Proliferation Scare

Is it time to just pull back and focus on defending ourselves from nuclear terror attack? If so, we better become energy independent real quick because once Iran had nukes, they will take over the Middle East and OPEC will be no more.

From IBD:
Posted 4/13/2006

Nuclear Terror: And so, the countdown begins. Media savants insist that Iran is "years away" from building a nuclear bomb. But at least one government official thinks there's a lot less sand left in the hourglass.

Many are perplexed by Iran's refusal to contemplate compromise in its nuclear program. They shouldn't be. Iran's leaders are buying time, plain and simple. And they might need a lot less of that than thought.

As Iran's armed forces chief, Gen. Hassan Firouzabadi, darkly warned Thursday: "When a people master nuclear technology and nuclear fuel, nothing can be done against them."

Message received. But, of course, we're assured that Iran's nuclear push is for only "peaceful purposes." Or that the threat is overblown by warmongering neoconservatives in the White House.

Also on Thursday, The New York Times, quoting several "nuclear analysts," suggested Iran might be able to build a bomb in "5 to 10 years, and some analysts have said it could come as late as 2020."

How about a bit more than two weeks? In fact, Iran's drive to become a nuclear power seems to be accelerating.

Currently, Iran has just 164 centrifuges up and running. Centrifuges are used to enrich uranium for use in a nuclear reaction, like those in bombs. But it plans to have 3,000 working soon. After that, at some unspecified time, it wants 54,000.

"Using those 50,000 centrifuges, they could produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in 16 days," according to Stephen Rademaker, U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation.

No, we're not saying the Iranians will have a working bomb in two weeks. We are saying, however, that no one really knows for sure how far along they are. We don't know, for instance, how many centrifuges they have.

Nor do we know what nuclear know-how they've already gotten from other rogue states — like North Korea or the nuclear network of A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program.

A Khan connection would be particularly worrisome. Iran was aided by Khan and the Pakistani government in a nuclear quest that started in 1988 and lasted at least until 1996, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. That means Iran might be closer to becoming a nuclear power than people think. And the world might have a lot less time to react than it wants.

This is a real and present danger. If Iran arms itself with nuclear weapons, it's clear other Mideast countries will want them too.

We know that the Khan ring sold or offered nuclear technology to Libya, Syria, Iran and Iraq. The respected Defense and Foreign Affairs Daily reported in 2003 that Saudi Arabia also was in talks with Pakistan to place nuclear-tipped Chinese-built missiles with a range of more than 3,000 miles in the Saudi Kingdom.

Once Iran gets a nuclear weapon, the proliferation genie will be out of the bottle. A region full of hateful, unstable regimes that cheers openly for our bloody demise is unpleasant enough. Add nuclear weapons, and it becomes a real nightmare.

Those who don't see the danger in this seem have forgotten the lesson of 1939, when it was thought Hitler would be happy just taking a bite out of Czechoslovakia. Those who failed to act were horribly wrong then; their intellectual heirs are horribly wrong now.