How'd That Get There?

International Atomic Energy experts have found unexplained plutonium and enriched uranium traces in a nuclear waste facility in Iran and have asked Tehran for an explanation, an IAEA report said Tuesday.

The report prepared for next week's meeting of the 35-nation IAEA also faulted Tehran for not cooperating with the agency's attempts to investigate suspicious aspects of Iran's nuclear program that have lead to fears it might be interested in developing nuclear arms. As well, the four-page paper made available to The Associated Press confirmed that Iran continues uranium enrichment experiments in defiance of the U.N. Security Council.

I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for a good explanation. The Iranians ran their nuclear program as a covert operation until three years ago, and there's good reason to believe that Iran intends to obtain and utilize nuclear weapons. That they've discovered these materials is not a good sign.

However, I would question the level of enrichment in the traces found. It would be interesting to see whether the material was low enriched, high enriched, or weapons grade uranium. That plutonium was also found is disturbing and further examination of where the materials were sourced.

This could be a test by the Iranians to see how the world would react to the presence of precursor materials to a nuclear weapon. Given the lack of resolve by the powers that be, if I were Iran, I'd know that time is the only limiting factor to obtaining nuclear weapons as of this moment. Just how much time is necessary to stockpile the necessary amount of weapons grade materials is a function of how large an enrichment program is operational and whether the Iranians obtained those materials from third parties.

In any event, it's only a matter of time before they declare that they have nuclear weapons and there's isn't anything the world can do about it. We know that they've got the means to produce them - having put their enrichment production systems in operation and were adding to the capacity as they've previously announced as scheduled. The rest of the world lacks the will to do anything about the situation anyways, so making such an annoucement would not fundamentally alter the calculus. The IAEA can't do anything, and the UN is not going to act when Russia and China are running interference for the Iranians to deter any resolution that is stronger than a weak worded statement. The US is in no position to act with the domestic political situation such as it is.

So, we are one step closer to the abyss.