Is the Islamic Republic of Iran attempting to produce a nuclear bomb?
Excerpt from an unfinished book on Iran's public and secret nuclear programs from its beginings in 1963 to the present under the Islamic state. This is part of the introduction to the book, which may be useful for scholars and those searching for an answer to the question: Is the Islamic Republic of Iran attempting to produce a nuclear bomb?
To have or not to have nuclear weapons. This is the root of all arguments regarding Iran's nuclear program. There is an argument among the people of the developing countries that while a number of countries have nuclear weapons, why should not the other countries have it?
From this point of view, the rationale of depriving the third world countries from the nuclear weapon is that the US and the other main world powers wish to still remain more powerful than the other countries to continue ruling the entire world. This point of view suggests that the industrial and developed countries want to keep the rest of the world in the state of backwardness.
There is also another argument mostly among the governments of the Moslem world including Iran, that while Israel, at the heart of the Islamic countries, has got atomic weapons, why should not its neighbours and the other Islamic countries possess the same weapon?
This argument continues, from the nationalism angle, among those Iranians who are not necessarily pro-Islamic government but are in favour of having nuclear weapons, with another question: while the American forces are behind Iranian borders (from the west in Iraq and from the east in Afghanistan) and one of the main US naval bases is located at the Persian Gulf, just behind Iran’s southern boarder, and these all mean Iran is surrounded by the US military forces, and moreover while regional countries such as Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs, why should not Iran have atomic weapons?
Although there are some truth in the above arguments, all of them can be reduced to one question: “why should not the ‘others’ have the weapon?”
No one among these people asks “why should anyone have the weapon?”
All these arguments lead us to a one-way road towards intensifying of the arms races. There is no doubt that the Middle East with an atomic Iran will be a scene of the arms races between the main countries of the region, such as Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey; the region in witch some countries have already attempted to obtain nuclear technology. All of them tend to have the atomic weapons in order to “protect themselves”.
After more than half a century, the world has not yet forgotten the catastrophic affections of the nuclear explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war with hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and hundreds of thousands more as the “bomb affected people” in Japan.
After those nuclear attacks, no other nuclear bomb attack has been occurred in the world but the nuclear powers have conducted at least 2,000 nuclear test explosions so far. Each year increasingly hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destructions throughout the world, and different countries spend billions of dollars to monitor each others nuclear programs.
If we are attempting to provide a peaceful international environment for our children, the first step is to build a nuclear weapon-free-world, and the first step to build a world free from nuclear weapons is to stop new nuclear weapons production and halt any suspicious attempts that provoke regional or world arms races.
Has Iran been going the opposite direction to produce nuclear weapons and join the world's nuclear powers club? To get close to the answer, it should be noted:
1) The Iranian authorities have repeatedly said that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and those who “accuse” Iran of producing nuclear weapons are just “Zionists who attempt to scratch Islam and to deprive the Islamic Iran from scientific improvements.” According to the Iranian authorities the Islamic Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons.
More than two decades ago, on December 1982, before the first Pakistani nuclear weapon test occurred, Pakistani President, Gen. Zia-ol Haq said: “I would like to state once again that our ongoing nuclear program has an exclusively peaceful dimension and that Pakistan has neither the means nor, indeed, any desire to manufacture a nuclear device.” Also four years ahead of the test, the so-called Father of the Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, said “the ‘Islamic bomb’ is a figment of the Zionist mind.”
2) There are two routes to producing an atomic weapon: using either highly enriched uranium, or separated plutonium, and Iran has pursued every three routes! The country has been constructing light water reactors at Bushehr, south of Iran, and a heavy water plant and reactors at Arak, central Iran (the both type of reactors are able to discharge great quantities of plutonium), and has already installed thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium at Natanz, another town at central Iran.
The Natanz facility in full operation, could produce 500kg/year of weapon-grade uranium. The produced uranium would be enough to make about 25 bombs every year.
Moreover, during the last two decades, Iran has attempted to smuggle through nuclear warheads, nuclear bomb blueprints, and high nuclear technologies throughout the world. (Details coming in Chapter 2 of this book).
3) Iran threatens to follow the North Korean path if its nuclear case referred to the UN Security Council; i.e it will quit the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and goes through its nuclear path without the international inspections. N. Korea quit NPT on January 2003 and on April 2003 claimed that it had at least one nuclear bomb. North Korea has produced a number of atomic bomb during the last two years.
4) On September 2003 Iran put on show in a military parade its new Shahab-3 ballistic missiles draped with banners reading "We will crush America under our feet" and "Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth”. The advanced Shahab3, has approximately 2,000 kilometres range and is able to carry the nuclear warheads. On October 2005 Iran’s President stated that Israel must be wiped off the world map. The distance between Iran and Israel is less than 1,800 kilometres.
5) The head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohammad Al-Baradei, on February 2005 said that Iranians have already had the nuclear know-how, and “if they resume the fuel cycle, they should be able to get the fissile material within a year or two.”
