Iran and Saudi Arabia signal the start of a new era, with China front and center

[Jayjay]

Autocracies stick together.

And who can blame them? Democratic countries aren't reliable partners to dictatorships. Even if our leaders can overlook human rights violations and wars from time to time, the free media ensures that the people are always going to be at least somewhat uneasy about it. Could we really promise that if, say, the Saudis stay on our side, we'll let them oppress women and wage war in Yemen indefinitely? We could never say that openly at least.

Overall, Iran and Saudis are the two worst offenders in the middle east, and the bar isn't even very high over there.

 

[Politesse]

The sad part is it is or greed for cheap labor and profit that transferred technology and manufacturing skills to China wholesale which enabled the rapid rise China as an adversary

Yes, because the US' global influence was built on generosity, selflessness, and a commitment to worker rights.

 

[Politesse]

North American and Europen investment pulled China out of the Maoist communist misery. No good deed goes unpunished or biting the hand that feeds you

So they're greedy fucks, but you're also upset that your "gifts" to them didn't result in enough ROI?

 

[TV and credit cards]

China is Saudi Arabia's biggest recipient of SA oil and China accounts for 30% of Iran's international trade. The US imports very little oil from SA or the Persian Gulf for that matter and has no direct contact with Iran. So the US has little traction in brokering any agreements between the two countries.
In that US oil interests in Saudi Arabia have waned, it is justifiable that the Saudis are looking to diversify its security arrangements.

My understanding is both countries are looking to tone down the regional hostilities.

I don't think this has washed away the ingrained distrust between the two countries.

 

[Politesse]

China is Saudi Arabia's biggest recipient of SA oil and China accounts for 30% of Iran's international trade. The US imports very little oil from SA or the Persian Gulf for that matter and has no direct contact with Iran. So the US has little traction in brokering any agreements between the two countries.
In that US oil interests in Saudi Arabia have waned, it is justifiable that the Saudis are looking to diversify its security arrangements.

My understanding is both countries are looking to tone down the regional hostilities.

I don't think this has washed away the ingrained distrust between the two countries.

It would take more than a diplomatic meeting to accomplish that. But despite its press, love is not needed to accomplish peace.

 

[Derec]

Yes. Biden sucks.

Biden did this by pushing KSA away just because of some Muslim Brotherhood propagandist (not a real journalist).
Nobody likes to be called a "pariah".

 

[TV and credit cards]

Just Security

Saudi Arabia requires U.S. security guarantees, a civilian nuclear program, and fewer restrictions on U.S. arms sales in exchange for normalizing relations with Israel, people familiar with the exchanges said. The exchange offers President Biden the chance to broker an agreement that would reshape Israel’s relationship with the most powerful Arab state. The agreement would be in the U.S.’s interest, particularly to counter Iranian influence. Officials and experts in the U.S. and the Middle East were divided on how seriously to take the proposal, given the frosty relations between Biden and crown prince Mohammed bin Salman and the rising tensions in the West Bank. Michael Crowley, Vivian Nereim, and Patrick Kingsley report for the New York Times.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

 

[Jarhyn]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

If someone is seeking conventional reactor rather than breeder reactor technologies, they are going to develop weapons regardless of what any one person or leader wants.

Too many evil people exist as a percentage of government to ever honestly develop a nuke plant that CAN have weaponization, without weaponizing it.

Period.

I don't see why this is even a thing countries seriously pretend about.

Either they react their waste to uselessness and inseparable radioactive muck, or they are making weapons.

 

[TomC]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

Here's a reason I can think of.

Iran wanted nukes to protect themselves from the USA. Having China as an ally greatly reduces the threat of attack by the USA.

Losing their nuclear deterrence program frees up resources for more peaceful and productive pursuits. Obama put US on the path to peace with Iran 10 years ago. The Republicans sabotaged that peace effort.

Now China can better provide security from the U.S. than the USA can. The Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, made it clear. Don't trust the USA to keep any peace deal. Our government is too unstable.
The Chinese don't suffer from that shortcoming.
Tom

 

[Jayjay]

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

If someone is seeking conventional reactor rather than breeder reactor technologies, they are going to develop weapons regardless of what any one person or leader wants.

Too many evil people exist as a percentage of government to ever honestly develop a nuke plant that CAN have weaponization, without weaponizing it.

Period.

I don't see why this is even a thing countries seriously pretend about.

Either they react their waste to uselessness and inseparable radioactive muck, or they are making weapons.

Well, there are valid medical and research applications for highly enriched, "weapons-grade" uranium.

Not that this is what Iran is doing. But I think they want to have a breakaway capability to build nuclear weapons if need be, rather than openly boast about it like North Korea. The deal with China, unlike the Obama deal, allows them to do whatever they want though without oversight, so obviously that's a better deal for the mullahs and the IRGC.

