by Geoff Vasil
Critics contend the claim Iran is weeks away from a nuclear bomb has been a talking point for at least a decade if not 30 years now.
Israel and the International Atomic Energy Commission say Iran has violated restrictions on uranium enrichment under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in the last several months.
Iran says this is their first violation and that they don’t want and never have wanted a nuclear bomb.
If Iran has been accused of the same thing for over a decade, and Israel maintains that the danger is here at the door, which side is right?
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Actually, it turns out all sides are right. The reason is simple. the funny little secret about nuclear bombs is that they aren’t very high technology at all. In fact, the basic atomic bomb is as simple as smashing two rocks together.
The hydrogen bomb, also known as the thermonuclear bomb, is complex, but the atom nbomb developed by the United States and deployed against Japan in World War II is reminiscent of the initial scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1967) where proto-humans fight other proto-humans or perhaps proto-chimpanzees with jawbones and rocks.
How can Iran be weeks away from the A Bomb for 30 years now? The trick is in the details. If you take two chunks of uranium and push them together at a fast enough rate, you will get an explosion. If the chunks are of a certain size and density. Fission occurs naturally in locations where there is sufficient urnanium ore, uranium oxide or pitch-blend. The trick is two-fold: to get maximum explosice force, you need the right kind of uranium, and you need to create the right geometry for the atoms to fully interact. So essentially if you have the two halves of an atom bomb located in two different parts of the same country, the time needed to create an A bomb is the time needed to bring the two rocks together in one location.
Iran has enriched uranium, but so do lots of other countries. Rumor has it Japan, Taiwan and Saudi Arabia have enough enriched uranium in different locations to cobble together an atomic bomb on short notice. South Africa during apartheid had enough to test an actual bomb in the extreme South Atlantic in the late 1970s. It’s as simple as smashing two rocks together.
For the best uranium fission bomb, you need uranium isotope 235. To make isotopes, you bombard refined uranium with neutrons. You usually get 235 and 238. To separate the main isotopes, which are different atomic and different actual weights, you spin them at high speed and the lighter ones float to the top, and the heavier ones sink a bit lower. This process uses centrifuges.
Sucking off uranium isotope 235 isn’t perfect, you get 238 and other isotopes mixed in. What you aim for is higher purity. A certain percentage of isotope 235 is good enough for making an explosive mechanism. The IAEA accused Iran of purifying 235 above 60%. A real A-bomb of two uranium masses should be close to or over 90%. Israel claims going from 60% to 90% isn’t all that hard. It’s just a matter of time, and intent.
Iran claims it is seeking the peaceful uses of the atom, Eisenhower’s speech to the General Assembly of the United Nations back in the 1950s which led to the non-proliferation regime, under which non-nuclear country signatories are promised aid from nuclear weapon countries in developing peaceful atomic energy applications.
Back then there was much greater enthusiasm for splitting the atom. It wasn’t seen as just nuclear weapons or using fission to heat water and spin turbines to make electricity. The new technology was seen as wide open potentially for any number of applications, from building a new Panama Canal in days instead of decades to fueling Man’s reach for the starts.
Iran has claimed for over a decade they need to enrich isotopes for nuclear medical applications. Radiation therapies for fighting cancer and related disease.
Israel, surrounded by Iranian proxy armies for decades now who have waged war on Israel from Gaza, Lebanon and now Northern Yemen, doesn’t believe Iran wants atoms for peace but does believe Iran when they say the USA is the Great Satan and Israel is the Little Satan, and, by the way, death to both.
Neither have Israelis voted in favor of the much-vaunted Two State Solution to the territorial conflict with the West Bank and Gaza Strip (a three-state solution at best given how Hamas in Gaza and Al-Fatah aka the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank have clashed). THe Likkud Party, Benjamin Netanyahu and ruling coalition partners don’t believe an independent Palestine or Palestines would live in peace with and in recognition of Israel’s right to exist. Experience has shown independent Palestine or Palestines would be an eternal threat to and thorn in the side of Israel. And why would an independent Palestine or Palestines plural NOT go the way of Lebanon, Syria and North Yemen in accepting their role as an Iranian proxy for attacking Israel and seeking the eradication of the state of Israel? Are Palestinians shomehow wiser and more philosophical when it comes to relations with Israel?
But why would Israel attack now? Why the pre-emptive strike?
In international diplomacy and law there is no such thin as a pre-emptive strike, there is only aggression with a justification byt the aggressor. In Israel’s case an exception should be made, because this strike against the Islamic dictatorship was based on real intelligence about Iran activating their terrorist proxies to attack Israel, and the real report from the IAEA about Iran exceeding uranium enrichment limits.
Israel has never been in a better position to strike Iran given the most pro-Israel president ever is in the White House, given that Israel took out most of Iran’s air defenses late last year and that Iran is planning to strike now against Israel rather than later after some kind of new NNP with the US.
Israel has never before either faced suck blatant anti-Semitism from the EU and the West in general. Spain, France, Germany and the UK want to reward the barbarity Gaza displayed, unprecedented since the Holocaust in the mass murder of Jews, with de facto and de jure recognition of at least one Palestinian state, presumably under the authority of the Hamas barbarians who say raping burning and shooting Israeli babies, mothers and men is self defense and the natural outcome of Israel’s quitting the Gazan territory and leaving it to its own devides.
At the G7 meeting today in Calgary, Alberta, UK prime minister Keir Starmer, desperate to make himself relevant in much the same way Canada’s new PM Mark Carney and Australia’s PM Anthony Albenese want to at least make the international scene, will tell pro-Israel president Donald J. Trump the West needs to push Israel to “de-escalate” from their conflict with Iran. “Third Way” French president Macron will say the same thing, and Germany’s new chancellor Merz will echo the sentiment. Instead of leadership, we will hear the entreaties of people who have no understanding whatsoever of the situation making noises in order to appear as if they’r “doing something.”
American generals and officers appearing on US and other cable news and live broadcast chanels are claiming Israel cannot target Iran’s underground nuclear facilities (Natanz etc.) by themselves. The Israelis need US “bunker-buster” bombs, they says. Netanyahu has saidf Israel has a number of measures available for hitting these sites and destroying them. The idea of a bunker-buster is a depleted uranium, extremely dense nosecone penetrating underground with a delayed detonation following penetration. Even if the first and second bombs might not break te site, continued bombing into the same window will eventually take it out.
What the generals et al. are saying is that Israel needs the US to finish the job. Netanyahu says that’s not true. The cable commentators are seeking dissent against Trump supporting Israel, but in a way Israel says they don’t really need.
Isreal already has air dominance in Iran. The plan is to take out the nuclear facilities and the ballistic missile production sites. As a side effect, Israeli prime minister Netanyahu has talked about an Iranian uprising to displace the almost universally unpopular theocratic leadership of the so-called Islamic Republic, a simulation of democracy with an autocratic overlay of religious authorities who seized power from the students in 1979. Israel controls the internet in Iran and can enable or stop various command-and-control systems in the military and government, and can enable internet for citizen movements, according to what Netanyahu said back in October.
The only way Israel can lose this war now is to over-estimate their own military, to lie about casualties and deaths from Iranian missiles in Israel, or to kow-town to non-leaders such as Macron, Starmer and von der Leyen calling for a false peace with the Iranian regime of terror. While “as many days as it takes” might be an optimistic assessment, the coming months will show yet another Israeli victory over a hostile neighboring state.
The opinions of the author are soley his and do not necessarily reflect those of the Lithuanian Jewish Community, related member-organizations or anyone else.