Fordow nuclear enrichment site<\/p>\n
A U.S. President, beset by the Epstein story that refuses to lie down and die, and under pressure from domestic hawks because of a visibly collapsing Ukraine,\u00a0has been letting off a blunderbuss of geo-political threats across the board: Firstly, and principally, at Russia; but secondly at Iran:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIran is so nasty, they\u2019re so nasty in their statements.\u00a0They got hit. We cannot allow them to have nuclear weapons. They are still talking about uranium enrichment.\u00a0Who talks like that?\u00a0It\u2019s so stupid. We will not allow it.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Escalation with Russia is clearly on the cards (in one form or another),\u00a0but Trump has also threatened to attack Iran\u2019s nuclear sites \u2013 again.\u00a0Were he to do so, it would be \u2018gesture politics\u2019 entirely removed from the reality of Iran\u2019s present circumstance.<\/p>\n A further strike would be presented as setting back \u2013 or finally halting \u2013 Iran\u2019s capacity to assemble a nuclear weapon.<\/p>\n And that would be a lie.<\/p>\n Theodore Postol,\u00a0Professor\u00a0Emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at MIT,\u00a0regarded as the U.S.\u2019 leading expert on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems,\u00a0however makes some counter-intuitive technical points which,\u00a0when translated politically (the aim of this piece),\u00a0plainly indicate that\u00a0a further\u00a0attack\u00a0on\u00a0the three nuclear sites struck by the U.S. on 22 June would be pointless.<\/p>\n It would be pointless in terms of Trump\u2019s ostensible objective \u2013 yet a strike may happen anyway\u00a0albeit\u00a0as a piece of theatre designed to\u00a0facilitate\u00a0other different objectives such\u00a0an attempt at \u201cregime change\u201d\u00a0and\u00a0furthering<\/a>\u00a0Israel\u2019s hegemonic ambitions in the region.<\/p>\n Simply put,\u00a0Professor\u00a0Postol\u2019s compelling\u00a0argument<\/a>\u00a0is that Iran does not need to rebuild its previous nuclear program in order to build a bomb.\u00a0That era is over. Both the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0and Israel believe, with good reason, Postol says, that most of Iran\u2019s stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) survived the attack and is accessible:<\/p>\n \u201cThe tunnels at Esfahan are deep \u2013 so deep that the United States did not even try to collapse them with the bunker busters. Assuming the material wasn\u2019t moved, it is now sitting unsquashed in intact tunnels. Iran unblocked the entrance to one tunnel at Esfahan within a week of the strike\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n In short, the U.S. strike\u00a0did not<\/em>\u00a0set back the Iranian programme by years. It is highly likely that most of Iran\u2019s HEU survived the strikes, Postol\u00a0estimates.<\/p>\n The IAEA says that Iran had, at the time of the strike, 408kg of 60% HEU.\u00a0It likely was removed by\u00a0Iran\u00a0before the Trump strike, which Postol has said could be readily transferred on the back of a pick-up (\u201cor even a donkey cart!\u201d).\u00a0But the point is that no one knows where that HEU is.\u00a0And it almost certainly is accessible.<\/p>\n Professor\u00a0Postol\u2019s key argument (\u2013\u00a0he eschews drawing political implications\u00a0\u2013) is the paradox that the more highly enriched the uranium is,\u00a0the easier further enrichment becomes.\u00a0As a result, Iran could make do with a centrifuge facility much smaller \u2013 yes, much, much smaller than the industrial-scale plants at Fordow or Natanz (which were designed to accommodate thousands and tens of thousands of centrifuges, respectively).<\/p>\n Postol has drawn up the technical outline for a 174 centrifuge cascade that would require a mere 4 to 5 weeks for Iran to obtain enough weapons-grade uranium (as enriched hexafluoride gas) for\u00a0one\u00a0bomb.\u00a0In 2023, the IAEA found\u00a0uranium particles enriched to 83.7% (weapons grade).\u00a0This likely was an experimental exercise to prove to themselves that\u00a0they\u00a0could do it when, and as,\u00a0they\u00a0wanted,\u00a0Professor\u00a0Postol suggests.<\/p>\n Postol\u2019s cascade demonstration was intended to underline the point \u2013 \u2018the secret story of enrichment\u2019 \u2013 that with 60% HEU, it takes almost no enrichment effort to reach 83.7%.<\/p>\n What may be even more shocking to the non-technical\u00a0observer, is that\u00a0Postol\u00a0has further demonstrated that a 174 centrifuge cascade could be fitted within\u00a0a space\u00a0of a mere 60 square metres<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 the floor space of any modest city apartment,\u00a0and would require, as power input, just a few tens of kilowatts.