Yes. Though Iran may encounter some challenges, it is technically equipped to produce 19.75 percent enriched uranium at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (note, any uranium enriched to under 20 percent U-235 is classified by the IAEA as LEU; uranium enriched to 20 percent or greater is classified as high enriched uranium (HEU).
If Iran were to use its entire stockpile of accumulated LEU in the effort, it would be going most of the remaining way toward the production of weapon-grade HEU. Producing 3.5 percent enriched uranium is about 70 percent of the way to weapon-grade uranium in terms of enrichment efforts. If this is the case, Iran would require only a small enrichment capability of between 500-1,000 P1 centrifuges, assuming significant inefficiencies in its centrifuges, to produce sufficient weapon-grade material in a breakout scenario in six months. Such a facility would be extremely hard for the IAEA or intelligence services to detect.
An Iranian decision to dedicate its entire LEU stockpile to the production of 19.75 percent LEU is likely to raise significant alarm in the international community about Iran’s intentions.
Can Iran fabricate the necessary fuel rods for the reactor?
Yes, but not without some challenges to overcome. Currently, the fuel for this type of reactor is made by France and Argentina, and in small quantities by a few other countries, including Chile. Argentina was the last supplier to Iran. Iran has never fabricated this type of fuel and would require some time to master the process.
Can Iran build ten enrichment plants?
No, Iran cannot build ten enrichment plants anytime soon. It can certainly break ground for ten, but outfitting them with centrifuge equipment is far-fetched, and we doubt this is the motivation for the announcement. Iran may seek to project defiance, strength, and technical prowess, despite deficits in all but the first. A subtler point is that Iran may be signaling that it is building other centrifuge plants that it has no intention of declaring early, unless one is discovered by foreign intelligence. Iran is capable of installing several thousand P1 or more advanced centrifuges at one or two other sites, each having enough centrifuges to produce weapon-grade uranium from natural uranium. A new site could be built secretly and be hard to identify against the growing noise from all of Iran’s centrifuge activities. Iran appears to be doing due diligence against what it likely fears is an impending military strike, following which it could push rapidly for nuclear weapons. Alternatively, Iran may decide to build nuclear weapons and want facilities able to survive subsequent, almost assured military strikes. There is a cost to this strategy of building multiple enrichment plants simultaneously, in addition to Natanz and Fordow, in particular stretching thin Iran’s still meager centrifuge expertise.
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Iran just opened two new missile factories apparently, one for ground to air and one for ground to ground. This sure sounds like ww3 in the making, especially with Russia and China as additional possible adversaries. Syria Iran and North Korea at the very least it would seem are living up to there titles given in the Bush Jr days (Axis). Should we not make some arrangement with Russia wherby wed be given the nod to go into Iran fullforce, would we immediately be entering into a fullfledged war with Russia, and with what arms??? And what risk do we run that it would trigger hostilities over Taiwan or Korea with China? If we are facing Russia through Iran as a proxy, as it seems on many levels, our hesitation and beurocratic delays and conflicting agendas, and failure to commit to meaningful discussions on disarmement or alliencing with Russia to end this missile standoff once and for all, as well as the many other proxy standoffs and wars we are engaged in, and with the renewed cold war rhetoric as well as the new missile defense concerns how can I hold out any hope that we are not heading for unavoidable nuclear war with Russia. Our current track if anything under the Obama administration as apposed to Bush is that we are now seemingly marching more willfully into certain confrontation. With the economy in tatters and the wto and other international bodies under scrutiny and losing there clout, an allout war may be immenent, after all diplomacy is failing on every front, and as they said they will have their one world government, wether by conquest or consent. As dangerouse an idea that is, given careful thought one of those two solutions may be the only way to facilatate dissarmament or of the worlds deadliest wmd’s. Diplomacy has to be the priority however, and we must make good with Russia and ally our forces with Nato countries and remove North Koreas arsenal, syrias and Irans developing capabilities, and then hammer out real and verifiable reduction treaties to rid the world of WMD once and for all. As a Nato ally, Russia could join the fight against terrorism with us as a full member, and come under our joint defense network, and route out and democratize any rogue nations that harbor terrorists or seek to develop prohibited weapons systems. This would also hopefully break up the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and other treaties between Russia and China, and China would also have to be extended the invitation to Nato membership, and hopefully they too would seek to join our combined military allience, and begin the process of ending standoffs and resolving border and territory disputes, and finally entering into the final faze of dissarmement with Russia and USA. Our allience could be made permanent and the united nations could continue its role in bringing us together, as well as Nato as a defense bloc and part of a dissarmement plan worldwide. Call me crazy, but every major nuclear powered Nato member (adding Russia and China) may need to be allowed to keep a reserve of maintained icbms to agree to any of this, to maintain the soverinty of there respective nationstates in the classic mutually assured destruction mentality, but on the same track used as a shared Nato asset as detterent for the nato member states as a whole.