Maggie's Farm

Iran has been close to a nuclear weapon for twenty years or more. They did the hard part, which was producing HEU (highly-enriched uranium). But they never developed an actual weapon., even though they are much more industrially developed than North Korea.

Conservatives, including those in the military, wanted a nuclear weapon for deterrence. The clerical leadership considered the use of nuclear weapons non-Islamic. The compromise was what is known as break-out capability, how long it would take to actually produce a nuclear weapon. With HEU, breakout time is weeks. Without HEU, breakout time is a year or so. So, they produced HEU under the guise of civilian usage.

What the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) did was have Iran give up their HEU. (Their HEU was shipped to Russia.) That moved the breakout time from weeks to a year or so, and entailed international inspections. If Iran then moved to produce a weapon, that would have given time for the West to take action. It also, gave (or so they thought) Iran a sufficient deterrent to attack.

What changed is the nature of warfare. The United States could strike at Iran's nuclear facilities before Iran could breakout. Iran's reliance on breakout deterrent failed.

The hardliners were proven correct:

• The United States could not be trusted and they broke their agreement with Iran;
• The United States attacked Iran;
• A nuclear weapon would have been the only real deterrent to foreign attack.
  (Note the United States has not attacked North Korea even though North Korea has nuclear weapons and has conducted ballistic missile tests showing significant capability of delivering such a weapon.)

feeblemind: How close was Iran to building a bomb?

As close as they wanted to be.

feeblemind: I thought we were told a year ago that we had pretty much destroyed Iran's ability to build bombs with those bunker buster attacks.

It's not a difficult technology. The key is the HEU (highly-enriched uranium). With that on hand, breakout time to produce a nuclear device is only a few weeks. They could have done so already.

feeblemind: During W. Bush's reign, we were told it was 12-18 months.

When Iran had HEU, Iran was only weeks away from producing a nuclear device. They stayed weeks away for years.

JJM: he Iranians (read: the ayatollah-led regime) are quite determined to have nuclear weapons - they always have been.

Then why didn't Iran produce a nuclear device already? Once they had HEU, there are almost no significant technical hurdles. Even North Korea managed to do it, and they are far less developed and far more isolated than Iran.

JJM: Young Kim might be many things but he is not an apocalypse-obsessed Twelver Shiite.

It's very difficult to read the mind of the leader within the highly-isolated and tightly-controlled inner circles of North Korean power. There appear to be no constraints on Kim's power, so his whims, misunderstandings of threats, or even his mental stability can be critical. We do know North Korea has nuclear weapons and that they have launched ballistic missiles over Japan and deep into the Pacific. That's hardly pacifistic. But he does have a nuclear deterrent.