Theodore Postol is a retired MIT physics professor who was a consultant to the Pentagon on nuclear weapons and missile defense. He recently published a presentation on Iran’s nuclear weapons capability, which he summarized in a YouTube interview. Professor Postol explains, in considerable detail, how the construction of a deliverable fission bomb is well within the capabilities of Iran. His full presentation .PDF is available here, and I will show some of the key slides. Curiously,this information has not been reported in the mass media. I will explain why this is a big story, and why it has been suppressed.
How Iran Can Build a Bomb
To make an operational nuclear weapon, Iran needs three things:
1. Fissile material
Using information gathered by the International Atomic Energy Association (IAEA) monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities, Professor Postol lays our a chain of reasoning starting with the current stockpile of 60% enriched U235 and ending with the creation of bomb-grade U235 sufficient for making multiple fission bombs. There is no evidence that the 60% enriched material was destroyed during the recent attacks by Israel and the U.S., and Iran would have been highly motivated to securely store this relatively small quantity of material.
Postol July 24, 2025 presentation page 2
A key point of this presentation is that Iran’s existing stockpile of 60% enriched U235 can be further enriched to a weapons grade of 83.7% with a fraction of the resources required to perform the original enrichment from U238, and that the production facilities needed would easily fit in a small commercial building.
2. A compact bomb design
The simplest design for a nuclear bomb uses U235 and creates a critical mass by very rapidly joining sub-critical portions of the fissile material by explosive means. This was the method used in the atomic bomb that the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima. The physics determining the results are so straightforward that no testing is required. The explosive yield of a missile-deliverable rudimentary warhead of this type is relatively low (10-20 kilotons) compared to plutonium fission or thermonuclear weapons, but it is sufficient to destroy a city.
Postol July 24, 2025 presentation page 27
Postol July 24, 2025 presentation page 28
Postol July 24, 2025 presentation page 30
The estimated explosive yield of the bomb design described by Professor Postol, 7 to 20 kilotons, would be roughly equivalent in destructive power to the bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945 (15 kilotons). Hiroshima’s population at that time (350,00) was roughly the same size as that of present day Haifa (290,00).
3. An effective delivery system
Iran possesses multiple missile systems capable of delivering a 100 kg nuclear payload from Iran to Israel, including Sejjil-2, Khaybar Shekan, Fattah, and Dezful. All of these enable nuclear warhead delivery and have additional payload capacity for decoys to counter interceptor missiles. Maneuvering and hypersonic designs (e.g., Khaybar Shekan and Fattah) further complicate Israeli defenses.
Strategic Implications of an Iranian Bomb
The main value for Iran of having a nuclear weapons capability is deterrence. Israel can no longer threaten Iran with complete destruction through nuclear attack or a full-fledged U.S. ground invasion. Even a few nuclear missiles could entirely devastate Israel and inflict unacceptable casualties on U.S. forces in the region.
While Israel has a sophisticated civil defense system oriented toward conventional and chemical missile threats, it lacks the infrastructure to protect the general population from radiation exposure following a nuclear attack. There are limited radiation-hardened shelters, no mass fallout protection for urban populations, and no publicly disclosed national-scale radiation response system. Israel’s nuclear defense strategy leans heavily on deterrence and interception, not population shielding against nuclear aftermath.
A 10-kiloton nuclear detonation over Tel Aviv could cause up to 100,000 immediate deaths and half a million total casualties, while a strike on Haifa could result in 40,000–70,000 deaths and 300,000+ injured, especially if industrial zones are hit. These are conservative estimates; actual numbers could be higher depending on detonation specifics and emergency response capability. The economic, environmental, and geopolitical consequences would be catastrophic. Nuclear strikes against Iran by Israel would be similarly horrific.
The possibility of an Iranian nuclear strike nullifies Israel’s conventional missile defense doctrine of only intercepting missiles projected to strike populated areas or critical infrastructure. While such selective engagement conserves interceptor resources during conventional attacks, it becomes untenable when facing a potential nuclear threat. Even a low-yield nuclear detonation causes widespread destruction — including blast damage, thermal radiation, EMP, and fallout — far beyond a single impact point, making any missile that enters national airspace a strategic threat. In this context, all incoming ballistic missiles must be treated as potentially nuclear-armed, regardless of their projected trajectory. This necessitates full engagement of all targets, regardless of whether they appear to threaten specific structures. As a result, the presence or even the suspicion of nuclear warheads dramatically increases the burden on missile defense systems and undermines any defense strategy based on triaging perceived risk.
