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Comment by sodality2 | Hacker News Reader

Let’s hope whatever intel that says Iran really does have nukes is true, given its propensity as a scapegoat for previous wars. Don’t forget that less than 2 months ago, senior intelligence officials said conclusively Iran was not close to having nuclear weapons.

Edit: 3 months, and source: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nuclear-weapon-2...

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Another source, from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence[0]

On that page you can download an unclassified 2025 Annual Threat Assessment [pdf] where on page 26 it states:

>> We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so. In the past year, there has been an erosion of a decades-long taboo on discussing nuclear weapons in public that has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus. Khamenei remains the final decisionmaker over Iran’s nuclear program, to include any decision to develop nuclear weapons.

I also think there is more reading in there that may interest people here.

[0] https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/...

[pdf] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...

Leaving aside the accuracy of this claim, "building a weapon" here means "taking the uranium they've already enriched almost to weapons-grade, and completing final assembly into a working device".

The nuclear physicists got the glory for the Manhattan Project, but the enrichment was the vast majority of the time and cost[1]. Similar ratios apply today. There is zero question that Iran's government is spending a significant fraction of its GDP on enrichment activity that would be economically absurd except as a step towards nuclear weapons--they acknowledge it proudly!

That doesn't mean these strikes were necessarily a good idea. There's no question that Iran was working actively towards a bomb though, even if "building a weapon" gets redefined narrowly to exclude almost all the actual effort.

1. https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2013/05/17/the-price-of-the-...

I think a good way of explaining what the Iranian government has been doing, is actively working on reducing breakout time without actually making the breakout decision

"Breakout time" is how long it takes a country between the political decision to build a nuclear weapon, and actually having one which is militarily usable

> "building a weapon" here means "taking the uranium they've already enriched almost to weapons-grade, and completing final assembly into a working device".

Agreed. However, taking into account the full statement (provided by the collective U.S. Intelligence Services) to include the parts about: Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003 and that he has final say in the matter, says they were not working actively towards a bomb.

But there was growing advocation for doing so. Now they have been emboldened further and been given fuel to advocate restarting the program. If Khamenei had so far kept the pro-nuke elements of the regime at bay, this strike may force the very thing that foreign Intelligence roped us into "stopping".

I am not saying they did not have the means; they will rebuild the means, and now they will have the motivation as well as know-how in a way that will be more difficult to stop.

“Intelligence community” can be wrong. It’s not as if they are infallible.

Sure, but so can foreign Intelligence that the America First Trump team decided was way better than US Intelligence that tax payers are paying obscene amounts for. So, I guess we just pick which ever one fits what we find more important to listen to.

This stinks of Iraq & WMD. Which the U.S. Intelligence made drastic changes to prevent happening again.

Only now we were on the side of saying there is no proof it was actively being worked on, and the person/state with "proof" also happens to be the state that has been bitterly opposed to Iran and started launching unprovoked missiles. That state also knows how to get what it wants from this administration and suddenly we go from, there is no proof they are doing nefarious things with their program, to they are about nuke us all if we don't do something; all in a matter of weeks.

The alternative was to do nothing , let them continue the obvious nuclear weapon nation program. I am surprised we hadn’t attacked them earlier given what they did to our troops in Iraq with EFPs or Ukraine with the Shahed drones.

> The alternative was to do nothing

Yes & No. Thats what I understood the Trump campaign promised, to stop military meddling in other countries religious (or otherwise) conflicts.

Diplomacy is not nothing, and has kept the Iran program from restarting (going by US reports that it was stopped). Now it is all but sure to start up again. Unless the goal was for the US to be suckered into forcing a regime change, and we all know how well those attempts have gone.

> I am surprised we hadn’t attacked them earlier given what they did to our troops in Iraq with EFPs

If it happened at that time with proof and congressional approval then okay, but thats not an excuse for now. Thats how states end up in a war that lasts for a couple or more millennia

President at the time didn’t need congressional approval to say blow up the EFP factories.

Everyone keeps saying Trump didn’t have approval when Congress authorized this

> The alternative was to do nothing , let them continue the obvious nuclear weapon nation program.

Or the alternative being the JCPOA. Which was an agreement to limit the Iranian nuclear program in return for sanctions relief and other provisions.

An agreement which failed because the US side reimplemented the sanctions while Iran was in compliance with the agreement.

