PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - British Military Planning for Iranian Strike?
Old 7th Nov 2011, 05:19
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Trim Stab
 
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I'm sure the intelligence is there, otherwise the leaks suggesting the attacks would not have ben placed in the press. As for "fully debated" - that equals "give them time to get prepared"...
If the "intelligence" is "there", then how comes some people are advocating bombing Iran's centrifuges?

Uranium hexflouride centrifuges are not the crucial technology required to creat a deployable nuclear weapon - the real key technology is the advanced mathematics and electronics needed to design and build the thyristors needed to generate critical mass from a small enough amount of Uranium 235. I've not seen any credible claim that Iran has acquired the necessary thyristor technology, nor even got close to it.

Bombing the centrifuges would be about as useful or as logical as bombing aluminium smelting works in Iran, on the grounds that aluminium is a component of a bomb casing.

Leaving aside the technology arguments, I am also not convinced that there is any real prospect of Iran using nuclear weapons unprovoked. Clearly Israel wants us all to believe that this is a possibility, but what real evidence is there for it? Ahmadinijad often makes provocative statements, but these are largely for internal consumption. The reality is that he does not uniquely control the Iranian military, and there are pleny of wise heads in the background who realise that if they were to deploy a nuclear weapon they personally, their families, and most of Iran would be instantly wiped out by a massive unified attack from USA, UK, France, Israel and possibly even Russia.

Ironically, the country that is most likely to launch a first-strike nuclear attack is Israel, because they know that they would not face any retaliation from the West. Given that possibility, it is hardly surprising that there is widespread support in Iran for acquiring a nuclear deterrent themselves.
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