I agree. All the knashing of teeth over India, Pakistan, N. Korea et al over their nuclear weapons programs was basically wasted time and energy. Once you HAVE the bomb, you can’t use it.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t stop anyone from WANTING it. Nor can it stop everyone from worrying about worst-case-scenarios, eg., terrorists getting hold of one (since they believe, with some degree of accuracy, that they cannot be “wiped off the face of the planet”).

I think it is also time to stop our foreign aid to Iraq, Egypt, Israel, etc. The country is bankrupt, our economy is NOT coming back since the last two administrations shipped most of our good jobs over seas.

I blame the democrats and republicans equally - they are both puppets for the federal reserve, goldman sachs, J.P. morgan, citibank, etc. I agree with Adam Kokesh (running for congress) when he said “I was sent off to falujah (Iraq) to fight in a foreign desert, it was there that I realized that the biggest threat against America is right here at home.”

You like most in the media, have no regard for our constitution, which prohibits us from entering into these wars for profit and it also demands that we fire the private federal reserve.

Just a guess here, but I think the Iranians might care. They might be crary enough to think whomever’s city they destroyed might get a little mad about that and make some kind of concerted effort to kick their ass.

Nukes make great defensive weapons, but unless you go in for total obliteration of all possible and potential opponents they make lousy offensive weapons.

According to Wikipedia,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun-type_fission_weapon
the minimum for a gun design is 20-25kg. Little boy at 80% enrichment was supposedly 39kg. An implosion design is more frugal.
I basically agree though on the timeline; my amateur reading is that sometime in 2010 (maybe earlier) the uncertainty in the amount of LEU produced would permit covert diversion to a hidden centrifuge line for final enrichment (months) to enough HEU to make a single bomb. i.e. they are a de-facto nuclear power right now or shortly for worst-case planning purposes. (armscontrolwonk (Rick linked one article) is as usual required reading, and comments are worth reading there.)

You’re making assumptions about motivations that are much less arguably plausible than they were two months ago - the recent coup in Iran suggests that power hunger is a strong motivation for the current leadership. They have to assume that Israel would retaliate massively against the entire Arab and Persian world if a nuclear explosion mysteriously destroyed Tel Aviv.

If they were intent on concentrating Pu239 it is likely that 2015 would be a reasonable date. But with U235 you can make a very simple but effective nuclear weapon. It could not be mounted on a missile, the bomb would be much too heavy but it would be simple. You or I could make one with information in Wikipedia.

Such a bomb would be best delivered in a small truck. Suicide driver is assumed and you would loose some of your yield with the detonation at ground level but still, it would take out a small city. You would be wasting most of your U235 but at that point, who cares?

This weapon could be completed by early next year. Once you have enough 95+% pure U235 (?10kg?) you only need a month or two to weaponize it and get it into Israel.

This is not a difficult concept. Why can’t our current leaders understand this? Are they over thinking the idea; assuming that Iran is making a super-duper fancy suitcase Pu239 nuke? Or assuming that the Iranians are stone age savages who can’t understand the technology? They are on a “Mission from God” and they have carte blanche moral authority to take out Israel and plunge the entire world into chaos for the appearance of the 12th Imam.

What can we do???