It is likely that Iran will follow the example of Israel and refuse to declare its possession of nuclear weapons. This will shield the program somewhat from criticism, but enough information will be leaked or discovered to make the nuclear capability credible. It is a sad irony that aggressive military action to prevent Iran’s development of a nuclear weapon may have finally convinced Iran that such a development is necessary.
The Silence of the Sheep
The absence of commentary in the mainstream media on Professor Postol’s declaration of an Iranian nuclear capability can be explained mainly by the timidity of today’s mass media. Reporting this story would make Trump’s declaration of ending Iran’s nuclear program appear foolish. This could trigger punitive action by the Trump administration against the business interests of the media owners. Editors and journalists may conceal their political fears by declaring that there is no confirmation of Postol’s assertions by the U.S. intelligence community, but this is the same community that has been spinning like a weather vane in the political winds, alternately confirming and denying Iran’s nuclear weapons program for years.
Conclusion
Based on Professor Postol’s arguments, it is very likely that Iran either already has a deliverable nuclear weapon, or that it could produce one in the very near future. This development means a dead end for Israel’s strategy of eliminating Iran as a regional adversary. Israel will not be able to persuade the U.S. to invade a nuclear-armed Iran, and Israel will no longer be able to threaten Iran with a nuclear strike without fear of nuclear retaliation. The misguided militaristic foreign policies of Israel and the U.S. have resulted in another instance of nuclear weapons proliferation, and more will likely follow as long as these nations persist in using military force as their primary geopolitical tool. If Israel and the U.S. continue to live by the sword, they will find nuclear swords appearing in the hands of other nations.
So what. If I’m not mistaken, Iran has not attacked anyone not in self-defense since Shah Abbas the great. We should be more concerned about the US and Israel having nukes.
Yes, I’ve been thinking about how to take them away…
I interpreted the “so what” to be an alteration in the strategic balance in West Asia — in a direction which would require a more circumspect approach on the part of Israel, and as such a welcome development.
Couldn’t agree more!
As far as I understood the matter,( possibly not that much, especially the technological part ) ,another MIT teacher seems to have a different opinion.
His rant , published on June 16, can be read here :
https://contropiano.org/news/scienza-news/2025/06/16/sul-nucleare-iranino-sterminati-branchi-di-castronerie-0184130
Caveat: I’m no expert on nuclear (or other) weapons, but it seems that the counterpoint chap is saying that the Iranians do not have the wherewithal for a fusion (i.e. thermonucear) weapon, whereas Postol is saying they can readily make a U-235 fission weapon. If I’m misunderstanding, correction / clarification is warmly invited.
Honestly, it seems to me the Iranians would have to be mad to not have a nuclear weapon, but if you *do* have one, it seems to me you want all and sundry to know.
A fusion weapon would be a hydrogen bomb where an initial fission explosion is used to create fusion. Surely the Israelis don’t have this, but probably do use the implosion type fission bomb where a small plutonium “pit’–hollow sphere–is crushed by precisely timed surrounding explosives into the critical mass.
In The Sum of all Fears–for whatever accuracy that is worth–a lost Israeli implosion nuke is dug up to blow up Baltimore.
No, the major disclosure by Mordechai Vanunu To the Times of London was photographic documentation that Dimona had assembled fusion bombs. That was decades ago, so miniaturized versions are surely missile launchable today, and are more energy efficient and potentially “cleaner” than pure fission bombs.
The Release of Mordechai Vanunu and U.S. Complicity in the Development of Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal
https://fpif.org/the_release_of_mordechai_vanunu_and_us_complicity_in_the_development_of_israels_nuclear_arsenal/
[…]
Too many people I deeply respect, Alastair Crooke, Larry Wilkerson, Larry Johnson, think Ted Postal is the premier expert in this area. The man reeks of integrity, humility and profound intelligence. Too many experts out there with outside agendas and outside influences. I’m sticking with Ted’s opinion.
