Iran resumes nuclear activities

[richardm]

Source

A reporter for the Reuters news agency said she saw two workers at the Isfahan plant lifting a barrel full of uranium yellowcake, opening its lid and feeding it into the processing line.

Assuming that's credible...?

The reporter said that earlier the plant had been surrounded by dozens of anti-aircraft batteries.

So it seems they're expecting the worst. Is the worst likely to happen? I can't believe that the US would just go ahead and bomb it.

 

[Rob Lister]

Source



Assuming that's credible...?



So it seems they're expecting the worst. Is the worst likely to happen? I can't believe that the US would just go ahead and bomb it.

that (quote) doesn't much wash. A reporter for Reuters can speak for his or her self and does not need to be quoted anonymously(?). Also, how familiar is this reporter with yellowcake? Also, why would a reporter be allowed near a "production line" for yellowcake?

edit to add two images:

One is curry powder, the other is yellowcake.

 

[richardm]

Hmm, well, IAEA officials have set up cameras and supervised them cutting the seals off the barrels, so it seems legit.

 

[Bluegill]

There are lots of folks smarter than me around here. And also lots of crackpots who sound smarter and who have an opinion about everything.

So...

Suppose Iran keeps on going in its present course. What will happen?

Should I just start counting down to the first military raid on the facilities? Who would do it, Israel? A coalition? Would it happen next week, or in a year or two? If I were in the Middle East right now, should I hide under my desk? (More so than usual, I mean... )

I'm seeing a lot of stuff about this in the news, but in the mainstream media I see little real discussion of military options. If Iran doesn't change its path, is it inevitable?

 

[Bikewer]

Good question. Obviously, no amount of AA defenses would stop an attack by stealth aircraft or cruise missile.

We had a fairly credible report by Sy Hersh about the military actively engaging in missions to identify and locate targets.
Although the pentagon said that the report was "filled with inaccuracies", they did not deny the substance.

Pundits on NPR have indicated that much of Iran's nuclear industry and research facilities are in dispersed underground bunkers, and would be difficult to attack.

The president has said flatly that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons...

 

[tkingdoll]

The president has said flatly that Iran must not be allowed to have nuclear weapons...

Why not, if other countries have them? Am I being too simplistic? I don't get it at all. The USA can have nuclear weapons, but says that Iran isn't allowed?

 

[Bluegill]

Why not, if other countries have them? Am I being too simplistic? I don't get it at all. The USA can have nuclear weapons, but says that Iran isn't allowed?

Regardless of whether or not the threat is exaggerated, I think most people in the West would agree that Iran, or powerful elements within Iran, are prone to extremist violence. With a strong Death-to-Israel mentality, a government run by people who believe that they'll go straight to Heaven if they die in a nuclear exchange with the Great Satan and its cronies, and a large contingent of supporters of terrorism, the nuclear threat seems much closer.

With the exception of North Korea, I trust all the current nuclear states much more than Iran.

 

[Ed]

Why not, if other countries have them? Am I being too simplistic? I don't get it at all. The USA can have nuclear weapons, but says that Iran isn't allowed?

RAFSANJANI SAYS MUSLIMS SHOULD USE NUCLEAR WEAPON AGAINST ISRAEL

TEHRAN 14 Dec. (IPS) One of Iran’s most influential ruling cleric called Friday on the Muslim states to use nuclear weapon against Israel, assuring them that while such an attack would annihilate Israel, it would cost them "damages only".

"If a day comes when the world of Islam is duly equipped with the arms Israel has in possession, the strategy of colonialism would face a stalemate because application of an atomic bomb would not leave any thing in Israel but the same thing would just produce damages in the Muslim world", Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi-Rafsanjani told the crowd at the traditional Friday prayers in Tehran.

Analysts said not only Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s speech was the strongest against Israel, but also this is the first time that a prominent leader of the Islamic Republic openly suggests the use of nuclear weapon against the Jewish State.

"It seems that Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani is forgetting that due to the present intertwinement of Israel and Palestine, the destruction of the Jewish State would also means the mass killing of Palestinian population as well", observed one Iranian commentator.

While Israel is believed to possess between 100 to 200 nuclear war heads, the Islamic Republic and Iraq are known to be working hard to produce their own atomic weapons with help from Russia and North Korea, Pakistan, also a Muslim state, has already a certain number of nuclear bomb.