<\/p>\n In short, a few such small enrichment facilities could be hidden anywhere in a vast country \u2013 needles in a big haystack.\u00a0Even the conversion of the uranium to uranium metal 235 would be a \u2018small size operation\u2019 that could be done in a facility of 120 to 150 sq. m.<\/p>\n In another culling of the shibboleths surrounding the Iranian reality, building a spherical atomic bomb requires no more than 14 kg\u00a0uranium\u00a0metal 235, surrounded by a reflector.\u00a0\u2018It is not high tech<\/em>;\u00a0it\u2019s garden shed stuff\u2019<\/em>.\u00a0Just assemble the pieces; no test needed.\u00a0Postol says: \u2018Little Boy\u2019 was dropped on Hiroshima. Without a lot of testing; wrong to think it needs testing.<\/p>\n There goes another Shibboleth!\u00a0\u2018We would know if Iran moved to weapons capability,\u00a0because we could detect\u00a0seismically any test of a weapon\u2019.<\/p>\n A small Atomic bomb of this nature would weigh just 150 kg. (The warheads on some Iranian missiles launched\u00a0on\u00a0Israel in the course of the 12 day\u00a0war, by comparison,\u00a0weighed between 460 and 500\u00a0kg).<\/p>\n Ted Postol is careful not to spell out the political implications. Yet they are absolutely clear:\u00a0There is no point to another round of bombing Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.\u00a0The bird has gone.\u00a0The coops are empty. <\/em><\/p>\n Professor\u00a0Postol,\u00a0as the foremost technical expert in nuclear matters,\u00a0briefs the Pentagon and Congress.\u00a0He knows\u00a0Director of National Intelligence,\u00a0Tulsi Gabbard,\u00a0and reportedly briefed her before the Trump strike on Fordow\u00a0on 22 June\u00a0to argue that the U.S. likely would not be able to destroy the deeply buried centrifuge hall at Fordow.\u00a0(Other Pentagon\u00a0reportedly\u00a0officials disagreed).<\/p>\n We know that the U.S. did not even try to collapse the tunnels under Isfahan with the bunker busters,\u00a0but contented themselves with trying to block the several tunnel entrances to Isfahan by using conventional weapons (such the aging Tomahawk missiles, launched from submarines).<\/p>\n To repeat the 22 June exercise would be pure Kabuki theatre devoid of any solid objective based in reality.\u00a0So why might Trump still contemplate it?\u00a0He\u00a0told\u00a0reporters<\/a>\u00a0during his recent Scottish visit that Iran has been sending out \u201cnasty signals\u201d and any effort to restart its nuclear program would be immediately quashed:<\/p>\n \u201cWe wiped out their nuclear possibilities. They can start again. If they do, we\u2019ll wipe it out faster than you can wave your finger at it\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n There are several possibilities:\u00a0Trump may hope that a further attack might finally \u2013 in his and others\u2019 estimation \u2013 prompt the Iranian government to fall.\u00a0He may too instinctively shy away from kinetic escalation against Russia, fearing the conflict might spin out of control.\u00a0And\u00a0subsequently\u00a0might conclude that he could,\u00a0the more easily, spin an attack on Iran as showcasing U.S. \u2018strength\u2019 \u2013 i.e. spin it, irrespective of truth, as another\u00a0\u201cobliterated\u201d\u00a0claim.<\/p>\n Finally, he might think to do it,\u00a0believing Israel desperately wants and needs it.<\/p>\n The last seems the more likely motivation. However, the biggest game-changer of the present\u00a0geo-strategic\u00a0era has been the revolution in terms of\u00a0accuracy<\/em>\u00a0of\u00a0Russian<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Iranian<\/a>\u00a0ballistics and hypersonics, that precisely destroy a target with negligible collateral damage \u2013 and which the West basically can\u2019t stop.<\/p>\n This\u00a0changes the entire geo-strategic calculus \u2013 especially for Israel.\u00a0A further attack on Iran, far from benefitting Israel, might unleash a devastating Iranian missile riposte on Israel.<\/p>\n The rest\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Trump\u2019s\u00a0narratives \u2013 are Kabuki theatre:\u00a0A Potemkin simulacrum of supporting Israel, whilst the true underlying objective is to collapse and Balkanise Iran \u2013 and weaken Russia.<\/p>\n An Israeli Colonel told Netanyahu (Postol relates) that by attacking Iran \u2018we\u2019ll likely have a weapons state on our hands\u2019.\u00a0Tulsi\u00a0Gabbard\u00a0likely told Trump the same.<\/p>\n Professor\u00a0Postol concurs.\u00a0Iran must be viewed as an undeclared nuclear weapons\u00a0State,\u00a0albeit one with its exact status carefully obfuscated.<\/p>\n