Repeat after me: Iran is not a nuclear threat
Please read this post from Juan Cole: Iran Can Now Make Glowing Mickey Mouse Watches. Please memorize these points and share them with your friends — even print them up on T-shirts (the points, not your friends):
1. Iran is ten years away from being able to make a bomb.
2. Their nuclear program is a perfectly legal, civilian research effort to develop nuclear energy for power plants — not bombs.
3. The bragging from the hardliners in Iran is just to puff themselves up to other Iranians.
4. The “nuclear threat” talk from the Bush administration is more phony wag-the-dog war rhetoric — just like Iraq, but this time with even fewer weapons of mass destruction.
Okay, that’s kind of a lot of words for a T-shirt, but I’ll work on it later.
69 Responses to “Repeat after me: Iran is not a nuclear threat”
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Paul Tergeist says:
(1)Iran is ten years away from being able to make a bomb.
Really? How far away is Pakistan? I, PERSONALLY could make a nuclear weapon in a year if I had the resources available in Iran.
Iran may be three years away from making enough enriched plutonium with cascading centrifuge technology to make a bomb trigger, but they are more than capable of making the kind of nuke Pakistan has and the kind the US dropped on Japan. Iran is now pressing Washington to get what it can out of the private negotiations that are going on between the two over Iraq. The US is going to have to bail out or Iraq eventually and Iran wants to be the prime mover there for many reasons.
Eventually the western powers, Israel and the EU will have to nuke the muslim world, but not just yet. The military told GWB he couldn’t light this last big candle. We hope he listens.
April 13th, 2006 at 2:59 am EST -
Paul Tergeist says:
(2) Their nuclear program is a perfectly legal, civilian research effort to develop nuclear energy for power plants — not bombs.
Please explain the difference to me. Uranium hexafluoride gas can be centrifuged to 3.5% with a small cascade. It can be centrifuged to 90% with exactly the type of cascade Iran is building. But centrifugal cascading is not the only way to enrich plutonium, it is merely one of the easier ways.
If it for peaceful purposes, why not just buy 3.5% hex from Russia or Canada?
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Paul Tergeist says:
GRRRRR! Juan Cole is a history professor. When did he become a scientist? Answer: Never. He doesn’t know WHAT causes those watch hands to glow. Lemme tell ya, it ain’t 3.5% plutonium.
His blog is bubbles in the bathwater.
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Jim Deeny says:
So what can 3.5% do??
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Jim Deeny says:
Further, can it create dirty bomb?
Can it create electricity for a million homes?
What is the real potential threat that the Bush administration up in arms about? -
Paul Tergeist says:
3.5% is the enrichment necessary to run a reactor to generate power. OR, with that same 3.5% you can run a breeder reactor to get more plutonium, but you can’t do both at the same time.
To make a nuke you need about it enriched to about 90%.
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CR says:
Help me to understand please. Are you guys afraid of Iran being nuclear or not afraid? Do you think there is anything we can do to stop them? Do you want to try to blow up their nuclear infrastructure to try to make them be compliant with our demands? Or do you want to just things go the way they are going to go? Are we fighting the inevitable? Or is there something that will really and truelly work that we can do to stop them? How do you feel? I respect you folks opinions very much and want to know what you have to say.
Personally, I think they want bombs and also nucler power. Not just nuclear power. What are they going to do with those bombs when they get them- I don’t know. Maybe nothing. Maybe not one thing. I don’t know. I just don’t want anymore trouble right now. It’s wearing the world down and distracting from other very serious and more positive world problems humans could be solving each in their own big or small way. What do you say?
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Jim Deeny says:
Here’s my thoughts on it, I’ll try my best since I totally suck at posting. I don’t really care about the 3.5% they are claiming to have enriched, I’m more worried about it getting to the 90% level. I really think that every nation deserves to do what they’ve got to do and that also means nuclear power and weapons to defend themselves. It just seems odd that when the 3.5% goal was hit by Iran it almost seemed like the USA doesn’t trust them. With Bush in office it’s been a constant ongoing problem with countries that provide oil for the US and it looks like a trend so far. Anyhow, it’s where Iran plans to make 90% is what scares me the most. Weapons at that magnitude can do some major devastation. It can wipe out a city as large a LA, if t hat would happen, it wouldn’t ever, never be the same, it would make hurricane Katrina look like a pimple on an elephant ass.
