Is the Iranian nuke weapons program an illusion?

There is so much rubbish said about the supposed Iranian nuclear weapons program that it is a good idea to "review the bidding." about this.

Iran does have a nuclear power program, but:

"In 2012, sixteen U.S. intelligence agencies, including the CIA, reported that Iran was pursuing research that could enable it to produce nuclear weapons, but was not attempting to do so.^[15] The senior officers of all of the major American intelligence agencies stated that there was no conclusive evidence that Iran has made any attempt to produce nuclear weapons since 2003.^[16] In a 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, the United States Intelligence Community assessed that Iran had ended all "nuclear weapon design and weaponization work" in 2003.^[17] U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta stated in January 2012 that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons capability, but was not attempting to produce nuclear weapons"  wiki on Iran and weapons of mass destruction.

As you can see from my 2017 post linked below I have long thought that Iran does not have a nuclear WEAPONS production program and has not had one since 2003 when US occupation of Iraq eliminated the possibility of the survival of some elements of the earlier Iraqi nuclear weapons program eliminated by the UN inspections regime acting on US intelligence (I was involved) after the 1st Gulf War.  In 2003 the Ayatollah Khomeini ruled that an Iranian nuclear weapons program could no longer be justified as a deterrent in the absence of an Iraqi program.  He then cancelled authorization for the program.

The IAEA has not found that Iran has a nuclear WEAPONS program.  This is taken by the hawks as PROOF that the IAEA is not inspecting thoroughly enough.  On that basis it can never be proven that Iran does not have a nuclear WEAPONS program.

If that is so why is it that the notion persists that Iran does or did have before JCPOA a nuclear WEAPONS program? 

1.  The Israeli terror at the thought that Iran might secretly be constructing the necessary one or two nuclear weapons needed to destroy Israel drives the media IO campaign for maximum means and levels of pressure.  This has been an enormously successful campaign.  It has made the image of an Iranian program vivid and enduring

2.  Iranian cleverness.  The Iranian perception seems to have been that if the West, especially the Gringos,  wish to believe that there is an Iranian nuclear WEAPONS program, then let us negotiate with them over it.  Before JCPOA, there was an immense amount of Iranian money impounded in the US.  Now there is less.  If Trump had not cancelled US participation in JCPOA, who knows what other benefits might have accrued to Iran.

JCPOA was probably a lot like Qaddafi surrendering his nuclear weapons program to earn good will from GW Bush.  Libya's nuclear program consisted of warehouses full of crates that the Libyans treated with superstitious awe.

Is there REALLY an Iranian nuclear WEAPONS program?  pl

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

https://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2016/01/httpswwwwashingtonpostcomworldnational-securityfiguring-out-the-dimensions-of-irans-past-research-into-nuclear-weapon.html

Comments

[Jim Ticehurst]

MP98

Osama Bin Laden was Held Accountable..I am sure He Got "FIRED" I recall that it was NOT the IC that Refused to Issue Search Warrants For the Terrorists trainng to Fly Commercial Planes in the United States PRIOR to 9/11 ,,,It was The Legal Attorneys at the FBI..Had they issued Agents the Warrants..There would have been no 9/11..And Why NO Warrants....? Well..people may have lost their Jobs..for"" PROFILING.."" Politicians RULE..And the Money that buys them...

[O'Shawnessey]

Hmm. I thought the full-spectrum attack on Iran was to take out the so-called "weak node" of Eurasian integration, much like the hybrid/lawfare attack on Lula was designed to take the weak node (not counting SA) out of BRICS.

Isn't this nuke shadow play in Iran just a cover story to keep Bibi happy and to attempt to destroy China's BRI before it can truly integrate Eurasia?

My sense is that the US military isn't quite so fully delusional to start a shooting war with Iran, though the B-team is working on that, no doubt.

[turcopolier]

O'Shaunessey
More geopolitical anti-US claptrap. A master plan, eh? Is Dr. Moriarty behind this? You just refuse to understand that the US military will execute a presidential attack order with precision but will not attack on its own except in self defense.

[ISL]

There is not a fatwa against nuclear technology, just nuclear weapons, which have many civilian applications that Iran has been pursuing. AEC was set up to encourage globally, including in the Shah's Iran, peaceful use of nuclear technology. Nuclear medicine comes to mind.

https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2013/12/18/sixty-years-of-atoms-for-peace-and-irans-nuclear-program/

This suggests one could get right up to the breakout line (but not cross) and be within the fatwa. It certainly would be in Iran's interest to do so (and to creep there as uncertainty works in their favor). particularly if they were to leverage existing design work (North Korea?) - the design work would be on the wrong side of a fatwa against a nuclear weapons program.

As to whether stockpiling nuclear materials is against the fatwa I suspect not as long as they have other uses. But that is a very specific islamic legal question for which I have no expertise.

[MP98]

You're correct, but remember that the CIA never told the FBI that the hijackers were already in the country.
CIA, FBI, ABC, XYZ..... - all part of the massive clusterfuck that is the government.

[Stephen McIntyre]

A few years ago, I attended a presentation in Erice on Iran nuclear program by Richard Garwin, a co-developer of hydrogen bomb and very prominent physicist active both as US government consultant and in nuclear war avoidance. As I recall, he explained that enrichment of uranium to weapons grade (not permitted) used exactly the same centrifuges as were used for enrichment of natural uranium to reactor grade (permitted). Also that, as of that time ~2014, Iran had no intention of producing weapons grade uranium. He was in favor of the deal. I found him very persuasive.