OMG WHAT! Explain Fordor, fortunately the word got out before the government could secure the site. Almost two dozen N. Korean scientists (or whatever) perished with an unknown number. How about the Iranian scientists at the recent N. Korean nuke test.....was it a test of the Iranian nuke? Mainstream media is avoiding that like the plague.
Or could it be that the reports are largely from Israeli sources with obvious agendas at work?
....and is it really any wonder the Iranians are putting everything they can underground under mountains right now?
It's hardly a climate of reducing tensions, and hasn't been for years.
Yes some of that is due to Iranian involvement in Palestinian politics but not all of it.
(it's also worth pointing out that the Iranians are Persians, not Arabs.....and I've yet to hear anyone explain why Persia would commit suicide for the Arabs)
As for the delivery system, if one researches, one will discover that the Iranians have been test launching missiles from container ships CONTAINER SHIPS! Their test missile launches only launched to an altitude of about 150 miles, which is the altitude the nuke detonates and the EMP effect takes your electrical grid back to the 1800's.
Or not.........maybe I'm watching too many Bond movies
I don't think it's as easy straight-forward as you suggest, perhaps too Bondish?
Oh yeah another thought, didn't Obama convince everyone to cancel their missile defense systems?
No.
The USA (and a couple of others) have various anti missile programs.
Where have you been?
New York Times March 7, 2013
"In February 2010, the United Nations' nuclear inspectors declared for the first time that they had extensive evidence of "past or current undisclosed activities" by Iran's military to develop a nuclear warhead, an unusually strongly worded conclusion likely to accelerate Iran's confrontation with the United States and other Western countries.
That "past or current" is pretty vague, no?
I have only ever seen references to research capable of being put to weapons use....but that again is so vague given the cross-over between civil military nuclear use (as was the case when France the UK developed nuclear weaponry in Europe).
The report, the first under the new director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, also concluded that the nation's weapons-related activity apparently continued "beyond 2004."
Again, there have periodically been claims regarding 'evidence' with none actually produced.
Centrifuges - even expanded numbers of them - and so on are not a bomb and neither does it prove enriched uranium to the level required (way above the 20% or so they have been reported to enriching to) for a bomb.
Which is 85% - 90% last I read up on it.
In November 2011, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a trove of evidence that they said makes a "credible" case that "Iran has carried out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear device" at Parchin and that the project may still be under way.
Again when you look at what they released it was hardly convincing.
A diagram they admit was flawed probably leaked to the Iranians to delay any work they were doing.
I'm sorry but that is not proof of anything to me.
It is true that they do do nuclear research in Iran....at the research reactor, provided by the United States in 1967, located at the Tehran Nuclear Research Centre. The research reactor produces medical isotopes there.
I hear a lot about 'proof' but never actually see anything that is not highly questionable, either because of its source or because when you look further into what has supposedly been produced it amounts to little or nothing.
Like I said, Iraq 2002/3 all over again?
Various planted stories, no corroboration, single sources etc
Given the tensions in the ME - not to mention what happened next door in Iraq - I wouldn't be surprised if Iran DID try to acquire nuclear weapons, deterrence works, right?
I 'm all for non-proliferation but with the politics of the ME I can see no reason why we should all assume the worst.
A dose of equality deterrence there might not do a lot of good.
The crazy thing is change is on the way in Iran, the last thing needed is a new ME war which would only serve to shore-up defend the existing regime.
Iran would also be a very different proposition to Iraq, any war would be so much more costly although I have no doubt they would lose, ultimately.
Sorry this is politics, way o/t and hardly suitable for our site or these boards.
I'll leave it at that.
Interesting discussion, as usual, tho