The Charade of the Iranian Nuclear Weapon Talks
Like the Vietnam talks that began in 1973 or so and dragged on, going nowhere, until time had passed and the North Vietnamese launched their winning offensive in 1975, the Iranian nuclear weapon talks follow the same course. It is a page from history. Both used the talks to delay any resolution for they were really never serious until their objective was reached. The U.S. was led on and on like a lovesick guy doing anything to get his dream girl.
Iran has already cancelled further talks that were suppose to begin on Feb. 12, 2013, because they do not think America is serious. On one hand, the sanctions are imposed on them, which they feel is a double standard because the U.S. also wants Iran to restrict weapon development.
Iran wants a nuclear weapon and for the past 10 years or more, has been working toward the goal. Do you really think they are suddenly going to give it up? Iran has consistently refused to allow any limits on enrichment. The West has allowed Iran to develop peaceful nuclear activities, which of course is a facade because nuclear enrichment for weapons and peaceful uses run parallel. Last year, the West allowed Iran to continue enrichment instead of stopping all of it. The West allowed Iran to continue enrichment of reactor grade if it stopped enriching to 20% from 4%. The West stated that this was a large concession from Iran because 20% is far more dangerous than 4% because it is closer to the magic number of 90%+ needed for nuclear weapons.
Enrichment is simply the physical process of separating fissile U-235 isotopes from the unnecessary U-238. It takes more work to enrich from 0.7% natural uranium to reactor grade levels of 4% than it takes to enrich to weapon levels. Most of the work, some 70%, is done to enrich from .7% to 4%. Once 4% is reached, enriching to 20% requires only another 20% of enrichment to reach 90%.
Natural uranium has 140 atoms of U-238 for every one of U-235. In making a nuclear weapon, one needs to remove the the U-238 atoms leaving the more dangerous U-235. Enriching to 4% removes 115 U-238 atoms and enriching to 20% means only removing 20 more of them. Once there, enriching to 90% (weapons grade for a bomb) means removing only four or five more! Once at 4 or 20%, nuclear experts agree that enriching to 90% would only take another month of time depending on the number of centrifuges used to separate atoms.
So, the West has allowed Iran to enrich to 4%, which we now know will allow Iran to easily acquire the nuclear bomb. Iran has recently announced it added another 1000 centrifuges. So, the Obama administration made a very stupid mistake.
A mistake we all will pay for in the future.
