01. Does Iran Have a Nuclear Weapon?

Does Iran Have a Nuclear Weapon?

The one thing we can be confident of is that Iran has not tested a nuclear weapon. Thus it probably does not have a stockpile of even one nuclear weapon.
The more fundamental and important question is, "Does Iran have a nuclear weapons development program?" The second question almost equally important is "Why would Iran want to have a nuclear weapon?" Finally, "If Iran had a nuclear weapon, what could it do with it.

A nuclear weapon requires four elements: a nuclear fuel, a method of assembling the fuel so a fission chain reaction will begin a method of containing the chain reaction until enough energy has been released to make the weapon explode with nuclear force, and finally a trigger mechanism. None of these is easy, and the collection of sine qua non elements cannot be developed at a single site or by a single group of developers.

The nuclear fuel must be U235 or a fissionable isotope of plutonium. Both are extremely expensive to produce. U235 exists in nature, but at such a low percentage of naturally occurring uranium that it is extremely expensive to extract, and requires huge resources of electrical power to operate the refining plant. Of course, one must also have access to a source of uranium, and that is difficult if it is not found within the country. Plutonium does not occur naturally (any more) so it would have to be produced from the very heavy elements. Again a huge plant and electrical resources are required and such facilities leave such a footprint that they are not difficult to find.

A route around such huge plants is to operate a breeder reactor: one that produces more fuel than it consumes. This seems to violate the laws of thermodynamics but it does not, since the operation of the reactor releases energy and some of this energy can be used to transmute some of the non-weapons isotopes into weapons grade nuclear material. If the material produced in the breeder is plutonium then the task of producing bomb material becomes much easier, since plutonium can be separated from uranium by chemical processes, a much easier way than producing U235.

Does Iran have breeder reactors? If it does, it can claim with a great deal of truth that the reactor is for energy production, since that would be true. So what can be done to assure that a weapons program is not underway? Very little in Iran. Inspectors certainly are not going to have a look under the "lady's skirt" to see what is going on at the reactor. One must look for how spent fuel is stored and where, and whether it is moved to a suspicious facility that may allow for reprocessing the fuel to obtain plutonium.

A nuclear trigger is pretty complicated technology, too. It does not require an enormous facility to develop. The simplest way of getting a trigger mechanism is to steal it. Any effort by Iran to acquire a trigger would be clear evidence of a nuclear weapons program and would undoubtedly bring sanctions from limited ones to a first-strike attack on Iran.

Containing the explosion is simple to understand but difficult to achieve. A program to develop a containment technology requires chemical engineers, metallurgical engineers, electrical engineers, and advanced computer technology. These elements are in theory detectable, but one cannot be sure just what they are working on.
A detection program for determining just what Iran may be doing has to focus on finding all the elements of the program and also finding connections between them. This is a most difficult process. A country risks being made a fool of, and even international condemnation for attacking any facility peremptorily. However if nothing is done, the world may find itself with a new member of the nuclear club.
But Iran doesn't actually have to possess a nuclear weapon to gain significantly in being taken seriously by the international community. It merely needs a credible possibility of having such a weapon, or even of having a program to develop one. Iran suddenly becomes a major player in international affairs when it presents the smile of the Cheshire cat, not denying a weapons program, offering teasing evidence of having one, and barking about its determination to protect itself against whatever.

In the next entry I will discuss how Iran can use a threat, and what it might do if it actually had a useable weapon.