https://www.scribbr.com/fallacies/appeal-to-authority-fallacy/
Never underestimate the power of stupid, in both Israel and the US. Both in the new century have consistently underestimated groups and nations they regard as adversaries. So far our ruling elites have managed to drive Russia and China closer together, turned Russia’s military into the most capable on the planet, and alienated 4/5 of the planet’s inhabitants with their perennial war-mongering and genocides. Netanyahu and the crazies who surround him may now think a preemptive nuclear strike will solve their Iran problem (while calling Pakistan’s bluff in the process). Alternatively, Israel might use a false flag event to draw the US into an all-out war with Iran. And should we lose 2 carrier groups to Iran’s hyper-sonic missiles in the ensuing conflict, who doesn’t think Trump, listening to the rabid warhawks in the GOP like Lindsay Graham, won’t go nuclear?
The thing that frightens me, is that even if Iran has developed nuclear warheads, you might have a US president or Israel launching a first-strike nuclear attack on Iran thinking that they can cripple Iranian nuclear launch capability or win a nuclear war on the basis of “we have more nukes than they do” which inevitably leads to a world nuclear exchange. Neither the US or Israel is run by rational or forwards thinking people, and even if Trump or Netanyahu leave office, they will be replaced by somebody else with the same worldview regardless of party.
It is amazing how one person in office can force all of the other citizens of a country to be dragged along with his decisions on a whim regardless of what the majority wants despite the fact that modern Democratic Republics are supposed to prevent this very thing from happening.
I suppose all of the flowerly language and romanticism surrounding “democracy” do not mean much when many world leaders can just override any sort of legality with the mentality of “Because I said so, and the law is what I say it is!” and realistically, nobody will stop them in most cases.
Agreed. It’s as if the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis have all been forgotten. Everyone should listen to Kennedy’s “Peace Speech” commencement address at American U in June 1963. It should be required for congress-critters once in office, to sober them up after Likud/MIC propaganda lobbyists do their worst. Kennedy was the first and last president to defy the CIA/Deep State. And we know how that ended. Ever since, the Jack D. Ripper types in the Pentagon and the Nazis in the CIA have kept a firm hand on the tiller of ship of state. We are headed for nuclear shoals or climate-borne ice bergs.
I think the lessons of the Cuban Missile Crisis are not uniformly agreed upon.
Normal people think, “wow, that was really terrifying, let’s never do that again.”
The deep state crazies that you reference above think, “if we push things to the limit, the Russians will back down, just like Krushchev did!”
According to Daniel Ellsberg, the US at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis had an overwhelming nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union. It wasn’t that the Soviet has no deterrence, but it was limited.
After the settlement, the Soviet union built its nuclear forces to a deadly equality.
There’s this weird bit where the intelligence community loudly says all sorts of scary things about Iran’s nuclear program and then quietly says, “don’t worry.”
The National Intelligence Estimate for 2007 says Iran abandoned nuclear weapons development and every year’s NIE since has said they aren’t developing weapons. Tulsi Gabbard testified before congress to that effect earlier this year. Given that Iran is a theocratic state and their top religious leader issued a ruling that the use of nukes violated a couple of prohibitions in the Koran (making land uninhabitable, a big no-no, and the slaughter of innocents, technically also a big no-no although it has more wiggle room) it doesn’t seem at all likely that the current Iranian regime would use nukes aggressively even if they were developing them.
These aren’t the best links because the ones I remember are either months old news articles or decades old analyses, and I didn’t have time to dig up the exact ones I wanted, but they’re both directly on point.
https://www.cia.gov/resources/csi/books-monographs/cia-support-to-policymakers-the-2007-nie-on-irans-nuclear-intentions-and-capabilities/
https://www.mid-day.com/news/world-news/article/trump-rejects-intelligence-report-says-tulsi-gabbard-wrong-on-iran-nuclear-program-23574738
Iran…and specifically the religious rulers…have been really consistent, over the long years, in maintaining that nukes are Haram(something belonging to Allah, and not to be messed with).
I suspect that they’ve quietly changed their tune due to recent events and words…and the obvious example of the still uninvaded/attacked North Korea.
Us/Zionist foreign policy(sic) has pushed the rest of the world…starting with Iran…into seeing the need for them to have such a horrific deterrent.
Moahmmar and Saddam are a couple of other glaring examples of what happens when you trust in the good will of Us/Zionazis, and their numerous poodles.so, well done, all!
