So, Iran is close to having the nuclear material necessary to build a nuclear warhead:
Iran now could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to arm a nuclear bomb within two to four months but would still face serious "engineering challenges" — and much longer delays — before it would be able to use the material in an atomic warhead, a respected U.S. think tank said Monday.
Over the last decade, we've had lots of warnings over Iran being closer to nuclear weapons. They have all been wrong, so I don't know what to make of this one. It is a narrower prediction and so more likely to be accurate. But then there are the engineering challenges of taking that lump of bomb-grade uranium and making a bomb out of it. How long will that take? I have no idea.
But in part the timing is irrelevant compared to the path that Iran is on to get nuclear weapons. I'm glad that Iran didn't get nuclear weapons 8 years ago. I won't be happy if Iran gets them 8 years from now as opposed to next year.
So Israel wants a red line on the path to nuclear weapons that Iran must not cross. If they do, Israel wants assurances that military action against Iran will follow.
But red lines aren't new. And I have to believe that Iran knows that a red line could provoke an attack. What if Iran takes that red line into consideration in their plans?
The problem from Iran's point of view is that they can't know if crossing one of these lines could trigger an American or Israeli preemptive strike out of fear that further delay in attacking would be too late to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And if I was an Iranian nutball, I wouldn't assume the Americans and Israelis couldn't knock out my infrastructure.
Were I an Iranian nutball, under those circumstances, I'd want at least a few atomic warhead on hand before I announce capabilities to produce atomic weapons-grade material. Which would mean I'd have had to have bought some from either North Korea or Pakistan--or possibly even from some broke custodian of Russia's arsenal.
If Iran can announce both the ability to make nuclear bomb material and the possession of actual nuclear weapons--perhaps by detonating one in a test on their own territory--Tehran would quite possibly deter an attack on Iran's nuclear infrastructure.
We're not dealing with idiots. If the Iranian mullahs believe there are red lines that trigger Israeli or American action, why wouldn't they take counter-actions rather than just blindly cross those lines and provide a pretext for military action against them?
If Iran's capacity to build a nuclear bomb is a red herring, we should expect that Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon arsenal from North Korea before they cross any red lines that we might imagine.
Have a nice day.
