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Israel May Have Destroyed Iranian Centrifuges Simply by Cutting Power (theintercept.com) 130

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
An anonymous reader shares a report: The explosion and blackout at the Natanz nuclear facility in Iran over the weekend raised the specter of past sabotage -- including the Stuxnet cyberattack that took out some of Natanz's centrifuges between 2007 and 2010 as well as an explosion and fire that occurred there last July -- destroying about three-fourths of a newly opened plant for the assembly of centrifuges. Government officials and news reports gave conflicting accounts of what caused the latest blasts, the extent of damage, and Iran's capacity to quickly recover. Initial reports said there was no harm to the Natanz facility, but Iranian officials later acknowledged damage to its centrifuges.

And while media accounts have suggested saboteurs focused on taking out the facility's electric supply, David Albright, founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C., believes the aim was to destroy centrifuges. Power is easy to restore even when electrical equipment is damaged, allowing enrichment work to quickly resume. But an abrupt blackout that also takes out backup power would have destroyed some centrifuges, Albright says, since they need to be powered down slowly. Failure to do so leads to vibrations that can cause centrifuge rotors and bellows to become damaged and in some cases disintegrate, which is what Albright suspects occurred.
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Israel May Have Destroyed Iranian Centrifuges Simply by Cutting Power More

Israel May Have Destroyed Iranian Centrifuges Simply by Cutting Power

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  • Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @02:25PM (#61273658)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Forty Two Tenfold ( 1134125 )
      Scumbags who aimed their nukes at every European capital city are stopping "tarists". Great std::double.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by sfcat ( 872532 )

        Scumbags who aimed their nukes at every European capital city are stopping "tarists". Great std::double.

        Isreal doesn't publicly have nukes and they certainly don't have ICBMs. So perhaps maybe a reference to what you are talking about.

    • Effective enough that they may be embedded amongst us [youtu.be] as we speak, in fact.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by 1s44c ( 552956 )

      Really? Iraq Never had WMDs, nuclear or otherwise. This story was a fiction to justify US invasion.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by nonBORG ( 5254161 )
        You don't know history. He is talking about the French made Nuclear reactor which was actually not stopped by Mossad (even though they did a no holds barred campaign that included the assassination of a number of French Nuclear scientists.) The reactor was bombed by an IDF mission using F16s in about 1983. Mossad had a phone call intercept of Saddam Hussain saying that his intention was to build Nukes and use them on Israel, which to them (and I have to agree) justified any action taken as self defence. G W

      • Re:Bravo. (Score:4, Informative)

        by localgh0st ( 1588343 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @05:43PM (#61274520)

        One of the reasons they never had any is that the IDF bombed the reactor that Iraq had acquired from France in 1976. That reactor was destroyed on the 7th of June 1981 before it was taken into production. The operation was called "Operation Opera" or "Operation Babylon" and was preceded my multiple assassinations of scientists and attacks in France itself in order to prevent the shipment of reactor parts to Iraq in the first place.

      • Re:Bravo. (Score:5, Informative)

        by jon3k ( 691256 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @06:04PM (#61274588)
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

        Iraq actively researched and later employed weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from 1962 to 1991, when it destroyed its chemical weapons stockpile and halted its biological and nuclear weapon programs as required by the United Nations Security Council.[1]

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sfcat ( 872532 )

      Got to hand it to Mossad (and the IDF) for the brilliant work they've done to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of scumbags like Saddan Hussein and the goatfuckers who currently rule Iran. They are pound-for-pound the most effective spy agency operating in the world today.

      -jcr

      I was going to mod you down but instead I will reply. They may get results but due to their utterly shitty operational security they constantly get major blowback that ruins any successes. They are an intelligence agency, you are not supposed to know what they are doing. When you do, they failed. Its one of the really hard parts about knowing how effective intelligence agencies really are. When do they their job correctly, you don't know they did anything. Stuxnet broke operational security due to Mos

  • War Mongers (Score:2, Insightful)

    by lsllll ( 830002 )
    I'm telling you. Israel will eventually drag us into a war with Iran, even though everyone smart in the U.S. administration has warned against it.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

      I'm telling you. Israel will eventually drag us into a war with Iran

      Is that before or after Iran nukes Israel and detonates a bomb in a US harbor? Why do you think Iran is developing nuclear weapons anyway?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 )

        SK, haven't seen you in a while... you know that if you respond to fear mongering, they will hold you in a state of fear to control you... right?