 

[Elixir]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

Because the good guys - Kim, Putin, Xi, Khamenei et al - always abide by their agreements!

 

[Jarhyn]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

Because the good guys - Kim, Putin, Xi, Khamenei et al - always abide by their agreements!

I will repeat my point: a modern standard reactor technology expansion without equivalent expansions in second stage reaction is always going to be in pursuit of enriched uranium and plutonium.

You have not one, not two, not ten, not a thousand, but an entire literal army of folks in a national government, and that's not even counting the government workers who probably number similarly to said army.

Some are going to be implacable about "wasting" weapons when "everyone else is doing it anyway".

Given the nature of bureaucracy, and the ubiquity of violent paranoia, you just can't keep that guy and their friends out of the room. They're just going to "keep it as secret as possible" and that usually means from half the people in the room, as they do it even after being told not to.

You can overrule them almost every time on whether to USE the horrific weapon, but the deck is hopelessly stacked against advice not to make it when you have everything you need right there, and it's just there so you won't actually need to use it, right?

 

[bilby]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

If someone is seeking conventional reactor rather than breeder reactor technologies, they are going to develop weapons regardless of what any one person or leader wants.

Too many evil people exist as a percentage of government to ever honestly develop a nuke plant that CAN have weaponization, without weaponizing it.

Period.

I don't see why this is even a thing countries seriously pretend about.

Either they react their waste to uselessness and inseparable radioactive muck, or they are making weapons.

That was probably true fifty years ago. But dual purpose reactors turned out to be shit for both purposes - they made tiny quantities of weapons grade materials at enormous cost, while generating pathetic amounts of electricity.

The fundamental problem for anyone who wants to get a reactor to make both electricity and weapons grade fissile materials, is ²⁴⁰Pu. If you leave your Uranium in the reactor for long enough to be economical as a power plant, the plutonium it makes is rendered useless for bombs because it contains too much ²⁴⁰Pu - even a little ²⁴⁰Pu in with the ²³⁹Pu makes your bombs unstable (not a characteristic anyone wants for their nuclear weapons), and the two isotopes are basically impossible to separate - getting ²³⁵U out of mostly ²³⁸U is hard enough, and the mass difference there is three times as great.

In a modern nuclear plant, it's bleeding bloody obvious to any qualified nuclear engineer whether a plant is designed for power generation or for making bombs; And converting a modern plant from one to the other is more costly than just building a new plant of the other type.

At the nation state level, it's easier and cheaper to make nuclear weapons than it is to generate electricity from fission; But neither is particularly difficult or expensive.

Only one nation in the world has had nuclear power generation before testing their first nuclear bomb; All the nuclear weapons states except India have either developed nuclear power later, or not at all. And none of the nuclear power generating states except India have gone on to develop nuclear weapons that they didn't previously have. And even India didn't use her power plants to make weapons grade materials; They built specialist plants to do that, just like all the other countries with bombs did.

Nuclear power plants really aren't a proliferation risk. As the North Koreans have ably demonstrated, if a rogue state wants a nuclear weapon, they have zero need for a civilian nuclear power industry in order to pursue and attain that goal.

Any nation that had the capability to divert a useful quantity of weapons grade material from their civilian nuclear program to a weapons program would have a FAR easier time just building and operating a weapons only program. It would be easier to keep secret, cheaper, easier to build, and easier to run.

If Iran really wants a bomb, they could just buy one from Russia or North Korea anyway.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Anyway. This means that Iran is stopping their nuclear weapons program. And it was China alone who achieved that. The West and US had nothing to do with it.
US neocons (Senile Joe included) must be mad right now.

And why should we think they stopped? They've been hiding it, why would they not continue to do so?

Here's a reason I can think of.

Iran wanted nukes to protect themselves from the USA. Having China as an ally greatly reduces the threat of attack by the USA.

Losing their nuclear deterrence program frees up resources for more peaceful and productive pursuits. Obama put US on the path to peace with Iran 10 years ago. The Republicans sabotaged that peace effort.

Now China can better provide security from the U.S. than the USA can. The Republicans in general, and Trump in particular, made it clear. Don't trust the USA to keep any peace deal. Our government is too unstable.
The Chinese don't suffer from that shortcoming.
Tom

Iran wants nukes to protect itself from retaliation for supporting terrorism.

And what was just signed isn't going to put Iran under China's nuclear umbrella. Their motivations are unchanged.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

That was probably true fifty years ago. But dual purpose reactors turned out to be shit for both purposes - they made tiny quantities of weapons grade materials at enormous cost, while generating pathetic amounts of electricity.

