impossible for them to pursue a WMD program clandestinely. If there was any hard evidence Iran did so, the world opinion would turn against them in an instant.

[Walsingham]

Not really. You adopt a 'service oriented' approach, like every large international company does. Iran agrees to not enrich in exchange for power at x dollars per kw hour. It doesn't matter if that's coal, nuclear, or lots of hamsters.

[Mor]

My point was that it's obvious this is about IRAN having nuclear technology, not about Iran having NUCLEAR TECHNOLOGY. It's first and foremost about Iran, not about the exact technology in question, which is relatively common these days.

Of course its about Iran  if it was some other stable moderate country that was forthcoming, transparent and fully cooperative, allowances would have been made.. There are background checks on gun sale, of course its minor consideration with nuclear technologies and countries who wish to gain regional supremacy are involved...

 

I just wish the proponents of sanctions (which as always might work initially, but might cause more harm than good in the long term, if they are held up...)

Are you suggesting that sanctions will cause more harm then good to Iran for counting on its course(because that is pretty much the point), or to the cause of Nuclear Non-proliferation when the next country decide that all they need is to follow North Korea and Iran footsteps...

 

In my opinion, Iran would have had nukes by now if they wanted to (although this would also be known by the intelligence agencies of the West).

Or not, here is a recent NYT article on the subject that I read:

Pentagon has concluded that American intelligence agencies are “not yet organized or fully equipped” to detect when foreign powers are developing nuclear weapons or ramping up their existing arsenals.

 

detection abilities needed in cases like Iran — including finding “undeclared facilities and/or covert operations” — are “either inadequate, or more often, do not exist.”

 

American officials first learned of a reactor in Syria, built with North Korean assistance, when the Israelis alerted them. (Israel destroyed the facility in 2007.) North Korea, early during the Obama administration, built a uranium enrichment facility that went undetected until the North showed it off to a visiting professor from Stanford. [link]

Also it make no sense for Iran to push for nukes right now. North Korea abrupt act of defiance wasn't too kind to them. The better way to do it is just like Assad force escalation in Syria war was i.e. very slowly, letting people in the world get used to it and then continue with next step.. eventually creating facts, where "sanction" would make no more sense..

 

The only other option is what Brazil had suggested - Iran building reactors from which you cannot extract fissile material for use in weapons (although I'm not thinking of Thorium reactors - but now we're getting into the interesting technical stuff!) and them being supplied with fuel for those reactors. The problem here is that if Iran somehow (which is unlikely, but still...) managed to maintain secret nuclear laboratories, we would be handing them what can easily be turned to fissile material for weapons. So that is also problematic. Like I stated before, the only real solution is to make it impossible for them to pursue a WMD program clandestinely.

Its a good suggestion. Although it should be noted that it was suggested before with North Korea, in fact they were in the middle of making that deal happen when things got complicated.

 

As for clandestine part, I agree this is exactly what the current deal tries to address, through measures that would give the world at least a year notice if Iran decide to push for the bomb.

Edited February 1, 2014 by Mor

[Mor]

Speaking of slowly eroding the sanctions and get what you want by played for time. The recent Syrian "peace talks" end in nothing. The chemical weapons disarmament agreement started with nice headlines and ended with Syria missing its deadline, sending only 4% if its arsenal most useless arsenal, claiming its because security risks demanding various daul purpose security equipment such as armored jackets electronic countermeasures, while international ships are waiting in port spending money... All the while Assad solidfy its controll with the flow of new arms... Which is not surprising considering Syria previous track record nuclear inspectors, where it only appeared to be cooperating.

 

Which is why I don't really care about Syria and Iran fancy statements and claims, I look at their track record. Which shady at best, as I noted in the snipset above. Also those who think that the new Iranian figurehead is more moderate, forger that he was the lead Iranian Nuclear negotiator and see how IEAE describe Iranian effort at that time...

Edited February 8, 2014 by Mor

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I forgot what this thread was actually about and once again was expecting an Archer movie. Still disappointed.

[Walsingham]

Yeah. On the plus side, off the back of this thread I've now watched two seasons of Archer.

[Mor]

ISIS seeks foothold along Jordanian-Iraqi border

http://en.ammonnews.net/article.aspx?articleno=24137#.Uv39to29LCQ

[Monte Carlo]

Things have changed since this thread started. ISIS are so bat-guano crazy they've been more or less kicked out of that model of restraint, Al Qaeda.

 

That's right - a terrorist organisation so violent it gets expelled from the mother-ship of spite!

 

Jabhat is now the AQ analogue du jour.

 

Now the peace conference that-was-always-going-to-fail has failed (although I'm sure the conference planners made a few bucks) the region can descend into properly nihilistic self-destruction, making Syria a festering canker of destabilization and an exporter of terror.

 

And just to think, just as I was leaving university some dude was declaring 'The End of History.'

 

*does laugh just like Muttley*