So it seems that due to imprecise language people disagree on the exact place of the red line the US (and Israel) were drawing. The post you responded to was indicating that the red line was, as a sibling comment mentioned, the breakout time from political decision to working nuclear weapon. Many other people, yourself included, seem to consider the red line to be the political decision itself. This red line now may be crossed in response to our first strike after their violation of the breakout time red line. If we were successful it seems as though the message is clear, we will use overwhelming military force to prevent them from having a nuclear weapon. So even if the political decision gets made to build one, any attempt to restart the process - which isn't exactly stealthy - will be met with similar force. If we failed though, then we might get to see a nuclear weapon being used in modern times.

> they were not working actively towards a bomb

I think this becomes a definitions game again. I'd consider a country to be "working actively towards a bomb" when it's taking costly steps that provide no commensurate benefit except towards a nuclear weapons program. At that point, there's no rational explanation for their actions except that they're working towards the bomb.

So e.g. enrichment of uranium to <3.67% (as permitted by the JCPOA) is not such a step, since that's also economically useful for civilian nuclear power. Enrichment to 60% is such a step--the only conceivable civilian uses are niches for which the cost would far exceed any benefit.

It seems you agree they're enriching in the latter way, but you don't count that as "working actively towards a bomb". So what definition are you using for that phrase? We obviously can't just let the Iranian government decide, or they'll define everything short of a successful test as part of their "peaceful explosive lenses program" or whatever.

My general sense is that the JCPOA was working reasonably well, and it's unfortunate that Trump exited. To the extent these strikes were a necessary solution, they might be to a problem of his own making. I agree that Iran could be emboldened and merely delayed here. That may imply an inevitable endgame of either regime change or near-total destruction of Iran's economic capacity, big escalations and risks.

I question whether lowering your nuclear latency for strategic purposes is the same thing as building towards a bomb.

Switzerland's nuclear program stayed one step away from actually putting together a nuclear weapon for several decades straight. The fact that they could become a nuclear power, but haven't, and could credibly restart their program if attacked, is of strategic importance to them.

Is it building towards a bomb if your intention is to sit on the precipice of building a nuclear weapon for the rest of time, leveraging your position as deterrence, but never going over the edge? I have no idea! I also have no idea whether this describes Iran. Saying that there's "no question" they were building towards a bomb is ignoring this question, though.

A small team of skilled physicists relying only on public knowledge can design a nuclear weapon (and did, back in 1964; their work product was classified, the demonstrated futility notwithstanding). The only reason that random grad students don't have the bomb is that enrichment of uranium requires state-level resources. So why focus on the easier part of building a nuclear weapon that they haven't undertaken, while choosing language ("lowering latency", not "building") that minimizes the much harder part that they have? This view is prevalent, but it seems exactly backwards to me.

As to intent, the concept of "deterrence, but never going over the edge" doesn't really exist--if you're never going over the edge, then where does the deterrence come from? At best it's a bluff, like threatening someone with an unloaded gun. But would you really want to bet your life that Iran has put maybe a quarter of their GDP (including sanctions impact; the program itself is much less) into a bluff? We can't read minds, and their costly actions seem like much more reliable signals than our guesses at their intent.

Switzerland is an odd comparison, since they got their capabilities in what they openly described as the initial stages of a nuclear weapons program. Since abandoning that, Switzerland has been divesting its enriched uranium. If Switzerland were instead building up its stockpile while funding proxies to (conventionally) strike its neighbors, then I'd expect some combination of sanctions and military action there too.

> As to intent, the concept of "deterrence, but never going over the edge" doesn't really exist--if you're never going over the edge, then where does the deterrence come from?

Exactly the same place as the deterrence in MAD. You don't intend to immediately nuke your geopolitical rivals when you build the bomb, you intend to sit around with a metaphorical shotgun aimed at your door for the rest of time.

> If Switzerland were instead building up its stockpile while funding proxies to (conventionally) strike its neighbors, then I'd expect some combination of sanctions and military action there too.

Sure, I agree. I approve of the strikes against Iran in principle. I still don't believe there's "no question" that Iran was going to build a nuclear weapon if nobody else intervened.

> You don't intend to immediately nuke your geopolitical rivals

I don't see why intent requires immediacy? Perhaps this becomes uselessly philosophical, but I would say MAD requires the defending state to intend to nuke its adversary, conditioned on some future event (a nuclear attack on themselves, an existential conventional attack, etc.). They hope that condition is never satisfied, but intend to strike if it is.

> I still don't believe there's "no question" that Iran was going to build a nuclear weapon if nobody else intervened.

For clarity, I don't believe that either. By "working actively towards", I mean only that Iran was taking costly steps that bring them closer to a working bomb, and no other rational purpose could justify those costs. I think the distinction of what such steps we count as "lowering latency" vs. "building a bomb" is arbitrary and mostly meaningless, since as the latency approaches zero the latter goal is effectively achieved.

