3. You can use highly enriched uranium (HEU) for things other than weapons, but the weapons are the only things that require HEU. Medical isotopes and propulsion can be done with LEU. For instance, Argentina produces medical Mo99 from LEU [1]. US Navy wants to switch to LEU for submarines [2]. One of the reasons for these developments is exactly proliferation risk management.
> 3. You can use highly enriched uranium (HEU) for things other than weapons, but the weapons are the only things that require HEU.
OP seems to expect everyone to believe that any regime invests years and small fortunes in research sites built in networks of bomb-proof bunkers buried inside mountains, right next to their network of ballistic missiles, to research medical applications.
You're suggesting that honest countries with no intention of building nuclear weapons would have no reason to ever try and hide or protect their nuclear sites. This is probably the single worst point in history to make that argument.
Australia's future nuclear submarines are planned to use HEU not LEU.
HEU has clear advantages over LEU for submarines – LEU submarines need to be refuelled once every decade (give or take a few years), weapons grade HEU reactors are never refuelled – the initial fuelling is enough to last 30-40 years, and by the time refuelling is becoming needed, the submarine is retired/scrapped.
This was also part of Australia's justification for backstabbing France over AUKUS. Australia was paying France for diesel-electric submarines, but if it wanted nuclear, France can provide that too – but French nuclear submarines are LEU not HEU – the US and the UK are the only nations which have weapons grade HEU subs. [0] Of course, an arguably much bigger factor was Anglosphere strategic alliances versus greater cultural/political distance from France, but it is diplomatically helpful to be able to appeal to a justification which is more objectively technical in nature.
In an attempt to manage non-proliferation concerns, I understand the AUKUS plan is that when they start constructing nuclear submarines in Australia, they'll build and fuel the reactor in the UK (or possibly the US, but the UK is apparently more likely), ship it fuelled to Australia for installation in the submarine, and then at the end of the submarine's life, the reactor will be removed from it in Australia and then shipped back to the UK for defeuelling and disassembly. But, I guess it is an open question to what extent such an exercise is required by the letter of the non-proliferation treaty, versus whether it will be done that way simply to close down a potential line of diplomatic and political criticism.
[0] Russian and Indian sub fuel is HEU by IAEA definitions, but significantly less enriched than the US/UK subs, which use weapons grade uranium as fuel. Some Soviet era subs did use weapons grade HEU
Regarding #3, I haven't kept up with this specific issue lately, but wasn't the issue with their use and creation of HEU, atleast for a while, that they wouldn't allow UN nuclear energy inspectors to monitor what was being created at the reactors? There are AP articles from 2023[1] saying that Iran had barred 1/3 of the most experienced inspectors the UN had there from monitoring it, and a news article from the UN itself from this year[2] says that Iran has been actively impeding their ability to monitor its nuclear program.
Presumably if you allow monitors for non-weapons uses, the accounting of where the material goes is relatively straightforward. Therefore monitoring could not be allowed, ipso facto, they are doing it for weapons.
An other compatible explanation is that they wanted ambiguity about their weapon production.
Besides, wasn't this whole thing triggered by a UN report showing they had made a lot more 50% enriched stuff than expected? I.e. the monitoring "worked"
But ambiguity with respect to weapons production has to be taken as a confirmation of an intent to develop weapons of the opposite side. Which makes this equivalent to just having a nuke program. It doesn't even give you a bargaining chip because there is nothing you can do as a step back (since you didn't do anything in the first place)
I suggest you wrap the misconceptions in quotation marks to make it clearer what is the misconception and what is not. Took me two passes to realize what was what.
> 3. Highly enriched U-235 is only for weapons - Modern medical, propulsion and research reactors use HEU
If you genuinely have no interest in uranium for weapons, it makes more sense to buy it from a country known to supply it at purities and quantities for peaceful purposes than to build you own centrifuges under mountains. Iran is/was either using uranium enrichment for weapons development or a political bargaining chip.
> Modern medical, propulsion and research reactors use HEU
This blanket statement is so inaccurate it is useless. HEU is a range, medical or research applications usually use 20–30% enriched Uranium, not the >60% Iran is (has been?) currently working on.
To me, the only point that matters is #3 and to the best of my knowledge it isn't true any longer.
Iran has produced a large amount of >60% U-235 (enriched), probably hundreds of kilograms, way more than would be required for any peaceful purpose. I don't think any modern medical uses actually require enriched uranium any more. And anyway, how much medical imaging or radiation treatment could you possibly be doing? And they could be developing propulsion systems, that wouldn't be a peaceful purpose (it would be a military ship).
Put all this together and it seems abundantly clear that the sole purpose of Iran's HEU program is the production of nuclear weapons. HEU isn't required in any significant amount for peaceful purposes.
> Put all this together and it seems abundantly clear that the sole purpose of Iran's HEU program is the production of nuclear weapons.
Not true. One simple reason could be just to keep the appearance of the program ongoing in order to gain leverage in negotiations. Remember that Trump pulled US out of the negotiations on his first term, this could easily just be Iran's response to it.
No, these bombings are not a negotiation tactic, they are a response to a dangerous action (violating non-proliferation treaties). The regime hoping that this action might be useful as a negotiation tactic does not somehow strip the action of its consequences.
If I point a gun at my wife during a divorce proceeding and a cop shoots me, that's on me, no? Even if I never meant to pull the trigger and the gun wasn't even loaded.
And when the best available intelligence says Iran was nowhere near close of obtaining a nuke?
The real reason is this: Israel is in a unique position where they have removed all threats at their borders so they can finally attack their biggest enemy. So they do that, and while doing so pull the US with them. We are at the brink of a massive war that will have millions of casualties, with even more millions fleeing to Europe, destabilizing the world even further.
You probably bought the reasoning about Saddam's WMDs as well.
Complete non-sequitur from where the conversation was one comment ago.
This thread started with you saying "maybe they are doing it as a negotiation tactic". And yet simultaneously you think it is everyone else's fault if such a tactic is taken seriously?
None of the points matter when Iran literally states their goal is nuclear weapons and using them on Israel, over and over again. Straight from the horse's mouth.
Yet it's framed as "misconceptions perpetuated by Israel and its 5th column in US media"
My point is to underline the fact that the comment had no purpose other than to shoehorn wild claims of "Israel and its 5th column". Do you dispute this fact?
