Just a Bump in the Beltway

I ran across an interesting piece in the WaPo yesterday about the trials and tribulations of the Iranian nuclear program. Hat tip to Kos for the pointer. The columnist is one David Ignatius. I suspect Melanie would know more about his pedigree than I, but the tone of this piece comes closer to carrying water for the neocons than I like. But if so, then the raw numbers tell a very different tale indeed. One that dovetails extremely well with what I have been learning at sites like Arms Control Wonk that are WMD-literate. So I'll hit the high points here, and do the math.

Iran's Uranium Glitch

Intelligence analysts believe that Iran is encountering technical difficulties in mastering the complex process of uranium enrichment. That means the West may have a bit more time than previously expected to pursue a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear standoff.

The problem, according to intelligence officials, is that the centrifuges that are supposed to enrich uranium are overheating. Some are breaking down and must be replaced. As a result, Iran has not ramped up its enrichment effort as quickly as analysts had expected.

This assessment is based on recent conversations with analysts from several Western nations that are watching the Iranian program closely and on an unpublished report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that was completed Aug. 31.

The Iranians broke IAEA seals at Natanz in January and began enriching uranium. It's a highly complex process, in which uranium gas is injected into the linked array of centrifuges that spin at roughly the speed of sound. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced April 11 that the Iranians had succeeded in enriching uranium to an initial level of 3.5 percent, and in June Iran told the IAEA it had achieved 5 percent enrichment. That's far below the 90 percent level needed for a nuclear weapon ...

Jeeze.

1.5% increase in quality over a period of six months. Or, 3% per year.

Hmm.

At that rate, it will take Iran approximately 29 years to develop the level of enrichment neccessary for a working bomb.

Western analysts had expected that the Iranians would move quickly to expand the enrichment effort to meet their near-term goal of having six cascades of 164 centrifuges each, or a total of nearly 1,000 centrifuges. The danger here was technological mastery rather than raw output of uranium. Even with 3,000 centrifuges operating, intelligence analysts estimate that it would take two to three years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb.

The Aug. 31 IAEA report, marked "Restricted Distribution," noted that since June, Iran had been feeding uranium into a small 20-centrifuge test cascade "for short periods of time," and that it had conducted various tests in June, July and August of the initial 164-centrifuge cascade. "The installation of a second 164-machine cascade is proceeding," the report noted, but it added that Iran planned to test the second cascade in September without injecting uranium.

OK.

They now have roughly 1/20 of the number of centrifuges it will take to get material for a single bomb in two to three years.

They plan to go to 1/10 of enough for a minimum time-to-working-bomb of 2-3 years, by the end of September.

At that rate of speed, I doubt we're going to Metro DC vanishing in a fireball this year or this decade.

And it looks like September is going to slip.

What happened to slow the expected pace? IAEA analysts have told U.S. and European officials that it appears the centrifuges are overheating when uranium gas is injected. "The Iranians are unable to control higher temperatures, and after a short period they must stop because of higher temperatures. So far they haven't been able to solve this," says one Western intelligence official who has been briefed on the IAEA findings. In addition, this official said, some centrifuges "are simply crashing -- 10 or so have broken down and must be replaced."

Sheesh.

Looks like they're walking ground already trod by the hapless Iraqis under Saddam.

Building working, reliable nukes - even ONE nuke - is NOT trivial. It costs money, time, and talent out the wazoo.

Why are we rattling sabers at these people? If they are actually our enemies, we should be actively encouraging them to flush good money down the toilet after bad.

It's not like they can't really hurt us. The smart money will be on replicating what Nasrullah has done already. Not glamorous, but deadly effective, as the IDF found out. Given this, they could use some time consuming and expensive diversions, not so?

If they actually do get working nukes, they're going to find out what the US and the FSU already know far better than they'd like to:

• No, you can't use them.

  Because all your Worst Nightmare enemies have them too, so all it'll get you is vaporized.

• The hidden costs will turn around and mangle you 40, 50, and 60 years down the road:
  • Decomissioning Hanford and cleaning up the Endless Mess.
  • Shipyards full of rusting useless subs you cannot just scuttle, much though you dream about it.
  • Add your own. The FSU and US are full of the horror stories, and our great-grandkids will still be cleaning the toxic crap out of the Augean Stables another hundred years from now.

Just leave these people alone and let "well enough" alone. They've been living under a theocracy for more than 25 years now, and that has to be a miserable way to live. They were showing some serious signs of getting sick and tired of having their affairs micro-managed by the mullahs before President Motor Mouth pissed in the swimming pool.

No need to decommission our own boomers just yet. Keep them running, in repair, replaced when need be.

If the Iranians are still full of piss and vinegar a decade or two hence, they'll just have to take a bite out of the same shit sandwich the Soviets had to eat for forty years running.

After three or four decades, the unwilling diner starts to choke on the meal. A "Happy Meal" it ain't. It really doesn't taste like victory at all.