This column completes my trilogy on the dangers of Iran acquiring nuclear weapons, which I and others much smarter and more informed than me are convinced Iran is attempting to do. In Part One, I reviewed the attempts by Senate Republicans to remind President Obama and Iran’s leaders that any negotiated deal regarding an Iranian nuclear weapons program that is not approved by the constitutionally required two-thirds of the Senate is not binding.
In Part Two, I looked briefly at the nation we are negotiating with, noting that Iran is the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, having successfully supported terrorist movements in Lebanon, Gaza and Iraq, while bolstering the bloody Assad regime in Syria. I also noted that, should Iran acquire nuclear weapons, it will spark a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which is both the world’s most unstable region, and the world’s largest oil producer.
In Part Three I want to review how close Iran is in acquiring a nuclear weapon, with the proviso that no one can know for certain how close it is to that goal.
First, there is a widespread consensus that Iran has nearly 8,000 kilograms of U-235 (uranium isotope), which, once that U-235 is enriched to a weapons-grade level, is enough U-235 to produce seven nuclear implosion-type bombs — modern-day versions of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. That enrichment process can take from three months to one year, which means the Iranians can enrich to enough U-235 to produce those seven nuclear bombs by April 2016. This contention, and timetable, is consistent with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s estimate that in less than two months, Iran can now produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear bomb.
To these ends, Iran has spent billions of dollars building secret and heavily fortified nuclear development facilities, all capable of enriching U-235 to weapons-grade, and Iran is also producing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) to carry these bombs to destinations far and wide.
A seriously scary scenario to contemplate, but that does not mean Iran is destined to succeed. Building nuclear weapons and delivery systems is one thing. Creating the technological, economic and industrial system necessary to sustain a nuclear program is something else. Economically advanced nations such as the United States have that capability; basically, Iran is still a third-world nation.
But it does mean that we should do everything possible to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons, because Iran’s leaders truly believe that if they can initiate an Armageddon-like global nuclear conflagration, it will result in the return of “the 12th Imam” — the Islamic Messiah — who will establish a global caliphate based on Sharia law that all must bow down to, or die horribly.
