The end of the deal, hopes, delusions and treasons

[Menschmaschine]

WikiLeaks:Russia gave Israel security codes to access Iran’s Tor- M1 AA missiles | Alugy

alugy.com

Wikileaks has had a decent track record overall revealing leaks around the world for various countries

Yes, but in this case their "leakage source" was only Stratfor, a consulting firm. I remember reading comments at the time wondering why Wikileaks would bother with such a lowly outfit. The source of Stratfor for the story was some Mexican ex-policeman that became "military analyst". Not the most trustworthy source, to say the least.

And the story does not make sense technically to me. What exactly are those "codes" that the Russians are supposed to have leaked to the Israelis? Usually the codes for IFF systems, including Russian ones, are changed regularly (https://www.mil-airfields.de/equipment/soviet-russian-iff-parol.htm).

 

[Stryker1982]

again that smear campaign against zarif , how conveniently peple forget all the branch of Islamic republic accepted the Deal

Yes, and lets not forget. Does anyone really think Zarif is in Vienna against the wishes of the Supreme leader?

No. He was ordered there, despite the opposition you see in the media, it's been approved at the highest of levels in Iran.

 

[TheImmortal]

Yes, but in this case their "leakage source" was only Stratfor, a consulting firm. I remember reading comments at the time wondering why Wikileaks would bother with such a lowly outfit. The source of Stratfor for the story was some Mexican ex-policeman that became "military analyst". Not the most trustworthy source, to say the least.

And the story does not make sense technically to me. What exactly are those "codes" that the Russians are supposed to have leaked to the Israelis? Usually the codes for IFF systems, including Russian ones, are changed regularly (https://www.mil-airfields.de/equipment/soviet-russian-iff-parol.htm).

Codes could mean many things IFF for one. Or backdoors left in the system to allow a cyber warfare attempt.

For exMple, do we really believe UAE getting F-35 if one day they were to go rogue and want to fight US or Israel that those planes don’t have kill switches deep inside? Let’s be real.

When Israel attacked Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 in Deir Ez Zor, Syrian radar operators never detected it due to brute force EW attack.

Now remember back in 2008 there was no RAD, 3vome Khordad, or any true capable air defense system besides some upgraded S-200 and Hawk and some Chinese systems. Hardly something that would worry Israel. TOR-M1 was more a nuisance due to low engagement range, but Iwouldn’t put it past Russia to offer Israel something to help ease their worry.

By the way within 2 years of acquiring TOR-M1, Iran was able to lift the export lock on the TOR-M1 system that Russia had placed on it resulting in an increased range of combat

 

[TheImmortal]

again that smear campaign against zarif , how conveniently peple forget all the branch of Islamic republic accepted the Deal

Some on here make it seem like Zarif is the supreme leader of Iran.

Or he just walked into a meeting with leader,security council, and IRGC officials and gave a misleading generalization of the deal and they all accepted. Hilarious what people will come up with.

Like I said not a fan of Zarif, but blaming him for a deal that IRGC lawyers, National security council lawyers, etc etc and everyone reviewed and accepted is a witch hunt at its finest.

 

[Menschmaschine]

Codes could mean many things IFF for one. Or backdoors left in the system to allow a cyber warfare attempt.

How would such a "backdoor", starting with the hardware, look like and why would Iran, that not only maintains but significantly modifies its Tor systems not discover it? We can of course wildly speculate about the meaning of the word "codes" but the by far most likely explanation is that it is all bullshit by someone not knowing what he is talking about.

For exMple, do we really believe UAE getting F-35 if one day they were to go rogue and want to fight US or Israel that those planes don’t have kill switches deep inside? Let’s be real.

Possible, but the UAE and Iran are of course on a completely different level and Russia has both far less reason as well as leverage to try such stuff.

When Israel attacked Syrian nuclear reactor in 2007 in Deir Ez Zor, Syrian radar operators never detected it due to brute force EW attack.

There was no reactor, the Israelis bombed a warehouse for propagandistic purposes, conveniently located in eastern Syria with almost no air defence so they only had to penetrate in the West through a not that densely defended zone, drop their bombs undisturbed and then return via Turkish airspace.

