Friday, October 12, 2012

Nuclear Stupidity

Joe Biden would like you to know you have nothing to fear from a Nuclear Iran.  You see, just because they've figured out how to enrich Uranium doesn't mean anything since they couldn't possibly build, steal, or purchase a delivery system.

Several times last night, when asked about a nuclear Iran, Biden wanted to make very clear that simply having weapons grade uranium wouldn't make Iran dangerous because, "they don't have a weapon."  Apparently a country smart enough to figure out the mechanics (someone else already figured out the science) of weaponized fission couldn't possibly be smart enough to figure out the mechanics of how to make it actually blow up.  Or how to deliver it where you want it before it blows up.

Let's assume he's right.  Let's assume that Iran has some really smart, egg head scientists who can figure out how to enrich uranium, but couldn't possibly figure out how to deliver to, say, Israel and blow it up.  Well, let's look at Iran's options.

One: Iran, as the world's largest sponsor of terror could simply give some to their terrorist allies.  Do you think one of those groups might, just maybe, be able to figure out how to make it blow up?  Or maybe they could give some to Syria, where Assad probably does have at least a viable delivery system.  No, it couldn't get to us, but just two nukes is all it would take to "wipe Israel off the map" as Iran has stated they want to do.

Two: Iran, as the world's largest sponsor of terror could ask/instruct their terrorist allies to obtain a weapon for them.  We know that Russia has sold it's nuclear capable missiles on the black market (Okay, "Russia" may not, but we're pretty sure some of their weapons ended up there).  Do you think the terrorists might, just maybe, be able to obtain one of those weapons from the black market?

Three: Iran, as an ally of Syria (and therefore an indirect ally of Russia) and an economic ally (directly) of Russia could simply purchase one.  After all, Russia just declared that it was not going to renew the 1991 Arms Reduction treaty.  Do you think that they might be willing to sell a weapon to Syria who would then sell it to Iran?  Or even sell it directly to Iran?

This Administration's strategy to keep Iran from going nuclear seems to be "sanctions, sanctions, sanctions."  One problem- Sanctions don't work.  They don't ever work.  They have never worked.  The primary problem with sanctions is that they require a regime to care about its people, and any country we're likely to sanction is unlikely to so care about its citizens.  Iran, specifically, has shown that it is quite willing to kill its own citizens.  Do we think they'll care if their people starve?

So beyond sanctions, their strategy seems to be "hope they don't actually get nuclear material," and then, "hope that if they do, they can't figure out how to deliver it."  As people better at national security than I have said, "Hope is not a strategy."

Joe Biden had a lot of purely indefensible positions last night, and I'll be going through more of them today, but this one is perhaps uniquely dangers for the United States.

No comments:

Post a Comment