WHY CAN'T IRAN HAVE ITS OWN ATOMIC BOMB?

Nine countries (plus a number of former Soviet republics) currently have nuclear warheads, including North Korea and Israel.  Germany and Japan don't.  The current contention is that Iran is close to succeeding and that Israel will do everything possible to prevent this.  If Israel attacks, the world economy could well this time go into full depression, especially if there is significant retaliation.  So what are the options?

Say, several nations strategically close to yours, like India, Pakistan and Israel, with the latter, your enemy-for-life rival, each having 100 such nuclear weapons.  Why wouldn't you want a few yourself, mostly, you say to yourself, to serve as a deterrent, for Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) was what saved Humankind from an eternal nuclear winter?  Hey, that could be a future theme for Iran:  atomic bombs for peace!

Now, add to your fears the fact that your current (at one time Iran was supported by the U.S.--and in 1953 this was the CIA's first successful coup) mortal enemies, Israel and the USA, have a reputation for covertly entering foreign territory to conduct nefarious deeds, like, for example, assassinating Osama bin Laden last year, or Israel bombing Iran in 1981 and Syria in 2007 (to the right, before and after of a nuclear reactor site).  From our point of view, of course, all this was done for the sake of freedom.  In any case, how can you trust your enemies when they cannot be controlled?  Also, too, the USA is the only country to ever drop Atomic Bombs with malice.

Is there any international law that says Iran is the only country in the world that should not and cannot  have an Atomic Bomb?  There are those UN resolutions, sure, but there is no such legal edict that can prevent Iran from owning its own Atomic Bomb.  International law is abstruse anyway, and you think anything like this scared North Korea from building a few (they may have six nuclear warheads, and to the left is one their tests) and would have any effect on the Iranian leadership today?

So this brings us to the present.  On the one hand, there is some certainty that Iran is developing a nuclear war capability, and even Prime Minister David Cameron of the UK has expressed fears about his country being attacked.  Iran has to say that their effort is for nuclear power, as you need the PR to prevent outright outrage, plus, perhaps this could well be true.  Everyone knows that the U.S. will not start another land war in the Middle East, the UN is toothless and Israel has one tenth the population of Iran (8 million versus 80 million), so their strategy might well be to place nuclear facilities sufficiently deep in the ground that air bombing cannot affect progress.  This could take some time, so, for now, it seems best to bide for time.

There actually are signs that they actually halted such work in 2003.  It's possible that President Obama showed Prime Minister Netanyahu the evidence a few days ago.  This is why Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta a few weeks ago so unexpectedly stated that Israel would attack Iran by June of this year, for the U.S. wanted Israel to know that a surprise strike would be foolhardy, and not worth the  ramifications.  Obama does not want the world and national economies to crumble in this election year.

So, then, why didn't Iran allow the UN team to visit certain nuclear facilities?  There are two obvious reasons:

  1.  They are, indeed, building Atomic Bombs, or, worse, Cobalt Bombs.  The British actually tested (in Australia) a weapon with cobalt tracers (left), but no C Bomb was ever built, I think.

  2.  It becomes clear that those deep subterranean facilities are not being built to search for prehistoric relics nor to bury their esteemed leadership when they expire.

Either alternative is troublesome.  So to answer the questions at the top, yes, nothing realistic today appears certain to stop Iran from developing Atomic Bombs, and, given time, they will.  Terrible, yes, but still nowhere close to where the world was when MAD existed.

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The Dow Jones Industrials today jumped 78 to 12,837, with mixed world markets.  Gold increased $11/toz to $1685, with the WTI crude went up to $106/barrel and the Brent Spot to $124/barrel.

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