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Violet says:
I’m not worried about Iran’s miniscule uranium thingamajob. I am worried about the largest nuclear power in the world going on the offensive yet again.
There is definitely a rogue nation careening around with the power to disrupt the whole fucking planet. Guess who it is?
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Alon Levy says:
That’s the one Europe and China and the UN continuously suck up to instead of standing their ground and saying, “Enough with this bullying.”
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Paul Tergeist says:
Freedom isn’t free. The downside is that power corrupts. The good ole US of A is corrupted. Every nation that has ever existed eventually became corrupted and went down the shitter.
But the Muslims are not going to go away. They are not going to peacefully coexist. Almost any Muslim you see would happily cut little Alon’s throat in a second. Then her little sister’s, then her grandmother’s. Try talking to a Muslim about feminism. Try being an athiest in Islam.
Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor on June 7, 1981 just as it was completed. Iran has has a covert nuclear program in place for almost nineteen years. It is not reasonable to think that they failed to accomplish at least as much as IRAQ, PAKISTAN, LIBYA, NORTH KOREA, INDIA, and several other nations managed.
I don’t care. I am past the age of caring. No matter who nukes who, I am as safe as it is possible to be anywhere on earth, so I am simply going to watch the Arab world take the rest of the world with it on the nuclear ride to hell.
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Paul Tergeist says:
dung beetle haiku
what a metaphor!
do we not all spend our lives
building balls of poop? -
Paul Tergeist says:
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Chris Clarke says:
Almost any Muslim you see would happily cut little Alon’s throat in a second.
Racist bullshit.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Really. What ‘race’ is Muslim if I can be so bold as to ask?
From the BBC:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhim.....011004.phpA 19-year-old Turkish man has been jailed for nine years and three months by a German court for shooting his sister in a so-called “honour killing”.
Ayhan Surucu had confessed to shooting his sister Hatun Surucu, 23, at a bus stop in a Berlin suburb last year.
Two other brothers were cleared of charges of conspiring to murder her.
Prosecutors said the brothers felt dishonoured by their sister, who lived on her own with her son after leaving a cousin she had been forced to marry.
The death of the 23-year-old shocked Germany and led to street protests by Turkish women.
The Berlin court’s presiding judge Michael Degreif said Hatun Surucu was killed “because she lived her life as she saw fit” and had adopted Western ideas of sexual equality, the AFP news agency reports.
And maybe you should look at this. Closely. Look at the pictures.
http://hotzone.yahoo.com/b/hotzone/blogs2986 -
Paul Tergeist says:
Vi, Muslims are a threat to your way of life. They are a threat to freedom. They want YOU to submit to them and be treated like a dog and killed if your master decides to. We have not eliminated discrimination in the US, but we ARE WORKING ON IT.
If the muslims, who live in the dark ages get hold of nukes, they will do more harm than those airplanes which flew into the WTC. DO NOT fool yourself that these are a simply a bunch of regular people who just happen to be muslims and want a couple of power plants. GO TO IRAN. GO TO ANY MUSLIM COUNTRY FOR A MONTH. SEE FOR YOURSELF!
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Alon Levy says:
But the Muslims are not going to go away. They are not going to peacefully coexist. Almost any Muslim you see would happily cut little Alon’s throat in a second.
Muslims and Christians have about the same percentage of people who’d want to cut my throat for being Jewish, or an atheist.
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Jim Deeny says:
Alon Said,
“Muslims and Christians have about the same percentage of people who’d want to cut my throat for being Jewish, or an atheist.”
Ah, Christians are way more passive than Muslims.
There is absolutely no comparison. Show me a Christian Extremist with a bomb strapped to themslves walking into a Wal-Mart or something?
Oooof, that just gave me the heebee jeebee’s thinking of that. -
Txfeminist says:
Hello, Operation Rescue? Clinic bombings? We have our own home-grown Christian terrorists right here in the US, and there’s a long history of Christian terrorism (crusades, inquisition).
It’s just so much easier to point the finger at others than confront our own culture’s inbred penchant for violence.
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Txfeminist says:
Not to mention Timothy McVeigh or anyone like that…..
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Txfeminist says:
Besides, terrorism is simply the mouse that roars.
The US has a long history of terrorizing nations that don’t comply with its foreign policy.