In less than a year after Al-Baradei’s statement, Iran resumed some of the main activities of the fuel cycle. On August 2005, after more than two years of suspension of enrichment activities under a heavy international pressure, Iran resumed work at Isfahan uranium reprocessing plant. Less than five months later, on January 2006, Iran removed the UN watchdog seals from the country’s main enrichment facility at Natanz.
This is included in the ideology of the Islamic Iran’s regime to be equipped with the most modern military equipments not only to stand as a military power in front of its foes but also to enforce its leadership on the entire Islamic world. The “Export of Revolution”, as a main chapter of this regime’s ideology, for the first time was pronounced a few months after the revolution, in the mid 1979. The Shiite clerics had captured the political power at a single country and attempted to use this country as a base to spread their interpretation of Islam’s worldwide power.
After twenty seven years of establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran, It is still very difficult to find the conciliating words in the speeches of the Iranian regime’s current Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, nor you could find such words in the speeches of the first leader of the regime Ayatollah Khomeini. All instructions are to confront the enemies, such as: “strengthen yourself; we must resist in front of the satanic powers; the enemies will be defeated; the deceived people inside the country and the enemies of Islam in the west should know that …” and so on.
To have an enemy or enemies is in the nature of any ideological regime, and the Islamic regime of Iran is not an exception. These enemies inside of the “Islamic state boarders” one day are secularism and the seculars, another day are newspapers and its writers, a day after are women who do not care with the Islamic wear code, and so on. The regime confronts all these enemies and also all countries that “plot against Islam.”
The Iranian regime stands on the shoulders of the militants. Although there are officially twelve millions paramilitary forces called “Basijis” who are loyal to the Leader of the regime, it is difficult to say that all of them or even majority of them will defend the regime to the end. Iran’s official unemployment rate is about 13 percent, but economists estimate the real figure is more than 20 percent.
Basij was created as a mass voluntary force in 1979. The basijis functioned as the human waves at the Iran-Iraq war (1980-198
. Basij plays its role as the regime’s arm to suppress any opposition movement. It also monitors public morals in order to protect Islamic values at the society.
Basij administratively is a part of Sepah-e-Pasdaran, the post-revolution military force of Iran. From the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, the ruling clerics who did not fully trust in the traditional army inherited from the time of the Shah of Iran, formed another military force, which is called Sepah-e-Pasdaran (the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps - IRGC). Sepah-e-Pasdaran was founded in May 1979 by a decree from Ayatollah Khomeini.
Excerpt from an unfinished book on Iran's public and secret nuclear programs from its beginings in 1963 to the present under the Islamic state. This is part of the introduction to the book, which may be useful for scholars and those searching for an answer to the question: Is the Islamic Republic of Iran attempting to produce a nuclear bomb?
To have or not to have nuclear weapons. This is the root of all arguments regarding Iran's nuclear program. There is an argument among the people of the developing countries that while a number of countries have nuclear weapons, why should not the other countries have it?
From this point of view, the rationale of depriving the third world countries from the nuclear weapon is that the US and the other main world powers wish to still remain more powerful than the other countries to continue ruling the entire world. This point of view suggests that the industrial and developed countries want to keep the rest of the world in the state of backwardness.
There is also another argument mostly among the governments of the Moslem world including Iran, that while Israel, at the heart of the Islamic countries, has got atomic weapons, why should not its neighbours and the other Islamic countries possess the same weapon?
This argument continues, from the nationalism angle, among those Iranians who are not necessarily pro-Islamic government but are in favour of having nuclear weapons, with another question: while the American forces are behind Iranian borders (from the west in Iraq and from the east in Afghanistan) and one of the main US naval bases is located at the Persian Gulf, just behind Iran’s southern boarder, and these all mean Iran is surrounded by the US military forces, and moreover while regional countries such as Pakistan and India have nuclear bombs, why should not Iran have atomic weapons?
Although there are some truth in the above arguments, all of them can be reduced to one question: “why should not the ‘others’ have the weapon?”
No one among these people asks “why should anyone have the weapon?”
All these arguments lead us to a one-way road towards intensifying of the arms races. There is no doubt that the Middle East with an atomic Iran will be a scene of the arms races between the main countries of the region, such as Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey; the region in witch some countries have already attempted to obtain nuclear technology. All of them tend to have the atomic weapons in order to “protect themselves”.
After more than half a century, the world has not yet forgotten the catastrophic affections of the nuclear explosions over Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of the second world war with hundreds of thousands of civilians dead and hundreds of thousands more as the “bomb affected people” in Japan.
After those nuclear attacks, no other nuclear bomb attack has been occurred in the world but the nuclear powers have conducted at least 2,000 nuclear test explosions so far. Each year increasingly hundreds of billions of dollars are being spent to develop nuclear and other weapons of mass destructions throughout the world, and different countries spend billions of dollars to monitor each others nuclear programs.
If we are attempting to provide a peaceful international environment for our children, the first step is to build a nuclear weapon-free-world, and the first step to build a world free from nuclear weapons is to stop new nuclear weapons production and halt any suspicious attempts that provoke regional or world arms races.
