Iran Will Begin Enriching Uranium at Higher Level in Days | Hacker News Reader

Iran Will Begin Enriching Uranium at Higher Level in Days

nytimes.com

18 pointswoodgrainz18 comments

The US did a really great job teaching Iran about the consequences of developing nuclear weapons with how it's handling of North Korea. Libya is also relevant.

No nukes: bullying and aggression, potential overthrow of your state.

Nukes: friendly letters, personal visits to your territory, standing down on military posture.

Iran would be fools not to develop nuclear capabilities just based on their observations of the consequences for failing to.

What makes you think Iran will conclude that one of the determinant variables is nuclear capability? From a game theoretic perspective that's a pretty huge leap.

edit: to rephrase, what evidence is there that Iran's actions are based upon the conclusion that the current push towards peace on the Korean peninsula (which is also being pushed by China, South Korea, and Japan, in addition to the US) would not be happening if not for the nuclear capability developed by North Korea?

There isn't really any evidence that demonstrates that Iran are attempting to develop nuclear weapons, despite decades of intense scrutiny. Their public reasoning for their nuclear program is and has always been to provide internal energy security. In fact, it was the USA started their civilian nuclear program, but later reneged on agreements after the Iranian revolution.

The original purpose of the nuclear energy program in the US was so they could have any number of facilities able to create nukes at a moment's notice. It was just a happy coincidence that we could also draw power from these reactors.

Nowadays, we have reactor designs that can't be leveraged for weapons manufacturing. But that doesn't mean that other countries won't try the old US strategy.

The situation is very different. If a war starts up with North Korea, millions of South Koreans will die within the first few hours (and Seoul would be completely wiped off the map). Nuclear weapons are an issue, but even a half-dozen or dozen nuclear warheads is insignificant in comparison to the conventional warfare bloodbath that would result if war broke out.

Iran's position is much different for many reasons.

1. When things really heat up, Iran will block the Straight of Hormuz like they always do. While the US isn't using Arab oil anymore, India, China, South Korea, Japan, and much of the rest of Asia get their oil through that straight. They'll be more than happy to have the US intervene (reducing political fallout).

2. A war in Iran won't have the same worldwide economic impact as the demolition of South Korea (and perhaps Japan). During the Iran-Iraq war, the Iranians attacked US Navy ships escorting transport ships. The US destroyed or disabled most of their navy in one day in retaliation. It won't be that easy next time, but the world economic fallout can definitely be managed (this gets even better for the US if the pipeline across Saudi Arabia is finished by that time).

3. Israel is a nuclear power and is very likely to react to Iran's nuclear program progressing too far (other nuclear powers like Pakistan or India might also feel threatened). Getting involved before that point could reduce regional tension.

4. The Iran/Saudi Cold War is a proxy war between the US and Russia. The US can't afford to lose and only Iran having nuclear weapons would greatly change the power balance in favor of Russia.

5. If the US will have to go to war with Iran anyway, it's better to start things before nuclear weapons are a involved.

The big issue is that Iran has ties with Russia. Saudi Arabia has close ties with the US. In turn, those two countries are involved in a regional Cold War. The US can't afford to lose to Russia, so they build military bases and posture. There is more aggression to Iran than there was to Russia simply because Iran doesn't have the threat of mutually assured destruction.

Can anything good come of this?

Large scale military conflict would boost US GDP by a lot. Other than that, not really.

radio isotope cleaning services, canned fresh air industry, underground bunker manufacturing will definitely see uptick.

Wait, what? Do you have any evidence of that? I would have thought any increase in global instability would hurt most markets.

<joke_explainer> Gross Domestic Product is a measure of economic mass, not market health. The GP is implying that a large conflict would stimulate the production of wartime equipment such as weapons, which are very expensive and would (potentially) represent a large boost to our gross domestic product. The mobilization of the economy for wartime production during World War 2 is often attributed as ending the Great Depression because it put everyone to work in a command economy that superseded the depressed markets of the time. </joke_explainer>

Anything good coming out of this stopped at Trump's breaking the agreement. I am afraid we are delaying something very bad in that region.

The US has had a troubled relationship with Iran for some time.

No, the parent poster is correct. Things had started to go well. Then the US pulled out of the Iran nuclear deal, despite the fact that Iran was in full compliance with it.

> Iran was in full compliance with it

[citation needed]

If you trust Iran's word that yeah we're totally not developing nukes then sure.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Ac...

> The United States certified in April 2017 and in July 2017 that Iran was complying with the deal.[371][372] > On 13 October 2017 U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he would not make the certification required under the Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act, accusing Iran of violating the "spirit" of the deal[…]

I was checking the news here, but I didn't find an article that suggests that Iran violated the agreement:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-44032008

A long history of troubled relationships requires people who know that history and react to it. Right now we have people who care only about their personal feelings/cockfight than what consequences those actions will have. Just imagine broken Iran (+ other failed nations in that region) with a middle eastern's definition of fascism in Saudi Arabia, Water and Global Warming issues in the future and boy now everyone is going to be in trouble.

I beg to differ. It seems that when Obama made the Iran Deal, he secretly allowed Iran to continue to have access to the US banking system. [1] This allowed Iran to fund many different terrorist organizations.

1. https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/obama-iran-ter...

Maybe a good time to invest in the VIX?

https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/%5EVIX/

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