USA Empire and its worst poodle(israel) cant end soon enough.
its gonna be hard, for us amurkins, of course…this loss of empire status…and my fellow countrymen will likely blame the Mexicans, etc….but the empire must end, once and for all.
perhaps a future UN-Like apparatus can include a universal ban on any weapon beyond a sword or a sling…and make duelling between leaders a thing, again.
get them idiots some skin in the game…as ive heard so often from the hillaries, etc of our own political elite, in ref to healthcare, and such.
and while we’re at it…can we please, please eat the rich?
rich folks being at risk of being food is the best deterrent from bad behaviour i can think of.
Si se Puedas!
Yes, we can!
If be you can? Sorry, couldn’t resist, since I thought this has to be intentional as I was convinced you do speak Spanish.
si se puedas was the spanish version of one of obamas bumperstickers.
wife got me mine, which is still there, and pointed out the bad grammar,etc
Iran, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, South Africa, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and Brasil are all “nuclear threshold” states – basically one or two steps away from having The Bomb. No reason to single Iran out, me thinks. We’ll know when they announce, test or use one, the rest is just guessing.
I find it much more interesting to ponder if Israel actually has nuclear warheads, and if it does, how many. They are extremely expensive to develop, construct and maintain – and due to the radiation they degrade and have to replaced (which is expensive to the second power). Comparing Israel’s military budget to other nuclear powers they seem to be quite a lot behind and certainly can’t afford to have hundreds of warheads.
I thought we were fairly sure that Israel does have the bomb. Even the CIA-adjacent Wikipedia reports 90 to 400 warheads.
FWIW, Japan has a large stockpile of Plutonium — over 40 tonnes, apparently enough to make over 5000 nuclear weapons — and this was a policy decision made in planning their nuclear village. The Plutonium has been a byproduct of all the fission reactors and thus available in case the need arose to develop a bomb.
In view of the end of WWII, of course many in the Japanese public would be loudly against such development, though the far-right party Sanseito recently campaigned on doing exactly that.
According to Ted Postol, given Iran’s current stage of nuclear development and the simplicity of the remaining steps to full development, Iran would not need to do any testing.
Add in the fact that Israel is tiny size wise and population wise so even one nuclear explosion would be devastating whereas Iran is the opposite and could absorb multiple explosions.
Alastair Crooke has been talking about this with additional detail based on Postol.
Postol has drawn up the technical outline for a 174 centrifuge cascade that would require a mere 4 to 5 weeks for Iran to obtain enough weapons-grade uranium (as enriched hexafluoride gas) for one bomb.[…]
What may be even more shocking to the non-technical observer, is that Postol has further demonstrated that a 174 centrifuge cascade could be fitted within a space of a mere 60 square metres – the floor space of any modest city apartment, and would require, as power input, just a few tens of kilowatts.[…]
In another culling of the shibboleths surrounding the Iranian reality, building a spherical atomic bomb requires no more than 14 kg uranium metal 235, surrounded by a reflector. ‘It is not high tech; it’s garden shed stuff’. Just assemble the pieces; no test needed. Postol says: ‘Little Boy’ was dropped on Hiroshima.
I’m no expert but apparently the Hiroshima bomb fired such as sphere down a gun barrel into a uranium spike that completed the critical mass. This is not the most efficient use of the expensive material but can be compact enough that the gun design was used to make atomic artillery shells back in the 1950s when the US Army wanted to play with nukes too. And of course there’s the terrorist ground transportation delivery method as well.
And btw the Los Alamos scientists were not absolutely sure that the gun type would work but had the implosion bomb–tested in New Mexico–as backup.
Crooke link.
https://strategic-culture.su/news/2025/08/04/a-further-u-s-attack-on-iran-would-be-pointless-kabuki/
yeah. the spherical implosion method is difficult to get right…everything has to work perfectly, or its a dud.
this was developed because, at the time, plutonium was hard to make…hence our buildout of those kinds of reactors for domestic power.
the gun type is relatively simple…its just not “efficient”…or “elegant”.
with a couple of pounds of fissile material, and the relevant protective apparatus, i could prolly build one in my shop, if i put my mind to it…as could any number of radical DIY’ers across the world.
in fact, there was a tom clancy novel, way back(dont remember which one) that had almost a manual level of detail in the step by step that needed to be done…and that was a spherical implosion device.
gun type is easy by comparison.
fire a cannon ball of fissile material into another bunch of fissile material at great force and speed, where the latter cant get away…and there you go.
that the USSR and USA went all crazy developing such sophisticated versions of such weapons is a testament to insanity.