        Let's be brave and NEGOTIATE ourselves into a more peaceful future, Iran has already shown their desires to comply with international agreements, they only step out of bounds when there is no agreement in place

        Do you hate the Iranian people? Wat have they done to you?

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Anonymous Coward

          Let's be brave and NEGOTIATE ourselves into a more peaceful future, Iran has already shown their desires to comply with international agreements, they only step out of bounds when there is no agreement in place

          Not really, over the past few years when Trump was in office, and it was obvious he didn't really care what the world thought, Iran pretty much shut up and kept to themselves. Because there was no benefit to stirring things up.
          Now...there's benefit to stirring things up.

          • If blowing up holes in ships in the Persian Gulf at the same time they step up enrichment is shut up and keep to themselves I have a bridge to sell you.

        • Re:War Mongers (Score:5, Insightful)

          by DarkOx ( 621550 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:05PM (#61273876) Journal

          You can't make peace with group that sees you as "the infidel" and wants your destruction. That as a concept is stupid. They need to abandon the "kill the unbelievers" rhetoric as a step zero before we should even consider diplomacy.

          Until that stops I don't see any reason at all to let up on sanctions and blockades. Giving them access to any resources at all is just handing them the tools to hurt us. They are always saying its us or them, we should give them what they ask for.

          • But are groups who see you as an Infidel any different from groups who will gently ask you to adopt western values and government policies at gunpoint (Physical or otherwise?)?
            A country trying to do its own thing in today's globalist world is like the people trying to mint their own currency, their mere existence harms the system by providing an alternative.

            • But are groups who see you as an Infidel any different from groups who will gently ask you to adopt western values and government policies at gunpoint (Physical or otherwise?)?

              Simply asking Iran to not force their religion on anybody else is in effect asking them to adopt western values, so I'd say yeah, there's quite a difference.

      • Why do you think Iran is developing nuclear weapons anyway?

        Exactly. WHY do you think that?

      • Re:War Mongers (Score:5, Insightful)

        by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @02:49PM (#61273788)

        I'm telling you. Israel will eventually drag us into a war with Iran

        Is that before or after Iran nukes Israel and detonates a bomb in a US harbor?

        And what possible motive would they have to do this?

        Why do you think Iran is developing nuclear weapons anyway?

        Because Israel has nukes, carries out state-sanctioned attacks against Iran (killing scientists, blowing up power plants), and has often hinted at unilateral missile strikes against Iran.

        And the US has repeatedly expressed interest in attacking or invading Iran. If you weren't paying attention in the early 2000's the neo-cons were preparing to invade Iran as soon as they were finished with Iraq [jstor.org].

        The US is allied with Israel and the major Sunni powers in the Middle East, meaning that Iran, the major Shia power, has good reason to be worried about an attack.

        That Iran would want Nuclear Weapons as a deterrent against an invasion is just common sense. Except of course they don't actually want Nuclear Weapons, they want security. That can come in the form of Nukes or of a friendlier relationship with the US. Which outcome the US should prefer seems obvious.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          Except of course they don't actually want Nuclear Weapons, they want security. That can come in the form of Nukes
          It is not clear that they want Only security within their borders, and probably not the case - despite that being one of the things that Iran would want to have.

          They may be and almost certainly are or will be also seeking power and ultimately pursuit of ambitions in terms of conquest, expanding their boundaries and/or gaining more control of affairs outside the current borders of Iran. A "Frie

      • Whatever you think of the Iranian leadership, they are rational actors. They know very well a direct nuclear attack on the US or Israel would pretty much give both countries carte blanche to wipe the regime off the map.

        • Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)

          by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:25PM (#61273984)
          Comment removed based on user account deletion

          • Which is hardly the same thing as inviting annihilation at the hands of the United States. Any nation that attacked the US in such a way would pretty much lose even their firmest allies, or at least the ones that matter, right then and there.

