IAEA report on Iran's nuclear potential

[jamesdevice]

The Israeli press have a copy of the report online at
http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/images/iaeairan.pdf

The Israeli press view on it is here
IAEA report: Iran has been working toward nuclear bomb since 2003 - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News (http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/iaea-report-iran-has-been-working-toward-nuclear-bomb-since-2003-1.394422)

It don't sound good...

[tartare]

Country with regional ambitions arms itself.
Over the years, other powers appease, equivocate, despite continuing, ongoing, mounting evidence of threat.
Diplomacy has little effect.
Country gets more belligerent.
And then...
What will be the consequences if we do not act?
How much more proof do we need... they're experimenting with spherical shaped explosives and millisecond timing devices for god's sake.
Strike first, strike hard.

[PTT]

Country with regional ambitions arms itself.
Over the years, other powers appease, equivocate, despite continuing, ongoing, mounting evidence of threat.
Diplomacy has little effect.
Country gets more belligerent.Israel? :E

[Trim Stab]

Yep, Israel.

If I lived in Iran, I would want a bomb, given Israel's recent history of reckless disregard for international law and of pre-emptive attacks on its neighbours.

[TEEEJ]

Institute for Science and International Security analysis of IAEA Iran Safeguards Report.

Part 1. Part 2 pending.

http://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/IAEA_Iran_Report_ISIS_analysis_08Nov2011.pdf

Institute for Science and International Security (http://isis-online.org/)

[jamesdevice]

A lot of sabre-rattling on the Tehran Times website, including a "20 point rebuttall" of the report
One item was effectively a threat to park Iranian navy vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. No stated purpose, but obviously as a threat to the oil wells - which would become so much more important if Iran blocked the Straits of Hormuz
Iran has right to deploy naval vessels near U.S. coast: commander - Tehran Times (http://tehrantimes.com/index.php/politics/4340-iran-has-right-to-deploy-naval-vessels-near-us-coast-commander)

One estimate I've seen is that oil would go to $300-350 / barrel in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran. The current price can be seen at CRUDE OIL PRICE: Oil | Energy | Petroleum | Oil Price | Crude Oil Charts | Oil Price Forecast (http://www.oil-price.net/)
If the Gulf of Mexico were threatened as well then where would the price go?

Does Iran have enough of a blue-water navy to be a credible threat in the Gulf of Mexico?

[Roadster280]

I doubt the USN would be any more troubled than the RN would be by an Iranian frigate in the English Channel.

[SAMXXV]

Jamesdevice said:

"A lot of sabre-rattling on the Tehran Times website, including a "20 point rebuttall" of the report
One item - which I now can't find - was effectively a threat to park Iranian navy vessels in the Gulf of Mexico. No stated purpose, but obviously as a threat to the oil wells - which would become so much more important if Iran blocked the Straits of Hormuz
One estimate I've seen is that oil would go to $300-350 / barrel in the event of an Israeli attack on Iran. The current price can be seen at CRUDE OIL PRICE: Oil | Energy | Petroleum | Oil Price | Crude Oil Charts | Oil Price Forecast (http://www.oil-price.net/)
If the Gulf of Mexico were threatened as well then where would the price go?

Does Iran have enough of a blue-water navy to be a credible threat in the Gulf of Mexico?"

I think that the simplistic answer is obvious. Iran has a tiny navy, only just capable of looking after it's own local interests. Could Iran send warship's to the Gulf of Mexico - along with the oilers & support ships required? With US/Russian & Chinese satellites watching the globe 24/7 (cloud permitting), your scenario is impossible. What credible threat would they send there - assuming they could send a single warship or diesel submarine?

Furthermore, there is no way that Iran - despite it's threats - can possibly interfere in the "Straights of Hormuz" - or elsewhere. They would bring down the wrath of Satan within hours.

I think that the leaked comments by the French Idiot & Obama trashing Israel within the last 36 hours has sealed Iran's fate.

I forsee an imminent Israeli airstrike..........:=

[Andu]

I don't think there's any doubt that Israel's reaction to any nuclear attack would be "Old Testament" in its nature. (Think eyes and teeth if that's too cryptic for you.) Let's not even go anywhere near the fact that any such attack by Iran would probably kill - or affect adversely - as many Palestinians as Israelis in the long term.

The sad fact is, any such reaction by Israel would be pyrrhic -for both sides. Israel would be almost certainly unsustainable as a sovereign nation if even one of its cities suffered a nuclear attack, thus any counterstrike(s) would be quite literally the last gasp of a dying nation. If any such attacks were air launched, they'd be (quite consciously, I suspect) one way flights for the crews involved. Which would make them no less deadly for the people in the Arab and Iranian cities who'd be on the receiving end of them.

For the reasons stated above, commonsense would dictate that if Iran ever achieved nuclear capability, the MAD (mutually assured destruction) would ensure a Mexican standoff. Unfortunately, commonsense is a bit thin on the ground in that part of the world, particularly with people who look forward to making martyrs of themselves and as many of their compatriots or co-religionists as they choose to take with them. See Wiley's story of the frog and the scorpion.

If anything like this ever comes to pass, we, those lucky enough to survive the initial exchange of fire, will find ourselves living in a very different and quite possibly far more brutal world to the one we enjoy today, a world which I suspect will have little room for many of the politically correct sensitivities so many in the West today imagine to be the norm.

If Iran looks like gaining nuclear capability, there will be those in Israel who'll recognise that the world's hatred and opprobrium after launching a pre-emptive strike beats the hell out of the alternative.

[Willard Whyte]

Unfortunately, commonsense is a bit thin on the ground in that part of the world, particularly with people who look forward to making martyrs of themselves and as many of their compatriots or co-religionists as they choose to take with them.

It's all the fault of the crappy bread they eat.

De Bono's Marmite plan for peace in Middle Yeast - News - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/de-bonos-marmite-plan-for-peace-in-middle-yeast-1133338.html)

[Wiley]

My God... if I was made to eat Marmite, I think I'd want to go to war with the people forcing it on me.

Now Vegemite... that would be another matter altogether.

Peace, brother.

[Willard Whyte]

If there's a global conflic between Marmite and Vegemite the destruction will be on such a scale there can only be one winner:

Bovril