That’s right folks, it is now time for the first-ever Bad Edmonton Sun Column of the Week, hereby to be referred to as BESCotW. This week’s BESCotW takes us to the ramblings of Ed Feuer, A new name for me in the realm of bad columns, although if he keeps this up, he might become a regular in this feature.
Mr. Feuer’s column is all about taking action before Iran develops nuclear weaponry:
Some wring their hands and say the world must accept a nuclear Iran, but that wouldn’t be like the old Soviet Union. Mutually assured destruction doesn’t work with martyrdom-seeking whackos.
Wait, Iran is actually developing a credible nuclear weapons program?! Since when? Last time I checked, it would take 1200 of Iran’s nuclear centrifuges a YEAR to make one nuclear warhead:
Even though the IR-2 appears to be easier for Iran to build, the new centrifuge maintains the same production capacity as Pakistan’s P-2. Both can enrich uranium about 2.5 times faster than the P-1 centrifuges Iran has already been running at Natanz. Under optimal conditions, about 1,200 IR-2 centrifuges would need to operate for a year to make enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear warhead. The same goal would require about 3,000 P-1 centrifuges. (Natanz probably has about this many P-1s, but they have not been operating at full capacity.)
Oh, and did I mention that Iran has nowhere near 1200 of these things? Their old P1’s are home-made, ramshackle devices that can’t even operate at full speeds. Good luck getting the new ones to work, boys. Even if Iran plans on manufacturing nuclear weaponry, they are about as far off as Mongolia conceivably would be. Sorry Mr. Feuer, you’re a bit off.
Now, onto Ahmadinejad himself. This man is no Hitler. He’s no Stalin. He isn’t even a Sadaam Hussein. This man is akin to the doomsday-prophet homeless guy that pesters you on the way to the bus. He SOUNDS threatening, but in reality, he’s pretty much harmless. Yes, he’s an anti-Semitic Holocaust denier partially in charge of a nation (still less power than the Ayatollah, might I add), but he’s in charge of Iran. Not Russia, not Nazi Germany, Iran. A country that poses no possible military threat to, well, any of us here in the west. The last thing we need is another Iraq scenario, and this is right where this thing is headed unless people stop believing all the BS the Bush administration and the UN Security Council is feeding them and wake up. Ahmadinejad is a two-bit attention seeker, and we’re giving him exactly what he wants: a platform to spew his anti-Semitic slogans and idle threats.
Just ignore him and he’ll go away.
