Iran Can Now Make Glowing Mickey Mouse Watches

[WilliamPitt]

http://www.juancole.com/2006/04/iran-can-now-make-glowing-mickey-mouse.html

Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Iran Can Now Make Glowing Mickey Mouse Watches
Juan Cole
Informed Comment

Despite all the sloppy and inaccurate headlines about Iran "going nuclear," the fact is that all President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Tuesday was that it had enriched uranium to a measely 3.5 percent, using a bank of 180 centrifuges hooked up so that they "cascade."

The ability to slightly enrich uranium is not the same as the ability to build a bomb. For the latter, you need at least 80% enrichment, which in turn would require about 16,000 small centrifuges hooked up to cascade. Iran does not have 16,000 centrifuges. It seems to have 180. Iran is a good ten years away from having a bomb, and since its leaders, including Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei, say they do not want an atomic bomb because it is Islamically immoral, you have to wonder if they will ever have a bomb.

The crisis is not one of nuclear enrichment, a low-level attainment that does not necessarily lead to having a bomb. Even if Iran had a bomb, it is hard to see how they could be more dangerous than Communist China, which has lots of such bombs, and whose Walmart stores are a clever ruse to wipe out the middle class American family through funneling in cheaply made Chinese goods.

What is really going on here is a ratcheting war of rhetoric. The Iranian hard liners are down to a popularity rating in Iran of about 15%. They are using their challenge to the Bush administration over their perfectly legal civilian nuclear energy research program as a way of enhancing their nationalist credentials in Iran.

Likewise, Bush is trying to shore up his base, which is desperately unhappy with the Iraq situation, by rattling sabres at Iran. Bush's poll numbers are so low, often in the mid-30s, that he must have lost part of his base to produce this result. Iran is a great deus ex machina for Bush. Rally around the flag yet again.

...more...

[Carni]

1. Oh come on now!

You're just letting facts cloud your vision!

[Swede]

2. And Bush can make a glowing glass parking lot at Esfahan.

Why the hysteria now?

[VelmaD]

3. Funniest. Headline.

EVER. *snort*

[onehandle]

4. All I read was "Iran", "nuclear", and "bomb".

I'm practicing for the future when we're all forced to become "Bushies".

[LisaLynne]

6. Good start, then. :)

You also seem like a smart person, so you might have to lobotomize yourself.

Oh, and K&R

[WilliamPitt]

5. .

[stop the bleeding]

7. thanks Will - I said more or less the same here

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=914297&mesg_id=914660

[hootinholler]

8. K&R just for the headline

Great headline, but it should have "in 16 days" somewhere in it.

-Hoot

[bigtree]

9. They have to repeat that process, flawlessly, without contamination

of the centrifuges or other setbacks, they have to repeat the process a large number of times to get enough uranium to do anything significant with it.

The reports that accompanied the release said the amounts were only enough for 'research'.

k'd & r'd

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. So now Mickey Mouse becomes the new BogeyMan.

Only in America.

[Strelnikov_]

11. There You Go Again. Spoiling Perfectly Good Propaganda

with a dose of reality.

[EVDebs]

12. Don't average Iranians know about M.A.D. ?

Mutual Assured Destruction is what made the Cold War bearable. Submarine based missiles, able to strike from nowhere discernable, made a first strike in essence your last strike (many times over, I might add).

If the mullahs in Iran truly believe God is Great, they have proof in Israel's restraint, assuming Israel has such a delivery system...

[DinahMoeHum]

26. This time, though, M.A.D. stands for Mutually Assured Dementia

between the leadership of Iran and the US.

:evilfrown:

[WilliamPitt]

13. .

[Inland]

14. Kick for Prof. Cole. nt

[BlooInBloo]

15. Nobody on this topic will answer my question about this...

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=awSzbHpjozAo&refer=top_world_news

How to reconcile Cole with that article?

[pinto]

16. Rademaker's quote in the headline is misleading.

from the article

Iran has informed the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency that it plans to construct 3,000 centrifuges at Natanz next year, Rademaker said.

``We calculate that a 3,000-machine cascade could produce enough uranium to build a nuclear weapon within 271 days,'' he said.

I read these quotes to imply a two year, real world, lead time at best. The 16 day assessment Bloomberg chose to tag on this story implies some 50,000 operating centrifuges in place *right now*...they might have well as said "Iran has nuclear weapon" (that's *if* they had 50,000 centrifuges in place 16 days ago). God I hate headlines as spin...

[BlooInBloo]

17. Then it still falsifies Cole in a huge way, right?

There's a world of difference between 10 years and 2 years, after all, right?

EDIT: I just don't know who to believe, is my problem - not tryin to show anybody up or anything...

[pinto]

19. I really don't think so. There's been mention from other

sources of a ten year time line, and Rademaker's obviously got an agenda to present a worst case timeline, as best he can....there's a world of spin going on is the thing, I think.

