Iran, Nukes, Diplomacy and other options (catch all thread 2007-2010)

[Sean Osborne]

The 3000 centerfuge cascade, working properly with no downtime, would at best create enough HEU in one year for ONE nuclear warhead.

Given the nature of the Shi'a Twelver regime in Iran, that's one nuclear weapon too many for a regime which has declared its intent to wipe another sovereign state off of the face of the earth.

Nevertheless, I don't know of any credible experts who claim that Iran has anything other than ancient centerfuges which might be able to generate enough HEU in 18 months to produce one nuclear warhead - and that's a big "if".

Graham Allison had a good article in the YaleGlobal back in June 2006.

He wrote:

The dog that hasn’t barked is Iran’s covert programs for acquiring nuclear weapons. Four huge “known unknowns” lie at the heart of judgments about the threat posed by Iran.

But on the specifics about Iranian centrifuges Allison wrote:

...the father of the Pakistani nuclear program, Dr. A.Q. Khan, sold Iran advanced P2 centrifuge designs that are still unaccounted for.