 

[TheImmortal]

There was no reactor, the Israelis bombed a warehouse for propagandistic purposes, conveniently located in eastern Syria with almost no air defence so they only had to penetrate in the West through a not that densely defended zone, drop their bombs undisturbed and then return via Turkish airspace.

And yet Both Russia and Iran have admitted there was something there.

Iran: Recently in a letter to UN complaining about Natanz attack points to previous Israeli record

https://twitter.com/x/status/1382326328280616960

Russia:
In a statement before the vote, Russia said that although Syria might have engaged in some wrongdoing, the issue was not one that the council needed to address.

“The site at Dair al Zour no longer exists and therefore poses no threat to international peace and security,” the statement said. The resolution’s preamble says that Syria’s actions “have given rise to concerns regarding international peace and security,” language consistent with the Security Council’s responsibilities under the UN Charter.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011-07/iaea-sends-syria-nuclear-case-un

And if you are trying to hide a nuclear reactor the last thing you would do is draw attention to it by surrounding it with layers of air defense and security that enemy satellites would pick up and do more intelligence gathering. Not to mention a few air defense systems would not stop 20+ PGMs from all hitting their target.

 

[Menschmaschine]

And yet Both Russia and Iran have admitted there was something there.

Iran: Recently in a letter to UN complaining about Natanz attack points to previous Israeli record

https://twitter.com/x/status/1382326328280616960

Russia:
In a statement before the vote, Russia said that although Syria might have engaged in some wrongdoing, the issue was not one that the council needed to address.

“The site at Dair al Zour no longer exists and therefore poses no threat to international peace and security,” the statement said. The resolution’s preamble says that Syria’s actions “have given rise to concerns regarding international peace and security,” language consistent with the Security Council’s responsibilities under the UN Charter.

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2011-07/iaea-sends-syria-nuclear-case-un

And if you are trying to hide a nuclear reactor the last thing you would do is draw attention to it by surrounding it with layers of air defense and security that enemy satellites would pick up and do more intelligence gathering. Not to mention a few air defense systems would not stop 20+ PGMs from all hitting their target.

There is absolutely no reason to assume that the officials that made those statements had any insight in classified Syrian affairs - they simply parroted the Western media narrative.

As usual in such cases I go with logic and what makes technical sense. The supposed "reactor" lacked not only any security, but also any features that should be present with a reactor (cooling!).

And what reason would Syria have to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor? A nuclear weapon program? That makes absolutely no sense - Uranium enrichment via centrifuges is a much more practical and convenient way to achieve that.

 

[yavar]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1387012412386287616

 

[TheImmortal]

As usual in such cases I go with logic and what makes technical sense. The supposed "reactor" lacked not only any security, but also any features that should be present with a reactor (cooling!).

It did have a cooling pump. I would suggest you educate yourself on the site

Seems over kill for Israel to use 17 tons of explosives to destroy a warehouse for propaganda purposes. As for lack of security I already mentioned why they did it, no need to repeat myself.

And what reason would Syria have to construct a clandestine nuclear reactor? A nuclear weapon program? That makes absolutely no sense - Uranium enrichment via centrifuges is a much more practical and convenient way to achieve that.

Here you are wrong again. Most countries that want a secret nuclear weapons program will go the plutonium route not uranium. North Korea and Israel went that route.

Arak Reactor could have made enough plutonium for 2-3 nuclear bombs and was relatively small area and easier to hide (not that Iran tried to hide it) vs trying to hide something like a Natanz.

 

[Stryker1982]

It did have a cooling pump. I would suggest you educate yourself on the site

View attachment 737994

Seems over kill for Israel to use 17 tons of explosives to destroy a warehouse for propaganda purposes. As for lack of security I already mentioned why they did it, no need to repeat myself.



Here you are wrong again. Most countries that want a secret nuclear weapons program will go the plutonium route not uranium. North Korea and Israel went that route.

Arak Reactor could have made enough plutonium for 2-3 nuclear bombs and was relatively small area and easier to hide (not that Iran tried to hide it) vs trying to hide something like a Natanz.

Plutonium => Poor mans nuclear bomb. Fastest and Cheapest.

That being said, I believe US is likely capable of being able to detect neutrinos emitting from Plutonium reactors to determine activity, probably for the explicit purpose of observing the world for anyone is trying to run this game quickly.