I agree that Iran might just have been saber-rattling; or even if they currently intended to build and test a complete bomb, they might have discontinued the program before succeeding. I just don't think intent is a useful focus (vs. practical capabilities), since it's fundamentally unknowable and could change at any time.

Bibi has repeatedly informed us the bomb would be ready in the next few months for 23 years or so.

Saddam also had WMDs, we just don't know where.

Etc

He's been saying this since 1992, so 33 years so far.

What is the term for political leaders who fill their speeches with a Boogeyman rather than doing their job? I feel there should be a term for it. Ideally one that describes them in pairs. Like a boogey marriage.

"Will be done in 'x' months" vs "Could be ready within 'x' months" are distinct statements.

My project managers often ask how long a project would take. I might say something like "two weeks after we're approved to start".

The PMs will wait a few months, approve the project, and then look flabbergasted when it is not instantaneously completed! "But you had all this time! Months ago you said it would take weeks!"

> Saddam also had WMDs, we just don't know where.

Presumably if Saddam had built a large reinforced concrete bunker deep in the side of a mountain hours from the nearest city, that might be a place fairly high on your checklist?

Israel has also been sabotaging their program and murdering scientists for the same time. Maybe it's an instance of the prevention paradox? Together with the fact that things sometimes naturally need MUCH more time than anticipated?

the biggest blocker remains - a religious rule set by the dictator banning all WMDs. not just nukes, but chemical and radiological weapons too.

an iran with a bomb would have to not be the relogious dictatorship anymore, and whatever coup that allowed for the bomb might not have the same opinions about the west as the current one

Why bring him up? No one cares about him. He's been lying about it all those years until it became true, that doesn't mean it's still false. I can say the universe will be destroyed in a year, I'll eventually be right.

You would have thought folks would have learned from the Iraq War that the US lies. I'm no fan of Khomeini's sabre-rattling, but if people are really buying into the narrative that we did this because they had nukes, idk what to tell you besides go read your history.

It isn't just the US that lies, its politicians and leaders. People in charge want to keep power, and the only ones willing to fight their way to the top don't deserve the power of office.

Folks do know. Folks knew before the Iraq war too.

But what does this generic knowledge have to do with anything, when the military action is already decided for geo-political reasons? The only decision to make is what pretext to use.

In a way, the 'iraq wmd' justification has proven it's value as a pretext - so why not tweak it and use it again?

"Not close" doesn't mean they're not working on it. I think it's reasonable to expect that unspoken bit is "... but their current avenue of work is going to eventually succeed".

I'm tired of the US playing puppetmaster (poorly) around the world, getting involved in conflicts that have nothing to do with us (or rather, creating conflicts when it has to do with access to oil or something). And it's not like we haven't messed up Iran enough already.

But I do not want a nuclear-armed Iran to be a thing. If they were working on it and had a solid program that was likely to bear fruit, I hate to say it, but this was probably the right move. But this is a big "if"; I don't trust this administration to tell the truth about any of this, no more than I trusted Bush Jr when he said Iraq had nukes.

If they thought Iran had nukes they wouldn’t be attacking them. Nobody thinks Iran had a nuclear weapon, or that they are even trying that hard to get one.

I don't understand this argument; why would you have a large, acknowledged, underground nuclear purification unit if it wasn't for bombs? Why wouldn't you cooperate with their regular IAEA inspection if it wasn't for bombs?

They might be making the bombs, but once they are made (and the delivery mechanism exists), then they wouldn’t be attacked for fear of nuclear retaliation.

The past two-ish decades has made it clear that nuclear weapons are the only defense against an aggressive power arbitrarily invading.

This was my thinking as well. Iran sending a nuke at anyone effectively is the end of Iran (and many of its people). Something something…mutually assured destruction (e.g., North Korea has nukes, makes threats, doesn’t use them)

So the reason to make an exception to the Non-Proliferation Treaty just for the giant tyrannical fundamentalist state is, what, because otherwise they might get insecure and anxious?

OK, they never signed up to it, but still.

We made an exception for Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

North Korea left the NPT, Israel never signed it.

Are you referring to Israel here, who stole the recipe from their closest 'ally' and has made not one or two but hundreds of nukes outside of the NPT?

Allegedly.

AFAIK the recipe was given to them by the French.

The prior government did sign it and there’s very good reason to hold successor states to the treaties signed before they existed.

