The U.S. government is missing the real issues in deciding what military action to take concerning Iran’s nuclear weapons program - how the Iranians are making nukes and what kind of nukes are they are attempting to build that counts. There are huge political/military implications to those choices. If America’s military and intelligence agencies have guessed wrong, the first we will know of it is when a nuclear tipped Iranian Scud or improved Scud missile detonates where it does America the most damage.
The government’s assumption that an American bombing campaign, no matter how successful, will slow down Iran’s nuclear program enough to buy time for a nonsensical regime change by revolution concept (no one outside the desperate-to-believe in fairy-tales idiots in D.C. believes the U.S. intelligence community can foment a successful revolution in Iran) would be laughable if so many lives were not at stake. Iran’s nuclear program is not a NATIONAL PROGRAM. It is an INTERNATIONAL ONE. As long as North Korea serves as an invulnerable sanctuary supplying ballistic missiles and nuclear fissile material to Iran in exchange for oil, Iran will get nukes. Looked at one way, nuclear proliferation may be seen as a phenomenon of globalization. Looked at in another, it may well be that nuclear proliferation is a game of covert nuclear warfare against the world’s sole superpower. No matter which is true, only forcible regime change will prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and setting off a chain reaction of proliferation that will add a least a dozen unstable, nuclear-armed, 3rd world states in a decade. Those will use their nukes on each, themselves and hand some off to terrorists, intentionally or otherwise, for use on us.
The kinds of nukes Iran is pursuing, given the self-evident need to remove the Mullah regime, is the most pressing and least thought through question of the proliferation debate. It is one colored by mirror-imaging conventional wisdom amounting to religious faith on the part of our nuclear weapons and intelligence communities.
The conventional wisdom was expressed recently in an Austin Bay/James Dunnigan podcast for Glenn Reynolds. If Iran had a nuke, it would be an implosion type nuclear weapon roughly of the size and capability of the USA's 1950’s vintage Mk 7 Thor tactical nuclear bomb. It would be too fragile/unreliable for delivery by a Scud and to heavy for a long range Scud derivative like the Shahab-3 when placed in a workable re-entry vehicle. The biggest threat of such a device, according to Bay & Dunnigan, is as a warhead for a suicide airliner flying out of Africa into Europe.
The underlying logic for this is that plutonium is easier to separate from other materials than highly enriched uranium (HEU aka U-235) while plutonium fissionable triggers require less fissionables than those using U-235. Since implosion style nuclear designs (9 kg of plutonium) are far more efficient in use of scarce, expensive weapons-grade fissionals than a gun-type bomb (60 kg of U-235), implosion type plutonium fueled bombs are assumed to be the only type Iran is pursuing.
I disagree with that assessment.
The problem with the focus on the “nuclear technology sweet spot” with regard to Iranian nukes is that it includes the knowledge that a plutonium warhead must be tested prior to use on a missile, as there is just too great a chance of a defect in design or manufacture causing a detonation failure or fizzle.
Some of the trade offs with fissionable triggers using plutonium include:
1) The design has to be closely tuned to the fissile material mix,
2) The implosion sequence has to be just right and
3) The components demand the highest levels of quality control and maintenance to work properly.
Suppose the Iranians came at the nuclear weapon technology tree with a different set of priorities? What if their choice was not based on getting fissile material? What if that was solved via sales from North Korea or via pre-enriched uranium from other sources that Iran can rapidly make highly enriched? Suppose instead they want to have a reliable nuclear warhead for Scuds and longer ranged Scud derivative missiles as soon as possible instead? That was Tom Holsinger’s point in his Case for Invading Iran.
The key nuclear device weight performance targets are one metric ton for a Scud and 500lbs for a long range Scud derivative.
The technology tree choice in that case is to get a gun-type enriched uranium bomb. Historically gun-type nukes were smaller and faster to develop than implosion type weapons. As an example, America test detonated an 11 inch diameter nuclear cannon shell in 1953 which was 36 inches long and weighed 540 lbs.
