It’s sad, really, the dhimmification going on in Europe. They draw a line in the sand, regarding Iran’s nuke program, Iran steps over it, the Euros draw another line, Iran steps over it, then another, and another.
And B Hussein Obama wants more negotiations with the mullahtards and Mahmoud I’mADamnNutjob.
By JOHN R. BOLTON
August 5, 2008This weekend, yet another “deadline” passed for Iran to indicate it was seriously ready to discuss ending its pursuit of nuclear weapons. Like so many other deadlines during these five years of European-led negotiations, this one died quietly, with Brussels diplomats saying that no one seriously expected any real work on a Saturday.
The fact that the Europeans are right — this latest deadline is not fundamentally big news — is precisely the problem with their negotiations, and the Bush administration’s acquiescence in that effort.
The rationality of continued Western negotiations with Iran depends critically on two assumptions: that Iran is far enough away from having deliverable nuclear weapons that we don’t incur excessive risks by talking; and that by talking we don’t materially impede the option to use military force. Implicit in the latter case is the further assumption that the military option is static — that it remains equally viable a year from now as it is today.
Neither assumption is correct. Can we believe that if diplomacy fails we can still take military action “in time” to prevent Iranian nuclear weapons? “Just in time” nonproliferation assumes a level of intelligence certainty concerning Iran’s nuclear program that recent history should manifestly caution us against.
Every day that goes by allows Iran to increase the threat it poses, and the viability of the military option steadily declines over time. There are a number of reasons why this is so.
First, while the European-led negotiations proceed, Iran continues both to convert uranium from a solid (uranium oxide, U3O8, also called yellowcake) to a gas (uranium hexafluoride, UF6) at its uranium conversion facility at Isfahan. Although it is a purely chemical procedure, conversion is technologically complex and poses health and safety risks.
As Isfahan’s continuing operations increase both Iran’s UF6 inventory and its technical expertise, however, the impact of destroying the facility diminishes. Iran is building a stockpile of UF6 that it can subsequently enrich even while it reconstructs Isfahan after an attack, or builds a new conversion facility elsewhere.
Second, delay permits Iran to increase its stock of low-enriched uranium (LEU) — that is, UF6 gas in which the U235 isotope concentration (the form of uranium critical to nuclear reactions either in reactors or weapons) is raised from its natural level of 0.7% to between 3% and 5%.
As its LEU stockpile increases, so too does Tehran’s capacity to take the next step, and enrich it to weapons-grade concentrations of over 90% U235 (highly-enriched uranium, or HEU). Some unfamiliar with nuclear matters characterize the difference in LEU-HEU concentration levels as huge. The truth is far different. Enriching natural uranium by centrifuges to LEU consumes approximately 70% of the work and time required to enrich it to HEU.
Read the entire article in the Wall Street Journal.
Related posts:
- Sarkozy on Iran: “stronger sanctions”; Nuclear Iran “unacceptable”
- Iran holds enough uranium for bomb
- Iran moves nuclear stockpile to above-ground facility
- Iran admits development of second nuke plant
- UN has epiphany: Says Iran ignoring demands to stop nuke work
- Iran now has 6,000 centrifuges for uranium
- Iran: How we got here
- Decision time: Iran has crossed the “Red line”
- Iran has resumed A-bomb project, says West
- Cheney: “Iran faces serious consequences”