            The reason Iran wants to build nukes is the same reason countries like Israel and North Korea have them, to stave off any kind of invasion. Being a nuclear power comes with a certain amount of security against invasion. Ukraine gave them up, and now look at where it is.

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          by deKernel ( 65640 )

          You might be correct except you are missing one big point. For them, they believe they will be going to paradise regardless how many innocents suffer and die. You need to stop thinking like a rational person and starting understanding how religious zealots think.

          • Oh come on. You don't seriously think the leadership really believes that. That's a useful bit of propaganda for the rank and file. The Ayatollahs won't go around letting of nukes at US targets, because whatever there eschatological beliefs, they have become very rich and powerful on this world, and picking that kind of fight, a fight they could not hope to win, would bring an end to that (likely either in a mass bombing campaign or when US troops break into whatever hidey-hole they've found for themselves

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mysidia ( 191772 )

          They know very well a direct nuclear attack on the US or Israel would pretty much give both countries carte blanche
          That does not mean they cannot cause an attack to occur, however. You even used the qualifying language which shows what their government's approach to a unilateral assault would very likely be... Indirect.

          Simply being deliberately lax or negligent in terms of security and controlling access, or "cooperating" with certain evil groups allowing devices to be stolen and even being harbored ou

      • I'm telling you. Israel will eventually drag us into a war with Iran

        Is that before or after Iran nukes Israel and detonates a bomb in a US harbor? Why do you think Iran is developing nuclear weapons anyway?

        I see you have been watching "The Sum of All Fears" and completely misunderstood the plot ... again.

      • Re:War Mongers (Score:5, Informative)

        by lsllll ( 830002 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:36PM (#61274048)

        Not sure how you deduce that Iran is developing nukes, but IAEA would disagree with you. Throughout the JCOPA agreement, IAEA continually stated that Iran was sticking to the rules of the agreement. It wasn't until two years after Trump pulled out of the agreement AND force everybody else in the agreement to effectively sanction Iran (or else force sanctions yourselves) that Iran decided that they were going to up their number of centrifuges.

        Maybe if you stopped getting your news from Fox and started reading for yourself, you'd question what you've been fed.

        • If they do in fact begin enriching to 60%, then they'll be putting themselves within a year of weaponization, and air strikes will follow.

          This is non-negotiable, and it isn't up to any of us.

          They will not be permitted these weapons, because of their pattern of threats, and their support of direct attacks on their neighbors and their whole region.

      • Well, probably for the same reason everyone else has them: deterrence. The US has threatened invasion enough times. BTW, detonating a nuke abroad would be a guaranteed way of getting pretty much everyone to support an invasion. They are not dumb.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Jmc23 ( 2353706 )
        Probably to protect themselves from dicks like the USA.
    • It's not really just an Israel thing. The Saudis (and a lot of other countries in the region) dislike Iran just as much.

      Personally I think they'd be a great ally, but their government doesn't make that possible.

      • I think the best solution would be to divide it into 5 parts:
        Persian Kurdistan, which would be joined to Iraqi Kurdistan
        Persian Azerbaijan
        Iran, being the coastal plain from just west of Tehran to the eastern border
        Persia, being the area from the south slopes of the central mountains south to the Indian Ocean, west to the border of Kurdistan (which includes most of the mountains separating Iran and Iraq), and east to the border with:
        Balochistan, being the region in the far southeast bordering Pakistan and so

    • Re:War Mongers (Score:5, Funny)

      by Freischutz ( 4776131 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:12PM (#61273916)

      I'm telling you. Israel will eventually drag us into a war with Iran, even though everyone smart in the U.S. administration has warned against it.

      Israel and Saudi Arabia will cooperate to drag the US into war with Iran and they are willing to fight that war to the last American.

      • Why was this modded funny?

        Actually reminded me of the FAUX Prophet of Profit Tucker killing people the other day. He obviously doesn't care who dies as long as he thinks it will hurt his enemies. Also must not be any direct link holding him accountable for the deaths he causes. That could be so embarrassing. And I'll be ten bucks to your doughnut that he got the vaccine as soon as he could.

      • It turns out to be harder to shoot down American airplanes than the comic books would suggest. There would be no need for ground troops, as occupying the land wouldn't be one of the goals.

