SUMMARY: Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is the worst deal possible because Iran probably already has the bomb. All 10 nuclear weapon states developed A-Bombs in 3-12 years, while Iran has been crashing on the bomb for 30 years. Nuclear testing to develop A-Bombs and even more sophisticated H-Bombs is unnecessary as component testing is sufficient. After getting the A-Bomb, timeline for H-Bomb development is 3-8 years, so Iran has been working long enough for more sophisticated nuclear weapons. Russia and North Korea are helping Iran, potentially accelerating Iran's developmental timeline for nuclear weapons and long-range missiles. Although the IAEA is too timorous to say so, evidence in the IAEA's 2011 report is a "smoking gun" that Iran does have a nuclear weapon program--and probably nuclear weapons. U.S. intelligence community leaders are too partisan to be trusted to give an objective assessment of Iran's nuclear weapons program to Congress and the American people. If Iran already has the bomb--unless we or our allies have excellent intelligence on the location of all their weapons and very high confidence that they can be destroyed--then large-scale military operations to disarm Iran are too risky. Iran and North Korea becoming nuclear weapon states requires the United States to invent a new national security strategy that relies less on blunt military force and more on the "black arts" of intelligence and the more subtle weapons of statecraft to achieve regime change. But the Obama Administration is unlikely to pursue such a strategy or other necessary measures, except perhaps hardening the electric grid against nuclear EMP attack--which is the worst threat. Obama's nuclear deal profoundly misunderstands Iran's ideology and nuclear capabilities, and therefore greatly increases the risk of a nuclear holocaust.
President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran is not only a bad deal, but the worst deal possible--because Iran probably already has the bomb.
Consider the facts.
Iran A-Bomb Overdue
Historically, judging from open source estimates, the time required for all other nations to develop atomic weapons is 3-12 years. Iran, which has had a nuclear program for over six decades and been crashing on the bomb for 25-30 years, should have developed atomic weapons by now.
For example:
The United States during the World War II Manhattan Project (1942-1945) built the first atomic bombs, two different designs, in just 3 years. In just 3 years, when the atomic bomb was merely a theoretical possibility, the U.S. invented the two basic A-Bomb designs--the gun-type A-Bomb used on Hiroshima and the implosion-type A-Bomb used on Nagasaki--that are the basis for all atomic (fission) weapons and are the technological gateway to more sophisticated and powerful thermonuclear (fusion) weapons, including the H-Bomb. In just 3 years, the U.S. invented and built the nuclear scientific and industrial infrastructure that mass produced thousands of A-Bombs and H-Bombs after 1945 during the Cold War.
Read Richard Rhodes'
The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987) and consider whether it seems plausible that--where the U.S. invented the bomb and its nuclear weapons infrastructure in just 3 years using 1930s and 1940s era science and technology--supposedly (according to the Obama Administration) Iran has not yet duplicated the U.S. feat of World War II. Yet Iran has access to copious unclassified materials on making and designing fission and fusion weapons. Yet Iran is informed and equipped with 21st Century science and technology. And Iran has been crashing on the bomb for 8-10 times longer than the U.S. WWII Manhattan Project--for 25-30 years.
Consider also that all other nuclear weapon states, some of them poorer and less sophisticated than Iran, have developed atomic weapons in 12 years or less:
--The USSR's atomic bomb project (1943-1949) tested its first A-Bomb in 6 years.
--The United Kingdom's A-bomb (1940-1952), slowed by politics and a bad economy, took 12 years. Mistakenly believing that their scientific and material contributions to the Manhattan Project would entitle the U.K. to share the A-Bomb with the U.S., when their hope was disappointed, the United Kingdom, economically shattered by World War II and politically divided by the peace, working on their own tested their first A-Bomb in 7 years.
--France independently, unassisted by anybody, developed A-Bombs (1956-1960) in 4 years.
--China's A-Bombs (1955-1964) took 9 years.
--Israel, at the time a nation less populous than Chicago, is variously estimated to have built A-Bombs (1956/59-1966) in 7-10 years. (A declassified CIA report retrieved and reported by the Nuclear Threat Initiative on June 3, 2009, assesses that Israel built its first atomic weapons in December 1966).
--India built A-Bombs (1967-1972) in 5 years.
