Centrifuging Iran

by Stephen Fleischman

George W. Bush is not going to stand for Iran getting a nucular weapon. No Siree. He’s not going to let it happen.

He has two US aircraft carriers and a flotilla of warships in the Persian Gulf right now, for previously unannounced exercises, playing military games, to see to it that Iran stops enriching uranium.

George Bush would like to think he can control the world’s nuclear power.

But the genie is out of the bottle, and has been for some time. Let’s review the bidding on the nuclear problem.

The United States didn’t have a dog in the fight until December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor day, after which the Manhattan Project went into full gear. It kicked off the race for an atomic weapon.

The United States demonstrated its victory in that race when it dropped “Little Boy” on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and “Fat Man” on Nagasaki on August 9th. It is estimated that 140,000 died in Hiroshima and roughly 74,000 in Nagasaki, mostly civilians.

That attack ended World War II with a bang so that the Cold War with the Soviet Union could begin with a whimper.

The United States was triumphal with its monopoly of the bomb and hugged the secret close to the chest. But it is in the nature of secrets to be exposed.

The Soviet Union exploded its first atomic weapon in August of 1949.

The Soviet Union had some good scientists, and whether they devised an atomic bomb on their own or stole the secret from us is still a matter of speculation. Scientific information has a way of proliferating.

Maybe they got a little help from a self-confessed stoolie, David Greenglass, a sergeant in the US Army assigned to the Manhattan Project. Judging from the sketch of the atom bomb that he showed to the FBI and claimed to have passed on to the Russians, it doesn’t look as though he gave them very much. Nevertheless, he fingered his sister and brother-in-law, Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, who paid the ultimate price, executed as traitors to their country. Whether they were Soviet spies or just a couple of idealistic American communists, made scapegoats, may be debatable.

By January of 1950, President Harry Truman ordered the development of the hydrogen bomb and by November of ’52 it was successfully tested.

True to form, in August of 1953, the Soviet Union tested its first hydrogen bomb.

And so it went. It wasn’t long before the nuclear club was formed and the dance of death continued.

Currently, eight states have successfully detonated nuclear weapons, but the “Big Five”, the United States, Russia (formerly Soviet Union), the United Kingdom, France and China are considered to be “nuclear weapons states”, an internationally recognized status conferred by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

India, Pakistan and North Korea are non-signatory states of the NPT.

Israel is in a class by itself. It is widely believed to have an arsenal of more than 200 nuclear weapons, the only country in the Middle East to have them, but they don’t want to talk about it, and we let them get away with that.

In 1977, when Saddam Hussein was developing a nuclear facility at Osirak, 11 miles southeast of Baghdad, Israel frowned upon the idea. In 1981, in a musically enhanced preventive strike, entitled Operation Opera, the plant was crippled by Israeli aircraft. The job was finished by American aircraft during the 1991 Gulf War.

Yes, this takes us to Iran, the magical Persian kingdom.

Iran has been enriching uranium. They don’t deny it. They say it is for peaceful purposes. And nobody believes them. Why should they? Iran has plenty of oil. Why would they need nuclear power? Why don’t they come clean and tell the truth. Just say, “We need nuclear weapons for defense. If you’re a small nation, and you’re not waving a ding-dong atom bomb around, you’re likely to get hit by the US of A. Take a look at Iraq. Take a look at North Korea. We’re the third wheel on the “axis of evil”. Kim Jong-il got his weapon just in time. Now the US is willing to talk politely with North Korea.”

“Our people are not going to allow their nuclear rights to be seized,” said Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian President. He insisted that Iran’s decision to continue its nuclear program was irreversible and that his country could not be treated like Iraq. Furthermore, he threatened, western opposition to Iran’s decision would cost them dearly.

Would George Bush take this as a threat? He said he was working on a diplomatic solution, but was skeptical that one could be found.

“The use of force is the last option for any president. You know we have used force in the recent past to secure our country,” President Bush said. “All options are on the table.”

When have you heard that before?