I don't think that the Iranians have matched the M65 11-inch "Atomic Annie" cannon's shell size with their device, but I do think they have at least one fielded design sized for a basic Scud.
Recent history supports the gun type bomb as the major secret proliferation threat. Both Iraq's secret Calutron using nuclear program and South Africa's successful program used gun type bomb designs.
South Africa under its past white governments built seven gun type atomic bombs in ten years enriching 320 kg of HEU for $250 million using no more than 300 people at peak to build them. Their bombs weighed 2,000 pounds each and were scaled for carriage by Buccaneer strike aircraft.
Iran is not as technologically sophisticated as South Africa was, but South Africa did not have the use of the A.Q. Khan/North Korean nuclear black market either.
If we militarily attack Iran's nuclear program, they will get a "vote" in terms of their retaliation. What happens to our logistics and political situation in the Iraq/Iran Theater if the Iranians nuke the port in Kuwait city or Diego Garcia in retaliation?
Or test a nuke after we attack their nuclear program and claim that they can do that to Kuwait?
As things stand, we are about to find out the hard way.
One the huge ironies in this Iranian nuclear weapons debate is that the last time we had a major National Intelligence group think this wrong headed was in 1998, right before the North Koreans tested their No-Dong missile by firing it over Japan and landing the warhead off the Alaska coast.
The Clinton Administration's CIA in its national intelligence assessment stated it would be 10 years before North Korea would get an ICBM class ballistic missile. As the CIA had stated for the previous 10 years in the Clinton Administration's first term and the previous Bush Administration. (Time stands still for the CIA!)
The Rumsfeld Commission was put together by the Republican Congress to dispute that and predicted a test of such a North Korean missile "very soon."
The CIA pooh poohed that report in congressional testimony and the Clinton Administration ignored it as a stunt to get funding for ballistic missile defenses -- which it was.
Six months later a North Korean reentry vehicle splashed down off the Alaska coast and Clinton Administration opposition to the Son of SDI died.
The problem we have today is that there is no Rumsfeld Commission on Iranian nukes to get Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and the George W. Bush Administration to look past the CIA's intelligence fantasies to the real threat of Iranian nukes.
And it is too late for one to make a difference in any case.
"If we militarily attack Iran's nuclear program, they will get a "vote" in terms of their retaliation. What happens to our logistics and political situation in the Iraq/Iran Theater if the Iranians nuke the port in Kuwait city or Diego Garcia in retaliation? "
Trent, the problem with this conversation is that you keep changing your assumptions to fit your argument. Are you assuming Iran already has nukes as the above indicates? Well then one would think if air strikes provoke nuclear retaliation, an attempt at forceful regime change certainly will. Right?
If we decide to assume Iran already has nukes, we are in an entirely differetn conversation than if we dont. We have to decide which we are assuming.
If Iran does not yet have nukes, i dont think your assumption that air strikes wont work stands up. You are assuming one round of air strikes. There is no reason we cant bomb them every 3 months for the rest of eternity so long as we are willing to accept the consequences. Personally i would be targetting their scientists and engineers (who happilly tend to congregate around the nuclear equipment)- material is replaceable but expertise is less so.
If Iran does have nukes, any use of force is likely to provoke a nuclear response, and we will need to either accept that or not. But again, making the argument that it is too dangerous to bomb them therefore we must invade is irrational.
Mark,
I said in a 2004 Winds of Change post that Iran would have nukes by the spring of 2006. And gee, it is the spring of 2006.
I am stating now that I think those nukes will be missile capable because the Iranians are not stupid and want a nuke they can be assured will reach its target AKA via ballistic missile.
I am also stating that Iran's nuclear program is international in scope so no bombing campaign can be effective, unless it is preparation for a ground invasion that will remove the Iranian regime.
The only thing you are objecting too here is too much reality that you can't accept.
