I rarely call a blog post "important." This one on Iran and U.S. intelligence is:

[lwcon]

http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.com/2009/10/fools-for-empire-ii.html

[ShortnFiery]

1. Yes, I thank-you!

It's bookmarked in my IE favorites.

Very thoughtful and well written.

Thanks again. :hi:

[lwcon]

5. If you use an RSS reader

I'd highly recommend you add Arthur's site. Smart stuff that hardly anyone else will tell ya.

[conscious evolution]

2. Everyone needs to read this.

K&R for a well written article.

[lwcon]

6. Thanks for taking the time to read it, and for the K&R! n/t

[truedelphi]

3. Here's part of it:

Chris Floyd provides this concise summary:
Iran was building a new nuclear enrichment facility,
as it is allowed to do by international treaty.

The United States and several other
Western countries knew about the facility for years. The
facility, which is still months away from completion, is
not designed to enrich uranium to weapons grade. Iran
is not required to inform the IAEA about any new enrichment
plant until six months before the plant goes into operation.

There is some quibbling about a codicil that was meant to
require Iran to give extra early notice; but this was never
ratified by the Iranian legislature, so Iran is in compliance
with the Non-Proliferation Treaty which it signed and
ratified years ago. (As opposed to such already nuclear
armed American allies as India and Israel.)

The facility was not secret, it can't build bombs, it is not even
finished, and it has no nuclear material in it.

Floyd then offers this terse comment: "Er, that's it." Indeed,

that is the entirety of the facts behind all the warmongering.
As I said, entirely unexciting. Dull and bland, one might say.

[Nikki Stone1]

7. Thanks. Much as I suspected. Drumbeats of war--we've heard this song before.

Or here we go again.

[lwcon]

9. If our Dem-led government did decide on military action...

... or harsh economic sanctions, who would protest?

In the short-term, the recent diplomatic developments are positive. But until we learn not to trust anything we're told about intelligence "findings" and until we're willing and able to question our right and need to intervene in other countries' affairs -- even if they include developing nukes -- we're susceptible to marching to that familiar beat, maybe even more so now.

[lwcon]

11. IMHO, Chris's site is also "required reading"

http://chris-floyd.com/

[bananas]

14. Several serious problems with that analysis

Floyd: "The facility, which is still months away from completion, is
not designed to enrich uranium to weapons grade."

That's a very misleading statement.
The facility is able to enrich uranium to weapons grade,
there's no question on this:

The Qom Uranium Enrichment Facility – What and How Do We Know?
By Ivanka Barzashka
September 29, 2009

<snip>

What Can Be Done with 3,000 Machines?

The size of a facility does not determine whether it can or cannot produce weapons-grade, or highly-enriched, uranium (HEU). Both enrichment to a low degree for a nuclear reactor and to a high degree for a nuclear weapon are done by gas centrifuges, in fact, potentially exactly the same machines.

One way to tell whether a cascade of centrifuges is used for LEU or HEU production is to look at the configuration of the machines, or how they are piped together. The set up and piping of the cascade will be different if they are enriching natural uranium to low-enriched uranium (LEU) when compared to natural uranium to HEU. However, they always have the option of using a LEU production set up and simply running the material through several times until they get HEU.

Aside from what is possible in theory, certain things make economic sense and others don’t. To enrich enough LEU for an average 1000 MWe reactor, you need 135,600 kg-SWU/yr. If the 3,000 machines are IR-1s with a separative capacity of 0.5 kg SWU/yr, it would take them about 90 years to get one year’s fuel load. This of course makes no sense. However, if they want to get one bomb’s worth of HEU (from natural uranium), they need 6,320 kg SWU/yr and this would take you a little over 4 years. All of these examples can be worked through with FAS’ new and improved uranium enrichment calculator.

The third option is to take LEU from Natanz and enrich it to a bomb’s worth of HEU. This would take about a year, depending on how much material they are willing to waste. So, if they are trying to divert LEU from an existing facility such as the one at Natanz, the numbers add up perfectly (almost too perfectly). However, diversion of nuclear material from the enrichment plant at Natanz or the conversion plant at Isfahan is near impossible to go undetected if the facilities are under IAEA safeguards. Although uranium mines and mills are not under safeguards, so far there is no sign of a clandestine conversion plant in Iran. There is always the option that the Iranians could just kick the inspectors out and have breakout in one year or less.

<snip>

Floyd: "Iran is not required to inform the IAEA about any new enrichment
plant until six months before the plant goes into operation."

That's wrong.
Iran was required to inform the IAEA before construction began.
The IAEA Director General has confirmed this:

Iran Violated International Obligations on Qom Facility
James M. Acton Proliferation Analysis, September 25, 2009

Update: On 30 September, speaking in New Delhi, the IAEA Director General confirmed that Iran has violated its obligations.<1>

Iranian President Ahmadinejad has said that Iran's new centrifuge facility is "perfectly legal." Here is why he is perfectly wrong.

<snip>

It also raises the question:

What Else Is Iran Hiding?
By Nima Gerami , James M. Acton
Foreign Policy, September 28, 2009

Finding himself caught in a sudden media storm while in New York last week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad tried to defend his government's construction of a second centrifuge facility, buried inside a mountain near the city of Qom.

Unfortunately, the Qom facility might not be the end of the story. A centrifuge plant needs feedstock, uranium hexafluoride -- a material derived from refined uranium ore and produced at a conversion plant. Iran would probably not risk trying to divert feedstock from its declared conversion plant at Esfahan, which is under the watchful eye of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Iran could therefore have also set up a clandestine conversion facility, or have succeeded in procuring the material illicitly.

Moreover, the evidence that the new facility is part of a military program is compelling. According to unclassified U.S. government talking points, the clandestine facility near Qom is "intended to hold approximately 3,000 centrifuges" of an unknown type. In 2007, Gholamreza Aghazadeh, then head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI), said that Iran's target was to have 50,000 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility. This number was needed to make "meaningful amounts of nuclear fuel" for one or two commercial-scale power plants to generate electricity.

Thus, by Iran's own admission, the Qom facility is too small for civilian purposes. It is not, however, too small to produce meaningful amounts of highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapons program.

<snip>

Tehran's decision to allow the IAEA to inspect the Qom facility, though welcome, is not enough. Iran now needs to cooperate fully and proactively with the IAEA. It needs to answer all of the IAEA's questions so that inspectors are able to understand as much as possible about the new facility, Iran's centrifuge production capabilities, and the probable military dimension to its program. Inspectors also need to be able to uncover any other clandestine facilities that might be out there.

<snip>

[Kaleko]

4. K & R

[Jazzgirl]

8. Very interesting.

I have definitely bookmarked his site. It is very illuminating and confirms just about all the suspicions I've had about CIA "intelligence" of which there appears to be little.

[lwcon]

10. FYI, here's one of my favorites among Arthur's posts

It's from a separate site he used to post on, shedding a lot of light on the psychological roots of authoritarianism:

http://thesacredmoment.blogspot.com/2004/02/roots-of-horror-mel-gibson-public-case.html

[slipslidingaway]

12. kick for tomorrow - thanks n/t

[Swamp Rat]

13. THEY need another distraction, like another war with Iran to keep us from discussing national issues

[truedelphi]

15. It's unpatriotic to complain about whether or not you have

Food on the table, when a war is rampaging. And a war with Iran could be pretty messy pretty fast, especially depending on how China and Russia feel about it.

Besides, if they install food rationing due to war, that would set it up so that no one would be blaming the economic decisions for our plight. It would be those mean nasty Iranians that would be to blame, instead.