Iran will NOT have a nuclear bomb any time soon.

[speak easy]

Even if Iran can enrich their existing stock to 90% U235, they have no means to metallize it. The product from centrifuges is a gas, it needs to be made into a metal to make into a bomb.The site, Isfahan, where metallization would take place really was obliterated. Nuclear experts say that rebuilding that capacity will probably take years, not months.

Israel and U.S. Smashed Iran Nuclear Site That Grew After Trump Quit 2015 Accord

Israeli and American strikes appear to have created a major roadblock to Iran’s manufacture of atomic bombs, even if its cache of uranium fuel remains untouched, analysts say.

That’s because attacks on one of the sites, in Isfahan, shattered gear that Iran was preparing to use for the transformation of enriched uranium gas into dense metal. That process, known as metallization, is among the last steps in making the explosive core of an atomic bomb.

“It’s a bottleneck,” said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, a private group in Washington that tracks nuclear proliferation. “They have to rebuild it.”

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio made the same argument ... “You can’t do a nuclear weapon without a conversion facility,” said Mr. Rubio, who serves simultaneously as Mr. Trump’s interim national security adviser. “We can’t even find where it is, where it used to be on the map,” he added. “The whole thing is blackened out. It’s gone. It’s wiped out.”

New York Times

[Wonder Why]

1. Unless of course they can. Or unless they just simply load enriched uranium in a bomb and have an ordinary

high explosive explode over an Israeli city or in the middle of NYC and make the area a permanent nuclear storage site.

But if they vote for giving DONkey a Nobel Peace Prize, he won't care.

[Melon]

2. China went from enriched uranium to a weapon in 4-5 weeks. That's the margin of error

Israel and the US have to deal with between a normal state and is terrorist supporting country threatening everyone with a nuclear weapon.

[Arazi]

3. Yup. People are seriously underestimating Iran's motivation now

And there are countries like Pakistan and India that have never signed the non-proliferation agreement.

Would they help Iran in return for lucrative oil contracts? 🤔

Furthermore Pakistan has never recognized Israel and considers them a foe iirc for their treatment of Palestinians

[speak easy]

4. If they could get a bomb from Pakistan

they wouldn't have to have spent all that time on enriching uranium.

[Arazi]

5. Obviously Pakistan wouldn't help them before this

But now after they’ve been attacked by both Israel and the US?

Pakistan truly understands what it means for a country to have strategic nuclear deterrence.

[Ars Longa]

8. N. Korea and Iranian oil!! n/t

[fujiyamasan]

10. Let Israel deal with them then

I’m sick of us getting dragged into their wars.

And what is a normal state btw? A state encroaching on its neighbors territory? Bullying neighboring countries?

How is China any more “normal” than Iran? China has also on multiple times vetoed UN sanctions against Pakistani terrorists.

[Igel]

19. "Unless of course they can" is a nice reply.

But it applies all over the place.

"The JCPOA would have stopped this!" Unless of course it wouldn't.

It depends what state they store it in.

Take cerium, for example. You look at the price of cerium per ounce, you'll get weird results--even when they say just "cerium" they mean cerium oxide. The oxide isn't useful; you need the metal to make the alloy.

Same for UF6, what they get out of the centrifuges (and what they put in). They heat the UF6 and centrifuge the gas. Take the heaviest fraction and separate it out. And the U is enriched. They let it cool to room temperature and it's a solid. But it's pretty useless because of all the fluorine.

Next step is to make it into a metal. This is where you risk "teasing the dragon" or whatever they call it at Alamo in the '40s. Get too much of that enriched metal in one place it will start to undergo a chain reaction, glow, produce gobs of radiation. That's bad. Get more in one place and it'll start to heat up and maybe meltdown. That's worse. It's safer to store the U as UF6.

So it's stored as UF6. But until you remove the fluorine--which will result in anything from a lump to a lot of microfine U-235 powder, depending how you let it condense back down to a solid--no bomb in the offing. (That's the point being made. It sublimates above any temperature we'd want to try to survive, but below water's boiling point.) Whether they can do that is a different point, but a valid one. Why?

Because all the reports are that they could resume *enriching* uranium in a few weeks to a few months--depending on what we don't know. "Enriching" is bad, but doesn't automatically later that afternoon allow something to be placed in a bomb, unless it's just a dirty bomb and you want to spread U-235 all over the place.

