For those who aren’t aware, the existence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program really isn’t something that can be debated. I strongly oppose this war. In fact, I think an Iranian bomb might actually be a good thing. Could really serve to stabilize the region.
But people are taking the Iraq war metaphor way too far. Iran has undeniably had a nuclear weapons program. Now, whether the program is actually currently active? That’s a whole other question. It’s quite possible it’s been dormant, I’m not aware of what the most reliable sources say on the current state of things.
But one thing that is undeniable is that Iran has had a nuke program. The smoking gun was found in 2023. It was found by the IAEA to have enriched uranium up to 83.7%.
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/documents/gov2023-8.pdf
Bomb grade is 90%. Reactor grade is around 3-5%. And the enrichment process, already a logistical nightmare, becomes exponentially more difficult to do the higher the enrichment you want. Imagine the difference between a household allergy air filter and a computer chip fab clean room. Same fundamental job, completely different levels of difficulty.
There is just no reason to go to all that effort except if you want a bomb. Sure, having a domestically sourced fuel supply, all under your control, is a nice boon. But adding bomb-making capability to that boon is not just some minor add-on to a reactor enrichment plant. You’re increasing the cost by an order of magnitude at least. Beyond any doubt, Iran has at least put a lot of effort in to obtaining a nuclear weapon.
If you wanted to be the most generous to Tehran, you could argue that they were trying to position themselves in a near-breakout state. So they enrich a stockpile just right up to the edge of bomb capability, and then stop there. Don’t actually cross the line fully to bomb grade but put yourself a short bit of effort away from one. If you wanted to be the most generous to Iran, based on what we indisputably know, you could argue they paused their race to the bomb with their toes a meter shy of the finish line.
Good faith arguments can be made about the current state of Iran’s weapons program. But the existence of a nuclear bomb program is indisputable. There are no more credible sources on these matters than the IAEA. They do not fuck around. The IAEA was built to ensure compliance with nuclear nonproliferation treaties. It was built so that nation states and their paranoid military leaders would have faith on their reports. Imagine the level of credibility that requires. If the IAEA said that Iran enriched to 83.7%, you can be damn sure Iran enriched to 83.7%. They are way more credible than any national government.
Do not take the Iraq war metaphor too far. It is indisputable that Iran has poured enormous resources into producing bomb-grade material, or, at the very least, near-bomb grade material.
I think you’re all missing the significance of not observing an increase in radiation levels. That would absolutely cause a detectable rise in radiation if the site were active recently.
The obvious scenario would be enriched uranium getting blown up and scattered. But even if they removed the enriched stuff, doesn’t everything else get blown to smithereens?
What about the U238? What about the uranium hexaflouride gas? What about contamination or contaminated parts from the equipment?
Or they just missed the target. It’s known the enrichment centre is there, but exactly where you’d need to bomb a 100 meters deep target is not. So yes, either the site is inactive, or the bombing was ineffective.
They anti-radiation smart bombs.
Because.there was never any nuclear arms facilities. We bombed random shit.
They were confirmed nuclear enrichment sites though. Iran openly admits that’s what those sites were. Definitely not “random shit.”
Here’s the thing about refined uranium. It’s a whole lot more portable than unrefined uranium. That’s even more true of uranium that’s been refined to the point where it could be used to make a nuclear weapon within weeks. There’s no reason to think it would be stored on site, especially after a week of Israeli bombardment.
And we’d take their word for it… Why exactly?
Wow. +23 -3 on a verifiably false claim. So this place can be as dumb as reddit. Iran has known enrichment facilities, remember the whole " Iran nuclear deal" last time?
Is enrichment the same as weapons?
Nope. No way to tell them apart without in person inspection. It’s like the difference between vodka and everclear; both use the same distillation gear but with different goals
Too bad we tore up the treaty that allowed us to do those inspections and then launched a sneak attack instead of finishing the talks that we’re about to establish another treaty.
Ok but stay with me. Maybe the bombing was so good it blew up all the radiation?
If there’s supposed to be an article link it’s not showing up for me, so here’s a link: https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/pressreleases/update-on-developments-in-iran-4
“I have repeatedly stated that nuclear facilities should never be attacked,” Director General Grossi of IAEA.
They either don’t really build a nuclear weapon or it’s a red herring
Iran was enriching nuclear material, which it has been using for civilian nuclear power generation. This is an important distinction. The American regime is “flooding the zone” with bullshit, so that when we hear “nuclear,” your mind sort of auto-completes the phrase with “weapons.” But Iran has (had?) a nuclear enrichment program that was verified by the IAEA to be used for things like radiation therapy to treat cancer, and power generation.
The idea that it has to be “weapons” is implanted in your mind with propaganda techniques, like Goebbels’ big lie.
Well, to be fair, they were found by the IAEA to have enriched to 83.7%. That’s not US propaganda, that’s the IAEA. Bomb grade is around 90%. Reactor grade is around 3-5%. And the enrichment process is exponential. It takes far, far more effort to enrich the higher U235 concentration you get. It’s like trying to remove finer and finer impurities from a glass of water. The point being there is absolutely zero reason to enrich Uranium to those levels, unless you are aiming for a bomb. It’s an incredible amount of extra effort, a whole lot more diplomatic and political risk, all for something that is completely unnecessary for a reactor program.
Though frankly, I think we should just let them have their bomb. They would be a lot more responsible with it than Israel has been with theirs.