In a lengthy speech to mark the so-called "International Qods (Jerusalem) Day" celebrated in Iran only, Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani, who, as the Chairman of the Assembly to Discern the Interests of the State, is the Islamic Republic’s number two man after Ayatollah Ali Khameneh’i, said since Israel was an emanation of Western colonialism therefore "in future it will be the interests of colonialism that will determine existence or non-existence of Israel".

Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani made the unprecedented threat as, following new suicide operations inside Israel and against Israeli settlements by Palestinian extremists in PA-controlled zones, responded by Israel’s heaviest bombarding of Palestinian cities, police, communication and radio-television installations, killing and wounding more than 200 people on both sides, resulted in the halting of all contacts between Israel and the PA of Mr. Yaser Arafat.

He said since Israel is the product of Western colonialism, "the continued existence of Israel depends on interests of arrogance and colonialism and as long as the base is helpful for colonialism, it is going to keep it.

Hashemi-Rafsanjani advised Western states not to pin their hopes on Israel's violence because it will be "very dangerous".

"We are not willing to see security in the world is harmed", he said, warning against the "eruption of the Third World War.

"War of the pious and martyrdom seeking forces against peaks of colonialism will be highly dangerous and might fan flames of the World War III", the former Iranian president said, backing firmly suicide operations against Israel.

Quoted by the official news agency IRNA, Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani said weakening of Palestinian Jihad is "unlikely", as the Palestinians have come to the conclusion that talks would be effective only "in light of struggle and self-sacrifice- the two key elements that gave way to beginning of the second Intifada".
Iranian analysts and commentators outside Iran immediately reacted to Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s statement, expressing fear that it might trigger an international backlash against Iran itself, giving Israel, the United States and other Western and even Arab nations to further isolate Iran as a source of threat to regional security.
"Jews shall expect to be once again scattered and wandering around the globe the day when this appendix is extracted from the region and the Muslim world", Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani warned, blaming on the United States and Britain the "creation of the fabricated entity" in the heart of Arab and Muslim world.

"The man who considers himself as the most able politician in the Islamic Republic utters such nonsense and empty threats at a very time that the hard line and extremist government of Israel under Mr. Ariel Sharon is looking for justification of its repressive policy against Palestinians", said Mr. Ahmad Salamatian, a veteran political analyst based in Paris.

"At a time that the right wing Israeli government is claiming that the very existence of Israel and the Jews are threatened and uses this pretext as an instrument to advance its policy of repression in Palestine, such statements and ushering such dangerous menaces by one of Iran’s top officials is nothing but bringing water to Israel’s propaganda mill, providing it with more justifications explaining its present maximalist policy", he told the Persian service of Radio France Internationale.

Though Mr. Salamatian is of the opinion that Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s words are part of both his own show and the ongoing internal tensions between conservatives and reformers, however, he also agrees with other Iranian analysts that his "untimely" menace could backfire, becoming a justification for threats against Iran, at a time that the United States and its allies are determined to continue the fight against international terrorism.

"One of Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s main characteristics in Iranian politics during the past twenty years is that in order to preserve his own position, he is ready to set fire to all the Caesareas for one handkerchief, including, in the present case, providing Israel with enough pretext to attack Iran", he noted, adding: "for the time being and what is important for Mr. Sharon is that this kind of statements are open invitation for more violence, an encouragement to extremists on either side of the Israel-Palestine conflict".

Observing that despite the fact that Israel is believed to have more than one hundred atomic warheads and the necessary technology to transport them to the very heart of Iran and elsewhere, but no Israeli official nor any newspaper have ever raised the slightest possibility of an atomic threat, "even in defence of their very existence", Mr. Salamatian wondered the reasons behind Mr. Hashemi-Rafsanjani’s declaration, which he said should be taken seriously "considering the rank of the man who pronounced it". ENDS RAFSANJANI NUKE THREATS 141201

Reprinted by permission

 

[Rob Lister]

Why not, if other countries have them? Am I being too simplistic? I don't get it at all. The USA can have nuclear weapons, but says that Iran isn't allowed?