What about the agreement to protect Ukraine if they gave up the nuclear weapons?

Trusting the US or any agreement with it would be foolish.

the NPT is a joke. the only "authorized" nukes are the ones you can keep

The problem is that these people are religiously unhinged. They are executing Gods will with God on their side.

Unlike the American evangelicals and the Israeli?

In the past 24 hours alone, all 3 parties in this conflict have attributed their success to God. You genuinely, honestly have to be more specific in your comment because not a single involved participant is a fully secular country.

So, with that being said - which nuclear-obsessive theocracy do you support?

To be fair it's the same god.

Ted Cruz is explicitly advocating that Christians are biblically commanded to defend the modern day state of Israel, and that this alone justifies our attack on Iran.

Or just because they tried to assassinate Trump.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/11/08/donald-trump-iran-a...

Ted Cruz can blather whatever he wants (and he also footnoted it to say it was only HIS belief), but only Iran has holy-text justification for the destruction of all Jews, mentioned numerous times in authenticated Hadiths (just search them for "The last hour will not come")

Are you referring to Iran or Israel?

one of the scariest parts of the current US administration is that there is a fairly strong evangelical Christian belief that a massive (possibly nuclear) war in Israel is a necessary precursor to the 2nd coming.

That's from Islam. Infact the entire point of ISIS was to manifest this prophecy

Evangelical Christianity shares the same belief. That’s why the red heifer breeding program [0] is supported by US Christian orgs [1].

[0] https://www.timesofisrael.com/red-heifer-temple-institute/

[1] https://cbn.com/news/israel/first-time-after-2000-years-isra...

this describes both jihadis and the chosen people. the whole region is operating on pre enlightenment notions of diplomacy

Unfortunately MAD in the classic sense doesn't apply here. Yes if Iran launched a nuke at Israel, or vice versa, and the other had nuclear capabilities, they would destroy each other, but the MAD scenario between the USSR and the United States doesn't really play out here.

The biggest global risk in this case would be that tactical nukes would be back on the menu which would immediately change the face of modern warfare.

I feel like it's been demonstrated that if Israel orders the United States to destroy the world on its behalf, the United States will do it.

So Iran is a special case compared to every other country getting them?

> then they wouldn’t be attacked for fear of nuclear retaliation

Even supposing Iran developed a nuclear weapon, their ability to engage in nuclear retaliation depends on (a) the number of warheads, (b) the available delivery mechanisms

An Iran which had only a handful of warheads, and rather limited delivery mechanisms (few or no ICBMs, no SLBMs, no long-range bomber capability) might find its ability to engage in nuclear retaliation against the US extremely limited

Even attempting to use nuclear weapons against Israel or regional US allies, there would be a massive attempt by Israel/US/allies to intercept any nuclear armed missile before it reached its destination

People argued missile defence (as in Reagan's "Star Wars") would never work against the Soviets because they could always just overwhelm it given the superabundance of warheads and delivery systems they had. The same logic does not apply to Iran, because even if it did build a nuke, initially it would only have a handful. Only if they were allowed to build out their nuclear arsenal and delivery systems without intervention, over an extended period, might that eventually come true.

My understanding is that the prospect of nuclear retaliation against hawkish US allies can contribute greatly to peace in the region.

This is what I’d expect Iran to do instead of ICBM

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suitcase_nuclear_device

But they do have ballistic missiles and can hit US allies

if israel and america actually believed iran was as close to nukes as bibi said it was, then the variance on the prediction, and the chance of iran already having nukes and already being able to deliver them via ballistic/hamas means would be too large to risk something like this

north korea and pakistan actually have nukes. we can be sure of that because of the bullshit they get up to with full impunity from the US. iran doesnt have shit (and it might even have been working in good faith with the nato initiatives, although probably not 100%) thats why it got bombed. and they are gonna learn a fool me once lesson from this. they're gonna go even harder on the anti US pole with china, with the people begrudgingly backing the regime that could have toppled soviet style if the US was patient.

this whole thing was shortsighted from israel and trump should have kept to his "america first" promise

They just hit population centers in Israel with high explosives this week. Clearly if they had a nuke they would be able to deliver it.

This is the pattern of constantly moving the goalposts:

- There's no evidence Iran is enriching uranium past nuclear-reactor grade. What's that? They're enriching past 5%?

- There's no evidence Iran is enriching uranium past medical purposes grade. What's that? They're enriching past 20%?

- There's no evidence Iran has enough to build bombs. What's that? They have enough to build 10 bomb?

