The Bomb

The Bomb

Thursday, January 18, 2007

“On this day, God be willing, we have traveled beyond the most difficult pass and we shall be ready for anything along this path.” – Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Whenever you hear a Persian leader publicly talk about moving beyond “the most difficult pass”, that leader is tapping into the psychology of the Iranian nation-state. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s claim that the Iranian nuclear standoff with the United States has moved beyond its “most difficult” pass should be cause for concern to western analysts of the country. At the very core of the Iranian cultural psychology in history rests a particular pass. Most learned Iranian nationals understood exactly what President Ahmadinejad was talking about when the Iranian leader spoke of moving beyond the most difficult pass. Ahmadinejad was talking about Persian history specifically in a way that would resonate with all Persians everywhere. The Iranian leader was talking about Xerxes and the Battle of Thermopylae.

From a military expansionist and colonialist standpoint the Persians have, like other theocratic nation-states in history that seek to spread their own version of religious totalitarianism, faced great challenges in such expansion. In fact, the Persian Empire was at one time the largest empire in the world. But the Persians faced defeat in two critical points in history as the empire sought to expand into Europe, one under the Persian King Darius, and the second under his son Xerxes.

The Persian King Xerxes who took over after his father Darius wanted Persian armies to march on Europe. In order to get to Europe however they first had to go through the Greeks, and being the first free peoples of the times, the Greeks weren’t about to let the Persians march through Greece unopposed. As the Fulda Gap was the gateway to Europe for Russian armies during the Cold War, Greece was the gateway to Europe for the Persians. The massive Persian army that invaded Greece under Xerxes was stopped temporarily in a pass known as Thermopylae. It was at the Battle of Thermopylae that a handful of Spartans and their allies were able to slow down the Persian army long enough for the rest of Greece to arm and equip its soldiers to defend the country and make defeat possible over the Persians. The odds were against the Greeks, but the battle at the pass of Thermopylae was strategic enough to provide the Greeks with victory over Xerxes and his Persian military forces, both on land and at sea.

Now, why would President Ahmadinejad speak on Iranian state television about overcoming the most difficult “pass”? The Iranian president is claiming to the Persian nation that in regards to the Iranian nuclear program, the most difficult pass has already been crossed. Ahmadinejad is basically hinting that his plan has already crossed through Thermopylae, in a rhetorical sense, and no longer confined to a narrow pass, Persian objectives are certain to be unleashed. That is what President Ahmadinejad means when he was talking to the Iranian people, and learned Iranians knew exactly what he was talking about. Ahmadinejad was telling the Persians that efforts by the United States and the international community to contain the Iranian nuclear program are too late. The Iranians, according to Ahmadinejad, had already moved beyond the “most difficult pass”. The Iranian president would never have used that historical precedent with his own people unless he was gambling using a PSYOP against the west, or the Iranian nuclear program was further along than the west might think that it is. Since Persian history is not taught at most universities in the United States, the western media certainly had no idea what Ahmadinejad was talking about.

In order to study Ahmadinejad’s claim, western analysts should first look at it from a standpoint of two very specific possibilities:

The claim is rhetoric

The claim is truth

Those are the only two possibilities. Either the Iranian nuclear program is not as advanced as Ahmadinejad claims that it is and the Iranian president’s announcement that the Persian nuclear program has moved beyond the most difficult passes is rhetoric, or Ahmadinejad’s claim is true and the Iranian nuclear program has moved beyond the point of no return. In a historical sense, when the Persians say they have moved beyond the most difficult passes, they are basically claiming that they are going to reach the heart of Europe, or the heart of their enemy, and they shall be victorious over them. Saddam Hussein used similar rhetoric in exchanges with the west prior to the First Persian Gulf War and later before Operation Enduring Freedom. There should always be room for skepticism, absent evidence. However, since we are dealing with nuclear technologies and nuclear weapons, Ahmadinejad’s speech on Iranian national television should not be taken lightly.