Look up Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

:lister hopes he spelled that right:

As a country, once you actually have a nuke (several nukes actually, one or two is really no use) then the manner in which other countries deal with you differs considerable. The manner in which your neighbors deal with you differs considerably. It changes the entire deplomatic equation for your country. Some of the changes are good, some are not so good. No longer are you dealt with in terms of a punk, now you are dealt with in terms of a major player. Being a major player has major responsibilities and major consequences.

The greatest major responsibility is non-nuclear aggression. The greatest major consequence is total destruction in the blink of an eye. And when I say total, I mean really, really, total.

Take Israel, for example. They have a substanital stockpile of weapons. They have also bombed the nuclear facilities of another country in order to prevent them from obtaining the materials necessary to create their own stockpile.

Was that a fair move?

here's the kicker.

Was that a rational move?

rational does not always equal fair.

 

[WildCat]

Source



Assuming that's credible...?

Here's the pic that has been floating around, it was also in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday.

Caption reads:Two technicians carry a box containig uranium ore concentrate, known as yellowcake, yesterday at the Uranium Conversion Facility of Iran, just outside the city of Isfahan, 255 miles south of Tehran. Iran resumed uranium conversion activities at the facility yesterday.

 

[WildCat]

Why not, if other countries have them? Am I being too simplistic? I don't get it at all. The USA can have nuclear weapons, but says that Iran isn't allowed?

You don't see the danger of an Islamic suicide-martyr "death to Israel and the Great Satan" country (which is also a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) in possession of nuclear weapons?

Try this analogy: "I don't see the danger of a paranoid schizophrenic having a gun, after all, hunters also have them".

 

[WildCat]

Should I just start counting down to the first military raid on the facilities? Who would do it, Israel? A coalition? Would it happen next week, or in a year or two? If I were in the Middle East right now, should I hide under my desk? (More so than usual, I mean... )

Israel doesn't have anywhere near the capability to do it*, that is certain.

It would require a determined coalition, IMHO. The stakes are too high, even Russia suddenly seems to have had an epiphany. A nuclear armed Iran would easily be the greatest threat the world has seen since the Cuban missile crisis.

ETA: *short of a nuclear first strike, obviously.

 

[Rob Lister]

Re: Re: Iran resumes nuclear activities

Here's the pic that has been floating around, it was also in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday.

Just a note to add that the guy on the right, near the partially opened barrel, is likely a well educated scientist. Three guesses to how I can tell.

 

[Bluegill]

Well-educated scientists always wear white lab coats. At least they do on car commercials and pharmaceuticals ads.

He's not wearing a mask. He's the only one. I don't know why or why not wear a mask, though.

 

[Ed]

Well-educated scientists always wear white lab coats. At least they do on car commercials and pharmaceuticals ads.

He's not wearing a mask. He's the only one. I don't know why or why not wear a mask, though.

That'a cuz he is on a regimen of homeopathic plutonium. No fear.

 

[Rob Lister]

He's not wearing a mask. He's the only one. I don't know why or why not wear a mask, though.

He has both the authority to NOT wear a mask and the knowldege to know that the given circumstances (opening a barrel of yellowcake) do not require one. But there's one more less obvious reason. Give me a cyberbuck and I'll tell you.

 

[mr rosewater]

Do you think he wants to be identified?

 

[Nitpick]

But there's one more less obvious reason.

Do you mean the thing in his left hand?
He probably just wants to give the world an accurate four-letter description of the whole situation

 

[tkingdoll]

You don't see the danger of an Islamic suicide-martyr "death to Israel and the Great Satan" country (which is also a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty) in possession of nuclear weapons?

Try this analogy: "I don't see the danger of a paranoid schizophrenic having a gun, after all, hunters also have them".

Yes, I clearly see the danger. My point is, no-one should have nuclear weapons in that case. I don't believe Iran should have them, and I don't believe Western countries should either. But for the West to dictate that Iran cannot take advantage of a technology that helped to make the USA so powerful seems, well, hypocritical.

It's like saying the developing countries cannot use CFC gases because they harm the environment, after we have reaped the economic benefits from those same gases then moved on to something less harmful but more expensive.

 

[Mycroft]

Yes, I clearly see the danger. My point is, no-one should have nuclear weapons in that case. I don't believe Iran should have them, and I don't believe Western countries should either.

I can understand not wanting western nations to have them, but what I don't understand is putting any less pressure on Iran not to develope them because you don't like that western countries already have them. Can you explain that to me?