Will there be a war on Iran?    
(Based on a talk given at Tufts University Apr.19, 2007)
Gary R. Goldstein
Professor of Physics and Astronomy
Tufts University

America is a military nation. That is its main business and purpose. It produces weapons. It sells weapons to other countries. It wages war and uses its weapons with mostly unreported profligacy. It kills people with a nonchalance that is beyond immorality. It spends as much money on its military budget as the rest of the world combined. In one pen stroke after another, the executive and Congress approve on the order of $100 billion so-called emergency funding for its current wars. We hear about none of the details. How much goes for armored humvees? Smart bombs? Huge air transport? How much goes for protecting private oil trucks and pumping facilities? How much goes to Halliburton and its many subsidiaries? How much for private security forces, formerly called mercenaries, which comprise a large fraction of warriors in Iraq? If any of these questions gets asked by Congress, we don't hear the answers. But, given how many pages of details would be in such a huge budget, the speed with which Congress rubber stamps its approval compels us to think that there is not much scrutiny. Compare that to the longwinded arguing over hurricane relief funding, education funds, science budgets, student loans, aid for cities, states, aid for AIDS, where perhaps hundreds of millions are involved. Doesn't anyone know the difference between 100 billion and 100 million? Each emergency funding bill would provide about 1 million to each government soldier. Do you think that is where the money goes? Think about some tradeoffs. 

So what does this have to do with Iran? It helps us to see that US foreign policy is not just facilitated by military power. It is led by military power. Where does that power get exercised next? Iran is the target. Why do I say this? Of course I am not alone. Numerous articles including Seymour HershÕs New Yorker piece over a year ago, have drawn attention to the military buildup and to the group of administration officials who are determined to go to war with Iran to bring about Òregime changeÓ. 

Let me take a media watcher stance first. Just as in the buildup to the preemptive war on Iraq, the amount of news coverage increased radically as the invasion approached. In hindsight much of that was just administration hype, as the NY Times admitted in the case of several of its key reporters (particularly Judith Miller). For over a year now the media have presented the administrationÕs message - Iran is a nuclear threat and must be stopped. Iran is a supporter of terrorism. Iran is providing weapons to the Iraqi insurgents (now charging them with arming both Shiite and Sunni insurgents) and now the Taliban in Afghanistan (NY Times, Michael Gordon, Apr.18, 2007). The NY Times recently had an article about how Iran's nuclear weapon pursuit is leading to all of its neighbors wanting nuclear weapons. The statements of Ahmadinijad, the Iran prime minister, seem to play right into the hands of those who want to go to war. Recently he claimed that Iran was ready to go into industrial scale production of enriched uranium. This claim was questioned by experts in nuclear power and weapons (AP, Apr.18, 2007). On Apr.16, 2007 there were articles in the US press about Iran putting out bids for 2 nuclear reactors. There was also a story about how the US is seeking the whereabouts of an ex-FBI agent last seen in Iran. On the next day Reuters reported that Iran announced it would deploy an advanced destroyer, a fast ship that carries torpedoes to protect other ships (recall the USS Cole sinking and the exocet missiles in the Falklands war). Why would they want such a ship? On Apr.18 the Boston Globe editorial was a plea for diplomacy over saber rattling, but accepted the premise that Iran may be seeking to produce nuclear weapons. What is the threat from and to Iran? Am I reading this barrage of media articles too hysterically? I do not think so. Again, to add to the confusion and fear, on Apr.18 a draft copy of the latest IAEA inspection concludes that Iran actually has some 1300 centrifuges running to enrich uranium. The US is now pushing a deal to install a demonstrably ineffective anti-missile system in Poland and the Czech Republic, presumably to counter the threat from Òrogue statesÓ, especially Iran, as if the Iranians will soon be able to launch sophisticated ICBMs at Europe. And the day of this lecture, Apr.19, there is a front-page article in the NY Times about an awful Iranian Supreme Court decision. The same morning I heard that Defense Secretary Gates was in Israel discussing the Iran issue, while side stepping the Israel-Palestine crisis.

Consider the actual situation. Iran lies between Iraq and Afghanistan, US military threats. Its southern border is the Persian Gulf. Two years ago Sudir Chadda reported for the India Daily that the ÒUS will have three major carrier groups stationed on and around Middle East. Each of these carrier groups carry nearly 85 aircrafts and is capable of deliver precision-guided munitions. In addition there are anti-submarine aircrafts, airborne-early-warning and rotary-wing aircrafts. Because in the air refueling capabilities these aircrafts can operate from a long distance. The carrier groups are independent and can operate indefinitely. U.S. military air bases in Turkey, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and the three carrier groups will create a formidable force far superior to any military in the region.Ó That is an understatement. The US has in place in the Persian Gulf the largest and most expensive nuclear-ready military force in the world.

