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nemomarx parent
Layman's impression, but it seems like Iran has been holding onto stockpiles and deliberately not going all the way to weapons grade, probably to navigate around the threat of us invasion or similar in the time between them getting that and credibly weaponizing it. Recent events may push them to rush it though, if they still have the facilities.

onlyrealcuzzo
> if they still have the facilities.

Wasn't the entire point of this that now they don't have the facilities?

johnmaguire
As per the story we're commenting on, whether they were successful in this mission or not is currently unknown.
IAmBroom
The story is about the fate of the stockpile, not the processing equipment.

That's even in the title of this thread.

johnmaguire
I believe you are mistaken. While the title is correct, it is also incomplete. One of the sites bombed was Fordo, the enrichment plant.

> Satellite photographs of the primary target, the Fordo uranium enrichment plant that Iran built under a mountain, showed several holes where a dozen 30,000-pound Massive Ordnance Penetrators — one of the largest conventional bombs in the U.S. arsenal — punched deep holes in the rock. The Israeli military’s initial analysis concluded that the site, the target of American and Israeli military planners for more than 26 years, sustained serious damage from the strike but had not been completely destroyed.

The article goes on to discuss how this is only initial analysis and that additionally equipment may have been moved prior to bombing.

onlyrealcuzzo
> additionally equipment may have been moved prior to bombing.

It's possible, and Iran has done it before (AFAIK, the only country), but this is about as easy as building a new facility from scratch (what they essentially did last time they moved a centrifuge).

It's not exactly portable, like a satellite dish or something.

And even if you transported some of the most complex parts (the centrifuge), they aren't really very useful on their own, without an entire facility.

So the idea that they're going to be up and running and further enriching uranium to bomb grade any time soon is - while theoretically not impossible - highly implausible.

The odds are likely higher that they've just got another facility no one yet knows about (which is low, but non-zero).

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