To the nuclear physicist, an Iranian claim that it had achieved nuclear weapons would be met with a high degree of skepticism. This would occur because experts on the development of nuclear weapons in the west are the sort of folks that do not spend much time with political theory such as looking at the leaders of hostile nation-state systems and what those leaders are up to, and instead would want to see evidence of such claims. Trained experts in nuclear weapons design and nuclear physics know what obstacles there are in order for a nation-state to develop its own nuclear weapons. So the nuclear physicist is going to err on the side of caution so as not to sound alarmist to their peers in the scientific community. Given the track record of the nuclear research and development community in the west, it has never proactively predicted any nation-state’s development of nuclear weapons outside of its own. Opinions about nuclear weapons development then should be sought by a wide arena of specialists, not just in the physical sciences, but in political theory, political science and international relations fields. The nature of such an inquiry should not rest alone within the nuclear scientific fields, but also in fields that explore the personality of the hostile nation-state system.

I say that because I believe that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad admitted that Persia had a nuclear weapon during his speech today to the Iranian nation-state.

Look at the evidence. There is evidence that North Korea has nuclear weapons because the North Koreans tested the atomic bomb. The only scientific evidence that we have that North Korea actually developed the bomb is in Uranium enrichment. North Korea had a very large surplus of nuclear fuel rods that were being monitored by the United Nations until Pyongyang ordered those personnel out of the country and dismantled the cameras that were monitoring the fuel rod storage sites remotely. North Korea then did what—it announced that it was enriching the Uranium in those fuel rods. In a very brief period of time later the North Koreans detonated their first atomic bomb.

Doesn’t that sound dangerously familiar with Iran? It certainly does. The Persian state has just entered into a massive Uranium enrichment operation using thousands of centrifuges. It has also been reported that Iran has large quantities of UF6 to be used for Uranium enrichment. This is in addition to the fact that a cargo ship was boarded by US forces that contained 10,000 Uranium centrifuges as well as schematics to build a nuclear bomb.

Most “experts” on the subject of the Iranian nuclear program claim that Iran is years away from developing an atomic bomb, with some predictions as far away as 2012. I believe that it is a mistake to discount other possibilities. There is one possibility that the media and western governments are not talking about, and possibly have not even considered, but this possibility changes everything.

What if Iran already has a nuclear device constructed, but simply needs the enriched Uranium to complete it? I say that because there is no evidence North Korea actually developed its own nuclear device. There is evidence however that AQ Kahn gave North Korea nuclear weapons technology and AQ Kahn was also assisting Libya and Iran with their nuclear weapons programs. Libya willingly surrendered its nuclear program to the United States in fear of retaliation after Moamer Khadafi saw what happened to Iraq. Khadafi didn’t want the same fate to fall upon Libya.

Did AQ Kahn give the Iranians a working nuclear device, minus the fission material? How were the North Koreans able to construct their own device so quickly, if at all? There was a very short period of time between the end of North Korea’s enrichment of their nuclear fuel rods and the detonation of their first atomic bomb. If AQ Kahn did give North Korea a working atomic bomb, it would not contain fission material because Pakistan would not want such a weapon traced back to them.

As Iran now enriches Uranium, could that be the source of President Ahmadinejad’s positive mood? Do they already have the bomb, supplied to them by AQ Kahn of Pakistan? Has Iran now enriched enough Uranium to conduct a test of that weapon? It is possible that the nuclear experts are wrong in thinking that Iran is trying to develop its own untested weapon. Looking at the evidence, Iran may already have a nuclear bomb, and only needs to add the fission material to it to become a true nuclear power.

If so, then Ahmadinejad is correct in saying that Persia has crossed the most difficult pass. Iran may already have nuclear devices supplied to them by AQ Kahn and just needs the nuclear fuel to prepare them. If true, that would change the timeline to a Persian nuclear test from 2010-2012 to possibly February, 2007 or the summer of 2007 at the latest.

Christopher Farmer

MS, National Security

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