A Carrier Battle Group is a military city, with a gigantic aircraft carrier, essentially a mobile airport, at its center. The carrier is a nuclear powered vessel 20 stories high, with 70 to 80 planes and 6000 crewmembers. Accompanying that juggernaut is an armada - several supply ships, pairs of nuclear missile carrying cruisers and destroyers, as well as one or two attack submarines, capable of carrying dozens of nuclear cruise missiles. These two Carrier Battle Groups in the Persian Gulf are threatening Iran right now. Either one of those can destroy all of Iran as well as most of the Middle East with its nuclear weaponry. And the Bush-Cheney government is threatening to use these Armageddon machines. This is what administration officials, as well as many members of Congress and presidential candidates, mean when they say, Òall options are on the tableÓ. This situation is horrendous. The US media are shirking their duty to inform. Much of what we know comes from the foreign press (for example, ÒTarget Iran: US able to strike in springÓ, The Guardian, Feb.10, 2007). The one hint of this US weapons build up that made the US news was the barely noted collision of an attack submarine, the Newport News, with a Japanese freighter in the Straits of Hormuz on Jan.8. This location is within 25 miles of Iran. The reporters did not ask why the sub was there. There was presumably little damage to the sub and scanty reference to the condition of the freighter. The story disappeared the next day. Eventually the US captain was reassigned. As an important footnote, at a recent meeting of Gulf leaders, many so-called allies, a statement was made that these countries will not cooperate with military action against Iran.

Intimidation with a nuclear-armed armada is not diplomacy; it is provocation. The Bush-Cheney administration is poised to start another unjustifiable war. There have even been incursions into Iranian space for several years, as Seymour Hersh reported last year.

What of the charges that Iran is building nuclear weapons? Calling IranÕs nuclear program a Ònuclear crisisÓ or a Ònuclear standoffÓ paints a picture of atomic weapons at the ready. This is as far from the truth as were the Òweapons of mass destructionÓ that were presented as the reason to start war on Iraq. The Iranians do not have nuclear weapons. They do not have the ability to make nuclear weapons. They are in the early stages of development of facilities that can enrich uranium, a necessary step in preparing fuel for nuclear reactors or for nuclear weapons. They have one unfinished example of a reactor (the Russians, as of now, have not supplied the last elements for that reactor, claiming that Iran has not paid their bill) and long-term plans for 2 more. Under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, to which Iran is a signatory, they have the right to produce fuel for a reactor (4 to 5% enrichment). The Bush administration has insisted that their purpose is to enrich fuel for nuclear bombs (90 to 95% enrichment). Such a goal requires a far more extensive enrichment facility than exists at this point. 

What is involved in making nuclear weapons? There is a series of steps that vary in difficulty. Raw uranium ore must be extracted from mines and chemically purified to form Òyellow cakeÓ. (Recall the role of yellow cake in the Valerie Plame incident.) That must then be ground and refined to a fine dust that can be subjected to treatment with fluorine gas, leading to the gaseous substance, uranium hexafluoride. The uranium in that gas is 99.3% U238 and 0.7% U235, the bomb material. U235 is the isotope that can fuel the nuclear fission process in a reactor and in a weapon. Enrichment is the process by which the ratio (U235/U238) is changed Ð 3 to 5% U235 for a reactor, 90% or more for a bomb. Enrichment is the most expensive and massive part of the process. In the Manhattan project during World War II there was a very large-scale industrial facility of gaseous diffusion structures that was the major expense of the US atomic bomb effort. Centrifuges are the somewhat smaller scale, more efficient contemporary variant on that system. Once some 100 to 200 pounds of 90% enriched uranium is obtained a bomb can be fashioned fairly easily. At this point the Iranians can barely do the enrichment job. They have low-level production of the gas. They are known to have from a few hundred to a thousand centrifuges. AhmadinijadÕs claim is that they are about to deploy industrial level production Ð at least 3000, but they eventually would need 30,000-50,000 for production of enough fuel for 5 or 6 atomic bombs per year. Even if their goal were to make weapons, and they progressed at a reasonable pace toward that goal, experts estimate that it would take anywhere from 3 to 8 years. They have had many problems over the last several years getting the centrifuges to perform adequately. They are extremely delicate, high precision instruments that revolve at enormous rates and can flies apart from tiny imperfections in the material or from very slight contamination of the gas.

How do we know any of this? The IAEA, the UNÕs nuclear treaty enforcement agency, had regular extensive inspections of any facilities they chose before the US pushed for sanctions. Those inspections showed no violation of treaty requirements against weapon development. The surest way to guarantee that no weapons are developed is through those inspections. In response to the US bullying, Iran reduced access to the inspectors, although staying within the requirements of the NPT. This is one of the many ways that the US is goading Iran into returning the Bush administrationÕs belligerence. 

Will the US go to war on Iran? There are many hawks in the Bush-Cheney White House who are determined to destroy the Iranian government. This is for reasons of control of the Middle East and for revenge. Iran remains a symbol of stubborn resistance to absolute military, economic and cultural control by the US. For some of our ÒleadersÓ, this is intolerable. (Consider IraqÕs Sadaam, PanamaÕs Noriega, LibyaÕs Khadafy, 4 decades of severe sanctions and assassination plans for CubaÕs Castro, and perhaps next, VenezuelaÕs Chavez.) All of our military might is ready to strike, albeit without hundreds of thousands of ground troops. That lack of troops is within the Rumsfeld-Cheney war-fighting strategy and suggests the use of devastating weaponry, including nuclear arms. Can we stop this? I hope that by continually questioning the mediaÕs hype in service of the hawks we will heighten awareness of the subterfuge. And by pressuring our representatives to formally oppose a war on Iran, to take the military option Òoff the tableÓ, we may still be able to thwart the latest plans for an unjustifiable, horrendously destructive and destabilizing war.

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