I am confused-Bush was talking about Iran, and assured us that Iran was actively seeking nuclear bombs. Next, a US Government report tells us that Iran abandoned its weapons program in 2004. Now, iran says it is planning to build 13 new nuclear power plants…not a word about weapons. The Russians report that Iran is ordering nuclear fuel-but of such a low enrichment level that it cannot be used for weapons.
So, what is the truth? is Iran actually defying the IEA?
The best guess is that they’re trying to first build the infrastructure that would allow them to create an abundant supply of fissionable material: enrichment plants and breeder reactors. If the Iranians are confident that they could develop a working nuke in a short time, then concentrating on securing a supply of bomb-grade material first makes sense. The Pakistani program held back from openly testing until they had enough for dozens of bombs, rather than immediately exploding their first and only batch of plutonium. It’s not even beyond imagining that the Iranians already have bought a copy of a proven design from the nuclear black market somewhere.
Probably more a debate than a GQ type answer in that it’s all in how you interpret the data.
The report actually says that Iran PROBABLY abandoned it’s nuclear weapons program…for now. There are quite a few caveats and uncertainties in there (there was actually a GD thread on this recently).
Building nuclear power plants doesn’t necessarily mean they are going to re-process into weapons grade material. Doesn’t mean they won’t either of course.
Right…this was a major concession. Russia will provide the materials to run their nuke plants and then collect all that material back (so it can’t be reprocessed)…in theory at least. If all that goes as planned then it will be a major step forward for Iran…they will get the nuclear power they seem to want AND a certain level of trust in the international community as well. IF it all goes as planned and IF Iran doesn’t back slide.
Or maybe the US will attack Iran any day now as some folks seem certain will happen. Who can say?
It’s the IAEA…and while they still have a few questions and concerns about Iran I think by and large the answer to this is no…Iran isn’t defying the IAEA. This agreement with Russia is pretty much what everyone has been pushing for, and if it happens the way it’s supposed to I think it will make a lot of nations breathe a sigh of relief.
-XT
It is also worth mentioning, that Iran is actively developing their fleet of ballistic missiles. You know, kind of weapon, that is pretty much worthless without some kind of mass destruction payload.
So apparently they consider some kind of weapon of mass destruction to be used at some point in the future. Maybe not next year or two, but eventually…
Is Iran really that evil?
Or the western media that made Iran that way in our eyes.
Are those two things mutually exclusive?
(I have a feeling this thread is either going to die or be moved soon…just a hunch)
-XT
Here’s a list of countries with ballistic missile fleets. If they’re all working on nukes, we’ve got bigger problems then Iran.
Most of those are either SCUDs (which are too small to carry anything larger than a compact tactical nuke), modified SAMs like the Nike-Hercules, or ATACMS-based systems for NATO allies. Iran does have an active ballistic missile development program, primarily based off of designs adapted from the Chinese (which themselves are largely based originally on Soviet designs) but they’re a long, long way off from fielding an ICBM that could strike Western Europe, and even further from threatening the continental United States. This doesn’t mean that we should be concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but it’s not a direct threat to palefaces, except in further destabilizing the Middle East and all the glorious, badly needed oil that flows out of there.
The best thing we could do to marginalize Iran is a) reduced Middle East oil dependancy, and b) offer subsidized fuel-grade enriched but “poisoned” uranium (tainted with small amounts of [sup]239/240[/sup]Pu or [sup]236[/sup]U that would not be usable for weapons or readily separable) in exchange for shutting down domestic fuel production facilities. Iran probably wouldn’t go for this in the current political climate because it could be used to stranglehold their energy production, but if such an operation were truly multinational (i.e. run by someone without a vested interest, like the Swiss or perhaps the French) it might be worth advancing. Certainly, posturing and threatening Iran hasn’t accomplished much over the last thirty-odd years other than further alienate and insularize what was once the best candidate for a modern, liberal Islamic democracy in the Middle East.
Stranger
Well, my point is that without WMD (not necessarily nuclear) warhead ballistic missile fails into “make them pissed” category. With WMD warhead they are “make them scared” weapon.
Iran clearly wouldn’t invest huge amounts of manpower and fundings into relatively extensive ballistic missile program with intention to have yet another “make them pissed” weapon in their arsenals. These things are like muscle cars or other status symbols for politics. From strictly military standpoint they are not worth it. It’s “we can put nuclear/chemical/biological device on that thing and fly it into your city if you don’t be nice” that make them feasible, not “if we are lucky we can kill couple hundred of your soldiers with that thing”.
Or, we can assume that Iranians are stupid and are making them just for the heck of it.
There is, of course, no factual answer to that question. And there are other options besides just those 2.
Not necessarily. Remember that Iraq used conventionally-armed* SCUDs in the first Gulf War to shoot Tel Aviv in an attempt to draw Israel into the Gulf War. Also, Iran and Iraq traded SCUDs during the War of the Cities. Iran fired only 177 (compared to Iraq’s 520) and discovered the hard way that conventional ballistic missiles are only useful in large numbers. In a war against Israel, they would be horrifically outmatched in the air. For Iran, a fleet of several hundred or even a thousand road-mobile SCUD or SCUD-derived missiles (even conventional) could be used to strike at Israeli cities and other soft targets with relative impunity… all without crossing the nuclear threshold. Using weapons like this against Israeli civilians would be seen regionally as “fair play” and would earn Iran brownie points with any other locals who dislike Israel (pretty much everyone). Iran also has regional allies in Syria and Hezbollah, either of which would be happy to purchase ballistic missiles as status symols and insurance against Israeli air strikes.
