Weekend Reading: A Time to Attack

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a time to attack

What should we do about the nuclear weapon program in Iran? The country is not complying with the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. Iran has four main sites being used to create weapons-grade uranium. The country has stopped short of further purifying the uranium to the concentration needed for a bomb. But once it decides to, Iran can produce the uranium needed for a bomb in two to six months.

Besides the uranium, Iran needs to develop the weapon and means of delivery. The weapon is still a year away and the delivery method could be longer than that.

But once Iran gets the uranium it’s game over. Once the uranium in produced we lose the way to track it.

I didn’t know any this last week until I picked it up from Matthew Kroenig’s A Time to Attack: The Looming Iranian Nuclear Threat. The book’s publisher sent me copy to review and I was looking to learn more about the Iran nuclear issue.

Iran is spinning centrifuges to enrich uranium. There is no civilian purpose for this uranium. The only purpose is to create a nuclear weapon. Iran is working on ICBMs. No country has placed conventional weapons on an ICBM. The only use has been to mount a nuclear device to launch across vast distances.

We know where the four key sites are located. The toughest is Qom which is built into the side of a mountain and protected by almost 300 feet of rock. No really, google the Qom Uranium enrichment facility. It’s right on Google maps.

Matthew Kroenig offers a few possible courses of action. There is only one that he thinks will work: Attack once Iran passes the point of no return. It’s not a good approach and does not have a good outcome. But the other outcomes are worse.

Would any other country believe that the US would go to war with a nuclear-armed Iran, if the US was not willing to go to war with a nonnuclear Iran. Once Iran has a nuclear weapon, the rest of region will start their own programs out of fear of Iran and the lack of faith in the US.

Yes, it has to be the US. Israel does not have a bunker-busting bomb powerful enough to destroy the Qom facility or even the lesser protected facility at Natanz. Even for the US, the B-2 bomber is the only aricraft capable of delivering the Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb.

Kroenig puts together well reasoned arguments in an easy to read book. It leaves even a liberal dove like me agreeing with his position.

Author: Doug Cornelius

You can find out more about Doug on the About Doug page

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