The illogic in Pollack's analysis is as follows: the definition of "deterrent".

If Iran were to begin enriching uranium RIGHT NOW in pursuit of a nuclear weapon, it would STILL be FIVE TO TEN YEARS before they could build ONE gun-type nuclear weapon, let alone one that could be DELIVERED by any missile in their current inventory or under development.

Even if Iran were to be able to develop TEN nuclear weapon over the next ten years, how is this in ANY WAY a "deterrent" to Israel's 100-400 nuclear weapons (including nuclear cruise missiles on submarines in the Gulf), let alone the US's several THOUSAND nuclear weapons?

Iran's hardliners may be fanatics, but they are not idiots in the clinical sense. They are perfectly well aware that they cannot act arbitrarily even given one or two nuclear weapons.

Yes, their possession of nuclear weapons WILL give them a certain degree of freedom in geopolitical maneuvering, in terms of their influence over other Middle Eastern states - especially Iraq whose leaders are currently making many overtures to cooperation - even military cooperation - with Iran. They can also act as a minor deterrent against Israel's intentions to dominate the Middle East - albeit not a very great deterrent, as I've indicated.

Nonetheless, it is hardly likely that the hardliners will revert to a massive terrorism boost directed anywhere except possibly Israel - and even that would have to be tempered by their recognition of the fact that the US Middle East policy is "owned and operated" by Israel and its neocon allies in the US government. Any overt terrorism support by Iran would eventually result in military action against it by the US - and they know it. Possession of one or ten nuclear weapons would not be an adequate deterrent in the event of actual military operations against Iran by the US - and they know it.

Therefore the argument is IRRELEVANT to the current situation.

And even if it were NOT irrelevant, it is not relevant NOW to the actual situation.

The REAL threat to the US is the Iranian oil bourse about to go into operation in March. This oil trading center, where transactions are denominated in Euros, is likely to attract most of the oil deals done by Europe, Russia, China and others. The advantages of this bourse over the ones denominated in dollars are laid out in this article:

http://www.countercurrents.org/us-petrov200106.htm

The reason Saddam had to be overthrown was exactly the same - he wanted his oil deals to be handled in Euros, not the US dollar. The Iranian threat is MUCH greater because Iran can actually make this bourse work, whereas Saddam was an isolated case.

Thus, the Iranian nuclear program is little more than a smokescreen for the true neocon purpose - just as the Iraq WMDs were little more than a smokescreen for the real purpose in invading Iraq.

As long as the Iranian discussion focusses on its nuclear program, without any attempt to place Iran in the overall context of the situation in the Middle East and the intentions of Israel and the neocons, no useful results will be derived from the discussion.

And the neocons will get their war - and everybody here will be spending the next three years discussing how we got suckered into another and even more disastrous war shortly after the Iraq debacle.

Well, I think the acquistion of nuclear weapons by Iran has the potential for some seriously bad results beyond those envisioned.  If, in the face of the opposition of the EU and the US, Iran goes ahead and develops the weapons and does not pay a serious price for that decision either militarily or economically (via sanctions), that--combined with the North Korean example--will make it very clear that the great powers may bluster, but when it comes down to it, they'll do nothing.

Now ask yourself, if Iran had nukes, would it (like North Korea) benefit from selling the technology?  And would it also benefit from proliferation for its own sake?  Why wouldn't the Iranians want to nukes to Hugo Chavez, for example -- both for the large sums of money it would generate AND also for the trouble a nuclear armed Chavez might cause for the U.S.?

If Iran enriches Uranium, while remaining under the NPT, ratifying the Additional Protocols and subjecting its enrichment work to a tighter safeguards agreement - as Iran offered in May 2005 - then theoretically Iran could suddenly start a weapons program, get caught, leave the NPT and build a bomb.

The US is not in a better position to bomb Iran now then it will be if Iran decides to take its known enrichment facilities off of the NPT and build a weapon.  Bombing between when Iran starts actually building a weapon and when it is complete is a lot easier diplomatically than it is today, and no harder militarily.  With the inspections protocol Iran offered, Iran will not be able to build a bomb without the IAEA knowing it in plenty of time for the US to arrange a UN approved blockade and doing everything the US cannot do today.

The issue is not to prevent Iran from getting a weapon, or even to keep Iran from becoming nuclear capable.  The issue is to get sanctions on using any pretext and begin weakening Iran so that the US will hopefully be able to force regime change in 15 years.

All you suckers getting terrified about this "crisis" are collateral damage.  If you get an ulcer, send your bill to Bruce Jentleson.

Anyway, Iran would rather the confrontation be now then 15 years from now.  So if the US tries to get sanctions, Iran will ratchet this thing up until the US blinks and accepts Iran without anything but weak voluntary sanctions by Europe - and like in the case of India and Pakistan, these weak sanctions will eventually just seem outdated and they'll be dropped without fanfare.

My contribution to this nonsensical "debate" is to keep saying, despite McCain, and all the other experts, nuclear capable and having nuclear weapons are two different things.  Legally and also practically and strategically.

Brazil could have a bomb this time next year.  Argentina knows that due to the NPT, Brazil cannot have a bomb this time next year without Argentina knowing it.  Brazil knows the same about Argentina.  Taiwan, South Korea or Japan could have bombs even faster.  China knows that they are capable, but if they start a program China will know in time to act.  All three countries also know that about each other.

To be nuclear capable is not to have a nuclear weapon.  Stop being hysterical. 