I think you could make a reactor that was good at both--make fuel changes trivially easy. Instead of fuel rods make fuel balls that are pumped through piping in the reactor.

The fundamental problem for anyone who wants to get a reactor to make both electricity and weapons grade fissile materials, is ²⁴⁰Pu. If you leave your Uranium in the reactor for long enough to be economical as a power plant, the plutonium it makes is rendered useless for bombs because it contains too much ²⁴⁰Pu - even a little ²⁴⁰Pu in with the ²³⁹Pu makes your bombs unstable (not a characteristic anyone wants for their nuclear weapons), and the two isotopes are basically impossible to separate - getting ²³⁵U out of mostly ²³⁸U is hard enough, and the mass difference there is three times as great.

Nitpick--a bomb with too much Pu₂₄₀ isn't unstable. When they say it's prone to premature detonation they are not talking about it going off sitting there, but rather it going off too soon after the initiator is fired. Sitting there you need the multiplication factor to be below 1. If you want to get a city-killer (or provide enough energy to ignite a fusion stage) you need the multiplication factor to be something like 2 or greater so the energy is liberated before the bomb flies apart.

The basic problem here is that the multiplication factor is determined mechanically--how close together is the material and how effective a neutron reflector is wrapped around it. Thus you can't just switch it to the higher value, the whole point of the carefully designed explosives is to convert the shape from one that will sit there peacefully to one that will go boom as fast as possible--as the shockwave crushes it you have a state where the multiplication factor is above 1 (thus permitting a runaway reaction) but below the required value to let the reaction proceed before it undergoes a very rapid disassembly. You can tolerate a small amount of fission during this phase but too much will overcome the power of the explosives and destroy your bomb.

This is where the Pu₂₄₀ becomes a problem--it's spraying neutrons around and thus makes it much more likely the reaction initiates too soon and blows the bomb apart far before full energy is reached.

In a modern nuclear plant, it's bleeding bloody obvious to any qualified nuclear engineer whether a plant is designed for power generation or for making bombs; And converting a modern plant from one to the other is more costly than just building a new plant of the other type.

Agreed.

Nuclear power plants really aren't a proliferation risk. As the North Koreans have ably demonstrated, if a rogue state wants a nuclear weapon, they have zero need for a civilian nuclear power industry in order to pursue and attain that goal.

Agreed.

Any nation that had the capability to divert a useful quantity of weapons grade material from their civilian nuclear program to a weapons program would have a FAR easier time just building and operating a weapons only program. It would be easier to keep secret, cheaper, easier to build, and easier to run.

Yup, a civilian operation means far too many people know what's going on. The only advantage is hiding a bomb program within a civilian program as it explains the nuclear stuff. It would still be separate facilities, though.

If Iran really wants a bomb, they could just buy one from Russia or North Korea anyway.

No. The world would hold the nation that sold them the bomb accountable.

 

[TomC]

Iran wants nukes to protect itself from retaliation for supporting terrorism.

I don't think that is true.

The USA has been attacking Iran since the early 50s. We've supported more terrorism than any middle eastern country.
The USA is the leader in mid east terrorism.

Take a look at the post WWII history of the USA in the middle east.
Tom
ETA ~U.S. history in Central America, Pacific Rim Asia, Africa, as well. ~

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Iran wants nukes to protect itself from retaliation for supporting terrorism.

I don't think that is true.

The USA has been attacking Iran since the early 50s. We've supported more terrorism than any middle eastern country.
The USA is the leader in mid east terrorism.

Take a look at the post WWII history of the USA in the middle east.
Tom
ETA ~U.S. history in Central America, Pacific Rim Asia, Africa, as well. ~

Most of what is going on there is factional fighting within Islam--mostly Sunni vs Shia. Much worse than anything outsiders have done.

 

[Jayjay]

Iran wants nukes to protect itself from retaliation for supporting terrorism.

I don't think that is true.

The USA has been attacking Iran since the early 50s. We've supported more terrorism than any middle eastern country.
The USA is the leader in mid east terrorism.

Take a look at the post WWII history of the USA in the middle east.
Tom
ETA ~U.S. history in Central America, Pacific Rim Asia, Africa, as well. ~

Most of what is going on there is factional fighting within Islam--mostly Sunni vs Shia. Much worse than anything outsiders have done.

Not to mention that Iran and KSA both had different approaches.

When Iran wanted to renegotiate unfair oil deals, the Brits and the US arranged a coup and inserted their own puppet. Didn't turn out so well in the long run.

But around the same time, in KSA Americans did renegotiate the deal and became "friends" with the regime. That also didn't turn out so well.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

[TomC]

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

To be more specific,
If you're a poor diaperhead born on top of the oil craved by westerners, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Tom