- There's no evidence they have a way to deliver bombs <-- you are here

If Israel doesn't continuously try to stop Iran, they might even have a 10 Megaton ICBM and you'll be saying "there's no evidence Iran has ever said it want's to destroy Israel".

Add to that, its "deterrence" arsenal of intermediate range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) are credible militarily only as nuclear delivery systems. For example, the "Khaybar Breaker" rocket (English meaning), referring to a destruction of an historic Jewish stronghold, leaving little to imagination, when equiped with conventional warheads are simply an expensive way to ruin hospital wings. But, when you merge heavy rockets with diligent production of precursors of nuclear weapons, not only is that work toward military use of a nuclear weapon-- it creates a powerful inertia toward actually completing that work, from two directions, lest your very expensive work prove pointless. The current war is vividly demonstrating that IRBM's are not deterrent unless (a) impossibly numerous or (b) unconventionally armed. A threshold IRBM threat makes it more, not less, likely to provoke a first strike against it, as has occurred.

for people who don't follow news. last year Iran strikes on Israel with IRBM (two times, 150 missiles each time) weren't particularly effective (either intercepted or falling in empty fields). On the other side Israel attempt on taking our Iranian AD was success.

It led Iran to make 2 decisions

- Accelerate production of IRBM in order to have 10000 in stock and to build 1000 launchers in order to execute massive launches that will not possible to defend against

- Apparently the did decide to mate their IRBM with nukes as recently there was meeting between whoever managed iranian missiles problem and heads of nuclear project (there is economist article about it).

This comes against backdrop of hamas and hezbollah been wiped. especially hezbollah which was supposed to be strike force against israel with estimated 100k-200k missiles and rockets.

PS. to those who write that jordan/usa intercepted most/a lot. they (together with saudi arabia, uk and france intercepted drones and cruise missiles. out of all IRBM only 6 were intercepted with SM3 missiles from USA ship)

Hamas has not "been wiped"; they have more members than before October 7th.

I hope their new members are midwit western university students not capable of speaking fluent Arabic while extinguishing your consciousness.

Do they have much in the way of military capability right now? They could have a full two million committed members, and that might be a serious long term strategic issue for Israel, but the actual immediate threat might be nominal.

some yes. left over weapon. they can booby trap buildings, attach explosives to apc/tanks. maybe some rpg. Occasional rocket info Israel. A bunch of undiscovered tunnels

but now after their command was wiped out and they can't sell aid, they have serious financial problems (they need to pay their fighters. it's very transactional).

but in case idf will leave gaza, they will have enough power to dominate the strip.

> Hamas [has] more members than before October 7th

I'm skeptical of this; any source?

> for people who don't follow news. last year Iran strikes on Israel with IRBM (two times, 150 missiles each time) weren't particularly effective (either intercepted or falling in empty fields).

For clarification, those interception efforts last year required massive assistance from the US and Jordan, and required a hugely disproportionate and unsustainable investment of munitions to pull off. What we've seen in the last week is that Israeli air defenses are much more brittle than they want anyone to believe.

EDIT: For the down-voters, here's Bloomberg citing Israeli media that defending against Operation True Promise cost ~$1 billion USD: https://archive.is/WHDvG

and here is NPR about Jordan's assistance: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/15/1244900560/what-is-known-abou...

and here is the NYT questioning Israel's missile stockpiles: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/world/middleeast/israel-i...

Also note that Iran does have an ICBM of sorts. They have a space launch vehicle, capable of putting maybe 600kg in orbit. Anything that can achieve orbit can also be used as an ICBM. The US tends to operate on the assumption that it can bomb abroad without return fire. That may have just changed. The US has never attacked anybody with significant missile capability before.

The symbolic value of Iran hitting a target in the US, even with only a small conventional warhead, would be considerable. Washington, D.C. has some drone and missile defenses. But the rest of the east coast is not protected much.

Iran could also attack the US with drones launched from a small ship off the US east coast. Roughly the same technique Ukraine just used on Russia, using some small expendable ship instead of a trailer.

>The symbolic value of Iran hitting a target in the US, even with only a small conventional warhead, would be considerable.

This would mean complete suicide for Iran. The US military basically exists to inflict unimaginable hurt on anyone who does this. Not to mention, an attack on the US is an attack on NATO.

There are loads of NATO countries that will not assist the US in this case because NATO is a defensive alliance not a "this country responded my armed aggression, let's strike them" alliance.

If there was such a thing of an european politician that doesn't just do what USA tells them…

How about Denmark?

Donald Trump has made it very clear that the US should be looked upon as an adversary.

Denmark in greenland are as much colonizers as USA would be.