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Jim Deeny says:
Yeah, I guess you’re right TX. I was more less leaning toward how fequent bombing are on the Muslim side than the Christian side, but I see your point.Was McVeigh a Christian? He wasn’t a suicide bomber though, obviously, Muslims don’t put a bomb in U-Hauls and run either. There’s a huge difference between Muslims and Christians, Christians won’t die for their cause, or have they?
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belledame222 says:
“Freedom isn’t free”
quackquackquackquack.
Do you actually know any Muslims, Paul? There’s rather a lot of them, you know.
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Jim Deeny says:
Here’s some news.
Iran Leader: Israel Will Be Annihilated
By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
2 hours agoTEHRAN, Iran - The president of Iran again lashed out at Israel on Friday and said it was “heading toward annihilation,” just days after Tehran raised fears about its nuclear activities by saying it successfully enriched uranium for the first time.
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called Israel a “permanent threat” to the Middle East that will “soon” be liberated. He also appeared to again question whether the Holocaust really happened.
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Alon Levy says:
How’s that different from the USA and USSR’s rhetoric in the Cold War?
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belledame222 says:
For if the bomb that drops on you…
gets your friends and neighbors too…
there’ll be nobody left behind to grieve!AND…WE…WILL…
all GO together when we go!
What a comforting fact that is to know!
Universal bereavement and inspiring achievement,
we will all go together when we go!…We will all fry together when we fry.
We’ll be french fried potatoes by and by.
There will be no more misery when the world is our rotisserie
We will all fry together when we fry!… -
Paul Tergeist says:
(sigh)….
from 32: quackquackquackquack.Madame, please waddle over to the Smithsonian and have a gender at the ‘price of freedom’ collection.
from 17:“Muslims and Christians have about the same percentage of people who’d want to cut my throat for being Jewish, or an atheist.”
Where do you get your facts? Millions of Christians visit Israel every year. How many blow themselves up in bubes? None of them. I could care less about cutting your throat. Try taking a leisurely stroll through the Palestinian sector. Maybe do a little shopping with a few girlfriends. Speak Hebrew or English to the shopkeepers. Let me know how much fun it was.
The difference is that the Cold War stayed cold because neither side wanted to destroy the world. Muslims WANT to die in jihad. Even the Kamikazis did not WANT to die, they accepted death as a duty. Do you remember the Muslim who converted to Christianity and was about to get the death penalty? Do you know how many people DIED over those silly cartoons?
You naysayers need to subscribe to jihad watch and maybe stratfor.com: http://www.jihadwatch.org/
“Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb in 16 Days, U.S. Says (Update2),” from Bloomberg, with thanks to Mackie:
April 12 (Bloomberg) — Iran, defying United Nations Security Council demands to halt its nuclear program, may be capable of making a nuclear bomb within 16 days, a U.S. State Department official said.
Iran will move to “industrial scale” uranium enrichment involving 54,000 centrifuges at its Natanz plant, the Associated Press quoted deputy nuclear chief Mohammad Saeedi as telling state-run television today.
“Using those 50,000 centrifuges they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days,” Stephen Rademaker, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Security and Nonproliferation, told reporters today in Moscow.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Madame, please waddle over to the Smithsonian and have a “GANDER” at the ‘price of freedom’ collection.
Really, I need to be able to edit these things.
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Paul Tergeist says:
to 26: Is it possible for you to say anything intelligent? Don’t you have some friends who could help you construct a rational argument, or does quackquackquack reach the upper limit of your abilities?
The United States is just over 200 years old, but we live in the 21st century. Muslims, with few exceptions, live in ancient civilizations which are stuck in the tenth century. They hate us because we are not Muslim and they are taught from childhood that women are chattel and non-muslims must be killed. I am not the only one who makes this point. THE MUSLIMS THEMSELVES MAKE IT.
If it were up to me, everyone could peacefully coexist and democracy, in it’s pure form, would work. But that is not the case. I didn’t kill any babies in Viet-Nam and I don’t know anyone who did. We didn’t send prisoners to Guantanamo. Certainly excesses occurred on both sides, but I was there and saw what the NVA did to villagers and we did’t do that. For the most part we shot at people who shot at us first.
So I don’t want to be called a baby-killer by you dumbasses who were born with a silver spoon in your mouths, or by people who weren’t there. And I don’t want to hear some stupid quackquackquack from morons who cannot discern for themselves that the muslims are straining at the bit for international jihad.
