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Keep Up the Pressure on Iran

[TIME] Charles Krauthammer - To go nuclear, you need three things: a) the raw material, b) the ability to turn the raw material into a weapon, and c) the missiles with which to deliver the weapon. Regarding a and c, Iran is proceeding with alacrity and determination on uranium enrichment and on the development and testing of long-range missiles. It is the intermediate step - weaponizing the uranium into a bomb - that the intelligence estimate tells us has been suspended. Now the caveats. First, weaponization is the most opaque of the three elements. Iran has never declared it or admitted it. Accurate information about it would be hardest to come by. Second, the logic is odd. We now believe weaponization was suspended in fall 2003, at the same time uranium enrichment was suspended. However, when uranium enrichment was resumed a few months after Ahmadinejad's accession to power, the weaponization program (we are now told) was not. This does not make a lot of sense. Uranium enrichment is more public and therefore more likely to bring sanctions - which it did. Why reactivate that and not the covert weaponization program? And why invest enormous resources on the centrifuges for enrichment and on the missiles for delivery if you're not going to eventually weaponize?
2007-12-10 01:00:00
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