Fear of Communism really did a number on the minds of our elite class.
Now its fear of any competition, at all…anybody bucking our will…
“we can endure neither our vices, nor their cure”-Livy
Indeed, or not even radical. This is from the 90s:
The Radioactive Boy Scout
https://harpers.org/archive/1998/11/the-radioactive-boy-scout/
True story about a suburban kid in Michigan that built a breeder reactor in his backyard.
Well, that was a fun story. Thanks.
The other day someone here mentioned The Day After Trinity which I just rewatched. The doc includes the story that when the Trinity plutonium pit was brought from Los Alamos down to Alamagordo (in an Army sedan) the manifest listed “value” as one billion dollars.
The epic of the Manhattan Project was in the making of the bomb materials. This is where the Nazis failed.
As often, it’s about words and definitions. If Postol is right, Iran could enrich enough U235 to weapons grade to enable it to have the raw material for, say, 10 rudimentary warheads of uncertain yield, which could be carried by some existing Iranian missiles. There remains the problem of accuracy with a warhead and delivery system that have never been tested together, and where the small yield (say 10kt) means that you need to be very accurate to achieve the desired effect. (Although a hit anywhere in Israel would be very bad news, of course.) It’s also not clear to me (perhaps we have a nuclear physicist in the house) how the warhead could be detonated at exactly the right point. I’d just add that it’s almost impossible to talk sensibly about casualties: models give results that vary wildly with time of day, season of year, weather conditions, wind, degree of warning and preparation and whether the explosion is a groundburst or an airburst. As PS points out above, Iran has just elevated itself into the club of “we could if we wanted to” nations, able to move quickly to a deliverable system, unlike Israel which has had deliverable systems for decades. Politically, that means that it can maintain a posture of strategic ambiguity, which is probably the best option in the circumstances.
IIUC, the detonator is not a complicated device. No nuclear physics involved. The 1940s vintage Little Boy design would suffice (e.g., safety interlock + barometric sensor + redundant radar altimeters).
Hypersonic speed complicates things. Something closer to a VT fuse would probably be used as I would not expect a barometric sensor to work fast enough to be effective.
Aurelien: There remains the problem of accuracy with a warhead and delivery system that have never been tested together.
Exactly. There’s a whole lot of ‘I want to believe’ among the NC commentariat and a lack of critical thinking.
[1] Gun-type designs are not only inefficient and require large amounts of fissile material — as do all A-bombs next to thermonuclear weapons — but they’re also extremely vulnerable to pre-detonation.
Little Boy literally had to be assembled in flight due to safety concerns. The bomber crew assembled key components mid-flight, including inserting the powder charge and arming the firing mechanism about 30 minutes into the mission because of the fear that the bomb would go off when the aircraft took off from its airfield.
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/world-war-ii/first-atomic-bomb-had-to-be-assembled-in-flight.html
[2] Now consider what would be involved in putting such a bomb atop a hypersonic missile or, indeed, any missile.
At speeds above Mach 5, hypersonic missiles are flying through shockwaves, turbulence, and extreme heat-related phenomena. The US isn’t even technologically sophisticated enough to have overcome these problems so as to build such a missile yet.
Some of the problems —
-Aerodynamic Heating can exceed 3,000–6,000 K, depending on altitude and Mach number.
-Shock waves compress air in front of the missile, converting kinetic energy into heat. This means unequal thermal loads, especially at the nose cone and leading edges.
-Chemical reactions in the air (e.g. dissociation of O₂ and N₂) further complicate heat transfer
-Flow perturbations create shock-boundary layer interactions, which in turn cause separation, recirculation, and reattachment zones, which spike local heat flux and pressure.
-Material science and Structural Challenges e.g. whatever the Russians have done to make Oreshnik not come apart in mid-flight from the ridiculous heat.
[3] Still, it’s 2025 and we don’t know what we don’t know and maybe the Iranians have somehow solved the engineering problems of (a) instability of gun-type A-bombs in the context of (b) putting them on missiles, hypersonic or otherwise.
