Iran "fallout" from Trump's stupidity

The fallout is primarily metaphorical — for now.

That's because, per CNN, an analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency and a leaker of its analysis (called a "low-level loser" by actual un-Christian, not submitting to her husband low-level loser Karoline Leavitt) Trump's "MOABs" did little more than bupkis. Oh, there's some damage, but nothing major or long-term. 

Two of the people familiar with the assessment said Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium was not destroyed. One of the people said the centrifuges are largely “intact.” 

“So the (DIA) assessment is that the US set them back maybe a few months, tops,” this person added.

So, yeah. 

The details:

While US B-2 bombers dropped over a dozen of the bombs on two of the nuclear facilities, the Fordow Fuel Enrichment plant and the Natanz Enrichment Complex, the bombs did not fully eliminate the sites’ centrifuges and highly enriched uranium, according to the people familiar with the assessment. 

Instead, the impact to all three sites — Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan — was largely restricted to aboveground structures, which were severely damaged, the sources said. That includes the sites’ power infrastructure and some of the aboveground facilities used to turn uranium into metal for bomb-making.

So, yeah. 

Presidents in general don't like to be seen as wrong, let alone told they're wrong, in public. Trump, a dementia-edged toddler, really has this. And, while many presidents might grudgingly accept wrongness in private, Trump will never even do that.

That's part of why classified House and Senate briefings got moved from Tuesday to Thursday. Trump wanted Pete Hegseth to find some DIA flunky who will massage the research better. Oh, he'll find somebody. Who?

Update: Iran's foreign minister has now partially undercut Ayatollah Khamenei, calling damage to the trio of nuclear sites "serious and excessive." It's unclear why Abbas Araghchi went public, but something within Iranian domestic politics is surely the lead reason.

That said, will anybody in either House or Senate call Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard to the witness stand, if nothing else to make her squirm while past Tulsi Gabbard (loopholes and all) is confronted with present Tulsi Gabbard, a TACO? (With his staff and administration, it's Trumpistas or Trump team Always Chickens Out [on confronting him]. And it's true.) 

Let's add to to Trump's idiocy in general on Iran this stupidity, in the last graf:

US officials believe Iran also maintains secret nuclear facilities that were not targeted in the strike and remain operational, according to two sources familiar with the matter.

So, you deliberately irritate Iran, which went to 60 percent enrichment in 2021 because of your rejecting the Obama deal, but held at 60 percent through Biden's administration, knowing you couldn't finish the job even if some DIA flunky claims it was done better than now reported? 

Oh, contra the wingnuts clutching pearls on the enrichment percentage? It means little per the site Iran Watch without BOTH

• Enrichment to bomb-grade 90 percent, which is tougher AND
• A delivery mechanism.

A U-235 gun weapon is pretty much limited to an actual bomb. It CAN be done at lower enrichment levels, but then it’s low yield for sure, and is nothing more than running something up the flag. That's why the US nuclear world, even though details of its mechanism are classified, doesn't sweat too much over it. Now, reveal details of the implosion lensing or the detonator for a plutonium implosion bomb and your ass is grass. (And, if you’re Iran and you know the details of lensing an implosion bomb, would you do that with U-235, or wait until you create sufficient Pt-239? I’m assuming you haven’t already.)

Beyond that, the link above deserves a longer look:

Iran’s nuclear program has reached the point at which Iran might be able to enrich enough uranium for five fission weapons within about one week and enough for eight weapons in less than two weeks. For that uranium to pose a nuclear weapon threat, however, it would have to be processed further into weapon components. Also, the other parts of a successful weapon would have to be ready to receive the uranium. Fabricating these other components could be done in parallel with uranium enrichment and could take place on a laboratory scale, which would make them difficult to detect.

The site goes on to talk implosion vs gun bombs with U-235 and other things. The thing of note is that, just as Iran has not enriched beyond 60 percent for four years now, it has not test-detonated anything. And, whether U-235 or Pt-239, it would want to do that with an implosion bomb. The US did at Trinity and so has every other nuclear weapons power.

Meanwhile, Iran's parliament is playing with fully suspending cooperation with the IAEA. NOTE: That is NOT "leaving" the organization. The government is playing both ends against the middle.

It's already been less than fully cooperative since 2021, when it boosted its enrichment. Again, Iran Watch:

Since February 2021, Iran has denied IAEA access to recorded data from centrifuge production plants and in June 2022 forced the IAEA to remove monitoring equipment altogether from such plants as well as from uranium enrichment and uranium concentrate (yellowcake) production facilities. Although a few cameras were re-installed at centrifuge production plants in May 2023, the Agency still cannot access the recordings. Iran has also refused to cooperate with the Agency’s investigation of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites. The overall effect has caused the IAEA to lose knowledge of essential elements of Iran’s program.

So, part of this is on Biden. Yes, Trump 1.0 screwed the pooch, but Team Biden didn't make more of an effort to unscrew it in the first 30 months, and then Oct. 7, 2023 happened.

At the same time, Iran hasn't fully rejected the IAEA. Nor has it withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. And, we all know the Middle East nuclear power that never signed the NPT.

 And, Iran Watch's top research associate has past ties to the warmonger Institute for the Study of War.

And, executive director Valerie Lincy, I can easily tell, is a Nat-Sec Nutsacks™ fellow traveler on Russia-Ukraine. Related? A piece about reining in Iranian drones. Don't let the name "Wisconsin Project" that heads Iran Watch fool you. It's an inside-the-Beltway org.

The point is that even these folks can't totally throw Iran under the bus because they're being honest with information. As part of that, they don't claim Iran is creating plutonium. Because it's not.

And now, Trump has announced a meeting with Iran next week, and Iran has said "we ain't heard nothing." 

Side note: Per Mondoweiss, there is no such thing as right-wing anti-Zionism, so don't get fooled by Tucker Carlson. Or Tulsi Gabbard of either past or present, since she's a Hindutva-fascist Islamophobe and has gotten into bed with Zionists. Or Thomas Massie. Carlson, or Pat Buchanan and others from the past? They're not dispensationalist millennialist Protestant Christians, so Israel doesn't really matter, and therefore neither does Palestine.