There were no people in Greenland when it was settled by the Norse in the 10th century. The current Inuit population arrived after the Europeans in the 14th century.

The norse didn't "settle", in the sense that they all died off before the current inhabitants.

Article 5 doesn't count since the US very clearly started the war. Even the NATO articles recognize that Iran has the right to defend itself.

The symbolic value of Iran hitting a target in the US, even with only a small conventional warhead, would be considerable

Iran would definitely possess nuclear weapons after doing something like that. The only question is whether they're armed to explode in the air or when they hit the ground.

Everyone in Iran who decided to follow international law and not pursue nuclear weapons including Khamenei look like clowns right now.

Nobody believes that running a secretive bomb-proof underground bunker full of gas centrifuges is "not pursuing nuclear weapons". We're not stupid.

These sites were under IAEA supervision until recently.

They enrich uranium. Supervising the process doesn't change the process.

however, they were supervised to not be enriching to bomb level concentration.

the purpose of the bomb shelter seems obvious - israel is gonna be bombing because israel likes bombing stuff

A more accurate way of describing it would be "still enriching, not at bomb level concentration yet". There is no question that they were in the process of "enriching to bomb level concentration". You want to wait until they're done?

They were putting together advanced parts towards a nuclear weapon and IAEA says they weren't cooperating. Everyone knew what this meant. Even themselves, why did they need JCPOA otherwise? Just explain why you have 60% enriched uranium.

The IAEA said they weren't cooperating as of this month. Before that they were cooperating despite the fact that the US had withdrawn from the nuclear deal.

I wonder if anything started happening recently that would make Iran less interested in cooperating with the IAEA?

In fact, I think all evidence points to them removing assets from inspected sites knowing that those sites would soon be targets.

> Just explain why you have 60% enriched uranium.

For leverage, obviously.

If Israel were Iran's only rival then it would obviously do everything in its power to become nuclear capable because Israel violated international law to become nuclear capable. However, Iran has many rivals and does not want to set off a nuclear arms race in the middle east.

They also hoped to use the nuclear program as a bargaining chip to lift sanctions.

So Iran had reason to set themselves up to be able to get nuclear weapons, without actually getting nuclear weapons.

Now, that whole policy looks foolish and Iran's only real rational option is to acquire nuclear weapons as quickly as possible.

iaea report saying that they been non-cooperative from 2019 and has been hiding stuff

https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pd...

The photos of the facilities are literally all over the internet. The IAEA knew about it and knew Iran was enriching weapons grade uranium. This isn't Iraq 2.

Flies in the face of the US intelligence community’s report at the end of March [0], but, I am not floored if true. Do you have any sources?

Edit: If you mean "Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015)" [1], that report explicitly mentions up to 60% which is not weapons grade.

[0]: https://www.newsweek.com/tulsi-gabbard-iran-nuclear-weapon-2... [1]: https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-24.pd...

60% enrichment level is significantly higher than what’s required for peaceful purposes. To say that it’s not weapons grade is just disingenuous.

Except that it is literally not weapons grade.

It turns out there's a big gap between most peaceful purposes and weapons grade, and this was in that gap.

When the only purpose of stepping into that gap is to get to weapons grade, it doesn't really work as a gray area.

Wikipedia points to a source that says it is used for parts of a multi-stage fusion bomb:

> Uranium with enrichments ranging from 40% to 80% U-235 has been used in large amounts in U.S. thermonuclear weapons as a yield-boosting jacketing material for the secondary fusion stage

Source: http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq6.html#nfaq6.2

Ah yes, alongside the weapons grade steel and weapons grade copper.

There’s no minimum qualification for steel to be useful in a bomb, there is for uranium which this meets.

Just to be clear, this isn't "useful [to make] a bomb" - it's useful in a thermonuclear warhead that already has a primary fission stage using the originally-mentioned highly enriched weapons grade uranium, plus a second fusion stage that (as far as I'm aware) Iran is not working to develop.

edit: phrasing. it feels like we're going around in circles nitpicking based on a poor framing and the tendency for innuendo on this topic

You might want to rephrase that as a thermonuclear warhead is obviously a bomb making it “useful in a bomb.”

Also, you can use 60% enriched uranium in the primary stage at the cost of a much larger, less efficient, and dirty device.

> plus a second fusion stage that (as far as I'm aware) Iran is not working to develop.

All modern nukes are two stage designs, Iran would be insane not to have a fusion stage. It would basically be a Hiroshima style dirty bomb with just 1.5% fissible mass actually fissioned.