Iran took HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of casualties in their recent war with Iraq and didn’t care. They sent waves of children charging into cannons and chemicals, and that was a fight against their brother Muslims.
Iran will gladly accept nuclear retaliation from the US if they successfully wipe out Israel in the process. Anyone does not think Israel has been in mortal danger since May 14,1948 is merely fooling themself. I am amazed they have lasted this long, and I doubt they can survive in the long run.
Eventually the Arabs will prevail and the mideast will fall back under Sharia. I won’t have it. I won’t be forced, under penalty of death, to worship Allah or any other imaginary pal in the sky.
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CR says:
Paul, I get what you are saying. I still don’t want to do anything about it right now. I lived 7 years in two predominantly Muslim countries. and NO, not a very fun group as a whole. Usually, the longer one lives in a place the more affinity one feels with the population but it was not my personal experience in Saudi Arabia.I was happy to leave there. In Turkey- yes- one comes to love them. But they probably thought the same about us- so there you go. We are very different from one another in so many ways that it is hard sometimes to find common ground. It’s not a matter of us saying potato and them saying PotAHtoe. It’s us saying potato and them saying celery- with mold. It seemed to me that almost anything we did - no matter how tiny seemed to set them off. Little, what seemed harmless things were an offense to their sensiblities. and unfortunatley vice versa in many cases. It was very hard to get along and make freinds. It made me believe about Rudyard Kipling talking about East and West sometimes. What he said kept comng into my mind. I sensed that I did not belong there- was very not welcome. It did not feel freindly. Please understand- to both their and our credit we TRIED very hard to get along. but that was it- it felt like we were trying. It wasn’t coming naturally. It felt like super hard work and walking on egg shells every day. It felt terribly forced and uncomfortable.
this is my personal experience and I’m sure many people had a more postive one. And I’m sure we’ll be hearing form them too.
But I don’t want to bomb them unless they actually do something bad to us. No more pre-emptive bombing. No more chaos. Even if a country appears to be goading us. I
am not falling for it and I am not afraid. -
Pastor Pistle says:
Good answer, CR! I thought 9/11 was a bad thing, and I alst thought that GWB lying to us just so he could topple Saddam and get us into that mess was a bad thing. By doing that he has emasculated himself. Now ne has no credibility and the world knows it. So Iran can slap him and he can’t do anything about it.
Let’s say that Iran has a few nukes they bought from Russian mobsters or russian muslims. IF they do, they know they can get away with using them on Israel ~IF~ they strike first. The US might or might not respond. It’s a calculated risk. My feeling is that Iran needs to move while Bush is impotent and untrusted. It is clear to the world that the American people will never support him in another war.
If Israel decides that Iran has the nukes, Israel MUST act preemptively. They have no choice other than be obliterated. So we can just watch, if we want, to see whether Israel nukes Iran before Iran nukes Israel.
I am not an advocate of throwing the first nuke, but I AM an advocate of lighting them off by the hundred if the US mainland gets hit. There is only one way to win a war, and that is by destroying your enemy utterly.
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Violet says:
Paul, what’s with all the harsh on belledame? Morons? Dumbasses? I don’t have time right now to get into the whole international affairs debate, but your jihad-watch talk is simplistic and unpersuasive. Calling other people idiots because they fail to see the self-evident truth of your remarks doesn’t help.
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Violet says:
Okay, Paul, I have a few minutes so let me say this: I agree with you that fundamentalist Islam is bad stuff. I also feel that way about fundamentalist Christianity, which is restrained only by the significant secularization of Western culture. Nevertheless, the problem with the jihad-watch/Islam’s-coming-to-get-us attitude is that it’s completely divorced from history or any sense of what provokes political movements.
Fifty years ago, the zeitgeist in the Arab world was pro-Westernization, anti-fundamentalism. That was a response to something. What? Today, the zeitgeist in the Arab world is anti-Westernization, pro-fundamentalism. That is a response to something. What?
Muslims are not boogeymen who are intrinsically given to fundamentalism and violence. Fundamentalism is popular with them now because it is politically empowering. It doesn’t have to be that way.
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gordo says:
Paul–
But the Muslims are not going to go away. They are not going to peacefully coexist.
But as you point out, the Muslims already have atomic weapons. So we’re doomed, and you may as well kill yourself right now.
Almost any Muslim you see would happily cut little Alon’s throat in a second.
Did you really write that, and then challenge Alon’s response as not being backed up by verifiable fact?
