Salute!

From the IAEA, "For that, we must take a number of steps. First of all, we must return to the negotiating table and for that allow IAEA inspectors, the guardians, on our behalf, of the NPT, to go back to Iran’s nuclear sites and account for thefolks stockpiles of uranium, including, most importantly, the 400kg enriched to 60%."

For power plants, 10% is high. For medical purposes, 20% is enuf. So several highly respected folks in the nuclear bidness assert that refining that high means going for a weapon.

Gums sends...

Going for a weapon is one thing. Being about to produce one is quite another. The only thing I can see for certain is that Iran is now more convinced than ever that it needs a nuclear weapon and more determined than ever to get one. And, looking at previous posts upthread, it would seem that the IRGC now has complete control of Iran, which is not going to help matters at all.

Meanwhile, five cruise ships have transited the Strait (granted, without passengers).

And, according to this article, Iran is about to pass a domestic law giving itself the 'right' to total control over the Strait of Hormuz.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg4jnn131qo

And the useless, champagne sipping, UN will publish another strongly worded letter saying that there is a channel that is considered to be an International Waterway.

For a gun-type bomb, 60% isn't enough. 85% is required. And as enrichment gets harder the higher you go, 60% is a lot further from 85% than it sounds.

Of course you can use lower grades in an implosion type bomb; But they are far harder to build, and if you have the technical ability to build one, you have the ability to avoid the painful enrichment of uranium, and to go straight to plutonium.

Making nuclear bombs is hard. That's why the Manhattan Project wasn't wrapped up in a month at a cost of a few thousand bucks.

But anyone who really, really wants one, and who has the resources of a nation state available, will get there eventually.

The only way to stop Iran from ever having a nuke is to make it more desirable for them not to have one, than it is for them to have one. Via means such as the JCPOA.

Dropping bombs on them has the opposite effect.

erm...No.

The basic unit of capability of an enrichment facility is a Separative Work Unit, or SWU--pronounced the way it looks. I took the trouble to look up what fraction of the total SWU effort needed to go from natural Uranium concentration to 90% 60% was, and recall that only about 1% of the total SWU need was not yet met by the time they got to 60%.

There are problems of inventory and plumbing configuration, but in the basic physics they were very nearly there.

I've studied this stuff informally for over 50 years (took a course that long ago at MIT). In the national programs that have come to light, getting possession of adequate amounts of fisslle material was always the rate-limiting factor. Clever people can improved the design above the level I once heard a US designer of a couple of thermonuclear devices sneeringly refer to as "a high-school physics bomb", but if you are not after maximum yield or safety, it actually is not difficult to design and implement a configuration that will give appreciable nuclear yield.

The Manhattan project did not take very many days from the time they had a bomb's worth of fissile material to the time they fired three devices. General Groves was whipping every back in sight to get to first bomb as fast as possible. After it was all over, he observed that had they more quickly put fuller effort into the thermal diffiusion effort (the S-50 plant), they could have gotten to first bomb about two weeks earlier. He clearly was describing that as a missed important opportunity.

Actually, once the enrichment process has begun it gets easier to enrich as the process continues, as the precursor U-235 is at a higher concentration making separation easier; the percentage of U-235 is 0.72% in Uranium ore. For those interested, this site is an incredibly good technical resource and history for all things nuclear weapon related:

https://nuclearweaponarchive.org/

Edited to add: Sorry archae86, didn't see the post above! We agree. Also, the Uranium gun type bomb was not tested, as its detonation was assured, and if the Iranians do enrich Uranium to the required level construction of a gun type device is trivial.

Thank you both for the corrections. Clearly my understanding was in error.

Yeah, it's sort of counter intuitive; the more U-235 there is makes it easier to concentrate, as there is much more as percentage of source material. Sorry, poorly phrased, it's late!

Iran considers Israel to be as much of a threat to Iran, as Israel considers Iran to be its nemesis. There is justification for concern, but bouncing rubble in each camp does not alleviate the animosity. The problem with getting the fruitbats in change on both sides is that the consequences are lost in the rhetoric. As to a nuclear weapon with a gun design or implosion, those are both possible topology, as is moving to a fusion component, if there is a suitable supply of tritium and Li 6 floating about, probably some spare out of Uncle Vlad's shack of spares.

It would seem to be desirable to remove the presumed existential threat that both Israel and Iran feel from their shoulders, what is being done at present is increasing, not diminishing the threat. Iran and Iraq went at it for 9 years so the term "concede" doesn't seem to translate into Farsi or Arabic, and there is no evidence of Bibbi's guys considering concessions translates into Hebrew either. The last time there was a touch of concilliatory hearts, the radicals on both sides capped the leaders.

The SoH closure will go down in history as being a strategic own goal of memorable proportions, overshadowing all of the glitz and glamour of smart bombs being thrown about by idiot politicians. It has opened up the potential for the secondary closure of the straits, which will necessitate placating China in the next 8 weeks or so, and India, in order to not get some rather stern worded diplomatic communiques. There are options that could be applied to keep China and India on side for a period, but that would assume some adult supervision in the WH, and that seems to flow as freely as the SoH does.

This won on day 1 special excursion seems to be doing about as well as would be imagined looking at the brain trust that put it together.

Stocking up n popcorn.

CENTCOM video: ​​​​​​​

And here we go again....

This looks like a great success of the current adventure. Once such a law is passed it is very difficult to back track without loss of face, read ain't gonna happen. This looks to become a permanent damage to World Economy :-(

In a war, fabricated lies are always used by each side. If you think that only the USA are concocting lies, then you are staggeringly naive. Or perhaps you just do not like Trump, which is hardly a revelation.

Jeeze, what a mess all this turning out to be...

Iran wanting the 'bomb', getting/having the bomb, would mean that the US and the 'coalition of the willing', would not dare attack it.
NK rings a bell :E

If Iran had a working/deliverable bomb, would it really take Isreal out?
I've heard all sorts of press releases over decades and AFAIK, Iran has never actually quoted - on the lines of - 'we will blow Isreal up if we have a bomb'.

Surely these days, the world runs on trade. In the days of the 'cold war', it was look after oneself/people. But now the $$$ reigns high and there's lots of countries doing very well - including Iran.
Saddam WMD, Gaddafi-Assad, regime changes. Now Iran's WMD...?

So is wiping Isreal off the face of the map going to do Iran any real good, or is Iran going to be ultimate 'anti-west' pariah...?

I assume Portugal, due to the fact that Spain has washed its hands of this mad and reckless adventure!

Combat loss replacements.https://cimg2.ibsrv.net/gimg/pprune....f3805186e2.png

I have to ask,
How many kilos or how big should be nuclear bomb to destroy city like Tel Aviv?
If Iran wants with such bomb attack, how big rocket or aircraft has to be in order to reach Israel from let say middle of Iran?
The same question if they want to flattened Houstom or Buenos Aires e.g.

I do believe that Iran could have such desire or wet dreams- but they are not at that logistical level even if they have technology to produce A bomb.. I also suspect tgat they are able to produce A bomb. They are not so well educated.
Hate can not substitute knowledge.

A dirty bomb smuggled in [in kit form] seems much more attainable.
Think film Fourth Protocol.