BUT there’s no way the Iranians can know that they’ve solved those problems unless they test such a system. Because if they haven’t sufficiently stabilized their gun-type A-bomb warhead on top of a missile delivery system, it’s got a substantial chance of creating a nuclear explosion on launch.
So they would have to test it in flight, as far as I can see, and we know they haven’t.
I agree there is an element of wishful thinking in some of the discussion around this topic, and while I think Haig’s article is a good take on the state of play, tbh I felt the title was a bit misleading.
Strictly speaking, I don’t see that we can say “Iran has the bomb”. We can assume various things about what they may be up to, but we have no hard evidence to support that they already have the bomb.
Further, as you point out, no doubt there are significant engineering challenges here, but on balance they don’t seem insurmountable, and the Iranians have proven capable enough to build quite accurate hypersonic missiles.
Technology has improved since 1945. E.g., would a powder charge be used today? I assume not. More “modern” and stable plastic explosives have been developed — stable in the sense that they are not readily activated by extreme shock. Current technology will thus provide greater safety on the launch side.
It seems the logical approach would be for the Iranians to build a test warhead that contains a live detonator and everything but the actual radioactive bits. During the missile test flight, performance is recorded real-time using a solid-state memory in a black box (another bit of tech that didn’t exist in 1945 but is today readily available).
After impact with the dummy ‘test’ warhead being crushed, the black box is recovered and the data is evaluated. Did the safety interlock behave as expected? Did the detonator function as expected? Did the plastic charge fire as expected? What were the environmental conditions inside the nose cone? Etc. Rinse and repeat until all tests pass consistently.
Again, as you point out, there are many variables, but this is what engineers deal with.
I would think that given Iran has developed quite effective (and demonstrated so) hypersonic missiles, while the US armed forces have yet to field even one such missile, their engineers are probably quite up to the task of resolving most of the indicated problems. Also, many of those problems have probably been solved, since they are the problems you need to solve to create effective and sophisticated guidance systems for hypersonic missiles, etc…
Speaking generally, because I can’t contribute to the technical discussion, people have been overestimating the competence of both Iran and its ally Hezbollah. A couple of years ago many of us ( me included) thought that an all- out conventional war with Hezbollah alone would leave Israeli infrastructure in tatters. While both Iran and Hezbollah managed to do some damage to Israel, Israel did vastly more damage to both Iran and Lebanon and Hezbollah itself. Faced with the prospect of much of Lebanon being turned into Gaza, Hezbollah blinked. It isn’t clear they had the remaining capability to do that much damage to Israel.
I know what the opposing argument is with respect to Iran— that Israel itself was running low on interceptor missiles and both sides wanted a ceasefire. But I suspect Trump imposed it. Netanyahu wanted to keep bombing. Nothing we have seen so far shows much in the way of competence when it comes to either Iran or Hezbollah in the past year. The Houthis are the only ones who haven’t been humiliated.
The difficult issues in delivering a nuclear warhead are similar to, and less difficult than for developing a hypersonic missile (in terms of handling heat and stresses). If Iran didn’t have hypersonics, you’d be correct in being very skeptical. But knowledgeable readers have opined that the nuclear warhead delivery issues would have been solved, technically, in creating functioning hypersonic missiles.
ambiguity is a useful tool.
when i moved here, 30 years ago, i paid acute attention to my surroundings, and all these strange people…and i resolved to never let happen what had happened in my hometown, happen again(local elites lying and whispercampaigns and essentially ruining my life)…so i collected data…pics, hard copies of incriminating documents, etc…that, since i was the Help…everybody just kept leaving out on tables and such for me to see…and with a copy machine right over there, to boot)…as the digital age finally made its way out here…i put it all on thumbdrives, and sent them to far flung friends, instructed to have a google alert for my untimely and suspicious death…which would trigger their release.
when the local PTB found out about all that,lol…well…i am left to my own devices.
because they dont know what i got on them.
i have remained ambiguous about it from the first time i told them about it, when i was calling them on the carpet about my Suegra’s second city caused shit fountain.(which got fixed post haste,lol, and on their dime)
so yeah…Iran is not a stupid country/Civilisation.
and their leadership class…even tho we in the west might cringe at their weird religion(lol–see: hagee, hillsong, many others)…is not stupid, either.
our leadership(sic), however, is quite morbidly stupid…and has been for quite a while.