 

[WudangMaster]

Plutonium => Poor mans nuclear bomb. Fastest and Cheapest.

That being said, I believe US is likely capable of being able to detect neutrinos emitting from Plutonium reactors to determine activity, probably for the explicit purpose of observing the world for anyone is trying to run this game quickly.

There was discussion here as to whether it would be worth it for Iran to produce plutonium and while the US could very likely find it even if it were under a mountain, it would still be worth the investment and the mountain would serve as a shield rather than camouflage. Actually both avenues is worth the effort.
Now the question should be which way such a reactor would be discovered first:
1. US neutrino detection methods -- or --
2. Traitors from within competing and fighting with each other over who gets to leak this to the enemies.

 

[Arian]

Here you are wrong again. Most countries that want a secret nuclear weapons program will go the plutonium route not uranium. North Korea and Israel went that route.

Arak Reactor could have made enough plutonium for 2-3 nuclear bombs and was relatively small area and easier to hide (not that Iran tried to hide it) vs trying to hide something like a Natanz.

It's not that easy. There are multiple problems with that approach:

1- Acquiring plutonium: You need a high flux of neutrons to convert uranium to plutonium, something which cannot be done without a working nuclear reactor. Mathematically speaking, for producing 1 kilogram of Pu-239, you need an extremely powerful beam of neutrons in the order of 10^(27) particles per second. Most countries that use plutonium for nuclear weapons have breeding reactors which have their own technical difficulties and proliferation restrictions. Most breeding reactors use liquid sodium as the coolant, which like all alkali metals, it is extremely reactive and can explode if it comes into contact with water / high humidity. I suppose it's more expensive than heavy water too, but I'm not sure.

2- Plutonium reprocessing: Plutonium is highly toxic and lethal and you will need advanced reprocessing facilities. You need to keep these facilities secret obviously because you cannot come up with a good justification if you're a member of the NPT. Most people forget that the very reason that Iran's case was referred to the UN Security Council by the IAEA was because Iran admitted to experimenting with PUREX in research scale, in the scale of milligrams if I'm not mistaken.

3- You will still need uranium: You will still need to mine/import uranium. And uranium mines shouldn't be that hard to find, particularly if you have already revealed them to the IAEA. I suppose if they know where your uranium mines are, learning where the mined uranium goes shouldn't be an impossible task to do.

4- Justification: If you're a member of the NPT, or the world does not want you to have nuclear weapons, it's harder to come up with civilian applications of plutonium reprocessing than uranium enrichment. You will probably get your facilities bombed to the stone age before you can achieve what you want with plutonium reprocessing.

5- It must be covert: Obviously, you cannot use plutonium produced by a nuclear reactor under the supervision of the IAEA. So, you'd better keep your nuclear reactor secret or pull out of the NPT. Even if IR-40 was operational today, without a strong political willingness and a capable military deterence, it couldn't have been used for anything but civilian applications supervised and monitored by the IAEA.

 

[TheImmortal]

It's not that easy. There are multiple problems with that approach:

1- Acquiring plutonium: You need a high flux of neutrons to convert uranium to plutonium, something which cannot be done without a working nuclear reactor. Mathematically speaking, for producing 1 kilogram of Pu-239, you need an extremely powerful beam of neutrons in the order of 10^(27) particles per second. Most countries that use plutonium for nuclear weapons have breeding reactors which have their own technical difficulties and proliferation restrictions. Most breeding reactors use liquid sodium as the coolant, which like all alkali metals, it is extremely reactive and can explode if it comes into contact with water / high humidity. I suppose it's more expensive than heavy water too, but I'm not sure.

2- Plutonium reprocessing: Plutonium is highly toxic and lethal and you will need advanced reprocessing facilities. You need to keep these facilities secret obviously because you cannot come up with a good justification if you're a member of the NPT. Most people forget that the very reason that Iran's case was referred to the UN Security Council by the IAEA was because Iran admitted to experimenting with PUREX in research scale, in the scale of milligrams if I'm not mistaken.

3- You will still need uranium: You will still need to mine/import uranium. And uranium mines shouldn't be that hard to find, particularly if you have already revealed them to the IAEA. I suppose if they know where your uranium mines are, learning where the mined uranium goes shouldn't be an impossible task to do.

