It didn’t take long for the optimistic story about Iran’s nuclear program in yesterday’s New York Times to turn sour. The paper reported on Wednesday that talks were resuming between the International Atomic Energy Agency and Iran about resuming inspections of the Islamist regime’s nuclear facilities had resumed. It also noted the report in an Iranian news agency about Tehran diverting its efforts from a bomb to research, a development that might cause the West to treat the issue with less urgency. But, less than 24 hours later, the IAEA announced the talks with Iran had failed and that the United Nations watchdog was still unable to inspect the Parchin site where it suspects military applications of the project including nuclear triggers are being constructed. That means the Iranians are free to go on pushing toward their goal without any annoying inspectors forcing them to hide their work.
This is the sort of development that should cause the Obama administration to drop the air of complacency about the other nuclear talks being held with Iran by the P5+1 group whose goal is to talk the regime out of its nuclear weapons dream. The Iranians have already used those talks to stall the West for over a year and there is nothing to indicate that they view the next round of discussions as anything but another opportunity to buy more time until their bomb is ready.
If that isn’t scary enough, as Lee Smith writes today in Tablet, there is yet another reason to believe that the belated sanctions imposed by the West won’t be enough to stop Iran: North Korea.
As Smith notes, the nuclear test conducted by the North Koreans is more than a threat to South Korea, Japan and the rest of the Far East. Given the close ties between Pyongyang and Tehran, it could be, as one U.S. government told the Times earlier this week that “the North Koreans are testing for two countries.”
Smith makes a strong case for belief that Iran already has access to the North Korean nuclear program and that if they were able to pay for that, there’s no reason why they won’t be able to buy a bomb. Despite the problems the sanctions have imposed on Iran, they still have more than enough cash, oil and other commodities to pay a poverty-stricken and isolated North Korean regime anything they want in exchange for what they need. The fact that this is the third such North Korean test has conducted also raises suspicions that what they are doing is at Iran’s behest rather than for their own nuclear ambitions.
Given the secretive nature of both North Korean and Iranian society, there is much that we don’t know about what either country is up to. But informed speculation about the history of cooperation between the two regimes is pointing toward the North Koreans assisting the Iranian effort to match their success in creating a bomb despite the determination of the international community to prevent them from doing so.
The North Korean precedent by which a rogue regime gulled the United States into thinking they would abide by agreements to stop their nuclear program already was a strong argument against the sort of compromise that the European Union has been pushing for in the P5+1 talks. But if the North Koreans are actively aiding the Iranian effort, the mindset in Washington that there is plenty of time to wait and negotiate before a red line is crossed by Tehran may turn out to be terribly wrong.
The notion that President Obama’s implied threat of the use of force against Iran would be enough to convince the ayatollahs to give up was always something of a fantasy. But when you combine Iran’s progress with the help the North Koreans may be providing them, the scenario starts looking very grim. If, as Smith rightly notes, the president owes the Israelis an apology for working so hard to restrain them from forestalling the Iranian threat, that will be cold comfort for a world that has become a lot more dangerous on his watch.
Iran likely has dibs on the DPRK's 7 kiloton 'gadget'. A gadget is a non weaponized functional device. The next step is to weaponize it to the point where it's deliverable by 'something' be it truck or ship. This gives them a 'nuclear capability' to the extent they can transport a several thousands pound bomb with 3 or 4% efficiency akin to the crude device dropped on Hiroshima. They certainly don't have the ability to drop it from a plane or launch it from a missile, yet.
"They certainly don't have the ability to drop it from a plane or launch it from a missile, yet." I wouldn't bet my life and my family's life on that. We clearly are late in stopping them. Are we too late?
I doubt they have the lift capacity to hoist a 4 ton bomb into the air and deliver it somewhere. I would have to guess that North Korea and Iran will have to get a reliable device down to 1 ton in order to be able to stuff it on a missile with sufficient range to lob it from inside Iran. They're not going to entrust their first weapon to someone else.
So I guess the "toughest sanctions in the history of sanctions," as Joe Biden told us in the VP debate, aren't exactly working.
I read about the 1930s and wonder how people could be so blind to the rising threat. Now I begin to understand how World War Two happened. A significant majority of the civilized world is eager to ignore reality…until it is too late. Ahmadinejad? Who's that? Shut up and let me watch Oprah.
The US right and the left and the EU equally guilty of negligence.
The number of dullards and momes among our fellow liberal Jews are a huge reason for the apathy in the face of Israel's now dealing with likely destruction. It seems that Romney's prediction was right on. "If Barack Obama is reelected, Iran will get nuclear weapons." And note that two of his three cabinet choices (Brennen and Hagel) are Israel hating soul mates.
It's not too late. Don't give up on Israel. Admittedly, most people can't face the facts : WW3 is about to begin – and even if it were a less all-out conflict, it's certain that Israel and the Middle East would be engulfed and the West's economy in ruins for a long time to come..
May God help the world if those crazy Iranian bastards get a nuclear bomb. I do believe they are even more bat s–t crazy than the North Koreans.
When I went to school, we practiced air-raid drills, where we would hide under our desks. Schools discontinued these drills, but continue having fire drills and shooter drills. The reason is we have no fear of a nuclear war. However, this attitude is false. When Israel destroyed Sadaam's nuclear reactor, the world condemned Israel. This implies that people want nations to build nuclear weapons. America is encouraging Iran to build nuclear weapons by our actions, in spite of our words that say otherwise. n nI have worked in the area of nuclear war, with a TOP SECRET security clearance. What people must understand is that if a nuclear bomb goes off nearby, quick action may save your life. If you are outside, get under a car; inside, get under a desk. How do we know a nuclear bomb was detonated nearby? We know by the intense light. Several minutes later the killer blast comes. If we look, we may become permanently blind. When the meteor fell in Russia, people saw the intense light. Instead of hiding under their desks, they rushed out to look and became injured. n nAlthough both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. had nuclear weapons, there never was a nuclear war because of our policy of MAD. This policy will not work if a Moslem nation like Iran has a nuclear bomb. We are making a very serious mistake with Iran. n