        That said, most of the western mountains are Kurdish, and the Kurds might be happy to fight a ground war in that region, if they had enough air support and they were going to get national recognition for Kurdistan out of it. (A country that Xenophon called Karduchia when he visited in 401 bce)

        • It turns out to be harder to shoot down American airplanes than the comic books would suggest. There would be no need for ground troops, as occupying the land wouldn't be one of the goals.

          No, the goal would be for the US, Saudi and Israel to turn Iran into another napalm fuelled dumpster fire like Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria because another US taxpayer funded napalm fuelled dumpster in the Middle East is what we really need right now.

    • There is no need for a "war," we just need to a few months of air strikes to destroy all their nuclear facilities, and coastal anti-ship missiles.

    • Yeah, that's the problem. Iran is paranoid about Israel, for good reason (look up SAVAK if you don't know the history there). Israel then maintains that paranoia by continuously covertly attacking Iran, and Iran goes for Israel via its proxies. And so the cycle continues. Maybe if the two sides just sat down and agreed to stop pissing in each other's drinking water the middle east would become a whole lot safer.

      Even strategically, sabotaging Iran's nuclear plans may be a bad idea. Iran's strength is t

  • You wouldn't think that Iran would be spoiling for a fight the way they keep getting caught with their pants down.

  • Long term, this won't work (Score:5, Interesting)

    by hdyoung ( 5182939 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @02:39PM (#61273738)
    I'm all for playing dirty. The Iranian government has generally been awful and disruptive. Israel and the US aren't exactly been paragons of virtue, but Iran is MUCH worse. I support slowing down their nuke program by almost any means necessary.

    That being said, the strategy of suppressing Iran's nuclear program can't run forever. Nukes are almost 100 YEAR OLD TECHNOLOGY. If the country is determined to get them, they will get them, sooner or later. What then? When they do manage to build a small nuclear arsenal... what's Israel's next move?

    • The long game is pretty confusing for sure. I have trouble understanding why Iran has taken the approach they have and not covertly enriched sufficient uranium for a weapon. Either they want to do it or they don’t— the slow walking of the process (especially compared to North Korea) makes it clear that their objectives are more opaque than what is generally reported.

      • Re:Long term, this won't work (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Entrope ( 68843 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:02PM (#61273856) Homepage

        Iran wants a fig leaf that lets Europeans pretend that Iran isn't actually working to build a nuclear bomb. If Iran declared nuclear ambitions, they would lose their political cover from Europe and the bypass of trade sanctions that European political cover gives them.

        They want nukes, but not as badly as they want their economy to remain better than North Korea's.

      • Re:Long term, this won't work (Score:5, Interesting)

        by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:25PM (#61273992)

        The long game is pretty confusing for sure. I have trouble understanding why Iran has taken the approach they have and not covertly enriched sufficient uranium for a weapon. Either they want to do it or they don’t— the slow walking of the process (especially compared to North Korea) makes it clear that their objectives are more opaque than what is generally reported.

        I don't think the objectives are all that opaque.

        1) Enriching Uranium requires enough hardware that it's hard to do secretly. North Korea can kinda do this because they're so insanely locked down but Iran is open enough that they know they'd be caught.

        2) They don't want Nukes, they want sanctions relief and assurances they won't be invaded. The Nuclear Enrichment is a signal that if they don't get the assurances through agreements they'll get them through deterrence.

        3) The slow enrichment is meant to give the US enough time to get on board before they can get a Nuke. It's also meant to assure countries they don't have secret Nukes stashed away, the last thing Iran wants is sanctions for not destroying Nukes they might have built.

        4) Iran is partially Democratic, and even the non-Democratic part is still susceptible to public opinion. It's really hard for Iran to re-enter the agreement after Trump broke the last one and assassinated their general.

        • We know that North Korea is doing it, even in secret, because it's difficult to actually hide. If it were easier, we'd see more disrupted facilities that aren't enriching Uranium. Maybe there are a few mistakes, but with attacks like this or Stuxnet it's pretty damned obvious that the people responsible know what to target and how to go about it. Supposing you could get away with enriching the Uranium in secret, developing a weapons program with it requires a lot of other tests that are detectable to anyone

          • I'm not sure your second point holds any water. North Korea has nukes and they're still sanctioned to hell and back and we've realized that appeasement isn't going to actually get us anywhere. There's not a good reason to believe that Iran would wind up differently. Their motivation for obtaining nuclear weapons is solely to prevent being invaded, which is a lesson everyone has learned from North Korea. You can be as awful as you want inside of your own borders as long as you have nuclear weapons.