Your hatred of Muslims is scrambling your brain.
We managed to live through the Stalin era, despite the fact that he was at least as crazy as any world leader now alive, and armed with a lot more nukes than Pakistan or Iran. The big danger here is not that Iran will acquire nuclear weapons, but that Bush will give further legitimacy to violent extremists by proving that the U.S. is violent, aggressive, and anti-Muslim.
And by the way, the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies is that Iran is a minimum of 10 years from being capable of producing a nuclear weapon. If you have access to information that they don’t have, it really is your duty to share it with them.
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Alon Levy says:
Where do you get your facts? Millions of Christians visit Israel every year. How many blow themselves up in bubes?
A million Muslims live in Israel. How many of them blow themselves up?
As for speaking English to Palestinian shopkeepers, I imagine the response can’t be more visceral than speaking Arabic-accented Hebrew to right-wing soccer hooligans. Some of the incidents these hooligans have caused are worse than what happens right after a Manchester vs. Liverpool match.
IF they do, they know they can get away with using them on Israel ~IF~ they strike first.
I hope you know Israel’s second-strike capability can withstand an American or Russian attack, let alone an Iranian one.
Iran took HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of casualties in their recent war with Iraq and didn’t care. They sent waves of children charging into cannons and chemicals, and that was a fight against their brother Muslims.
There are two important points you neglect to mention. The first is that at the beginning of the Iraq-Iran war, Iran was a revolutionary country, not unlike Maoist China, whereas now it’s a conservative one, like modern China.
The second is that Iran did in fact hate Iraq more than it did Israel, and Iraq similarly hated Iran more than it did Israel. To Khomeini, Saddam was a Muslim of convenience imposing secular rule on a Shia-majority country, rather than a “fellow Muslim”; to Saddam, Khomeini was a dangerous revolutionary who ran the risk of destabilizing his grip on Iraq. Israel was and remains a convenient bogeyman to get the people riled up over, but it hasn’t been the main enemy.
I didn’t kill any babies in Viet-Nam and I don’t know anyone who did. We didn’t send prisoners to Guantanamo. Certainly excesses occurred on both sides, but I was there and saw what the NVA did to villagers and we did’t do that. For the most part we shot at people who shot at us first.
Four million Vietnamese civilians didn’t shoot at you first.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Four million Vietnamese civilians didn’t shoot at you first.
Divide four million by the number of combat effectives the US had in Vietnam in 1968 and see how many people each one of us would have had to kill.
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Paul Tergeist says:
from 32: Calling other people idiots because they fail to see the self-evident truth of your remarks doesn’t help.
I suppose “just impeach the stupid freak” is more helpful.
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Paul Tergeist says:
To Alon:
Sorry for referring to you as a girl if you are not. But I am pretty sure you are.
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CR says:
Tee hee! I’m sure he’s been called worse.
Don’t feel bad, Paul. I did the same thing to Gordo just the other day. He was a good sport about it.
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Paul Tergeist says:
-Fifty years ago, the zeitgeist in the Arab world was pro-Westernization, anti-fundamentalism. That was a response to something. What?
-VWorld War 2
-Today, the zeitgeist in the Arab world is anti-Westernization, pro-fundamentalism. That is a response to something. What?
-VRampant feminism and the birth of Israel. And maybe the horrible foreign policy of the US. Why not just let the arabs overrun Israel and forget it? Would that make them our pals?
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RedDragon says:
Tangent question: just how far can these nukes travel?
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Alon Levy says:
Rampant feminism and the birth of Israel. And maybe the horrible foreign policy of the US. Why not just let the arabs overrun Israel and forget it? Would that make them our pals?
Try again - the resurgence of fundamentalism only began about 25 or 30 years after the founding of Israel.
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Paul Tergeist says:
to 41: Let’s start with Pakistan which has a minimum of 40 Highly Enriched Uranium nuclear warheads. Their missiles can hit India:
Missiles
Designation Other Name Range Payload Status Inventory
Hatf-160-100 km 500 kg testing 50?
Hatf-2 hadoz 280 km 500 kg cancelled none
Shaheen Hatf-3 Ghaznavi 300 km 500 kg 1995? ~34-80?
