Iran can legally refine to the 19.75% red line per the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970, ratified by the US and legally binding by us. Israel has never agreed to the NPT.
Iran has produced 189.4 kg of 19.75% enriched uranium as of August 2012 and is continuing to produce 12 kg/month. It is using this enrichment to create fuel plates and rods for electrical power generation.
If Iran wants weapons grade 90% it can easily do so at any time in a room the size of double car garage using the power needed by a refrigerator. Israel and ourselves will know if that happens.
The Fordow enrichment plant entrance is under 300 feet of bedrock. In one day, Iran could take enough 19.75% and scatter it to at least 10 locations that have enrichment cascades and turn it into 90% in a month.
Or they could give it to Venezuela, Burma, N Korea, Cuba, Syria, Iraq, yes I said Iraq and any other of the 190 countries that signed the NPT.
There is literally nothing we or Israel can do to stop Iran. Bombing only hardens them and delays the guaranteed inevitable weaponization.
Ask yourselves this: What if the attack doesn’t work? We and Israel would be laughed at and many countries previously named would follow Iran’s lead and buy uranium cascades from them.
The embargo has shut down about 10% of Iran’s economy and will increase that effect.
Iran will stop their nuclear weapons program forever only when the people of Iran choose to stop it. Attacking them only makes the problem worse.
Oops, double hit. Maybe it needs to get posted twice to get some rational thinking started and for all of us to stop lapping up the Israeli PR machine.
I am absolutely opposed to Iran’s weaponization but I am more opposed to the ignorant slop going around about this problem.
The attack should be against the Mullahs and the top command. Massive leader death will be more effective than trying to stop production.
The attack is assumed to be by air but it might have a ground component as well. Death of many people will be more effective than death of stuff
“Literally Nothing?”——naah——not quite buying that. That 300 feet of bedrock can be sealed forever just for starters. It’s not quite true that 100 watts of electricity would produce bomb quantities of enriched U235. One of the major demands of processing is the huge amount of electricity required. Another requirement is water. Another is heavy transport. Plutonium, if desired, needs a supply of spent fuel.
Without a turbine powered power grid Amanutjob can’t even make rocket fuel let alone enrich uranium/ extract plutonium. Without oil to sell he can’t even pay his rent never mind buying stuff from Russia/China/Pakis/ or Norks. Remember that 100 SLCM’s we used to shut down Kdaffy? Works every time we need to use them. One bunker buster sticking in the side of Bushehr and there goes his plutonium. You gotta be a little more optomistic-—there are plenty of ways to put Iran back in the 19th century and keep them there for quite awhile. The Iranians are the source or at least the agravation of every single ME problem and need to be re-trained soon.