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points by bluGill 3 days ago | 0 comments

Iran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons. This stockpile was built under the previous leader, who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them, and yet he knew. who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them and yet he knew. Iran didn't have nuclear weapons, however for years they were only a few weeks away from having them. They had all the hard parts in place to build one. There's a reason to think they had plenty of experts who could do it. So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader.

[–] jcranmer 3 days ago

The general assessment on Iran has long been that they aim to become a nuclear threshold state (have the ability to make nuclear weapons quickly (~1y timeline or less) should they need to), but not actually acquire nuclear weapons for themselves.

[–] spiderice 3 days ago

Surely you can see how that isn't much of a distinction. And even that is something that the west clearly should not allow.

[–] bigyabai 3 days ago

> And even that is something that the west clearly should not allow.

...which is why we (used to) have the JCPOA. Attacking Iran will have no effect if they can mine uranium domestically and build centrifuges themselves.

[–] bigyabai 3 days ago

Iran has domestic uranium deposits. They design and build their own centrifuges, and had thousands of such centrifuges during the JCPOA. It's basically impossible to denuclearize them or prevent them from building a rudimentary reactor or bomb, and it has been that way for at least two decades.

Diplomacy was a proven path to prevent Iran from reaching for nuclear deterrence. The plan worked well for America and Iran, which is probably what motivated Likud to escalate the situation and force them both to pick sides.

[–] themaninthedark 3 days ago

Yes, democracy and trade are the proven paths for preventing conflicts. Just ask the Ukrainians how that is going for them, I am sure they are so glad that Germany was buying oil and gas from Russia.

>The controversial gas pipeline Nord Stream 2 (NS2) has become the symbol of Germany’s widely criticised energy and security policy, which sought to build political bridges through trade and at the same time supply companies with cheap fuels. However, it drove the country into a fatal dependence on Russian oil and gas. Years later, government documents from the 2010s and early 2020s reported by Süddeutsche Zeitung showed that former chancellor Angela Merkel sought to portray her government as neutral and lacking competence in regards to the "business project" Nord Stream 2 to the outside world and European partners, while supporting increased gas trade with Russia through several actions.

https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/gas-pipeline-nord...

[–] bigyabai 3 days ago

Conflict was not a preferable alternative for Ukraine, so if you're trying to relate this as a metaphor for America's posture then it's not a great example.

[–] throw0101c 3 days ago

> Iran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons.

After the JCPOA the stockpile went to zero (esp. >5% enrichment):

* https://www.statista.com/chart/23528/irans-stockpile-of--low...

* https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/status-irans-nuclear-...

* https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/11/18/the-de...

One year after the US left JCPOA (during Trump 1.0) the stockpile started going up again.

[–] delecti 3 days ago

They said they weren't working on nukes, and our intelligence community released assessments which agreed.

The level of enrichment they've been doing is higher than they need for power generation but it also isn't nearly enough to make nukes. A more reasonable explanation (given the assessments they aren't working on nukes) is that they were being deliberately provocative.

> So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader

Right, they could, and didn't. Why? It was only 7 years from the discovery of fission to a proof of concept in the form of the trinity test. Either you assume a level of incompetence entirely divorced from Iran's efficacy on the international stage, or you accept they weren't trying.

[–] yyyk 3 days ago

>It also isn't nearly enough to make nukes

Enrichment % is very misleading. Natural is about 0.7%. 3.5% is halfway to 90%. The distance from 60% to 90% is tiny.

That's because the distance is calculated using the quantity of raw material that needs to be filtered and not the enrichment percent, the more pure, the less material needed, hence smaller distance to 90%.

>Right, they could, and didn't. Why?

Some people worked hard to ensure the latter would be very inadvisable for Iran. Being so close isn't a stable equilibrium though.

[–] labcomputer 2 days ago

That's a common misconception. You can't make the calculation purely on the mass of raw material needed to get a X kg of Y% material.

Every enrichment process drops in efficiency as the enrichment increases, asymptotically approaching that process's enrichment ceiling.

That's why nobody uses thermal diffusion to enrich uranium: It's by far the easiest method (you can do it with 1800's technology), but the practical maximum enrichment fraction is too low for anything useful (other than providing feedstock to better enrichment processes).

That's also the reason a centrifuge enrichment plant uses warehouses full of cascaded centrifuges: The centripetal force inside the centrifuge is working against a diffusion gradient, so each stage only gives a small percentage decrease of the "derichment" fraction.

Once you pass 50%, you stop looking for U-235 needles in a haystack to keep and start looking for U-238 needles in a haystack to throw away.

[–] fmajid 3 days ago

Ah but the geniuses Trump and Netanyahu assassinated the Iranian leader who had issued a fatwa banning nukes as unislamic so now all bets are off.

[–] themaninthedark 3 days ago

I like that he had banned nukes in 2003 but for some reason, Iran covertly construction Fordow starting in 2006. I guess he was just not as Supreme of a leader as he thought he was, somehow all those people just decided to hollow out a mountain and install centrifuges there.

[–] bigyabai 3 days ago

Iran started domestic enrichment in the 1980s. It was not banned in any fatwa, nor the JCPOA.

[–] themaninthedark 2 days ago

Ok but how is that a rebuttal to anything I said?

Fatwa was put in place in 2003, Fordow construction was started 2006.

In the words of Obama in 2009: “The size and configuration of this facility is inconsistent with a peaceful program,” then US President Barack Obama said in 2009

So who do I believe; a Supreme Leader who says they will not build nuclear weapons or my lying eyes...

Or perhaps you are saying that the Supreme Leader didn't have control over his country and some rebel faction was able to build that with out his knowledge?

[–] bigyabai 2 days ago

Iran didn't ban centrifuges. That's the rebuttal; their original ban on nuclear weapons still holds, and has held for 2 decades. Verbatim, it is still true.

Unless you have irrefutable proof that Iran has built a nuclear weapon, then you're admitting that diplomatic deescalation worked as a nonproliferation strategy.

[–] themaninthedark 3 days ago

The intelligence assessment was very careful about what it said.

>A U.S. intelligence assessment says Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons at the moment but has ramped up activities that could help it develop them. https://apnews.com/article/us-iran-nuclear-intelligence-b506...

So they were not actively building a nuke, only getting all the pieces together to build one ready....

Prior to the deal: >Iran initially possessed centrifuges sufficient for one nuclear weapon, but not for nuclear power. https://web.archive.org/web/20190709050018/https://www.polit...

After the deal was broken by Trump and Biden was trying to restart it.... >2023 : An IAEA report on the Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant found that two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges were configured in a way "substantially different" from what Iran had previously declared. Iran claimed the difference was due to a human error.

>On 4 March(2023), Grossi met with Raisi and other top Iranian officials. Earlier, IAEA had detected uranium particles enriched up to 83.7% at Fordow. In the meantime, Iran gave assurances that it would reinstall monitoring equipment at sensitive locations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_nuclear_deal