New traces of plutonium and enriched uranium — potential material for atomic warheads — have been found in a nuclear waste facility in Iran, a revelation that came Tuesday as the Iranian president boasted his country's nuclear fuel program will soon be completed.
The International Atomic Energy Agency report detailing the discovery also faulted Tehran for not cooperating with the U.N. watchdog's attempts to investigate other suspicious aspects of Iran's nuclear program.
I understand. I do. Iran's economy is so bad, Ahmadinejad is doing the Chicago Tapdance more to distract his own people than anything. He's pulling a quasi-Hitler here. Hell, he's even including antisemitism as a bonus. It's funny, while every rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth lefty is calling Bush the modern day equivalent of Hitler, we have one, bold as life, sitting in the Middle East. We can get into the irony of Iran (of the ancient Persian Empire) being the home of Aryans, later.
The only problem here is that Israel is not Czechoslovakia. While the rest of the world may replay history, bemoaning the fact that Iran is about to become a nuclear power, Israel will not sit on its ass and let things happen. They will do the same thing they did to Iraq. Any facility they suspect of weapons development will be pounded into dust. They can afford to do no less. Ahmadinejad has stated before his fervent wish to see Israel "wiped from the map".
Iranian nuclear officials say 54,000 centrifuges would produce enough enriched uranium to fuel a 1,000-megawatt reactor, such as the one being built by Russia that is near completion at the southern city of Bushehr. Experts have estimated Iran would need only 1,500 centrifuges to produce a nuclear weapon.
Tehran insists it is only seeking to generate low-enriched uranium for nuclear fuel and not the highly enriched variety needed for weapons. It also denies it is building a heavy water research reactor at Arak in order to obtain plutonium for nuclear arms, asserting it only wants to produce radioactive isotopes for medical research and treatment.
I find it hard to believe that any society that still publicly flogs female fornicators needs, or even wants, cutting edge materials for medical research. They are a beligerant, aggressive culture. They have been mostly passive-aggressive, as evidenced by their clandestine arming of Hezbollah. But now they are on the verge of creating weapons that will allow them to act confidently and in a more overt manner.
I hope the UN has learned its lesson from North Korea. Harsh sanctions are needed to stop any weapons research. But thanks to blocking efforts from Russia and China, they will most likely emerge as watered-down and ineffectual.
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