Think back to the Enola Gay, a really big bomber, with a large payload carrying ability. But, that ability was just barely adequate for hauling the first nuclear weapon - a bomb.

And do you think a civilian airliner could not be modified to carry a bomb of 'little boy' size -- especially if one didn't care about dropping it out of a bomb bay but was willing to have the pilot blow up with the bomb?  In 1945 there were no other aircraft capable of carrying huge loads, now there are many thousands of them posessed by every government. 

It took years of research and development, untold billions of dollars and many, many manhours by very highly skilled engineers to convert those huge, heavy bombs to compact, but heavy warheads.

It did, but that was in part because that was the first bomb--it was all experimental.  A gun type bomb is, conceptually, an extremely simple device (a sub-critical uranium projectile fired by a modified artillery piece into a second sub-critical mass of uranium).  Nobody knew, for example, if using centrifuges to enrich uranium would actually work.

And, those warheads can only be delivered, even today, by specialized rockets, guns and aircraft, which also took billions of dollars and many, many man hours of highly skilled engineers to design and develop.

Or the designs and even delivery systems can be bought.  North Korea and Pakistan swapped nuclear and missle technology.  You think it impossible for Iran to swing any similar deals with North Korea (keep in mind North Korea is desparately poor and Iran has huge reserves of $65 oil).

So, are we to believe that Iran has been able to leapfrog over all of that development cycle and just go immediately to small, compact, lightweight nuclear weapons, capable of being delivered by some unknown vehicle which they are also developing?

No, we don't have to believe that--because at least the designs (and likely components) for more advanced weapons and delivery systems are available.  In fact, why should we believe that Iran hasn't already purchased this technology in anticipation of having enriched uranium (or plutonium)?  Or are we to believe the Iranians are so stupid not to think of that until after they've managed to enrich the uranium?  Why assume the enrichment is the first step in the program rather than the last?  If I were in charge of an Iranian weapons program, I'd be sure that I had already bought the necessary 'intellectual property' and had it in hand before taking the confrontational step of kicking out the IAEA.

All of this by a country still unable even to enrich uranium sufficiently to make a bomb? (Incidentally, the small, compact nuclear weapons are built with plutonium cores, not enriched uranium - a whole new technology to learn.)

Yes, plutonium is much easier to obtain (from spent reactor fuel) than enriched uranium.  It is more difficult to explode (you need sophisticated conventional explosives to compress an empty sphere of plutonium into a critical mass).  But North Korea's nuclear program is based on plutonium -- they know how to do this.

If there is "nothing worse" than Iran having the bomb, we should be willing to offer Iran other political incentives as part of our negotiations, e.g. forcing Israel into the NPT regime and abandoning US support for Israeli post 1967 settler colonies in Jerusalem and the West Bank as part of an overall engagement package and normalisation of relations.

Of course, some people seem to think that, bad as a nuclear Iran would be, there's "nothing worse" than decolonising the Palestinian arabs.

"So, are we to believe that Iran has been able to leapfrog over all of that development cycle"

Think about technology transfers.

That is the reason it was significantly easier for England, France, Russia, Israel, and Pakistan each to build their first bomb than it was for America.

(I'm uncertain about China and India, but I'd imagine technology transfers played some part in their bomb development cycles.)

The point is that technology transfers enable nations to rather easily leapfrog the long development cycle of the first adopters.

"You missed my point. Nuclear weapons are really weapon systems, not just bombs. Building a bomb - a collection of parts that will explode with a big bang on command - is a small part of the job that must be done to end up with a nuclear weapon that can be used against a specific target."

Quite true.

But all parts of the weapons system can be advanced much quicker than they were originally developed by technology transfer.  Think about how that works with missile technology, for example.

"My impression is that we are unduly afraid of "suitcase" nuclear bombs, something that may not even exist. Even if such weapons do exist, they cannot be light weight, so they cannot be casually carried on to trains or airplanes by suicide bombers."

I'm worried about suitcase nuclear weapons - not the kind that Iran would make, but instead the ones existent in the Russian stockpile.

Those are small and lightweight, and could do enormous mischief should one find its way into the hands of a terrorist.

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As to more of your point, that Iran isn't going to build something like that in the next two decades - sure.

But so what?  A dedicated terrorist organization could still move a more cumbersome gadget into the US with some hard work.  And even that's besides the point as I don't think the fear of the Iranian bomb has much to do with worries about their use on the American mainland.

I'm worried about suitcase nuclear weapons - not the kind that Iran would make, but instead the ones existent in the Russian stockpile.

Those are small and lightweight, and could do enormous mischief should one find its way into the hands of a terrorist.

Do we really know that the Russian stockpile contains these suitcase bombs? It was to the USSR's advantage for us to believe they had them, but is there any evidence that they really did? I recall too well how the USSR had 100 megaton nuclear bombs, while we only had 20 megaton versions. But, much later we (the public) learned that those 100 megaton weapons weren't really nearly that potent. Things we heard from the USSR were very, very unreliable. So, if you know of a link to evidence that suitcase nuclear weapons exist I would be interested in reading it.

The problem with Russia's stockpile of just about every weapon is independent of the Iran problem. It appears that the former USSR nuclear engineers have been willing to assist just about anyone for the money, and even Russia itself doesn't seem above selling off some of its various weapons to get some western currency. But, our enlightened government hasn't been much interested in working on that problem.