[LudwigPastorius]

6. So, they get a new reactor vessel, a means to heat it, and some magnesium, and they're good to go.

The scientists with the Manhattan Project went from proof of concept, to making 100 pounds of metallized enriched uranium per week, in 3 months.

That's enough to make 2 Hiroshima-sized uranium bombs a month.

Also, you'll excuse my skepticism of the New York Times when it comes to things like other country's nuclear programs. They have a track record, you know.

[speak easy]

7. Why didn't David Albright

President of the Institute for Science and International Security think of that?

[LudwigPastorius]

20. I can appeal to authority too.

From the leaked U.S. intelligence assessment:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites

...to the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency:

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/29/world/iaea-iran-enriched-uranium-intl

[speak easy]

21. "Iran could again begin enriching uranium in 'matter of months'"

https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/29/world/iaea-iran-enriched-uranium-intl

Is not the same as saying Iran still has the capacity to metallize the uranium tetrafluoride to make a weapon. If such is child's play as you suggest then the NYT article is misconceived and none of the scientists they contacted alerted them to this mistake.

[TnDem]

11. Manhattan Project

Except that the Manhattan District, (actual name), took tens of thousands of workers and a building that was the largest in the world at the time to do that, (former Oak Ridge K25 building)...One screw up, and gaseous diffusion ended....Y12 did it a little more efficiently with electricity, but still a massive undertaking.

Iran doesn't have anywhere near that capability.

[Arazi]

12. I'm sure Iran isn't building anything near that scale anyway

Not that we’ll ever know. I presume whatever insiders Israel has remaining in Iran will let them know when it’s complete and that may be our only hint at what’s getting developed.

Since Traitor’s declared their program utterly “obliterated”, there’s no reason for Iran to allow IAEA inspectors back into the country ever again.

[TnDem]

14. Remember this

Oak Ridge and Hanford only produced enough Uranium 238 and Plutonium for three "devices"...One to test at Trinity, one at Hiroshima and the other at Nagasaki,..After that of course, the US had produced enough for 3000 devices like these.

The first ones take the longest and require the equipment that Iran probably no longer has....Also remember that Plutonium is a by-product of nuclear power reactors.

[Arazi]

15. Nobody knows what equipment they have.

Nobody.

Not should anyone discount their motivation to make a bomb happen stat (or bad state actors helping them).

Rouhani is no longer applying the brakes and negotiating. There’s only hardliners at the top now

[TnDem]

16. True, but...

"bad state actors" outside of Iran fear Iran more than Israel does....As I said in a post a few days ago; Iran is like the crazy brother you hated to invite to dinner...Reason being, he is subject to eat a burger, and then stab everyone else at the table.

Building a fissionable device "stat" still requires precise equipment and materials. The amount of intel that satellites provide, it is going to be difficult for Iran to succeed very quickly.

Remember, The Stuxnet worm implemented by Israel under Obama, set Iran's nuclear centrifuges back a decade.

[Arazi]

17. China gave Pakistan help with their nuclear program

And Pakistan is right up there with the worst crazies. Certainly crazy enough to help Iran.

There’s increasing evidence Russia’s been helping North Korea with their nuclear program. NK is definitely as crazy and unstable as Iran.

Heck we partnered with Stalin for a while…

History is littered with weird military partnerships.

As far as the US or Israel gathering intelligence via satellite on any Iranian weapons development, I’m not at all confident they won’t just park it in the middle of Tehran now and it will just look like any industrial building on the planet. The Iranians are savvy and clever. However/wherever they work on their nuclear program development next, it won’t look like before imo.

[TnDem]

18. One thing

The Iranians have certainly circled their wagons against any Mossad infiltrators and Iranian double agents. That will not help with intelligence on the ground for sure.

[LudwigPastorius]

13. They already have a stockpile of 90% enriched uranium.

And, Trump didn’t blow up all of their centrifuges.

Besides, I was posting about the metalization of their uranium, which doesn’t need an 800 acre building.

This is the building where the U.S. cranked out uranium metal for the first bombs.



https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/ames-ia-during-the-manhattan-project.htm

[Ping Tung]

9. India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea did not sign, ratify, or accede to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Ironically Iran has ratified the treaty and The State of Palestine has acceded to it.