"I said in a 2004 Winds of Change post that Iran would have nukes by the spring of 2006. And gee, it is the spring of 2006."
And we still have no definitive evidence Iran has nukes and most intelligence sources say they dont. Or am i taking crazy pills? How can you make a prediction, assume you are correct, and then use your own prediction as evidence?
"I am also stating that Iran's nuclear program is international in scope so no bombing campaign can be effective, unless it is preparation for a ground invasion that will remove the Iranian regime."
In your opinion, of which you have precious little actual evidence. Unless NK or Pakistan provides an actual warhead I see no reason a bombing campaign cant be effective. Not to mention the missile infastructure will be high on the list or priorities as well, so chalk up sending working ICBMs over from NK as well. And the engineers to make them work.
And if they have nukes already as you suppose, you still havent answered what will prevent their use during an invasion. Or for that matter what will prevent this 'international program' from supplying some Mullah on the run with a nuke anyway.
"The only thing you are objecting too here is too much reality that you can't accept."
The only thing im objecting to is that none of what you have been saying is internally consistant and you have flatly refused to set the record straight (or at least firmly bent as the case may be).
Mark,
Iran can assemble its nukes in North Korea, using North Korean fissionables, fly them to Iran via China and Pakistan, and test them in Iran.
It is a classic intelligence standard to assess enemy capabilities rather than enemy intentions. Trent is saying that the U.S. government has screwed up in estimating Iranian nuclear capability based on mirror-imaging assumptions regarding their intentions rather than their capabilities.
The real question here is not whether Iran has working nuclear weapons - they certainly have that capability given that North Korea produced more than 60kg of weapons-grade plutonium - but the status of their warhead fabrication capability, i.e., can they put working nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles?
Implosion-type warheads must be tested, and we can detect those tests. Gun-type don't (those require U-235 fissionable triggers). So we need to look at Iran's uranium-235 production capability. It takes years to produce U-235 in sufficient purity for use in gun-type triggers when refining the stuff from scratch.
It takes less time when the refining process starts with pre-enriched uranium. That was what we did in 1942-48. The really slow part of the Army-developed electromagnetic separation enrichment process was getting the ratio of U-235 to U-238 up from normal to slightly enriched. Once it was slightly enriched the electromagnetic separation process worked much faster.
So we used the Navy-developed crude gaseous diffusion process to somewhat enrich the mix of U-238 and U-235, and fed that slightly enriched mix into the Army's electromagnetic separators.
Iran can achieve similar time-compression results with more modern processes. IMO they can produce their first U-235 gun-type warheads in 6-9 months now that they have begun the final purification process.
Trent thinks they have some now. He might be right. I disagree. But we're only 6-9 months apart.
The U.S. government is years off. Years. It will be mighty surprised when the mullahs retaliate for our bombing of them by delivery of a half dozen or more U-235 warhead-tipped missiles against our forces in the Persian Gulf area.
As Trent's earlier article said:"Iran can assemble its nukes in North Korea, using North Korean fissionables, fly them to Iran via China and Pakistan, and test them in Iran.
It is a classic intelligence standard to assess enemy capabilities rather than enemy intentions."
Ok, but its also standard to assess what is plausible compared to what is possible. Would NK actually hand Iran a working nuclear warhead with NKs reactors fingerprints all over it knowing full well it will likely be used against America? You can make the argument Iran is suicidal, but is NK? Just handing a working nuke off is casus belli for a nuclear first strike against NK, much less handing one off with the intention of it being used immediately.
Where is the evidence for this, aside from that it theoretically could happen?
"I said in a 2004 Winds of Change post that Iran would have nukes by the spring of 2006. And gee, it is the spring of 2006. I am stating now that I think those nukes will be missile capable because the Iranians are not stupid and want a nuke they can be assured will reach its target AKA via ballistic missile."
I think a basic problem with this debate is that none of us hold security clearances, and none of us are reviewing all the latest and greatest intel on Iran. So none of us is capable of stating the status of Iran's nuclear program with anything approaching certainty.
