It wasn't a dodge, it was getting us back on track. Tangents about why suicide bombers don't care about dying are irrelevant to the discussion of Iran's possible military actions.

Quite the contrary; they are central to it.

Irrational is in the eye of the beheader, Mike. within the context of the west and it's values that word gets used often enough, and certainly they look and irrational, by our cultural POV. Not, however, by theirs.

The point you're dancing around so furiously is that of the mindset of the radical islamist. You do remember the 72 virgins bit, right? they don't really care, how many die, so long as their goal is had.

A relative handful of these will ruin your whole day, as we have already discovered. A government run by such zelots with a few nukes at their disposal, will screw up an entire weekend.

Nice dodge. But it's doesn't mesh.

It wasn't a dodge, it was getting us back on track. Tangents about why suicide bombers don't care about dying are irrelevant to the discussion of Iran's possible military actions.

Unhappy 6 year olds don't decide whether or how to deploy nuclear weapons.

When you're planning strategy, you don't worry about what the soldier's motivations are, you assume they'll follow orders, so you worry about the motivations of those giving the orders. Iran, as far as I can see, has no motivation for using nuclear weapons against Israel.

Nice dodge. But it's doesn't mesh.
Why do kids as young as 6 start signing on to be suicide bombers? What's their motivation? What is the motivation of their families for promotion of the idea?

Clue: If they don't care if they die, they must be working toward something they believe is BEYOND death, no?

Without that moral certitude, all our weapons are just so many shiny piles of wasted metal.

So Clinton's posturing is just that -- posturing. When even the Republicans lack such conviction, what makes you think the Democrats would?

We need a president who acts tough when needed, because she *is* tough, not one who tries to *act* tough (and perhaps too much so) just because she thinks the polls will show its expected.

We do not worship Iran, we worship Allah. For patriotism is another name for paganism. I say let this land [Iran] burn. I say let this land go up in smoke, provided Islam emerges triumphant in the rest of the world.--Ayatollah Khomeini, Paymaha va Sokhanraniyha-yi Imam Khomeini (“Messages and Speeches of Imam Khomeini”) published by Nur Research and Publication Institute (Tehran, 1981)

Yeah, deterrence should work just fine on a theocratic government whose highest officials speak of Iran becoming a nuclear shahid.

Those who put their faith in deterrence are forgetting something else.

Suppose Iran doesn't put a bomb on a missile, but instead hands it to Hezbollah, who puts in on a truck and blows it up in Israel. Who do we nuke? Are you telling me the UN is going to say, well obviously it was Iran, go right ahead?

Suppose six months later we can prove to the UN's satisfaction that Iran was responsible? Do we nuke Tehran then, in cold blood?

Won't those in the West who opposed war in Afghanistan look for any possible out? They can impeach the evidence, or plead that innocent civilians in Tehran not be forfeit for the actions of a government they are not responsible for. Can you honestly see President Obama or President Hillary doing that? Even President McCain might hesitate to do such a thing.

Is there not the possibility that Russia and China would say, no matter how strong the evidence, that it's not strong enough--and might they not use their nuclear arsenals to deter the US?

This isn't the Cold War, where it was all going to be over in hours and ICBMs coming over the pole might as well have a return address stamped on them.

It took a major industrial power decades to do this.

It took the US 6 years (1939-1945) to produce and use a uranium bomb from scratch. It too another 7 years (1945-1952) to produce a 346kg device of the same yield, for a total of 13 years.

The Iranian nuclear program started in 1953 (with US help, btw), they had a uranium research reactor by 1967. In 1996 Iran was given plans for the constructions of a uranium conversion facility by China.

I know that this technology takes time and effort, I'm simply arguing that Iran isn't starting today from scratch, that there has already been considerable time and effort put into their development on nuclear technology. With a concerted national effort, Iran could probably develop a gun-type bomb less than a decade from now, possibly in only a matter of years. Though they would be hard-pressed to produce them in any large quantity.