Then, of course, there's Iran itself...what's the reality behind their rhetoric?

I don't trust Bush to recognize nuance in any diplomatic situation, but I think wiser and cooler heads will play a role here than did in his Iraq juggernaut. Iran's a much different kettle of fish.

[BlooInBloo]

20. I dunno :( lol

[worldgonekrazy]

29. Another bit from that article

Rademaker said the technology to enrich uranium to a low level could also be used to make weapons-grade uranium, saying that it would take a little over 13 years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon with the 164 centrifuges currently in use. The process involves placing uranium hexafluoride gas in a series of rotating drums or cylinders known as centrifuges that run at high speeds to extract weapons grade uranium.

See, this guy says 13 years with 164 centrifuges. That 16 days crap assumes that Iran has 50,000 centrifuges up and running right now, which it most certainly does not. All the Iranians said was that they'd like to have that many running, but to actually do it will take years and years.

[LSK]

18. can we keep this on the homepage for a year?

So we can bring it out everytime the braindead beat the war drums in the next year?

[Canuckistanian]

21. Interesting facts about enrichment here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x904570

[stepnw1f]

22. Iran is Bush's Wag-the-Dog

Even hyping Iran as an immediate nuclear threat to scare Americans into going along with another illegal invasion is stupid. This is a big distraction that is now blowing up in Rove's face.

[paparush]

23. Throwing Good Science at the Bush** Adminstration is like

trying to cut down the largest tree in the forest with a herring. Its a waste of time (and is gonna leave ya with really stinky hands...)

[twaddler01]

24. Where can I buy such watches?

:D

[bluesbassman]

33. Coming soon to a Wal Mart near you!

[klook]

25. The next glow on your wrist could be a mushroom cloud!

Thanks for the information, Will. This is a good, simple explanation of why Iran has no bite to back up its bark. Even Morans should be able to understand the concept of 180 vs. 16,000 centrifuges, and enriched uranium of 3.5 percent vs. 80 percent.

It's very interesting that the Iranian hardliners (popularity 15 percent) and Bush (popularity 36 percent) mutually benefit from the saber rattling. George W. Bush and the Islamofascists--the love/death-fest continues.

Thanks for the math lesson!

[haab]

27. thank you for the accurate facts

Indeed Iran cannot develop a nuclear bomb soon as the Bush Cabal would like us to beleive...


Iran is purely developing nuclear energy..... Even the IAEA has confirmed they have found absolutely no evidence of weaponization..


I noticed something else... during the early stages our media never once mentioned Iran's assertion that it is only for civilians use. It is well into the affair that I finally heard what the Iranians are saying... Yes, there's a lot of BS rhetoric, but how different is the Bush Admin..?!

[madrchsod]

28. anyone who has read about the politics

of iran would have came to the same conculsion as cole. the politics of both countries are mirror images of each other with the citizens caught up in poilitcs of deceit and fear.

now we know why the white house destroyed Brewster Jennings

[0007]

30. If it supersedes the Spiro Agnew watch, I want one now.

[worldgonekrazy]

31. I agree entirely with this analysis

The governments of Iran and the United States each have a lot to gain from stirring up fear in their populace. That is how the Bush Administration ever got the power to do anything in the first place, of course. As for the Iranian government, they are holding on by a bare thread against demands for democratic measures.

In fact, this can be looked at as the Bush Administration undermining the development of democracy in Iran. There is a huge push in that country for such reforms, yet by getting in to a war of words with the Iranian gov't the Bush Administration is providing them with a distraction to keep the populace at bay.

[Brothaman2k]

32. Hate to do it to you, but...

Come on folks.

1. What the hell makes you think that little sawed off nutcase who's constantly spouting off about how Isreal shouldn't exist and insisting that Iran doesn't want nuclear weapons, thus insulting the intelligence of the entire world, would actually give an accurate account of Iran's nuclear capabilities?

2. There is no doubt that a nuclear Iran would be a threat to the entire region. Even if they can't really take on enrichment to produce weapons YET.... YET... Allowing them to get there wouldn't be wise.

The true problem isn't obscuring of facts cuz really I don't give a crap whether they could make a bomb the size an ICBM or a cherry bomb. The real issue is our idiot president has stretched our military so thin for a case that he knew was BS that now we don't have an viable military OPTION (as in if absolutely neccessary) in the case of an actual threat.

[bluesbassman]

34. Your points are valid.

And that's what makes the '06 election so critical. Our standing in the world view is a joke. The only way we are going to regain any respect is for bushco to be held responsible for the war crimes they have committed. The only way that is going to happen is if the regressives in office are replaced. And for those of you who have issues with the Dems, I'd like to point out that we can't fight on two fronts. We have to take this country back first, then we can work on straightening out the liberal/progressive side. But if we don't unite first against the neocon stranglehold, we may never get the chance.