So the only way for debate to procede, as Mark Buehner points out in #4, is to state our assumptions about the state of the program, and then draw our conclusions.
So, Trent, here's the basic question for you. Assuming, arguendo, that Iran has some nukes today, why are they less likely to use them in response to an invasion aimed at regime change, rather than in response to airstrikes aimed at their nuclear program?
Tom, the problem I have with this line of argument is that I don't see any obvious limits to it. Why stop at Iran? Libya, Yemen, and any number of other nogoodniks could do just what you've suggested that Iran might. Without specific intelligence that it has happened how do you draw the line?
The underlying problem is that we can't invade North Korea without a casus belli. China would not be amused. Even with the kind of provocation you've suggested we might still stay our hand. And then we'd still be on the hook.
The bottom line problem guys is that whether Iran has a handful of nukes or not is irrelevant (except for the planning and positioning of military assault on Iran). This is one of those rare 1936 moments when it’s War today with acceptable comprehendible losses or War tomorrow with inconceivable mass genocidal level losses.
http://www.johndclare.net/RoadtoWWII3.htm
I think we are at Step 2 with nuclear capability being the breaking of the treaty. Once/If the Iranians get away with breaking the non-proliferation treaty the result will be emboldening and at the same discrediting to the West and the international standard.
This will result in the Step 3 probably Sadr and crew.
Step 4 bring in the children who they have been setting up Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, other by then being maybe in Saudi Arabia or other Gulf States with large Shia pops.
Step 5 probably being the completion by force of Step 4.
Step 6 would be I would guess the same type of devils pact with the Puty maybe even some Chicoms in for good measure and the fire starter being the attack on Israel.
We are going to have to fight this war the only question is are we going to do it today or kick the can down the street were millions of Arabs will be killed and hundreds of thousands of Westerners.
Tarceano Your point is taken but short of strategic strike panning and historical record its irrelevant. Because even if they have a handful of nukes now to not strike waiting instead for when they have hundreds of nukes makes no sense.
A full scale air campaign ala GW1 (targeting infrastructure, military of all stripe, communication, transport, air power, government leadership, all targets of opportunity) followed by nation wide no-fly-zones will possibly damage the mullah gov enough for a revolution to dare to try with even further US SOF/Air support ala Afghanistan. (Iranians and most Arabs remember full well 91’ and a weak Saddam with 20% and some helicopters crushed an 80% revolution into mass graves).
If no revolution appears then we continue the decapitation process until we get a leadership that will sign a surrender truce with regimental strict well-written inspections and consequences spelled out clearly (I think we learned enough from Saddam to get it right this time). Otherwise we will continue with a containment policy of a beaten leaderless wild country AKA Iran as we overrun pieces on the edges like the Southern Oil territories and the Northern Kurdish areas and annex them off until we get a acceptable outcome.
Dave,
Those are the wrong questions.
If you start from the assumption that Iran is an emerging nuclear power with nuclear tipped long range ballistic delivery systems and an irrational regime holding the trigger, which I do. The question is “How do you change the regime with the minimal number of casualties?”
You most emphatically do not rattle sabers and warn them you are coming, then bomb them and hope the CIA’s Keystone Kop covert arm can actually pull off an Iranian revolution.
Let alone a successful revolution where the Mullahs don’t have time to pull a nuclear “Sampson option” with ballistic missiles or terrorist delivery systems.
To put it another way:
"If you're going to shoot, SHOOT! - Don't Talk! - Tuco in "The Good, the Bad & the Ugly."
Whoops!
Dave = Doug in that last post.
Mark,
You assume without proof that we have identification data on NK's weapons-grade fissionables. We obtain that data either by consent of the fissionables' owners or from analysis of the residue from atmospheric testing. The North Koreans have not tested their nukes at all as far as we know, and certainly not in the atmosphere.
