New, Clear Fizz-on

Iran has been less than a month away from a nuke for more than 20 years now.

But the secret has been out since 1945.

It started in 1942 when the US put together the Chicago Pile, reported in newspapers across the world. The Chicago Pile was 60 tonnes of uranium. Most of that was uranium oxide, but about 15% was metallic uranium. Uranium naturally oxidises, so it is usually found as the oxide, which is yellow, and so is called yellowcake. It is easy enough to refine the metal from the oxide, but, as calculated by the scientists who put together the Chicago Pile, this was not necessary for the whole pile.

And, when they put the pile together, Bingo! they had a chain reaction: the pile got hot. So they put in the dampers that stopped the chain reaction. All this got well reported, then it all disappeared under a cloak of Top Secrecy. Everyone and everything was secretly moved to several places, among them Los Alamos, New Mexico which appeared on no maps.

One of my high school professors said he'd spent WWII separating U₂₃₅ from the rest of the uranium, which was U₂₃₈, and this was the key to creating the atomic bombs dropped on Japan. Of course, his actual work was Top Secret, so I have no idea what he really did.

After the US nuked Japan, they said they'd used bombs made from U₂₃₅, and the big effort was separating out the U₂₃₅ by fluorinating all the uranium then centrifuging the uranium fluoride gas until the U₂₃₅ was separated out, and this had taken 3 years.

I remember a Walt Disney cartoon book where they had a tiny speck of U₂₃₅; and the scientist tossed it into a great canyon. Someone said, 'Nothing happened,' and the scientist replied, 'It hasn't hit bottom yet.' When the tiny speck finally did hit bottom, there was a huge explosion that filled the entire canyon.

However, since 1945, no one else has managed to get a critical mass of U₂₃₅ by fluorinating and centrifuging uranium. And then it turned out that the US finally admitted that only one bomb was U₂₃₅, the other was plutonium.

Basically, if one has 60 tonnes of uranium one can easily cause a chain reaction (the pile has to be sculptured correctly, and plates of other substances have to be placed correctly), and if one lets the chain reaction continue for three years, one gets several critical masses of plutonium, which is easily separated and made into nukes. But the plutonium was the Top Secret bit, the US hoped everyone would waste time on fluorinating and centrifuging uranium.

But the USSR knew about the Chicago pile, which was public, and they knew what it was for, but in 1942, they had no idea if it would work. In 1945, they did know, so they built a 60 tonne pile of uranium and in 1949, the USSR had a nuke. For which two Jews were executed by the US for giving the USSR the secret that wasn't really a secret.

Iran do not have 60 tonnes of uranium, so they cannot create that chain reaction that produces plutonium, hence they are fluorinating and centrifuging uranium. And have been less than a month from a nuke for 20 years.

Basically, everyone who wanted a nuke and had 60 tonnes of uranium has a nuke. Everyone who has 60 tonnes (or more) of uranium and does not have a nuke does not want a nuke. And everyone who wants a nuke and does not have one does not have access to 60 tonnes of uranium.

It is said (and Israel wants everyone to believe) that they hijacked a ship with 100 tonnes of uranium on board. The owners of the ship never said anything, and one can certainly imagine why they did not. But did this really happen? Do Israel really have 100 or so nukes?

In any case, Israel (and Fox News) want a US invasion of Iran, regime change, and permanent prevention of any nuclear labs of any kind anywhere in Iran.

Not clear if those really in charge of the US military will order that invasion of Iran, or how such an invasion will go.