(as you so often explain so well, btw)
Doesn’t it depend first on how penetrated Iran is by Israeli-US intelligence? They did not seem that tight on that front in the recent exchange. And second on what the US would do if they detected that Iran was going for the bomb in earnest? It seems likely to me that if such intelligence came through that Trump would be likely to greenlight a full out US attack regardless of the consequences to ME oil production or US bases. So is the US sufficiently deterred by that? Is Iran deterred by fear of a full US attack? Would Israel-US intelligence be able to tell? These seems to me to be the unknowns.
Why wouldn’t decoys be used? And then decoys of decoys? If I were them they’d already be set up and going several layers deep.
It keeps the money flowing into the region.
Look at it as more justification for all of those over-sized embassies being built.
News that keeps the USA tethered to Israel.
The negligence Postol is experiencing is not new.
It has intensified with the increasing hypocrisy of the US ruling class and the national security sector in particular.
A leading nuclear physicist proving corruption by a major company such as was the case with TRW in 1998 I assume has not many friends in D.C.
TRW had been promoting to provide Pentagon with an element of the then planned missile defense. The corruption case to a large extent carried by Postol eventually triggered the company´s demise which was taken over by Northrop Grumman in 2002.
It should be stressed however the original whistleblower was former TRW employee Nira Schwartz whose life and career were most likely destroyed in the aftermath. Not by coincidence neither name is mentioned in TRW´s Wiki entry.
See for the scandal via Wiki perspective:
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodore_Postol
More here on another whistleblower, Subrata Ghoshroy
https://wikispooks.com/wiki/Subrata_Ghoshroy
“(…)
Subrata Ghoshroy is an [sic] who as an investigator for the Government Accountability Office exposed scientific fraud among builders of a $26 billion “missile defence” system, including at TRW, a Boeing subcontractor. He became a whistleblower after the agency “ignored evidence that the two main contractors had doctored data, skewed test results and made false statements”
(…)
The dispute over its reliability began a decade ago. Nira Schwartz, a senior engineer in 1995 and 1996 at the military contractor TRW, told her superiors that the company had falsified research findings meant to help kill vehicles differentiate incoming warheads from clouds of decoys.
Mr. Ghoshroy now says his agency ignored evidence that the two main contractors had doctored data, skewed test results and made false statements in a 2002 report that credited the contractors with revealing the warhead’s failings to the government. Almost immediately, Mr. Ghoshroy recalled, the G.A.O. team found signs of a coverup — for instance, disturbing charts buried at the back of an upbeat report.
(…)”
I believe especially the US science community turning away from Postol probably became palpable around 2014 with him criticizing the US government over its reaction to the 2013 Ghouta chemical false flag attack with this report https://wikispooks.com/wiki/File:Ghouta-Bad-Intelligence.pdf
And he has since e.g. broken the omerta re: Putin and expressed his respect for the Russian government´s handling of the situation at large instead of taking part in the childish and irresponsible demonization by almost all leading nuclear scientists. Or at least those who choose to take part in the public chatter – since it cannot be described as meaningful discussion.
AG: I believe especially the US science community turning away from Postol probably became palpable around 2014
Long before that. Postol was in trouble from 1991 onwards.
And I know because I interviewed him (by phone) circa 2008-9 and the man was still traumatized by the US government having sent some three-letter agency guys to his MIT office to physically shove him around and break things there because of his blowing the whistle on the Patriot system’s complete failure to intercept any of Saddam Hussein’s missiles back during Gulf War 1, in 1991.
That´s great info, thanks!
Storywise that episode was of course a thrilling event.
You ever get back to that conversation?
I am sure he would have loved your stories about what you mentioned, I believe last year, about Soviet nuclear waste & installations. (re: “Tenet”).
Re: 2014 (if my memory is correct) all he said is that Bulletin, FAS etc. started to behave strangely towards him. So that was merely about publications.
And yes with his very strong ethics he was bound to walk that path.
For decades now the Israelis and the US Neocons have been screaming about the threat of the “mad Mullahs” which goes way back to the days of Reagan. Turns out that the real threat that we can see is that of the “mad Rabbis.”
Intermediate nuclear force (INF) treaty: US withdrew in 2019. US Vertical Launch Systems (VLS) at Aegis ashore sites in Poland and Rumania are suited for cruise missile as they are fired by Arleigh Burke DD ships. US Army has a ground transportable system around Navy VLS!
