Iran Threatens a "Surprise the World Will Remember for Centuries" Tonight

I don't want to be alarmist, but what they seem to be hinting at is dropping a nuke.

Breaking911 @Breaking911

IRANIAN STATE MEDIA: "There is a surprise tonight that the world will remember for centuries."

They also posted a video of a hand stroking a nuclear warhead.

Is this real or just an empty threat? A last second bluff?

I think it's probably a bluff. Or maybe it's a half-bluff: Maybe they have built a nuclear weapon but have never tested it and have no idea if it will work or not. And they're threatening to test it tonight on their enemies.

Bonchie:

When a nation led by Islamist lunatics says they are going to launch a nuke, that's not something you can just write off as rhetoric. No doubt, Israeli and American forces are on high alert, and all possible countermeasures are ready to be used.

This does seem to put to bed the idea claimed by isolationists that the entire case against Iran is manufactured and that they had no intention of developing a nuclear weapon. As the vice president, who is the furthest thing from a warhawk, explained on Tuesday, the intelligence they've seen is clear, and even if it weren't, there is no other reasonable explanation for the levels of enrichment Iran has sought and achieved.

I do not understand the near-religious commitment of the Neopaulites to the idea that Iran just wants to be left alone and if we just leave them alone they'll leave us alone. They've been directing terrorist attacks against us for 46 years, and have repeatedly vowed to destroy "The Great Satan."

They also believe that the 12th Mahdi will only arise after Iran proves itself worthy be defeating the West.

Let's pray it doesn't come to that.

My guess is that this is an 11th hour bluff from a regime that is falling and desperately needs the US to retrain Israel to save it.

But I'm nowhere near certain of that. They might be planning on packing all of their enriched uranium into warheads and hitting Israel and US bases with highly radioactive dirty bombs.

JD Vance is positioning himself as a Neopaulite, against military action in nearly all if not all circumstances, but he's weighed in: Iran has no plausible reason for enriching uranium to nuclear-bomb-grade except for producing a nuclear bomb.

JD Vance @JDVance

Look, I'm seeing this from the inside, and am admittedly biased towards our president (and my friend), but there's a lot of crazy stuff on social media, so I wanted to address some things directly on the Iran issue:

First, POTUS has been amazingly consistent, over 10 years, that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. Over the last few months, he encouraged his foreign policy team to reach a deal with the Iranians to accomplish this goal. The president has made clear that Iran cannot have uranium enrichment. And he said repeatedly that this would happen one of two ways--the easy way or the "other" way.

Second, I've seen a lot of confusion over the issue of "civilian nuclear power" and "uranium enrichment." These are distinct issues. Iran could have civilian nuclear power without enrichment, but Iran rejected that. Meanwhile, they've enriched uranium far above the level necessary for any civilian purpose. They've been found in violation of their non-proliferation obligations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is hardly a rightwing organization.

It's one thing to want civilian nuclear energy. It's another thing to demand sophisticated enrichment capacity. And it's still another to cling to enrichment while simultaneously violating basic non-proliferation obligations and enriching right to the point of weapons-grade uranium.

I have yet to see a single good argument for why Iran needed to enrich uranium well above the threshold for civilian use. I've yet to see a single good argument for why Iran was justified in violating its non-proliferation obligations. I've yet to see a single good pushback against the IAEA's findings.

Meanwhile, the president has shown remarkable restraint in keeping our military's focus on protecting our troops and protecting our citizens.

He may decide he needs to take further action to end Iranian enrichment. That decision ultimately belongs to the president. And of course, people are right to be worried about foreign entanglement after the last 25 years of idiotic foreign policy.

But I believe the president has earned some trust on this issue. And having seen this up close and personal, I can assure you that he is only interested in using the American military to accomplish the American people's goals. Whatever he does, that is his focus.

Naturally occurring uranium comes in a lot of different atomic weights. Some of these isotopes are not suitable for a bomb. Only a couple can be used in a bomb. "Enrichment" consists of increasing the fraction of the highly unstable isotopes in uranium so that it can be detonated in a nuclear explosion. Power-producing reactors do not need uranium to be so high in heavy unstable isotopes. Only bombs do.

Iran is lying when they claim they just want to enrich uranium up to bomb-grade just to power their reactors. Reactors do not require enriched uranium. Only bombs do.

posted by Ace at 07:23 PM

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