Now if you have knowledge that they have voluntarily given us the necessary data, please share that with us. Otherwise your reasoning here is based on unproven and quite improbable assumptions.
As for us knowing for certain that North Korea has sold weapons-grade fissionables to Iran, please tell us what your standard of proof is? Must it be a signed confession by Kim Jong Il ("I'm so ronery")?
There is a real simple reason why we haven't gone at North Korea yet - it's called "One enemy at a time". First we knock off their most dangerous customers and then we deal with them.
Doug - No. 7:
Of course the mullahs are as or more likely to use their nukes against an invasion than mere bombing of their nuclear facilities.
Please tell us how they can tell the difference between invading and mere bombing if we do not invade immediately, don't tell them that we intend to invade, and otherwise act only defensively on the ground, while bombing the crap out of their entire strategic capability and moving extra ground forces to the theater because of all the trouble their captive Shiite militias in Iraq are causing us? How will they ascertain if we have a secret intention to invade after a month of bombing and buildup?
Answer - they won't.
Please explain why the Bush administration should tell the mullahs we intend to invade before the U.S. Air Force has temporarily destroyed their ability to hit us with nuclear weapons.
Please also explain how we can invade Iran before we've cleaned out their wholly-owned Shiite militias in Iraq. Which just happen to be sitting on all the key logistics routes from Iraq into Iran.
It's called "use 'em before you lose 'em." The mullahs won't be able to tell for sure that we only intend to bomb them, as opposed to softening them up for invasion, so they have every reason to use what nukes they have immediately without waiting to see if the bombing will stop without us invading.
Dave,
Only Iran has promised to use its nuclear weapons on Israel and us. Only Iran has sent terrorists at us. The fallacy of your reasoning is best shown by your reference to Libya. Quadaffi surrendered after we invaded Iraq - he gave up his WMD program and ratted on the other bad guys - it was a wonderful intelligence windfall.
You can do better than that.
Trent Telenko My apologies I slayed your name really badly earlier.
Tom #13:
Sorry, you've lost me. We seem to agree that if Iran has nukes, they will use them in either the invasion or the bombing scenario.
But then you ask me to defend the wisdom of announcing our intention to invade ahead of time, or to invade without first pacifying the Shi'ite militias. I don't recall advocating either proposal - you're the one writing articles on WoC on the need for an invasion, not me!
But back to the point where we agree - the Mullahs are likely to use their existing nukes in any case of serious military conflict with the US. So when you advocate an invasion, you're saying that you are willing to accept the loss of a hundred thousand or so lives in exchange for the benefit of removing the Iranian regime? Or are you saying that the probability of the USAF eliminating their existing nukes in the first hours of a conflict is extremely high, nearly a certainty?
I don't buy either proposition, personally. If Iran has nukes today, then the opportunity for a pre-emptive stike is past. We instead will need to focus on a policy of deterrance and containment.
Doug,
I'm a lawyer. I use words with precision.and
do NOT equal "so they will for sure nuke us ASAP after we attack them."
It depends on WHEN. There are potent reasons for them not to do so too, and those reasons will vary depending on how many deliverable nuclear weapons they have. What we do them is far less important in these matters than what they can do to us.
At any given moment, the mullahs' reasons for and against nuking us in retaliation for invasion as opposed to bombing will be equal, but their reasons for hitting us at all will depend on how many deliverable nukes they have.
If we attack before they have any nuclear warheads of any sort suitable for use on ballistic missiles, the odds of them not hitting us at all are pretty good whether we invade or simply bomb them.
If we attack after they have a few U-235 gun-type missile warheads, and several plutonium ones suitable only for delivery by container cargo or large aircraft, but before they have dozens of missile-ready warheads, they might or might not nuke us in retaliation for our attacking them - there are a lot of variables there, notably how many deliverable nukes they have.
If we attack them only after they've tested a plutonium warhead, IMO it is quite likely that they will nuke us if we attack them. At that point I expect they will have dozens of suitable warheads.