I'm well aware of the difference in yield, but I thought a second fusion stage required modeling and testing well beyond basic development? Like I take a quick look at Wikipedia for what devices (for example) India has, and it seems to say whether they contain a significant fusion stage is an open question.

Hiroshima was pretty terrible as it was. And I thought the capability that everyone focuses on because it gets nations a seat at the nuclear table was just basic fission weapons. But please correct me if I am wrong.

> I thought a second fusion stage required modeling and testing well beyond basic development

The bottleneck is UF₆ centrifuges, not the modeling. They're definitely aiming for a fission-fusion design: "The sources note that Iran has attempted to produce deuterium-tritium gas on its own inside Iran - with the help of Russian scientists - but has so far been unable to do so, and due to pressures by the Iranian leadership to accelerate the weapons production program, decided to try to purchase this substance abroad." [0]

India and Pakistan did their first tests ~30 years ago, a lot has changed since then and if you're building a nuke in '25 might as well spend some cash on a simulation cluster and buy some multiphysics simulation software from Russia..

[0] The sources note that Iran has attempted to produce deuterium-tritium gas on its own inside Iran - with the help of Russian scientists - but has so far been unable to do so, and due to pressures by the Iranian leadership to accelerate the weapons production program, decided to try to purchase this substance abroad.

Aren't there some R&D difficulties there? Like that whole fogbank thing the US forgot how to make? I hear trying to obtain deuterium and I figure it's for development and small-scale experiments, rather than an ingredient for a straightforward bomb recipe.

Maybe I'm just putting too much weight on the trials and tribulations of developing the first fusion bombs, and the details of solving or working around those problems is widely known in the right circles these days? Plus advancements in simulation accuracy?

60% enrichment may not be weapons grade, but it takes only days or weeks to go from 60% to 90%. It is much easier than going from natural uranium to 60%.

But maybe a little harshly: Who cares? Does it somehow raise the moral foundation of the operation if they had nukes? Would the attack suddenly be unethical if it was only against a military target with the public, accepted purpose to, one day, be able to develop precursors to nuclear weapons? Why?

This stuff gets grammar-hacked a million different ways.

Yes, 60% enriched Uranium is not weapons-grade, but it can be made weapons grade very quickly. Once you've gotten to 60%, you've done 99% of the work - U-235 starts as such a small percentage of natural Uranium that most of the process is spent at very low concentrations.

It can simultaneously be true that Iran isn't "imminently creating a bomb" and also that they're actively working towards a breakout point where they could build a dozen bombs in very quick succession once they did decide to go forwards with the process.

I don't personally think they were rushing towards a bomb at this moment, but Israel isn't really in the mood to wait around until they decide to do so.

> Iran was enriching weapons grade uranium

Do you have a citation for this?

IAEA was claiming 60% enrichment. Enough weapons grade material for nine warheads: https://isis-online.org/uploads/isis-reports/documents/Analy...

Weapons grade Uranium is over 90% purity.

60% is just a stepping stone towards 90%.

You only get to 60% on the road to 90%. At 60% it has no other useful purpose.

That's like saying driving from NYC to Sacramento is just a "Stepping Stone" to driving to SF. You've done most of the drive.

To get 1kg of U-235 requires 1.11kg at 90% purity, 1.67kg at 60% purity, and 140.6kg at natural 0.711% purity.

Sure, but if this is being talked about like there's a legal justification to take military action then there actually has to be legal justification.

Was what Iran doing illegal?

It was a pre-emptive strike based on the behaviors of a state sponsor of terrorism. It’s not like the US and its allies have not tried to stop this before - see StuxNet

Sure, but is a kinetic pre-emptive strike in this context legal?

Because this is what underlies all of this -- is the premise that Iran is behaving in an unacceptable and illegal fashion and therefore a legal response with violence is justified.

This all presupposes that Iran is breaking the law with their production of nuclear weapons. Are they breaking the law with their production of nuclear weapons?

What does "legal" even really mean between states at war. The consequences typically come down to a popularity contest and Iran is one of the few states with fewer friends than Israel.

Was Iran's activities funding militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which launched attacks against Israel and US forces "legal"? Which of the US' activities were "legal"? It's all mostly a bad joke.

It's tricky. Arming a country or group than then launches an attack, or uses those weapons in a war, doesn't make you a participant in that conflict. This is why Europe and the US can supply weapons to Ukraine without being participants in a conflict with Russia.

However Iran has the stated intention of destroying the state of Israel, and actively incites it's proxies to attack Israel, and this could be seen as a valid justification for taking action. Not a lawyer though.