Shaheen-I Hatf-4 800 km 500 kg 1998 50
Shaheen-II Hatf-6 Ghaznavi 2,000 km ~50
Ghauri Hatf-5 1,500 km 700 kg 1998 ? 200
Ghauri-III Abdali 2,500 km 1000 2004 50
Tipu 4,000 km
Babur 500 km Tested August 11, 2005
Aircraft delivery
2 units operating the Chinese-built A-5 (No. 16 Sqn and No. 26 Sqn), an aircraft believed to be a leading candidate for the aerial delivery of nuclear weapons. The others are the Mirage IIIOs, Mirage IIIODs and Mirage IIIEs. The Pakistani Air Force currently operates some 156 Mirage aircraft. The allocation of 90 of these aircraft is not currently known.Let me get the figures on Iran.
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Paul Tergeist says:
No current figures are available unclassified for Iran. As usual, the US intelligence agencies have tunnel vision and were relying on a VERY old national intelligence estimate about Iran’s nuclear program. In fact, it is likely that at least one of the of nukes Pakistan tested in 1998 was Iranian. As an aside, North Korea tested a nuke on Sept 9, 2004.
OK….The most current missile I know about is the Iranian Shahab 6, but only the 3a-3Cs are in deployment. Even so, they can carry fully guided MIRV nuclear warheads and it is likely that some are so equipped. Here are some old pictures (scroll down to the 3b’s. the 3C through 6 are not pictured but you can get the idea):
http://www.acig.org/artman/pub....._396.shtml
As soon as the Islamic fundies take over in Pakistan those 40 additional nuclear warheads will be available in Iran (if they aren’t already). It is not likely that the US can take out both the Iranian AND the Paki nuclear weapons in one strike and it is not a given that the remaining weapons cannot strike Israel or US forces in the area including carrier groups and almost our entire effective army.
The US, now emasculated, is not going to strike civilian targets with nukes, so an attack from Iran or Pakistan can essentially be carried out with impunity. Israel has a second-strike capability, but so what? No one will be left in either Israel or Palestine. If the Israeli second strike goes off Iran can weather it.
Then there would be North Korea, China and Russia to contend with. The US will probably sit around undecided until we are nuked. Then we will toss all of our weapons off on fake targets in the sand dunes of Iran. And then we will have a huge problem.
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Alon Levy says:
Pakistan’s nukes are geared to fight India, which is a nuclear power, too. If the Islamists take over, it’s likely that the current government will destroy the nukes, just like the South African government destroyed its nukes when the apartheid system was falling.
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Paul Tergeist says:
From 45: Pakistan’s nukes are geared to fight India, which is a nuclear power, too. If the Islamists take over, it’s likely that the current government will destroy the nukes, just like the South African government destroyed its nukes when the apartheid system was falling.
-AlonOh, good! Then we don’t have to worry about them detonating anywhere but in India. They have a special filter built into the detonator then?
The ISLAMIC REPUBLIC of Pakistan will DESTROY it’s nukes to keep them out of ISLAMIST hands? I’m not sure I read that right. Are you old enough to drink? Are you the most naive person in Singapore?
Wait….let’s check the name of that country again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan
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Alon Levy says:
Now, Pakistan is an Islamic republic to about the same degree North Korea is a democratic republic. It’s not an Islamist state, but a military dictatorship that juggles real Islamists and the US so that neither will destroy it.
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gordo says:
Alon–
You seem to be forgetting that in Paul’s world, all Muslims are the same. So Musharraf and his government would not destroy nukes to keep them out of the hands of Wahabbists, and would gladly hand them over to the Mullahs of Iran.
And of course, the Muslims KNOW that the U.S. would never retaliate on behalf of Israel, so they would feel no deterrent at all.
Paul, as you keep pointing out, the Muslims want to kill us all, they have nuclear weapons, and there’s nothing anyone is willing to do to prevent them from getting more. We’re doomed. You’ll save yourself a lot of aggravation if you stop postponing the inevitable.
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Paul Tergeist says:
You guys yuk it up if you want to, but there is good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by moving out of the mideast.
“Israeli Arab eyes Jerusalem,” from the JTA.:
An Israeli Arab leader said Jerusalem will become an international Islamist capital. “Jerusalem will soon be the capital of a Moslem Arab Caliphate, and all efforts by the Israeli establishement to Judaize the city will amount to nothing,” Sheikh Raed Salah, head of the Islamic Movement in Israel, told a weekend rally in Kafr Kassem. Salah, who was briefly accused by Israeli authorities of funding Palestinian terrorist groups, also said the Jewish State was planning to replace the Al-Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem with a Third Temple as part of a “plot” hatched in coordination with the United States.