But in each instance, they won't wait to find out for sure whether we intend to invade. They'll have decided in advance of our attack whether they'll nuke us, and they'll follow through on that ASAP after our bombing starts.
One further point - if they nuke us, they won't just nuke us. They'll use their other WMD too.
"It's called "use 'em before you lose 'em." The mullahs won't be able to tell for sure that we only intend to bomb them, as opposed to softening them up for invasion, so they have every reason to use what nukes they have immediately without waiting to see if the bombing will stop without us invading"
Ok. Fair enough. So if we bomb Iran and they dont use nukes, they dont have them. If they they do, they will use them, and then we must nuke them back or assumedly our MAD system is toast. So where does the invasion come into play?
Latest reports from Iranian government sources say that they have reached reactor grade enrichment. Which is about from 5 to 20% depending.
Trent,
Democracies have this little problem in war fighting. They have to bring the people on board.
Even the Austrian corporal invented incidents when required.
In the current case we need to provoke Iran into attacking. Too many internet sleuths to bet on getting away with doing it the old fashioned way (Gulf of Tonkin).
Trent,
Democracies have this little problem in war fighting. They have to bring the people on board.
Even the Austrian corporal invented incidents when required.
In the current case we need to provoke Iran into attacking. Too many internet sleuths to bet on getting away with doing it the old fashioned way (Gulf of Tonkin).
BTW the hardest part for a Pu bomb is controlling the explosion. High speed cameras solve that problem without a full test. Or do a sub-critical test. I'm not so sure you must test a Pu device these days.
Just so this point doesn't get missed:
The hardest part for a Pu bomb is controlling the explosion. High speed cameras solve that problem without a full test. Or do a sub-critical test. I'm not so sure you must test a full or even sub-critical Pu device these days.
"You assume without proof that we have identification data on NK's weapons-grade fissionables. We obtain that data either by consent of the fissionables' owners or from analysis of the residue from atmospheric testing"
There are many techniques to try to identify the source of a nuclear weapon- this problem isnt new and in fact is being pursued with exactly this scenario in mind. First off we do have data on NK reactors because we had inspectors all over them during the 90s. Secondly the process of elimination is pretty simple here, we have access to data on everybody else. Thirdly, NK has no idea what we know or how we would react with even a strong suspicion that they handed off a nuke to be used against us. Thats a hideous risk for NK to take in exchange for a little cash. It just makes no sense for NK to pin its existance on Iran.
Mark,
That we have data some or all of the reactors the Norks disclosed to the IEA does not mean that we have data on the ones they didn't disclose, and we know they have a bunch of the latter which are producing plutonium. That is what started the fuss - those are the ones I was talking about as making your assumptions invalid. We also know the Norks are now enriching U-235.
NK has pinned its existence on China, not Iran.
President Bush's term "Axis of Evil" linked Iran and North Korea.
You assume that the U.S. can credibly deter NK from selling nukes to Iran. There is significant contrary evidence which I have cited before.
"You assume that the U.S. can credibly deter NK from selling nukes to Iran. There is significant contrary evidence which I have cited before."
There is evidence of selling nuclear technology and probably even materials, but a full fledged nuclear weapon is a whole nother kettle of fish. That is casus belli and everybody knows it.
Remember what the specific argument is here.The idea that NK will essentially be Irans nuclear weapons factory while we are involved in a bombing campaign is farfetched at best. If Iran finds itself in a shooting was with the US and their oil money stymied indefinately, what incentive would NK have to paint their faces on the target list by supply Iran with a working nuclear weapon? Remember forsensic attribution isnt just about matching isotopes. Things like weapon design are strong evidence as well. NK knows how that would end, why would they do it? Much more likely theyd pull a Doc Brown and give the Iranians a box full of pin ball parts.
I think I may be on to something here! Iranian nuclear technology can be traced back to this man.
He makes Abdul Khan look like like Betty Crocker.