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PaperclipPerfector  20hr ago (text post)   3955 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 13, 2026

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Jumping off that thread, I read Nadhim Zahawi's article making a case for this war. Some highlights:

The reality on the ground inside Iran was stark. By mid-2025 Iran was assessed to have had nearly a thousand pounds of 60 per cent enriched uranium. This is so close to weapons grade, that American intelligence said that the Iranians could have fuel for a bomb in under a week. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) thought it could make enough for nine weapons. They were likely days, not years, from the bomb.

Now, picture what would have happened if they had actually crossed that line. A nuclear Iran doesn’t just get a weapon. It gets a shield. The IRGC and the Houthis could control the Strait of Hormuz (as well as the less often discussed Bab-el-Mandeb Strait between Yemen and Eritrea, connecting the Red Sea from the Gulf of Aden), and forever dictate terms to ships with infinitely more certainty than their threats today are armed with. Hezbollah operates with nuclear cover. The Gulf states face a simple choice: bow or build their own bombs; Saudi Arabia has already said it would. A nuclear cascade across the most volatile region on Earth would follow.

Iran's to-do list

Worst of all, the conflict we have just seen to defang the regime suddenly becomes impossible. This is exactly why the ayatollahs wanted nuclear weapons in the first place. Then the axis of resistance, led by China and Russia, can hold the region to ransom and make any Western intervention in Ukraine, Taiwan or elsewhere even more difficult. Suddenly, short-term oil price hikes don’t seem so existential.

So how did we nearly let it happen? Tehran executed a brilliant strategy, with extraordinary patience, over two decades. The ayatollahs pursued a deliberate multi-track approach: building a regional proxy network of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, Iraqi militias, to name but a few, that made the cost of confrontation appear unbearable.

Then a stroke of unforgivable Western naïveté – Barack Obama’s 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). This gave the Islamic Republic both international legitimacy and billions in sanctions relief, while tying Western hands. The JCPOA deliberately excluded both the missile programme and Tehran’s regional behaviour. Many of us warned at the time that Iran would use the breathing space to fund proxy operations and accelerate ballistic missile development. That is exactly what happened.

So when we assess the conflict, which is likely far from over despite the ceasefire, we should consider not just the way it was carried out, or the consequences of action. We must consider the counterfactual of inaction. And we should rebuild a British foreign policy landscape that is capable of considering the different outcomes and the impact that they might have on the British national interest.

What would be the effect on our energy security, our trade and investments – and above all the safety of our people – if this intervention, or indeed any other, had not happened?

This hinges on the premise that a war with Iran was a matter of when, not if.

FWIW 400+ kg of 60% enriched uranium is hard to justify for civilian use (feel free to correct me), so the only thing this write up convincingly argues is Iran was definitely building a bomb. But I see no evidence that they were mere days away from a deliverable warhead. What about pit fabrication, warhead integration, missile delivery, and testing? Re Houthis, there is no historical incidence where other nuclear powers (say, Pakistan) offered nuclear cover to their proxies. And given that Saudi Arabia lacks Iran's enrichment infrastructure, a nuclear Gulf is how many years away after a nuclear Iran?

Notwithstanding @Shakes intemperate declarations of an ever secure victory under President Trump, I want to believe that paying NZ$80 for half a tank of fuel is a small price to pay for less savory alternatives but none of it makes sense unfortunately.

Isn't Saudi thought to have access to pakistan's nukes on demand? And Iran, unlike other nuclear powers except, for a brief period, red China, is run by true believer fanatics. USSR decision makers were nominally communists, but in reality cynical self-interested alcoholics. Israel's strategic program is governed by realpolitik, it doesn't seem to be the politically captured part of the state.

Isn't Saudi thought to have access to pakistan's nukes on demand?

This is more hedging than operational reality. The formal text is intentionally vague, because Pakistan's arsenal was always India focused with tight command controls. Actually handing over warheads would likely trigger many political, technical, and NPT headaches that make the whole operation look more like signaling than a ready-to-go umbrella. Also Pakistan is literally on Iran's doorstep. Allowing the Saudis access to their arsenal to explicitly counter Iran might prompt a military response from Iran and support for proxies in Balochistan. And Pakistan doesn't want that obviously.

Isn't it accepted that most USSR leaders are actual communists?

Here is a summary from /r/AskHistorians

The difference compare communist to Iran's fanatics is most on what their believe system require them to do, where Iran seems to believe destorying infidel is OK while USSR's communism still believe in saving proletariat of capitalist states

It was also sitting under the rubble of Isfahan since last June; no indication that they were even trying to dig it out. Because it was a bargaining chip (until now).

Nuclear blackmail also doesn't work the way the author thinks it does. Why doesn't North Korea say "Give us $100b and lift all sanctions or we nuke South Korea and Japan"?

Nuclear blackmail also doesn't work the way the author thinks it does. Why doesn't North Korea say "Give us $100b and lift all sanctions or we nuke South Korea and Japan"?

Because they're afraid the US would say "Go ahead, make my day". If South Korea was making the decision they might well pay it. Israel, to Iran, is in the position of South Korea.

South Korea is perfectly capable of annihilating Pyongyang even without nukes. The threat simply isn't credible. America could not have threatened the Soviets and Chinese with nukes to get them out of Vietnam, and Nixon's madman theory made him look pathetic instead.

Annihilating Pyongyang with what? North Korea could shell Seoul intensively with their artillery, nevermind nuclear attacks. A few measly ballistic and cruise missiles are no match for conventional artillery in just wrecking whole areas.

I'll leave larger-scale analysis to people like Dean that are competent for it, but for specific facts:

FWIW 400+ kg of 60% enriched uranium is hard to justify for civilian use (feel free to correct me), so the only thing this write up convincingly argues is Iran was definitely building a bomb.

Iran argued it was for medical/research purposes. I'm not convinced that's a useful distinction, but it means that there's a limit to how much you can persuade people with it.

But I see no evidence that they were mere days away from a deliverable warhead. What about pit fabrication

There's probably some classified issues related to this matter, but the public information suggest that the machining is annoying and dangerous, more than it's difficult or time-consuming.

missile delivery

The Diego Garcia strike was multiple thousand miles away, and while it probably reduced the weapon payload for that missile, that reduced payload is within the plausible weight class of a serious nuclear weapon. It wasn't successful, but something something horseshoes and hand grenades.

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