Has Iran been going the opposite direction to produce nuclear weapons and join the world's nuclear powers club? To get close to the answer, it should be noted:
1) The Iranian authorities have repeatedly said that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and those who “accuse” Iran of producing nuclear weapons are just “Zionists who attempt to scratch Islam and to deprive the Islamic Iran from scientific improvements.” According to the Iranian authorities the Islamic Iran has no interest in nuclear weapons.
More than two decades ago, on December 1982, before the first Pakistani nuclear weapon test occurred, Pakistani President, Gen. Zia-ol Haq said: “I would like to state once again that our ongoing nuclear program has an exclusively peaceful dimension and that Pakistan has neither the means nor, indeed, any desire to manufacture a nuclear device.” Also four years ahead of the test, the so-called Father of the Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, Abdul Qadeer Khan, said “the ‘Islamic bomb’ is a figment of the Zionist mind.”
2) There are two routes to producing an atomic weapon: using either highly enriched uranium, or separated plutonium, and Iran has pursued every three routes! The country has been constructing light water reactors at Bushehr, south of Iran, and a heavy water plant and reactors at Arak, central Iran (the both type of reactors are able to discharge great quantities of plutonium), and has already installed thousands of centrifuges to enrich uranium at Natanz, another town at central Iran.
The Natanz facility in full operation, could produce 500kg/year of weapon-grade uranium. The produced uranium would be enough to make about 25 bombs every year.
Moreover, during the last two decades, Iran has attempted to smuggle through nuclear warheads, nuclear bomb blueprints, and high nuclear technologies throughout the world. (Details coming in Chapter 2 of this book).
3) Iran threatens to follow the North Korean path if its nuclear case referred to the UN Security Council; i.e it will quit the Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and goes through its nuclear path without the international inspections. N. Korea quit NPT on January 2003 and on April 2003 claimed that it had at least one nuclear bomb. North Korea has produced a number of atomic bomb during the last two years.
4) On September 2003 Iran put on show in a military parade its new Shahab-3 ballistic missiles draped with banners reading "We will crush America under our feet" and "Israel must be wiped off the face of the earth”. The advanced Shahab3, has approximately 2,000 kilometres range and is able to carry the nuclear warheads. On October 2005 Iran’s President stated that Israel must be wiped off the world map. The distance between Iran and Israel is less than 1,800 kilometres.
5) The head of the UN nuclear watchdog Mohammad Al-Baradei, on February 2005 said that Iranians have already had the nuclear know-how, and “if they resume the fuel cycle, they should be able to get the fissile material within a year or two.”
In less than a year after Al-Baradei’s statement, Iran resumed some of the main activities of the fuel cycle. On August 2005, after more than two years of suspension of enrichment activities under a heavy international pressure, Iran resumed work at Isfahan uranium reprocessing plant. Less than five months later, on January 2006, Iran removed the UN watchdog seals from the country’s main enrichment facility at Natanz.
This is included in the ideology of the Islamic Iran’s regime to be equipped with the most modern military equipments not only to stand as a military power in front of its foes but also to enforce its leadership on the entire Islamic world. The “Export of Revolution”, as a main chapter of this regime’s ideology, for the first time was pronounced a few months after the revolution, in the mid 1979. The Shiite clerics had captured the political power at a single country and attempted to use this country as a base to spread their interpretation of Islam’s worldwide power.
After twenty seven years of establishing the Islamic Republic of Iran, It is still very difficult to find the conciliating words in the speeches of the Iranian regime’s current Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, nor you could find such words in the speeches of the first leader of the regime Ayatollah Khomeini. All instructions are to confront the enemies, such as: “strengthen yourself; we must resist in front of the satanic powers; the enemies will be defeated; the deceived people inside the country and the enemies of Islam in the west should know that …” and so on.
To have an enemy or enemies is in the nature of any ideological regime, and the Islamic regime of Iran is not an exception. These enemies inside of the “Islamic state boarders” one day are secularism and the seculars, another day are newspapers and its writers, a day after are women who do not care with the Islamic wear code, and so on. The regime confronts all these enemies and also all countries that “plot against Islam.”
The Iranian regime stands on the shoulders of the militants. Although there are officially twelve millions paramilitary forces called “Basijis” who are loyal to the Leader of the regime, it is difficult to say that all of them or even majority of them will defend the regime to the end. Iran’s official unemployment rate is about 13 percent, but economists estimate the real figure is more than 20 percent.
Basij was created as a mass voluntary force in 1979. The basijis functioned as the human waves at the Iran-Iraq war (1980-198
. Basij plays its role as the regime’s arm to suppress any opposition movement. It also monitors public morals in order to protect Islamic values at the society.Basij administratively is a part of Sepah-e-Pasdaran, the post-revolution military force of Iran. From the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war, the ruling clerics who did not fully trust in the traditional army inherited from the time of the Shah of Iran, formed another military force, which is called Sepah-e-Pasdaran (the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps - IRGC). Sepah-e-Pasdaran was founded in May 1979 by a decree from Ayatollah Khomeini.
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