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Alon Levy says:
The JTA is not a credible source about the Arab-Israeli conflict.
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Paul Tergeist says:
What IS credible? You think everything the Iranians say is posturing, so nothing can be believed. So then, if they are lying everytime they speak, why do they have any credibility at all? Is anything the US says credible? Is anything YOU say credible? What if I am the only credible source for news in the world?
Iran Focus
Tehran, Iran, Apr. 12 – Iran’s Majlis (Parliament) deputies called for a bill to be adopted to regulate women’s attire during the hot summer months, a state-run daily reported on Wednesday.
Gholam-Reza Mesbahi-Moghaddam, a hard-line deputy from Tehran called for the bill against “mal-veiling” during an open session of Majlis on Tuesday, the daily Sharq wrote.
The report said that each year young people tend to disobey the Islamic dress code more during the Summer months. This year, Majlis deputies were looking to adopt the bill against “mal-veiling”, the report added.
At the same time, Emaad Afroogh, head of the Majlis cultural commission, said that he was trying to table a bill to create a “national costume” to counter the effects of Western fashion in Iran.
Mohammad-Taghi Rahbar, a hard-line deputy from the central city of Isfahan, called for a “cultural revolution”.
“You cannot call the tiny cloths that girls put on their heads as hijabs. The stage must be adequately set to bring about a cultural revolution”, Rahbar said.
In August, Iran’s Justice Minister vowed that “improperly-veiled women” will be treated as if they had no Islamic veil at all.
“Being improperly veiled and not wearing a veil are no different. When it is clear from the appearance of a woman that she has violated the law, then the crime is obvious and law enforcement agents can take legal measures against her”, Jamal Karimi-Rad said.
“Crimes such as mal-veiling or other prohibited acts, which happen before the eyes of a law enforcement agent, are evident crimes and must be dealt with in accordance with the law”.
Women have been facing a harsher crackdown since hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad took office as President.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Maybe this is a credible source:
http://www.ynetnews.com/articl.....64,00.html -
Alon Levy says:
I prefer not to trust Israeli or otherwise Zionist sources any more than I trust Voice of America or Pravda. Pro-Israeli sources tend to exaggerate the importance of Arab fascists, and downplay the moderates and compromisers.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Where do you get your news? Of course I agree that most political ‘news’ is propaganda, but my tinfoil cap makes me immune to all of that.
What if I tell you that the US is moving nuclear warheads out of ready storage and distributing them to the Navy and Air Force in Diego Garcia and SAC bases in the US. You won’t believe me because you didn’t read it in the mainstream media? Suppose I tell you that Britain is terrified that they will be blamed for any strike on Iran because the Muslims think the US is too dumb to have thought of it by themselves.
Suppose I tell you that the US and Iran have been engaged in direct talks for awhile and each is posturing to put pressure on the other, but that it has gone too far and now neither president will back down. Will you believe that?
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Alon Levy says:
Well, if you tell me things like that, I’ll ask you how you know it.
Although there are some true but dissonant stories the MSM doesn’t report, there are numerous lies it doesn’t report, either. That’s why I prefer to trust mainstream sources: Debka might be the first to get an exclusive story about terrorism, but it also reports rumors, speculations, and bald-faced lies as facts.
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gordo says:
You guys yuk it up if you want to, but there is good news. I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance by moving out of the mideast.
Now THAT’S funny!
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Infidel says:
“We’ve got 40,000 suicide bombers ready to go!”-attributed to Iran leadership by ABC news. When is the leadership gonna blow themselves up instead of the lowly minions? Or maybe the whole damn country suicide bombing itself- that would make for a great act. God would have to get up and take notice of that! and they’ll have the technology to do it.
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Paul Tergeist says:
From 55: Well, if you tell me things like that, I’ll ask you how you know it.
-AlonI get my information the old fashion way. I make it up.
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Infidel says:
You had me terrified Paul. Just like George Bush did. I was totally believing you knew the lowdown on Iranian Shahab 6s. If you can’t trust anonymous bloggers who can you trust?
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Paul Tergeist says:
Let’s clarify. My information on real items, like Shehab 3Cs is accurate. There are reports of Shehab 6s, but they are still in the prototype stage.
