Former Harvard physics prof Andrew Foland has a blog called Nuclear Mangos, which he describes both it and its amusing names as follows:
This blog is intended to provide reliable technical analysis of nuclear issues with non-state actors and nuclear beginner states. Some technical issues have important policy implications that citizens in a democracy should be able to make informed decisions about. The motivation for the blog has been the incredible amount of lies & hyperbole on the Iran situation of early 2006. The blog title is to remind you constantly of the quality of minds in charge of our nuclear security today.
(Being one of my favourite fruits, I find the blog’s title insulting to mangoes!)
After reading comments to a Salon article on Andrew Ledeen’s new book, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction (also covered in a recent article in National Review), Foland put together a comparative bar chart, shown below, that sizes up the U.S. and Iran on various metrics that one might use in a threat assessment:
Based on the CIA World Factbook’s data for the U.S. and Iran, as well as Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation and Iranian Centrifuge Developments.
Click the graph to see the original at full size.
SWU, measured in the rightmost bars, is short for Separative Work Units, a unit of measurement used in the nuclear power industry. According to the USEC site:
A SWU is a unit of measurement of the effort needed to separate the U-235 and U-238 atoms in natural uranium in order to create a final product that is richer in U-235 atoms.
Most naturally-occurring uranium is too low in uranium-235 to be used in nuclear reactors; it needs to be “enriched” first. The SWU measure for Iran — that is, the work being done to enrich uranium so that it’s usable for creating nuclear reactions, whether for making electricity or for making the “Great Satan” cry — is too low to show up in the chart; Foland writes that its value is 0.00015.
Based on these numbers, Iran just isn’t anywhere near America’s weight class. As Foland puts it:
By international standards, Iran is a poor, underdeveloped country with substantial infrastructural lacks. If such a country is indeed an existential threat to ours, it can only be the result of some mighty serious mismanagement of American power.
These numbers don’t change the fact that the Iranian government comprises some of the worst examples of humanity, but it does challenge the neocon notion that a military solution — and soon — is necessary.
9 replies on “The Existential Iranian Threat”
This post should be framed and put in a place of pride in the “how to say nothing with numbers” hall of fame.
_A_ nuke is a grave danger, as an attack is good for trillion dollars worth of damages and probably tens of thousands of lost lives. I don’t think I’ve seen too many claims that Iran’s going to be able to put one together in the next 5 years but after that it seems reasonably possible, especially since they are being assisted by existing nuclear powers. The fact that the US has “3000 100k” population and Iran only has “80 100k” doesn’t really enter the equation.
And I’m not sure what neo-cons _you’re_ reading, but most hawkish commentators I follow believe that the West should be undermining the government (in various ways) as the main line of attack as most realize the population is very pro-Western, at least relative to the region.
@DAVID JANES: Hey, David!
This is just a quick sampling (gathering with a lazyweb call to some friends on IRC — thanks, guys!) but these articles suggest that their nuke capability is coming within around a year or that the U.S. should attack:
You’re confusing “soon” with “before they get the bomb”, which is mentioned in most of the scenarios above. Your friend with the clever charts believes that the date they’ll get the bomb is “never”, right, since the “literates” ratio is so far out of balance, so there’s nothing to worry about, is there?
The literates count is the pool of people from which they can draw on for developers of nuclear tech. SWUs are a much better indicator. However, Foland’s thesis is based on the assumption that any nukes they may have now or may soon have are home-grown; it falls apart if the nukes are being developed with imported brainpower or developed elsewhere.
As for the voices calling for a military strike — and soon! — let’s just say that I’m a little skeptical now. It wasn’t that long ago when the same voices were talking about Iraq’s nuclear capability.
By the way, here’s the latest example of calls for a military solution, all from the administration’s de facto house organ…
Ann Coulter: “Good for Wall Street”
Wow, that’s over the top Joey. You believe that Ann Coulter is a spokesman for the White House, or determines policy? That’s the problem with your IRC chat, moveon, daily kos, etc. etc.: these are real adult problems in the real world; paranoid theorizing, irrelevant statistics, talk about “neo cons” etc. don’t really get a seat at the table.
Still not sure you’re going anywhere with this. You’re saying Iran is never in the foreseeable future going to develop nukes and if they do, well too bad we shouldn’t do anything about them. Or do you actually believe that US policy is about making war for jobs and because they go so well and make everyone happ?
No, I don’t believe she’s a spokesman for the White House. Until recently, that job fell to a former FOX News talking head.
She, like the network on which she appears, is more of a cheerleader — they may not determine policy, but they certainly set public opinion and do a pretty good job of promoting the party line. They’re not the de jure house organ, but calling them the de facto one isn’t exaggerating much.
As for how I take the news-and-commentary from MoveOn and DailyKos with the same grain of salt as I do the news from FOX News and National Review, although the latter pair do cause me considerably more eye-rolling.
Back to the Iran and nuclear capability discussion: why wouldn’t the same tack that the U.S. is taking with North Korea, a country we know is capable of creating and launching (at least short-distance) a nuclear weapon, work?
And finally — perhaps it’s time to pose questions about the stats to the guy who posted them. Foland’s blog entry with the graph is here, and he takes comments.
I never thought even those most hawkish on Iran thought that a nuclear Iran would be an existentialist threat to the US, but rather that a nuclear Iran would be close enough to an existentialist threat to …
Israel/Saudia Arabia/Afghanistan/Pakistan/Turkey/wherever geopolitics and religious and ethnic conflicts will take us in the next couple of decades.
‘Cause it’s more fun leaving comments on blogs where I know the people?
As far as I can see, the US _is_ mostly taking the tack it did with North Korea!
No problem there. Foland’s devoted way more thought to the graph and may (or may not, you never know) have more ideas behind it than I do.