            I'd agree there, Iran doesn't want to become NK (which could happen if they get Nukes), but given a choice between being invaded and becoming NK they may choose the NK route.

            Countries like Iran are also proof that democracy is worthless unless you create a constitution to prevent governments from infringing on personal liberties. The U.S. has that and we've still historically sucked at actually living up to those ideals. Democracy is useless when the people openly vote to oppress parts of their population. Being female, homosexual, or an apostate in Iran basically makes you a second class citizen as a matter of law because you will face persecution for failure to adhere to religious law.

            Americans put a lot of weight on their constitution because their government is so regularly trying to violate it. But I'm not sure that's evidence that a US style constitution actually works. If anything US politics seems to run on the idea that anything constitutional is fair game and it doesn't really do a great job of protecting min

    • the strategy of suppressing Iran's nuclear program can't run forever.

      All you need to do is keep suppressing until the reasonable citizens of Iran take over.

      That would be greatly accelerated if we stopped sending support to Iran's official government, but will happen eventually.

      What then? When they do manage to build a small nuclear arsenal... what's Israel's next move?

      Plenty of steps in-between, like sabotaging all the missile facilities, or just outright bombing to tiny pieces anywhere that holds nuclear

    • The only thing that makes nuclear weapons hard to get is getting the nuclear material itself. For a primitive weapon, like the Little Boy device, you can literally buy most of the parts from the local hardware store. That device was so primitive and we where so sure it would work we didn't even bother to test it. Just built it and tossed it out the back of a airplane.

      The only real deterrent to having nuclear weapons used by nation states is to make the consequences of such use so terrible to contemp

    • Re:Long term, this won't work (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:22PM (#61273968)
      You're missing the point here. Israel knows they cannot stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. However Israel also knows they do not have to. You have to look at the geopolitics here.

      Iran is a pariah state. They have few allies, they are Muslim but not Arab so they are surrounded by hostile "tribes", and they have a history of being dominated by outside foreign powers. The Islamic Revolution that created the current state was about rejecting foreign powers and being in command of their own destiny. The Revolution led to the support of numerous Arab powers to counterbalance them and limit their growth, and frankly rubs up against the US' strategy of never allowing a regional power, which Iran is, to grow sufficiently to threaten American interests, so America will always disrupt their growth.

      In that context, Iran has a program to build nuclear weapons. Given their hostility to Israel and desire to create chaos in the Arab world, and America's strong desire to monopolize nuclear weapons, Iran's goal is not to actually get a nuclear weapon; rather it's goal is to be on the path towards getting a nuclear weapon. This enrages and monopolizes the attention of the most powerful country in the world, and gives them something to trade away in exchange for guarantees and deals that gives Iran breathing room to grow into their state (North Korea uses this exact same strategy). Actually getting a weapon and using it would invite an American military response; but progress towards developing one but not quite being there gives them a strong hand to bring the P5+1 to negotiate with Iran as though Iran is an equal to the combined weight of the US, China, France, the UK, Russia and Germany. Those talks stalled under Trump, and are now resuming under Biden. Iran's goal is to create a space for itself to grow independent of influence of any outside major power; they also just brokered an economic deal with China, but one that limits Chinese investment into Iran so they have someone to trade with, but minimize Chinese influence. The best outcome for Iran is space to sell to both the East and West while being entirely separate from either; it's own independent entity.

      Now what is Israel's interest in this? Israel knows that only Iran can choose to stop developing a nuclear weapon. But they also know that Iran is using it's nuclear program to extract greater concessions from the P5+1. So, if they can degrade the program sufficiently, Iran has less to trade, meaning any deal hammered out gives Iran less space to grow in exchange for it's program if it's program is not that advanced. Israel seeks survival and stability while being surrounded by hostile neighbors, and they've offset their disadvantage through tight autocratic control, technology, and partnering with super-powers. Israel cannot afford to give up it's relationships with the US or any other major power, so in the P5+1 talks it cannot afford for the US to minimize it's mid-east presence or limit it's aid to Israel.