You’re right that ballistic missiles are good for prestige, and look very swanky in a military parade, but when you pair them with a good transporter/erector/launcher (TEL) you get a very survivable weapon that can be used to hit a target the size of a city very reliably.
One last thing: by working on indigenous SCUD and SCUD-derived missiles, they approach the long-term strategic goal of holding European and American cities at risk with IRBMs or ICBMs, while simultaneously improving the accuracy and reliability of their SRBMs. This means that they could build 1,000 missiles and plan to put (e.g.) five of them on a target, but with accuracy improvement retrofits, they could plan to allocate only two per target, increasing the number of targets they can hold at risk without building all-new missiles.
This PDF from the Air Force’s ballistic missile intelligence office confirms that several countries view SRBMs as “strategic weapons to be used against urban areas”.
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- if you were watching the war live on CNN like I was, you may remember the missiles as chemical weapons, but this was disproved within a day or two. The retractions were much less sensational.
On preview, more or less what Jurph said, but less well. I’m not conviced ballistic missiles in the absence of WMDs are as worthless as you suggest. Even if they’re not tactically signifigant, the fact that Iran could lob a couple into downtown Paris or Tel Aviv would at least be added into the “cons” section for any western country contemplating an attack.
Also, while it obviously didn’t make a difference in the final outcome, a sizable precentage of US casulties from the first Gulf War was from a single successful Iraqi ballistic missile attack on a US barracks.
I would suspect that any country that seeks nuclear power would have to think about weaponizing it. It might not be the main reason but there would be scientists in the background thinking about how to do it. Scientists like to solve puzzles.
If your neighbors have the nuke then if you get it ,the world gets safer. MAD theory.
During which years was Iran’s nuclear weapons program active and when has it been dormant?
My own feeling is that if Iran is really determined to build a nuclear weapon, there’s nothing the US can do to stop them. And not only will our aggressive attempts to stop them make that eventuality more likely, it’s undermining our efforts to stop terrorism and bring democracy to the Middle East.
There are some rather drastic measures that could be taken which would stop Iran from building a nuclear weapon. For example, threatening to nuke them if they test a nuke and following through if one is detected. If we had done this with North Korea, then Iran would think twice about pursuing a dead end.
Well, as I said, it’s “make-them-pissed” weapon. So, they hit the city and demolished several houses and killed number of civilians. But that didn’t hurt Israel military power in the least and I really doubt that it make Israeli population more emphatic towards Iraq cause. It was just high tech equivalent to gorilla chest-drumming and most terror come from suspicion, that those SCUDs had WMD warheads (chemical or biological) after all. Remember distributing of gas masks among Israeli citizens? Mere possibility that they carried chemical weapon was more important than that semi-randomly dropped 1000kg of high explosives.
The most successful attack by Iraq on the US (in terms of casulties) during the Gulf War was a conventional ballistic missile attack on a barracks. And as Jurph pointed out, they were used during the Iran/Iraq war (when Iran’s missile program started). And as Squink cited, the US is actually converting missiles meant to carry a nuclear payload to carry conventional explosives. Granted they’re a great “make 'em pissed” weapon as well, but it does appear that they have decent tactical applications as well. And that along with their prestige value (and also the fact that the same tech can be used in space applications, Iran has also converted one of their missiles into a launch vhiecle and used it to place a satellite, IIRC), leads me to the conclusion that a continued ballistic missile program doesn’t necessarily constitute evidence that they plan to arm them with WMDs
WHich was pretty much a lucky hit on their part.
And they were less effective than the Germans use of the V1-V2 during WWII…which wasn’t particularly effective either.
Certainly. It give the US more options. There is a key difference between US missile technology and those others being discussed however. That difference is…the US missiles are ridiculously accurate as far as these things go. They CAN hit precise targets…unlike Iran’s missiles which can only target an area and hope for the best.
I don’t think that this line of thought says anything one way or the other about Iran’s intentions. Their missile program is, IMHO, a propaganda weapons (as in ‘Look at us! We have ballistic missiles! Aren’t we great?’)…I seriously doubt that, short of someone like the Russians selling them nukes scaled down enough to ride one of their rockets, they have any realistic plans to nuclear tip them. It’s not as easy as just slapping a nuke on top a rocket and letting it fly.
Agreed…well, I think it doesn’t say anything one way or the other so we are sort of in agreement. I think the main value of Iran’s ballistic weapons is, as you say ‘prestige value’, and I seriously doubt they plan to attempt putting whatever nukes they might develop on top of them.
It’s moot anyway as Iran has seemingly put it’s nuclear program on hold…and that Bush et al are poised to strike any day (any second maybe) with the full fury of the US military in an invasion of unbelievable proportions to throw the infidel back into the…
Er…sorry. Got carried away there. Never mind…
-XT
Well, it’s not evidence of nuclear ambitions of Iran government, sure. But for me it’s consistent with such. If I were Iranian government, I would certainly do everything possible to achieve nuclear capability in the long term perspective.
Other points already made by xtisme.