Quote Originally Posted by JeffC View Post
Since defense of one's position, whether it's a possibility or a prediciton, is a time-honored tradition in military academies and civilian educational institutions, I'm looking forward to hear Galrahn's take on what technical requirements must be in place in order for any nation, including Iran, to convert enriched uranium supplied by Russia to HEU for use in a warhead, should Iran desire to do that in the future.
Ah an epistemological mistake in the process of science. We are not in the testing or instruments phase of our discussion. We are in the hypothesis generation phase.

We can't say whether Iran has the capability 100 percent, and we most certainly can't say that they can't refine nuclear materials.

What can we say (y'all will have to help me here):

We know that Russia has given them power generation level nuclear fuel (3.9 percent pure).

Weapons grade fuel requirements are in the 99th percenatile (99.99999 percent pure or lower I imagine).

Refinement processes so far only exist in tier 1 countries (and I guess North Korea).

Refinement processes and tolerances for a device are vastly understated in most intelligence materials. Knowledge of how to do something, and capability of how to do something not being the same thing.

The materials, machinery, knowledge, skills, and capabilities will not forever elude the Iranians (or any entity so wishing the big boom).

Weapons grade materials may be on the weapons black market already from a variety of resources.

Add to that or refine those statements of "fact" or conjecture as you will. We can the hypothesize that A) The Iranians will get the "a" bomb, B) The Iranians will not get the "a" bomb.

Personally I can't make a case for "B" at all. Therefore all conjecture over the "when" is moot. That is the issue with jumping to testing and refuting before you're ready. We need more facts on currency of the situation and less discussion on the end result. How is it currently occurring, what is the situation, then we can tear apart the points for and against a point. But, we need the common point to argue about first. We're not there yet.