Pax Iranica
Great news for the Obama admin on the Iranian front. The Iranians are ready to build a nuke. But the top mullah hasn’t given them the nod yet. Also, his partner for peace has been officially re-installed. By the same top mullah. Times of London:
Iran has perfected the technology to create and detonate a nuclear warhead and is merely awaiting the word from its Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to produce its first bomb, Western intelligence sources have told The Times.
The sources said that Iran completed a research programme to create weaponised uranium in the summer of 2003 and that it could feasibly make a bomb within a year of an order from its Supreme Leader.
…
“If the Supreme Leader takes the decision (to build a bomb), we assess they have to enrich low-enriched uranium to highly-enriched uranium at the Natanz plant, which could take six months, depending on how many centrifuges are operating. We don’t know if the decision was made yet,” said the intelligence sources, adding that Iran could have created smaller, secret facilities, other than those at the heavily guarded bunker at Natanz to develop materials for a first bomb. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency only keep tabs on fissile material produced at monitored sites and not the number of centrifuges that Iran has built.
So why is that great news? Look at it this way. If the mullahs already have the wherewithal to make a nuke, and they can even make one in secret while demonstrating to the IAEA that they aren’t, then the heat’s off Obama to deliver on nuke talks. Because if he can get the mullahs to stop laughing at him and thumbing their noses at him long enough to agree to anything, then all we have to do is trust them, and it won’t be his fault when they renege. And if he can’t get them to stop laughing and thumbing their noses, no one can say he didn’t try. It’s that simple.
There is the issue of Iranian domination of the Middle East, and the likelihood of a Middle Eastern nuclear arms race, and prospect of a horrific … never mind, we’ll drive our peace train off that bridge when we get to it.
Anyway, this great news comes on the same day that Khamenei gives Ahmadinejad the nod as president. NYT. So Obama has a partner for peace to negotiate with in the wake of that election unpleasantness. Or will, when Ahmadinejad stops laughing and thumbing his nose at him. Never mind that. Given Ahmadinejad’s enthusiasm for nukes, Khamenei’s nod suggests the above scenario is on track to give Obama the inevitability he needs to shrug and say he tried.
You can take a negative view if you want, or you can look at it as the beginnings of Pax Iranica.
Surber trots out that old “Axis of Evil” thing. Just because Iran and North Korea swap nuke secrets and missile technology, that doesn’t mean … OK, so maybe it does. But Bush lied! I’d like to point out that Saddam doesn’t have a WMD program anymore.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:21 am on Monday, August 3, 2009
2 Responses to “Pax Iranica”
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August 3rd, 2009 at 1:07 pm
But… but… I thought Iran was only developing nuclear capabilities for peaceful purposes. Isn’t that what they kept telling
usour gullible politician-in-chief?August 5th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
[...] Iran now has the ability to join the nuclear club. Meanwhile, Obama is recognizing Ahmadenijad as the elected leader of the Iranian people. [...]