[boomboomsubban]

>And Iran has been "6 months away from a nuclear bomb" for the past 50 years.

To be fair, that statement has always been "if Iran seriously tried to build a nuclear bomb, it'd take them roughly six months to do so."

That is probably fairly true, but they've constantly lied about how serious Iran has ever been about building a nuke while using the statement stoke fears.

[AlwaysRock]

Why do you think Iran is just toying with the idea of building a nuke? Doesnt it make sense that if they had the capacity, or if they had the capacity to make one in 6 months, that they would?

For 50 years Iran rules have been on the fence?

[DaiPlusPlus]

> Why do you think Iran is just toying with the idea of building a nuke?

After 2003's Iraq and Libya in 2011 (and Russia in 2022) it's straightforward to prove that autocrats need to have nukes (or be a staunch ally of a country with nukes) as it's the best way to prevent international sanctions escalating to military action; and conversely Ukraine shows us that not having nukes is a good way to get invaded by certain kleptomanic historically-revisionist irredentist kakistocracies.

> Doesn't it make sense that if they had the capacity, or if they had the capacity to make one in 6 months, that they would?

Consider that these countries need to build "real" nukes: whereas if Iran/NK/etc had only developed a couple of Hiroshima-sized fission bombs (~15kt) then the destructive potential is really limited and I imagine it wouldn't be a credible deterrent. But if they focus on getting 100kt+ fusion bombs (not just boosted bombs) working then the regime in charge can sleep easy at night.

> For 50 years Iran rules have been on the fence?

Iran has been actively trying to produce a nuke all the time - they just don't talk about it - nor do they talk about Israel's often successful clandestine air-strikes to their bomb production facilities - nor does Israel talk about it either. No-one talks about it.

[boomboomsubban]

Most of the things necessary to build a nuclear bomb are also used for nuclear energy and research. The estimates are that Iran could alter their completely legal nuclear program into one to develop a bomb in six months.

[wing-_-nuts]

To be fair, they're probably going the israeli route and have 'turn key' nukes. No way they don't have enough highly enriched material for a bomb or two by now. It's just not in their interest to advertise it.

[boomboomsubban]

Let's ignore how incredibly difficult that'd be given the amount of scrutiny Iran has been under for decades.

We basically know Israel has nukes because testing nuclear bombs is easily detectable worldwide. There aren't any other unexplained bombs activated. If Iran secretly built one, they have next to no idea if it works or how powerful it is.

So even if it wasn't nearly impossible, there's no reason to suspect they've built any.

This is fairly off topic though.

[spamizbad]

Makes sense: It's extremely expensive to maintain nuclear weapons after they're assembled.