4- Justification: If you're a member of the NPT, or the world does not want you to have nuclear weapons, it's harder to come up with civilian applications of plutonium reprocessing than uranium enrichment. You will probably get your facilities bombed to the stone age before you can achieve what you want with plutonium reprocessing.

5- It must be covert: Obviously, you cannot use plutonium produced by a nuclear reactor under the supervision of the IAEA. So, you'd better keep your nuclear reactor secret or pull out of the NPT. Even if IR-40 was operational today, without a strong political willingness and a capable military deterence, it couldn't have been used for anything but civilian applications supervised and monitored by the IAEA.

You missed the forest for the trees.

The point was the reason that Syria had a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium by product was it strictly wanted a nuclear weapons program versus Iran that wanted both (a nuclear weapons program and industrial enrichment capacity to provide fuel for at least 6 nuclear reactors potentially more.

So the argument was why wasn’t that facility guarded is quite simple: to hide a nuclear reactor you need it to be in a remote area and disguised as something innocent. Putting security fencing, air defense systems, military attachments, etc defeats the whole purpose.

And again the point remains valid countries that were after ONLY a nuclear bomb were more likely to take plutonium route where as countries that wanted a full nuclear cycle for civilian purposes as well had uranium enrichment facilities as well.

Plutonium => Poor mans nuclear bomb. Fastest and Cheapest.

That being said, I believe US is likely capable of being able to detect neutrinos emitting from Plutonium reactors to determine activity, probably for the explicit purpose of observing the world for anyone is trying to run this game quickly.

US cannot detect neutrinos via satellite.

Detecting neutrinos is usually done in massive underground facilities such as this

And these are used to detect neutrinos from space.

So I doubt that US has a method to detect neutrinos at far range with high probability. The Syrian program was likely infiltrated by spies much like the Iranian nuclear program Has been.

 

[Arian]

You missed the forest for the trees.

The point was the reason that Syria had a nuclear reactor to produce plutonium by product was it strictly wanted a nuclear weapons program versus Iran that wanted both (a nuclear weapons program and industrial enrichment capacity to provide fuel for at least 6 nuclear reactors potentially more.

So the argument was why wasn’t that facility guarded is quite simple: to hide a nuclear reactor you need it to be in a remote area and disguised as something innocent. Putting security fencing, air defense systems, military attachments, etc defeats the whole purpose.

And again the point remains valid countries that were after ONLY a nuclear bomb were more likely to take plutonium route where as countries that wanted a full nuclear cycle for civilian purposes as well had uranium enrichment facilities as well.

I read Striker1982's comment first and then I read yours which made your post sound differently. Nevertheless, I already explained to you why your last paragraph is not valid. You cannot take the plutonium route before having an operational nuclear program first. Once you have an operational nuclear program, you can then take the plutonium path. North Korea did enrich uranium in 1990s. AQ khan transferred centrifuge technology to North Korea in 1990s. They continue to enrich uranium to this date if I remember correctly. As for Israel, Israel is a different case because it has the complete support of the United States, and other Western countries. So, even if what you said is true about Israel (which I don't know), Israel is not a good case because it never needs to start anything from scratch.

 

[TheImmortal]

. You cannot take the plutonium route before having an operational nuclear program first. Once you have an operational nuclear program, you can then take the plutonium path.

Incorrect.

The first nuclear bomb was plutonium based while the first nuclear reactor using uranium for electricity was not opened till 1951—6 years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs dropped and 12 years after start of Manhattan project.

Now a days reactors like Iran’s Arak (original design) could use natural uranium instead of enriched uranium, rendering your point invalid.

Thus if you simply wanted to get 5-10 nuclear bombs, you would look at building a nuclear reactor using either graphite or natural uranium and separate the plutonium. Rather than mastering the entire nuclear fuel cycle and building an industrial enrichment plant like Iran did. After all, Pakistan went the uranium route using 1,000-2,000 P-2.

Syria was merely after a nuclear deterrence. I would suspect Saudi Arabia and Turkey would attempt to go the plutonium route if Iran were to get the bomb one day. Saudi Arabia already attempting to enrich uranium itself. But going from .7 to 90% uranium is a lot harder than going from 60% plutonium (from a reactor) to 93%+