I find it a little hard to swallow that since inspections ended (thanks to Trump) that Iran hasn’t started enriching some weapons grade uranium. It’s not like it takes different equipment.
The “intelligence” that Iran is weeks away from getting a weapon is obviously complete bullshit. I’m just saying that I’m sure they have been working that direction, maybe just preparing for a time when it made more strategic sense to start building them. If they ever want nukes, they will need to make a whole lot at once, just to avoid getting invaded after the first test.
Indeed, I agree. I phrased that sentence with great care, to point out that there are plenty of legitimate, non-weapons reasons for Iran to have a nuclear materials enrichment program, and it is well-documented that it has been using its program for exactly that. That’s the important point, here: Iran has a right to enrich uranium for domestic use, and had been doing so under the supervision of IAEA inspectors who verified that it was for domestic use, but the U.S. regime is deploying propaganda to bury that fact.
Maybe the government also had a secondary aim of maintaining a “breakout capability” to be able to produce material for weapons in a relatively short time. I wouldn’t be surprised, because… that’s exactly what I think I would do were I in their shoes, facing a genocidal, revanchist enemy enabled by a superpower that spends stunning amounts of money on invading and destroying other nations.
and had been doing so under the supervision of IAEA inspectors who verified that it was for domestic use,
This part is just wrong. The IAEA has continued to report on Iran as best they can, but their monitoring equipment has been removed and there have been no inspections for over four years. I don’t want to repeat myself, but elsewhere in this discussion I included excerpts from the most recent IAEA quarterly report that back this up.
How is this wrong? If the monitoring equipment was removed, it had to have been there at some point. Thus, Iran had been doing enrichment under IAEA supervision, which is what the JCPOA was all about until TACO tanked it.
I don’t think anybody is saying Iran didn’t have inspectors and monitoring at some point, but four years is a lot of time.
I also think it’s pretty common knowledge that Trump tore up Obama’s agreement. I still think it should be mentioned more, as well as Biden’s 180 on his campaign promise to reinstate it.
It’s possible to strike nuclear power plants in such ways that on-site staff are at high risk of death but nearby population is not. I’d assume it’s the same for nuclear silos? Or, they didn’t do much damage?
What silos? If you’re envisioning nuclear-armed missiles, the Fascist Mind Trick is working on you.
I don’t know (I try to ignore such news) but I was just writing in generic terms
That’s why I point it out. The Mind Trick is working, and they’re successfully shaping the story so that folks who aren’t paying close attention (that is, the majority of us) start imagining silos with ICBMs.
well duh. there was as much “nuclear material” there as there was “wmds” when bushy wanted to invade iraq.
Dude stop. Iran did/does have a nuclear program. It’s not secret and is something they’re quite proud of. There’s a difference from having a nuclear program, which they definitely did have and no one disagrees, and having a nuclear weapons program, which has been widely up for debate largely bc of how secretive Iran has been about it.
There is no credible evidence of a nuclear weapon program by Iran
We found the smoking gun in 2023. They were found by the IAEA to have enriched uranium to 83.7%. And there is zero reason to enrich to this level except for weapons production.
https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/documents/gov2023-8.pdf
In terms of accessing the nuclear capabilities of nations, there is no more credible a source than the IAEA.
I don’t think Iran having highly enriched uranium is in question but there’s been no evidence put forward that it was in the process of being weaponized. Moreover who is to say that Iran can’t have nukes? The United States, China, Russia, all authoritarian regimes in possession of thousands of WMDs, what gives us the right to unilaterally stop others from possessing the same weapons?
I was responding specifically to your claim of there being no credible evidence of a bomb program. Whether they should have a bomb is another question entirely.
But back to the main point. Enrichment to 83.7% IS absolute proof of a nuclear weapons program. That is what you’re missing. Reactor grade is 3-5%. There are no practical applications aside from bombs that require enrichment that high. There’s literally no other reason to do it.
Nuclear enrichment is not something you just do for fun. It’s expensive and dangerous, both in terms of worker safety and geopolitics. And the cost to enrich to bomb grade is at least an order of magnitude more than what is required to enrich to reactor grade.
There wouldn’t be. The infrastructure required for weapons grade uranium is exactly the same infrastructure used for less enriched uranium. Inspectors could check radiation levels inside the facilities, but Trump brought that to an end.
None of this is meant to support the justification that Iran was weeks away from getting a weapon. That was pure bullshit.
There have been inspectors checking radiation levels the entire time. There are inspectors in Iran right now, the only reason there’s an interruption in inspections is the IAEA doesn’t want to get bombed.
The IAEA has continued to report on Iran’s nuclear program. That does not mean there have been inspections. The following excerpts are from their last quarterly report in May.
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The Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and current inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and UOC, which it will not be able to restore as a result of not having been able to perform JCPOA-related verification and monitoring activities for more than four years.
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Iran’s decision to remove all of the Agency’s equipment previously installed in Iran for JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring activities has also had detrimental implications for the Agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.
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Show your source. Prove the positive (that they have a weapons capable program.)
Wanting electricity or cancer treatment is not the same. Having that type of program does not make the Israel/US bombs ok.
Additionally, if the US, who has used nukes on civilians, can have weapons, why can’t another sovereign nation have them?
Nothing Iran has done or does is as bad as the US’ history regarding nukes. Them having a weapons program does not make the Israel/US bombs ok.
