IRAN NOW---AMERICA 200 YEARS AGO

Let’s pretend: it’s 1805 and the United States has just come out of a revolution, survived a counter revolution, established once and for all our right to exist with all the world’s major powers: France, Spain, and England. We are independent.

Then the three powers decide that they don’t want us manufacturing any guns with spiraling barrels—called rifling—because their use presents a grave danger to themselves and the millions of hostile Indians on our borders. Guns that are rifled are far more accurate than regular muskets and have a killing range of 200 yards. An army equipped with rifles would be a danger to everyone and the “great powers” have decided that they are too expensive to manufacture for mass use.

What do you think President Jefferson would have told them? Do you seriously think that the three major powers who have already been kicked out of a lot of America could mount another expensive and potentially ruinous war? Haven't we already fought to be masters of our own destiny?

Which brings us to Iran. They are an independent country, one that we regard as a thugocracy, a potential menace to everyone, and virutally a terrorist state. Does what we think of them make any difference to them? No. They have a right as an independent nation to do what they want to do. And they will.

What can we do, besides kill everyone in the country? Not a fucking thing. Should we blockade the Gulf of Hormuz in order to block any ships from Iranian ports, we will only succeed in blocking oil shipments FROM the ports. We cannot cut them off because China will continue to help them build their Atomic arsenal. They have friends all over the Middle East and those friends will be delirious when a Muslim country has the bomb.

Now, as to the length of time before they will have a bomb. The time it takes to extract 235 from Uranium varies. It depends. It’s still not easy to extract enough U235 to make even one bomb, much less a lot of them. However, North Korea is now so far along in their development that they can make three bombs per month. Iran can buy either North Korean technology or their bombs.

Iran is ten years away only if we consider that they don’t have the technology to produce them. Yet. I leave it to you to draw your own conclusions.

Late Add: emailer John G. let's me know a little something about extracting fissionable materials from "peaceful" power purposes. The post mentions that President Carter actually has experience in nuclear physics, and when he was president commissioned a committee to look at "peaceful" projects.

Carter finally commissioned a study and ordered a nuclear warhead to be constructed from Plutonium from commercial Light Water Reactors like the ones in use in Japan. That warhead was built and successfully tested under the Nevada Test Site where all US nuclear weapons tests are carried out. Light water reactor Pu is less optimal and the yield of the bomb was smaller than that of normal nuclear warheads but it certainly worked. Based on this knowledge the US government then discouraged both nuclear reprocessing and Fast Breeder Reactors in the US.

What the emailer is saying is that all the talk about peaceful purpose nuclear development is bogus. It has been proven that the technology CAN be used to build a bomb. There is a very long thread discussing this both pro and con. Scientists both agree and disagree with the above paragraph.