Russia in the past few days declared INF null.
Theater nuclear war in SW Asia is worth study.
In west Pacific DPRK could proxy theater nuclear war and eliminate most US bases. Japan and Korea are now cool to a Pacific version of NATO.
If Iran had sufficient delivered weapons it could destroy several NATO bases in east Turkey, which would serve Russian Federation, as well as itself.
Prof. Postol stated 6 moderate atomic detonations would make Israel unlivable. The country is small and not many mountains. Usual winds blow off the Mediterranean sea most of the year.
One of the duties of radar units during the cold war exercises was simulating the reporting of nuclear detonations (NUDETs showed up on the radar!) and plotting the radiation plume which usually was a tear drop expanding out of the detonation site moved by winds reported by weather services.
In short order Iran could be major concern in SW Asia!
Defenses: can USAF. USN, RAF/RN and Israel do better launcher hunting versus Desert Storm (B-2 cut after the war) and the 12 Day War. Unlikely! B-21 not better than B-2!
Could US/Israel intercept. I would not bet on that either!
Would all this deter The Rve Kev’s “mad Rabbis.”?
Pray for peace.
fwiw Stratcom has to come to similar conclusions.
By now last fall´s odd appearance by spokesperson Buchanan at CSIS (“nuclear war is winnable”) strikes me more as a rallying around the flag than a serious assessment and conclusion and directed at the media and at domestic audiences as to not question military spending (who wants to bet on a horse that´s said to lose before the race starts). This speech was even before Oreshnik, before another failure of LRHW, before Russia stepping up Navy investment, and other issues with the US triad.
I am aware of the situation. And even though I do believe the MDTF scheduled for next year to be stationed here in Germany is outdated and so on and so forth I would be very glad to hear it´s scrapped.
On the other hand, maybe INF eventually is worth as much as any informal but serious agreement that could be struck by both parties.
Of course when I asked Postol 2 years ago he said: Biggest danger attack by pure mistake.
Question then: How do sane people react. I did not ask him how large such an initiating error attack would look like. Since nobody will start WWIII with a couple of missiles. Of course if those things fly does it matter to negotiations on the hotline? Or would Russians believe they can take em all out if it really is a mistake?
Thanks.
I served from 1972. INF was a big thing when negotiated. First real step back. Verified! We talked a lot less about Germany becoming a “glass plain”. Early 1980’s seemed like too many triggers.
Rearming. US Army Typhon is ground transportable Tomahawk Land Attack Missile/Ground Launched Cruise Missile (TLAM/GLCM). Gravity bombs in NATO bases in the news!
Larry Johnson reports US has a Dark Eagle which passed a couple of hyper-sonic flight tests, and so is ready for mass deployment (sarc).
a comment from Martyanov´s blog on Dark Eagle:
“When the Tomahawk cruise missile was tested and developed, it failed all five tests, including running wild into Canada and crashing into California wilderness setting fires in the mountains.
It got approved while never passing any of the tests successfully.
IF the DOD wants it, and the MIC wants it, it is approved. They tell Congress, problems will be solved during the manufacturing process. “Pass the money! The Russians (or Chinese) are coming”
Lets assume it flies Mach 5 and it doesn´t break down, and lets assume that´s very much below what Russian true hypersonics can do, the question is still how do Russians rank this if those Mach 5 are measured from Büchel in West Germany.
I still am in the dark as to how good RU AD really is by now. The argument being they have the means to train their defenses on missiles which are far more advanced than what may be incoming.
I used to be rather skeptical. There were however points made in commentary sections that RU hypersonics outfly the speed of explosives set off by ABMs.
Considering how fiercly Postol was opposed by his own colleagues when he questioned the US´s early ABM systems 15 years ago – while his points were valid – anything – be it poor or stunning scientific achievements by either side today – is conceivable.
So if Russians hint at such achievements or considerable progress in the long run even moving into a potentially post-MAD world there is no reason to automatically disregard it.
Then there’s always the late Tom Lehrer’s take on the situation, although at that time Eqypt, rather than Iran, was the main threat to Israel.
I think the accuracy of comments on technical matters concerning fission weapons would be greatly improved if commenters were to first read Richard Rhodes’ book about the development of the bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also Alex Wellerstein’s comprehensive blog.