OPINION:
Richard Rahn has come out and said the thing no one wants to know (“Does Iran already have nuclear weapons?” web, Feb. 19). The harsh reality is that Iran almost certainly had half a dozen such bombs before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
All the talk about engineering is garbage because it was clear in 2015 that North Korea sold Iran the designs for warheads that could fit on Iranian missiles. There were even reports that Iran bought and built roughly 50 warheads (minus the uranium) with the North Korean design. If that’s true, all Iran must now do to finish the assembly of its warheads is enrich sufficient uranium and fashion it into the necessary shape.
Unless it wants to make a statement, Iran doesn’t even need to test the warheads, since they are of functional North Korean design.
Based on the data I can find, no one knows when Iran started enriching the uranium, so there is no sense in thinking it didn’t ramp things up last May. President Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the United Nations were not paying the least bit of attention.
I believe it’s a safe bet that Iran has a dozen mounted-on-mobile missiles hidden and scattered in the region, and that it has a target of getting an additional 20 soon. Once it has 25 to 30 missiles ready with nukes — made possible by Hamas’ war against Israel — I would wager it will test detonate a bomb and then demand that Israel withdraw from the Gaza Strip.
Mr. Biden is incapable of responding. Would Iran hit Israel? It’s not likely, but it would hit Saudi oil facilities, which would be catastrophic. Oil prices would triple. The U.S. would be utterly paralyzed in an election year.
The condemnation of the Obama-Biden efforts with Iran wold be real, and they would completely nullify every election scenario we’ve imagined. If you think the Democrats are desperate now, what will they be then?
JAMES BARENDS
Wayne, Pennsylvania
Please read our comment policy before commenting.