      So ultimately, this is about Israel trying to remove the value of what Iran has to trade, in the hopes that a deal gets signed while the P5+1 give as little as possible to Iran to get them to stop the program, whereas Iran needs to make it look like the damage was minimal and won't affect their program so they get as much as possible from the P5+1.

      it's a little complex and many indirect actions towards other targets, but this is the context in which this attack happened.

    • Lol iran already has nukes and can deliver them to israel. Iranians are probably scratching their heads

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jmc23 ( 2353706 )
      Yeah, they're much worse, actually trying to protect themselves from bully states like the USA and Israel.

      USians must bathe in propaganda.

  • As with many aspects of modern technology our children [youtube.com] already do it better than us adults.
  • Can someone remind me why Iran becoming a nuclear power is a good thing?

  • Trump's worst decision (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:05PM (#61273868)

    Was probably ditching the Iran Nuke Deal. It was not perfect by any means but it did what was intended. Kept Iran from developing nukes for 10 years to provide some breathing space to work on diplomacy. The easing of sanctions with Iran also would have allowed them to become a larger player in the world trade market and trade is what prevents armed conflict.

    If Iran could get itself tied up economically with it's neighbors in the region and other nations then the incentive for them to saber rattle and risk war drops significantly. Now that we've isolated them and put the screws to their economy what choice are we giving them but to pursue these weapons and double down on their authoritarian impulses.

    You don't have to like Obama. You don't have to like Iran's religious leadership. You don't have to like every aspect of the agreement, but are we in a better position with regards to Iran than we were in 2015 before it was signed? I would say no, we're back to having little good options and the Iranians have little reason to trust making a deal again.

    • I see you fully bought on to the lies that Ben Rhodes admits he sold the public to get the Iran deal done.

    • Re:Trump's worst decision (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Whateverthisis ( 7004192 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @04:20PM (#61274252)
      I don't think it's Trump's worst decision. I understand the strategy behind it, and Trump was a very different President than the ones before.

      Trump saw what Iran was doing. They have no interest in a nuclear weapon, because if they got one and used it, even with a proxy so they could deny responsibility, they would invite an American military response that their government would not survive. Rather the program itself gave Iran a chip that was a major diplomatic tool. With a nuclear program, Iran could either get a weapon and use it to bully the Middle East into being dominated by Iran, or they trade the program for promises of foreign powers (American, Russia, China etc.) to leave the Middle East alone and allow Iran to dominate the region economically and through conventional military means. The former would work but is clumsy and difficult to use correctly, but would achieve their goal. The latter though, trading away the program for concessions from the most powerful countries in the world, allowed them to have many softer tools to dominate their region. The potential for either outcome, rather than achieving either outcome, gives Iran a strong negotiation position.

      It's an interesting trap for a weaker power to put a super-power like the US into. There is no good outcome for the US in particular in this scenario; either the US allows them to get a weapon or they leave the area allowing them to grow into a regional power; neither outcome works for the US' interest. The same trap has been played by North Korea, and NK has used this over and over to get concessions from many US presidents back to at least Clinton and probably before.

      All of the past Presidents saw the trap but realized there was no good option but to play into it, so we made concessions many times with North Korea and each time they backed out of their end to get more concessions. Each President realized NK nor Iran actually want to get a weapon; what would they do with it? The US would be justified in invading and destroying their countries. So they all knew it was a bluff, but it was a powerful bluff because even knowing that it was a bluff it still worked and no President was willing to call them on it because the cost of concessions was low.

      Trump knew it was a bluff, but he was different than other Presidents as he refuses to get played. So he called Iran's bluff and backed out of the deal.

      Whether that was the right move or not is up for debate; I'm not so sure it was the right move but doing the same move over and over with terrible results a la North Korea is also not a good move either. So I guess we'll see where Biden gets us. But I'm not sure there is a good move for the US in this situation.

      • Re:Trump's worst decision (Score:4, Insightful)

        by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @05:17PM (#61274474)

        Thank you are an actually measured response.

