Israel Matzav

Egghead: 'Israeli strike won't stop Iranian bomb BWAHAHAHAHA!'

The man who did more than anyone this side of AQ Khan to make Iran a nuclear power, feckless former IAEA Director General Egghead Mohamed ElBaradei, warned in Hong Kong on Wednesday that you can bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, but you cannot bomb their knowledge. No kidding. (Photoshop courtesy of MR - daughter number 3, child number 5).

Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the world’s atomic-energy watchdog, said Wednesday an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities would only persuade the Islamic republic to build a nuclear arsenal.

“You can bomb their facilities, but you cannot bomb their knowledge,” ElBaradei, former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in Hong Kong. “If you were to bomb Iranian facilities, there will be a lesson for Iran -- to develop nuclear weapons.”

...

“They both need each other,” he said. “Right now each one is waiting for the other side to blink first and that is not going to happen.”

Yes, we know, you cannot bomb knowledge. But as Amos Yadlin pointed out in the New York Times a few weeks ago...

Some experts oppose an attack because they claim that even a successful strike would, at best, delay Iran’s nuclear program for only a short time. But their analysis is faulty. Today, almost any industrialized country can produce a nuclear weapon in four to five years — hence any successful strike would achieve a delay of only a few years.

What matters more is the campaign after the attack. When we were briefed before the Osirak raid, we were told that a successful mission would delay the Iraqi nuclear program for only three to five years. But history told a different story.

After the Osirak attack and the destruction of the Syrian reactor in 2007, the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear programs were never fully resumed. This could be the outcome in Iran, too, if military action is followed by tough sanctions, stricter international inspections and an embargo on the sale of nuclear components to Tehran. Iran, like Iraq and Syria before it, will have to recognize that the precedent for military action has been set, and can be repeated.

ElBaradei is still hoping that he did enough to ensure that his 'Iranian brothers' will have nuclear weapons. We must hope and pray otherwise.

Labels: IAEA, Iranian nuclear threat, Mohamed ElBaradei

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:23 AM