--South Africa built A-Bombs (1967-1977/79) in 10-12 years. South Africa also designed a nuclear warhead for delivery by its medium-range missiles, before abandoning its nuclear weapons program.
--Pakistan tested for political reasons in 1998, but developed and deployed bombs much earlier (1972-1984) in 12 years. (According to a letter from A.Q. Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb, to General Zia al Haq, Pakistan's President, they had a uranium bomb by 1984.)
--North Korea tested in 2006, but developed a nuclear arsenal of bombs and missiles much earlier (1984-1992/94) in 8-10 years. (In an open hearing before Congress on January 25, 1994, then Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey testified that North Korea had already built a small number of atomic weapons, and would continue to build more.)
Iran started a nuclear program under the Shah in the 1950s, some 65 years ago. Revolutionary Iran began a crash program on atomic weapons, their version of the Manhattan Project, during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988).
President Obama claims the Mullahs still do not have atomic weapons, even though Iran has been working on the bomb for 65 years, crashing on the bomb for 25-30 years. Yet other nuclear weapon states, all ten of them, developed the bomb in 3-12 years.
Given everything we know about the history of nuclear weapons development and Iran's capabilities, the assessment that Iran does not yet have the bomb seems based more on wishful thinking than on prudence.
Nuclear Testing Unnecessary
Doesn't Iran need a full-yield explosive test to prove its nuclear weapon?
No. Component testing is sufficient.
The U.S. never tested the Hiroshima gun-type uranium bomb--Hiroshima was the test. The 1945 Trinity test at Alamogordo was of a more complicated implosion plutonium bomb used on Nagasaki, and it worked perfectly both times, at Trinity and Nagasaki. Israel and South Africa clandestinely deployed nuclear weapons without testing. Pakistan and North Korea deployed nuclear weapons years prior to testing.
The U.S. has not performed any nuclear test since 1992, 23 years ago, even though its aged weapons are being patched together and maintained using different materials and makeshift components--becoming over the years essentially different nuclear weapons from those that were originally deployed brand new decades ago. So the U.S. should know from its own experience that even highly sophisticated thermonuclear H-Bombs can be made and fielded for use without nuclear testing.
Iranian H-Bomb?
The A-Bomb is the technological gateway to more sophisticated nuclear weapons, including the H-Bomb. H-Bombs can be hundreds of times more powerful than the A-Bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The historical record indicates that, once the A-Bomb is achieved, development of the H-Bomb can be achieved in 3-8 years:
The U.S., after developing the first A-Bombs in 1945, tested the first H-Bomb in 1952--7 years later.
The USSR tested its A-Bomb in 1949 and its H-Bomb in 1953--4 years later.
The United Kingdom tested its A-Bomb in 1952 and its H-Bomb in 1957--5 years later.
France, after testing its A-Bomb in 1960, tested its H-Bomb in 1968--8 years later.
China, after its first A-Bomb test in 1964, tested its H-Bomb in 1967--3 years later.
India claimed that it tested a low-yield fusion (H-Bomb) weapon among its virtually simultaneous 5 nuclear tests in 1998. Pakistan allegedly tested a boosted-fission weapon (more sophisticated than an implosion A-Bomb) among its 6 near simultaneous tests competing with India in 1998. Pakistan claimed it could build H-Bombs in 3-6 years. So many tests conducted at once indicates both India and Pakistan were drawing from a stockpile of weapons developed and deployed long before the tests.
In 1986, Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu defected to the United Kingdom and provided evidence, reported in the press, that Israel has a wide array of sophisticated atomic and thermonuclear weapons. The respected Wisconsin Project estimates that Israel has the H-Bomb as well as small battlefield nuclear weapons, deliverable by artillery, including Enhanced Radiation Warheads (also called neutron warheads or the N-Bomb, designed to minimize explosive yield to reduce collateral damage to buildings, while maximizing output of neutrons and other radiation lethal to people. The N-Bomb was originally intended to stop Soviet tanks invading Western Europe while minimizing damage to civilian infrastructure.) In 1983, years before the Vanunu defection, Sam Cohen, the inventor of the U.S. N-Bomb who had very close ties to Israel, told me that he knew for a fact that Israel has the H-Bomb and neutron warheads.
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