        It is a shitty situation all around, one that we helped create with the coup in the 50's but in reality I think the fact that we got them to agree to a deal had far more positives than negatives. No one in the region wants them to have a nuke so that's the first priority and outside invasion you really cannot stop them, they have the means and the will.

        The peace deal still got what each player wanted. No nukes for 10 years with inspections and Iran gets freed from under sanctions, which lets be honest, the Iranian people take the brunt of. The release of sanctions is the key, if at the end of those 10 years Iran is engaged in lot's more trade, selling it's oil, increasing exports and it's people are enjoying increased exports and a rising economy then Iran, no matter it's antipathy to it's neighbor, is less likely to want to pursue a nuke and risk destabilizing all that progress. Nevermind the fact that with all those things taking place it's likely anti-American sentiment is not as strong in the country and it's people will start to feel less of a necessity to support the hardline clerics aggressive foreign policy.

        Now I am not saying this is a done deal or things can't go wrong or everyone plays nice, but it was something of progress on a longstanding morass with no good exit. It's frustrating because we all know Trump really ditched it as a fuck you to Obama since it was his last major thing he got done and his best piece of foreign policy for a president who did not have good FP. Trump let his ego and the war-hawks he hired fuck up a good chance of stabilizing that region of a world, even if just a little bit. Now we are just holding the bag with less options than before.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      The easing of sanctions with Iran also would have allowed them to become a larger player in the world trade market

      Israel (and Saudi Arabia) does not want Iran to become a 'larger player' in the region.

      • They also likely do not want them to have nuclear weapons. My point stands, countries that are tied together economically have a much lesser risk of engaging in armed conflict. They don't have to like each other but it's in everyone's best interest, including theirs, that things don't turn into hot war.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by PPH ( 736903 )

          They also likely do not want them to have nuclear weapons.

          So a deal requiring them not to develop nuclear weapons would be a good thing then. Instead of just turning our backs on them and figuring that we'll deal with them once they build a nuke.

    • Soleimani (Score:2)

      by emil ( 695 )

      An important question is the location of my country's attack on Qasem Soleimani. This took place within the borders of Iraq.

      Many here assert that Iran's goal is the lifting of sanctions. Another has undoubtedly been to establish a realm of control across Northern Arabia to the Mediterranean and beyond, inclusive of what we call the "occupied territories," in (apparent) addition to Yemen and perhaps even the Shiite regions of the country of Saudi Arabia (which happen to include the majority of the oil depo

  • I remind all bitch widdle wepigs that Iran has the legal right to enrich uranium, now that tRump ended the agreement.
    ARTICLE X 1. Each Party shall in exercising its national sovereignty have the right to withdraw from the Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events, related to the subject matter of this Treaty, have jeopardized the supreme interests of its country.
    as in the mass execution by assassins of all researchers into nuclear fission by the state of Israel in defiance of all laws

  • Enrichment level for energy vs weapons (Score:3, Informative)

    by Beerismydad ( 1677434 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:16PM (#61273932)
    Peaceful energy generation only requires 3% to 5% enrichment levels (source: https://www.world-nuclear.org/... [world-nuclear.org] Iran has admitted to enriching well past this, up to 20% (source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]) Why isn't this enough evidence for the international community to take Iran to task? They are clearly aiming to build a weapon.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      They have the right to do what they are doing and they are part of the nuclear arms treaty which has some mild regulation but does not prohibit them anymore than it does us. They have/are being pressured beyond other nations doing similar things.

      Equal treatment would be better. I don't see why it should be easier for Pakistan to do it (with help) than Iran (not being helped and being attacked for it.) Sure they are not the same; however, the weapons are the same and time changes all governments. I'm more

    • Nuclear submarines use 20% enriched fuel and certain small research reactors used to make radioisotopes for medicinal purposes also use higher enriched fuel.

  • Israel wants a pretext (Score:5, Informative)

    by Cyberax ( 705495 ) on Wednesday April 14, 2021 @03:56PM (#61274150)
    Israel does NOT want peace. Every time a chance of a peace agreement is close, Israel does something to blow it up. This has been their pattern for decades in Palestine and with the neighboring countries.

    And here we go again with Iran. Biden carefully starts negotiating with Iran making some concessions, and Israel comes and screws it up.

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