http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/12/washington/12iran.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
There are questions repeatedly raised by 'western experts' about Iran's ability to run its centrifuge machines for long periods. Many of these questions seem informed by the knowledge (revealed publicly) that western intelligence agencies (in order to sabotage the program) have sold and otherwise tried to introduce defective and impure material into Iran's nuclear equipment.
The same way the reports about impurities in the UF-6 gas produced at Isfahan's Uranium Convesion Facility proved bogus, with Iran already using its UF-6 gas to produce low enriched uranium, I have a hunch that the skeptics (including those relying on western sabotage attempts) who imagine that Iran's centrifuges will explode if run for long periods will be in for surprise.
The rate of production of centrifuges in Iran, as confirmed by the IAEA, is 300 per week. The IAEA now expects Iran to be able to assemble and install 8,000 centrifuges by year's end. Iran has indicated that it would be able to have 54,000 centrifuges installed and operational in a couple of years.
In the meantime, if the machines Iran has installed can work properly and can be run continuously for long enough periods, its petty much game, set and match for Iran. It takes fewer than 1,500 centrifuges running non-stop for around a year to convert UF-6 gas to sufficient quantities of HEU (highly enriched uranium) for a single nuclear bomb. Iran has already more than that number assembled, installed, and running. The number of nuclear bombs that Iran could produce each year year (if it ever so chose) is then basically a function of what multiple of 1,500 centrifuges Iran has? With 8,000, Iran could produce around 5 nukes a year if it ever so chose. At the same time, Iran would be able to produce enough low enriched uranium to fuel a nuclear reactor on its own.
While Iran's official position is that its will never built nuclear weapons, my hope is that Iran has a secret covert program to provide it with a nuclear deterent. Iran faces real threats, including threats of nuclear weapons being used against it. The basis for those threats has nothing to do with the propaganda against Iran either, but relate to efforts to unravel this country and prevent it from becoming a more powerful actor in a region the US/Israel have decided to dominate for themselves. In this equation, appeasement by Iran won't work either.
Iran, as a country, is well past the stage that (regardless of the regime in power in Iran) the US/Israel can afford letting it develop in a natural course. From their perspective, Iran is too big a country, in too strategically an important region, with industrial capabiity, with direct control over substantial oil reserves and the second largest reserves of natural gas, and with the potential to indirectly control and influence much much more still. This is a country that they want to see unraveled and basically destroyed. The rest is all propaganda.
On the other hand, if Iran wins this challenge, the rewards awaiting it are enormous. Being able to free itself of the web created to choke Iran, Iran would be able to earn billions and billions of additional dollars just from export of natural gas and LNG. It would be able to export many other products it has been slowly but surely manufacturing inside the country to a host of countries in the region and beyond. From automobiles, to consumer goods, to military equipment, while building factories and facilities on a joint venture basis for many developing and less developed countries. Once immune from foreign threats, there will be hundreds of billons of dollars in foreign investment pouring into Iran itself, spuring additional growth.
Indeed, hopefully, Iran could one day (still quite a few years away from that day) help inaugurate a new currency, pegged not to the US dollar as most currencies are, but to the value of combustible energy. The latter something that Iran, with oil, natural gas, and nuclear fuel, would be able to offer and benefit from.
At the same time, the old silk road that once connected the far east to Europe through Iran and the Middle East, can be revived. And the trade this time would be equally rewarding and beneficial as in the past. The energy supplies that India and China, two of the world's fastest growing econonies, need is what Iran can offer. Europe, unless it wants to rely on growing Russian monopoly in the energy sector, will also want to look to supplies from Iran.
There is more. Much more. All of it, however, would require that Iran defeat the attempts currently underway to destroy the country from within and without. May Iran be up to the challenge it faces.
There are questions repeatedly raised by 'western experts' about Iran's ability to run its centrifuge machines for long periods. Many of these questions seem informed by the knowledge (revealed publicly) that western intelligence agencies (in order to sabotage the program) have sold and otherwise tried to introduce defective and impure material into Iran's nuclear equipment.
The same way the reports about impurities in the UF-6 gas produced at Isfahan's Uranium Convesion Facility proved bogus, with Iran already using its UF-6 gas to produce low enriched uranium, I have a hunch that the skeptics (including those relying on western sabotage attempts) who imagine that Iran's centrifuges will explode if run for long periods will be in for surprise.
The rate of production of centrifuges in Iran, as confirmed by the IAEA, is 300 per week. The IAEA now expects Iran to be able to assemble and install 8,000 centrifuges by year's end. Iran has indicated that it would be able to have 54,000 centrifuges installed and operational in a couple of years.
In the meantime, if the machines Iran has installed can work properly and can be run continuously for long enough periods, its petty much game, set and match for Iran. It takes fewer than 1,500 centrifuges running non-stop for around a year to convert UF-6 gas to sufficient quantities of HEU (highly enriched uranium) for a single nuclear bomb. Iran has already more than that number assembled, installed, and running. The number of nuclear bombs that Iran could produce each year year (if it ever so chose) is then basically a function of what multiple of 1,500 centrifuges Iran has? With 8,000, Iran could produce around 5 nukes a year if it ever so chose. At the same time, Iran would be able to produce enough low enriched uranium to fuel a nuclear reactor on its own.
While Iran's official position is that its will never built nuclear weapons, my hope is that Iran has a secret covert program to provide it with a nuclear deterent. Iran faces real threats, including threats of nuclear weapons being used against it. The basis for those threats has nothing to do with the propaganda against Iran either, but relate to efforts to unravel this country and prevent it from becoming a more powerful actor in a region the US/Israel have decided to dominate for themselves. In this equation, appeasement by Iran won't work either.
Iran, as a country, is well past the stage that (regardless of the regime in power in Iran) the US/Israel can afford letting it develop in a natural course. From their perspective, Iran is too big a country, in too strategically an important region, with industrial capabiity, with direct control over substantial oil reserves and the second largest reserves of natural gas, and with the potential to indirectly control and influence much much more still. This is a country that they want to see unraveled and basically destroyed. The rest is all propaganda.
On the other hand, if Iran wins this challenge, the rewards awaiting it are enormous. Being able to free itself of the web created to choke Iran, Iran would be able to earn billions and billions of additional dollars just from export of natural gas and LNG. It would be able to export many other products it has been slowly but surely manufacturing inside the country to a host of countries in the region and beyond. From automobiles, to consumer goods, to military equipment, while building factories and facilities on a joint venture basis for many developing and less developed countries. Once immune from foreign threats, there will be hundreds of billons of dollars in foreign investment pouring into Iran itself, spuring additional growth.
Indeed, hopefully, Iran could one day (still quite a few years away from that day) help inaugurate a new currency, pegged not to the US dollar as most currencies are, but to the value of combustible energy. The latter something that Iran, with oil, natural gas, and nuclear fuel, would be able to offer and benefit from.
At the same time, the old silk road that once connected the far east to Europe through Iran and the Middle East, can be revived. And the trade this time would be equally rewarding and beneficial as in the past. The energy supplies that India and China, two of the world's fastest growing econonies, need is what Iran can offer. Europe, unless it wants to rely on growing Russian monopoly in the energy sector, will also want to look to supplies from Iran.
There is more. Much more. All of it, however, would require that Iran defeat the attempts currently underway to destroy the country from within and without. May Iran be up to the challenge it faces.