> Was Iran's activities funding militias in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, which launched attacks against Israel and US forces "legal"?

Is the US funding of Ukrainian militias "legal"?

Countries can attack others. There is not like a superset of a country over all countries that says what is and isn’t legal. All we have are agreements and treaties.

Not that we would or should but the US could attack any number of countries today and only if one or more countries stopped the US would the victor be able to say it’s illegal.

This is between nation states. Concepts like laws and legality really don’t apply at this level of abstraction. Agreements are a matter of convenience and convention because there is no higher authority that can enforce them.

Geopolitics operates in an explicitly anarchic arena.

bad news about who the US sponsors

I read an interview with a nuclear physicist the other day who said "If you can do 60%, you've nailed the technique, so 90% is not difficult anymore."

Besides, there is no non-military need for enriching uranium beyond a few percent, so it's very clear what those 60% mean.

Are there other uses for highly enriched uranium? Wikipedia mentions 'research' I think.

Has the Iranian government ever explained why they are enriching uranium?

Their story is a desire to build reactors for when the oil runs out. Energy security

Nobody builds reactors with 60% enriched uranium

That’s what their story is.

Well, if you have an expansionist apartheid state nearby, bent on seeking any pretense to sabotage or get your infrastructure air raided, higher enrichment factors would make much easier to safeguard fuel, given not high enough to easily cause a criticality incident.

Say you have 10 ton of 2.5% enriched uranium to safeguard. If you turn it to 60% HEU, now you have only ~400kg of fuel to safeguard against air raids. Density of uranium is ~19 ton/m³, so that would correspond to just 21 liters of HEU, one bucket worth, what would make it very easy to transport and hide. That would make it possible to split it and store in safe locations, for example, inside some deep boreholes, far apart to each other, making it impervious to attack, for the duration of hostilities. Once they pass, it can be recovered and diluted back to 2.5% with natural uranium, reconstituting your original 10-ton fuel amount.

or.... they were in the process of building bombs. (or what you said, but probably bombs).

You only need 5% enriched for that.

No one in the US government was claiming that Iran had nuclear weapons. The stated reason is that they were close to having nuclear weapons based on the current rate of uranium enrichment, anywhere from a few weeks to a few months. Of course we may never know whether that's really true.

> The stated reason is that they were close to having nuclear weapons

No the US was claiming: "We continue to assess Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and that Khamenei has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003, though pressure has probably built on him to do so." in it's 2025 Threat Assessment. The reports believes they were not working on them and Khamenei has the final authority to restart the program which he had not done. However, they believe there was growing pressured to do so.

Trump just gave the guy reason to green light a weapons project he had so far not wanted.

[pdf] https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ATA-202...

The predicate that Iran has them but would show restraint is the same that same that they don't have them but will show restraint and not use desperate measures like blowing up the entire Middle Eastern oil production and distribution network and ports and not use dirty bombs.

Which shows how much of BS the pro-war argument was to begin with.

Iran has “Death to America” as an hymn. It is commonly accepted that a nation directly threatening others of death deserves the war.

Funny you should say that. The US has Bomb Iran as a parody of Barbara Ann, available on CD:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bomb_Iran

So apparently it's humourous to kill.

It's not like for like, but if you have a rabid population with low education being told to say stuff like this, they will, just because of social pressure and brainwashing.

Related, example of that brainwashing at scale:

- Killing people bad, but patriotic as a soldier.

- Killing people fine on TV, procreational entertainment bad.

- People told what to wear bad, but telling people they must be clothed, good.

- Religion says no killing, or protect those not of the same religion. People still kill, seen as no conflict of interest at all.

- Hording wealth seen as successful, yet society and the world has people suffering and illegal immigration as a consequence of not having it.

- People who don't work are grifters, but most people secretly want to quit their job and not work. Told to see the non workers as people sponging off society.

- Forced to work until your health fails, seen as acceptable.

Point being, no moral high ground because we're all brainwashed.

> They chant "Death to America" and "Death to Israel" every week (on Fridays) in Iran led by the Iranian government.

vs.

> Some band in the USA wrote a song about bombing Iran in 1980.

Yeah, those are completely equal.

Result 2 of 9 for "Death to America".

Do you like it when people quote you out of context? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44342393

It doesn't matter if it's true at this point. The US can not involve themself in every fucking war for their own motives, just by calling "Bombs" they did this a few times to often. I really hope this is going to have consequences for orange man.

if iran had nukes, israel and america wouldnt have dared bomb it. iran wasnt even close, and they must be kicking themselves for that now

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