My information on the intentions of the Bush warlords and the Iranian mullahs is no better than yours for the simple reason that they posture and prance and bark and shake sticks. But there is also no telling when one of them might forget that it’s a game and call up some general who has control of a nuke. Everyone always wants to believe that the government REALLY, down deep, knows what’s going on. The truth is that the best intelligence estimate is simply the guess of the most senior analyst, and he (or she) could be a Russian or Israeli mole. It happens with more than alarming regularity.
Just like all the fundies want to believe GOD is running things. Is this the same GOD that has killed everything that has ever lived? Sure. Your soul is of no use to GOD until you are dead.
GOD loves us all, but He is just waiting for His chance! In the morning you are happily married with children and a bright future. In the afternoon, ~POW~! You are a mangled mess of bloody flesh on the Interstate!
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Paul Tergeist says:
Here’s something that hasn’t hit the news yet. The US and Afghan forces on the Afghan side (Kunar province) and the Pakis on their side (Dir district) are conducting a high-value target search for al Qaeda’s global headquarters.
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Alon Levy says:
Here’s something that hasn’t hit the news, either: the search will be as fruitful as the previous five thousand searches.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Hang in there, Alon. Just because it isn’t available to the public yet doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. It’s named ‘Operation Mountain Lion’.
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Paul Tergeist says:
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Alon Levy says:
I’m not saying it’s not happening - I’m only saying that if it is, it’ll fail.
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Paul Tergeist says:
Alon, I agree completely. I misunderstood your comment in 62.
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Paul Tergeist says:
REPEAT AFTER ME! IRAN IS A NUCLEAR THREAT!
Iran to Have Nukes Within Two Years, Says Policy Expert
By Monisha Bansal
CNSNews.com Staff Writer
May 22, 2006(CNSNews.com) - Iran will be able to produce two nuclear bombs a year by March of next year, a much different timetable than the Bush administration and the international community have envisioned, a top policy expert from the American Foreign Policy Council, asserted on Friday.
“The timeline is much compressed than what the Washington Post or national intelligence tells you. Five to 10 years — that’s simply not true,” said Ilan Berman, the Policy Council’s vice president for policy. “All the problems with Iran get much, much worse the closer Iran gets to a bomb.”
The Iranian government has insisted that it is enriching uranium for peaceful energy purposes, but Berman called the Tehran regime the “world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism,” and said there is understandable fear about the Iranian nuclear program becoming weaponized.
The United Nations Security Council has called for a halt to the program and U.N. weapons inspectors toured Iran’s facilities in April, but Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has restricted the inspectors’ access to enrichment sites over the last few months.
International sanctions against Iran are unlikely, said Berman because China and Russia, which both have veto power in the United Nations Security Council, have strong economic ties to Iran’s oil exports.
He suggested that the U.S. quickly seek economic sanctions against Iran outside the auspices of the U.N., as opposed to the current diplomatic route preferred by the State Department.
“Diplomatically, I think we’re headed for serious problems,” Berman said, warning that even if the U.S. moved toward sanctions this autumn, it would be too late to avert Israeli intervention.
That Israeli intervention, Berman told Cybercast News Service, would occur even without support from the U.S. “[The Israelis are] going to bomb. They will take out a few of (Iran’s nuclear) sites, not all of them, but some.”
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said that the U.S. and international community “have time to act” in terms of Iran.
During a press conference at the State Department Thursday, Rice repeated the importance of negotiations to defuse the tensions with Iran. “There is agreement that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon, should not have a nuclear weapon, must not have a nuclear weapon and that the goal of the international community must be to achieve an outcome to this problem by diplomatic means and we are committed to that diplomacy.”
“The United States has been committed to the negotiations that have been going on now for the better part of a year,” Rice added. “We have been supporting those negotiations actively, so it is not as if we are not involved in the diplomacy that is going on here,” she said.
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Violet says:
This is classic. The American Foreign Policy Council is a neocon think tank, part of the consortium that brought us the Iraq war. They’re just doing their job as part of the propaganda machine. What this tells me is that the war on Iran is a go, and the GOP is using their think-tank arm to seed the ground with the necessary lies.
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Peaches says:
I agree with our administration that the only nation that should have nuclear weapons capabilities is the only nation that has ever dropped nucler weapons on innocent civilians — remember Hiroshima? The United States is the only trustworthy arbiter of nuclear capabilities. Of course. And our moral imperative derives from . . . . WHAT?
