Blow It Up, Part Two

After further research into the Iranian nuclear facility situation, it seems that what Iran is building is actually a pressurized-water reactor--a variant of the thermal type--rather than a breeder. The point, however, is moot: a thermal reactor requires enriched uranium or plutonium to operate, and the material from the enrichment facility can be diverted to other purposes. This is precisely how Pakistan, India, and South Africa were able to create nuclear weapons.

What the lefties and peaceniks are whining about is that Iran, (nominally), is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. I would point out that Hitler signed a peace treaty with Stalin--right before he attacked. The point is, I don't trust the wild-eyed theocrats currently in charge of Iran any further than I can throw them and their idiotic "prophet." This isn't about ability, it's about desire. And if you don't think radical Muslim clerics have the desire to destroy the infidels (that would be us) by any viable and necessary means, then you need to pull your head out of the sand.

This is the real world, and in this world, Islam is not our friend. Let's not give them any more tools to accomplish their goals than absolutely necessary. That, in a nutshell, is the stand of the Bush administration, and I agree with it whole-heartedly. Lefties and enviro-nuts love to preach the "precautionary principle," as long as it is serving their purposes. Well, this is an application of that principle in the most important possible cause: preventing a Western city from being nuked by Muslim jihadis. If that's not good enough for you, I'm afraid you're a lost cause. I suppose you prefer to sit in front of the television and watch a city burning, so you can think to yourself: "Thank God that's not my city."

That's not good enough for me.

To that end, I would like to change my recommended course of action: leave the reactor intact. They can have their reactor. But destroy the enrichment and heavy water facilities, whether they are currently operational or not.

Now, please. Before it's too late.

Post Script - As much as I hate to admit it, from this perspective, John Kerry's recommendation that we give Iran nuclear fuel actually makes a (very small) modicum of sense. In a PWR reactor, the spent fuel rods are essentially useless for manufacture of fission weapons. Too bad he didn't have the foresight to point out that we would also need to destroy Iran's enrichment and heavy water facilities, as well as require exact one-to-one exchange on spent fuel, in order to make his plan work. Assuming, of course, he even understood any of this, which I seriously doubt. He was just parroting what one of his staff experts told him. That's what happens when science and politics get mixed up in the same jar.