Have fun in the survival shelters.

Which brings me to the only actual point I've been trying to make until we got sucked into insanity. If you believe they're irrational, then all this talk is simply war porn and playing stratego.

Ah Stratego, now there was a fun game. I should go out and buy that again.

Again, where do you think they're going to get this technology. It doesn't spring from the brow of Zeus. It took a major industrial power decades to do this. Other than AQ Khan, who do you think is going to give this to them?

Can we really just stop this? I'm simply not arguing that there is technology to do this. I'm simply arguing it takes time and effort which you seem to have a firm belief is just not the case. That's great. I can't argue with someone who believes there's essentially zero barrier to sophisticated nuclear weapons and we're all just waiting on death's door for the feather to drop in Iran and they can start swarming over nuclear tipped ICBMs (which apparently are trivial to make).

It's like I'm reliving the 80's all over again.

Same here, so we can be dueling Physicists/EE.

Getting your hands on the fissile material is the hard part.

No, there are a lot of other hard parts to do. Again, define your problem. If it's building a stationary bomb, then give me a three story house and I could build it. If it's something mobile, then things get harder, but you're extremely limited in your delivery ability because of the weight. If it's something you can shoot over in a rocket, then it's pretty darn hard to accomplish.

I would really appreciate a cite that gives the 30-40% failure rate for US nuclear weapons that you state.

Well, I'm going to have to withdraw my claim as I can't find documentation for it. Consider it toast, since I can't back it up. Still, the point is that there is a non-zero probability of things going wrong in any of the number of sophisticated pieces that all have to work - even for the US. Which is why we have a zillion bombs and why people are getting very touchy about the US not having tested due to the NPT, not to mention our aging stockpiles. A country like Iran isn't going to have anywhere near the probabilities we have.

But still, since I have no doc to back it up, I guess we'll just have to assume they're supermen and they have 100% chance with their single missile. And in that case, you either assume they are completely irrational because the retaliation would be devastating or you assume that they're rational and wouldn't perform a first strike. If you assume they're irrational then no deterrence is going to matter. You can tell them you're going to turn Iran into a glass parking lot and it doesn't matter to the irrational actor. Which brings me to the only actual point I've been trying to make until we got sucked into insanity. If you believe they're irrational, then all this talk is simply war porn and playing stratego. It's posturing and puffing up the chest. If your desire is akin to Kristol to whack 'em before they get the bomb and do the irrational, then I'm sorry but my opinion is you're a loon and there's really nothing to discuss. If you believe they're rational, then we're again just pushing war porn and playing stratego.

It's all silly, given Israel can take care of their own interests and don't need our help in deterrence at all.

Dude, we don't use these type of weapons.

We don't use these anymore, but we did use one in combat, and we did test 3 other designs, and for a long time we had a rather large stock of them.

We don't use them because plutonium can be made on demand while Uranium must be mined and enriched, and you need a relatively large amount of it for what you get out, and it doesn't scale well. None of that means they can't be made or used by Iran.

If the Iranians want to build Little Boy then they will have to find some way to deliver a stunningly huge payload - even accounting for advances in technology.

In the late 1950's the US had developed the 364kg W9 and the 110kg W33 nuclear artillery shells, which used the gun-method. Again those weights are well within the payload capacity of Iran's Shahab-3 rockets.

But of greater import to the discussion, what does the bomber think he's gaining by his act since he'll be dead?

When you're planning strategy, you don't worry about what the soldier's motivations are, you assume they'll follow orders, so you worry about the motivations of those giving the orders. Iran, as far as I can see, has no motivation for using nuclear weapons against Israel.

I think you severely overestimate how hard it is to construct a fission weapon

Frankly, I think so, as well. Particularly, given the 'keep trying to we get it right of we drop dead' mentality that they seem to be operating under.

It's all for allah, of course.

Plutonium is metallurgically complex, to be sure, but that can be mitigated with the admixture of gallium.