Left Fifth Column

Nonexistant Iranian Nuclear Weapons and the Coming War

Out came the news today that the Pentagon has created a new Iran directorate (http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Pentagon_confirms_Iranian_ directorate_as_intelligence_0615.html). This is being compared to the Office of Special Plans, the secret Pentagon group headed by Douglas Feith, that fed incorrect intelligence to the military and other intelligence agencies and covertly pushed for war with Iraq.

Because this administration had brought back so many Reagan and Nixon officials, it should come as no surprise that the same type of covert activity is being carried out. Michael Ledeen, a former Reagan official, recently met in Rome (according to Raw Story) with Manucher Ghorbanifar, the Iranian arms dealer who helped Ollie North sell weapons to Ayatollah Khomeini as part of the Iran-Contra operation. It is unknown what, exactly, Ledeen and Ghorbanifar discussed, as he has denied the meeting ever took place, citing a trip to Naples with his wife and plans to write a book.

So it's pretty clear, between the new Iran directorate, the secret meetings, and the posturing from the government about Iran's enrichment of uranium, that something is about to happen. One of the most serious claims is that the Iranian government is clandestinely enriching uranium, part of the process used in making a nuclear weapon.

However, recent reports indicate that Iran has a grand total of 164 centrifuges (http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0412/p01s02-usfp.html) that are capable of uranium enrichment. Iran would need thousands to produce enough uranium to make one nuclear weapon. Earlier in the year, the International Atomic Energy Agency determined that traces of uranium found in the centrifuges at one site came from Pakistan, from whom the centrifuges had been bought on the black market by the Iranian defense ministry.

So it is entirely possible that Iran is not attempting to develop nuclear weapons, but is in fact trying to create nuclear power stations, at the government claims. But let's, for a moment, entertain the possibility that Iran is trying to. After all, there are many reasons for them to want to develop such weapons, and not all suppose the Iranian government is preparing to go to war with America, Israel, or other enemies:

1) Iraq, a country with no nuclear capability, a fact which was known before March of 2003, was invaded by the United States.
2) North Korea, a nation which has declared that it has developed nuclear weapons, has not been attacked (of course, there is no reason to believe the DPRK is telling the truth).
3) Many of Iran's enemies, including the United States and Israel, have nuclear weapons. Neither of these countries allow UN inspectors to visit the sites, and neither Israel, Pakistan, or India, three allies of the US, have been pressed by our government to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, of which Iran pulled out, an action that country has been roundly criticised for.
4) The United States continues to develop nuclear weapons (bunker busters), in violation of the NPT, for reasons of "National Security".
5) The United States gives $4 billion dollars a year in aid to the government of Israel, an enemy of Iran.
6) For fifty years the US and USSR (and later China) had nuclear weapons, and not once did those countries engage in direct warfare with one another.

Surely we woudl be better off if no nation had nuclear weaponry. But in the absense of total disarmament, does not it at least make sense that the possession of nuclear weapons by enemy nations (otherwise disproportionately disadvantaged) creates a balance of power? After all, the United States does not go to war with nuclear states. But will the American people allow themselves to be lied into another war, one for which we cannot afford to pay for in dollars or in human lives?

posted by Cypher @ 8:26 PM