BY PAUL T HORGAN

In retrospect, the American bombing of Uranium enrichment plants in darkest Iran was obvious. There was a central fact that was deliberately ignored or played down by commentators for years.

No one in the mainstream media, or indeed in the political bubbles, has actually explored what “enrichment” actually is.

Unless a person was familiar with how an atomic bomb works, the word “enrichment” was meaningless.

In the immortal words of Jennifer Aniston, here comes the science bit, concentrate.

An atomic bomb works by showering a mass of Uranium with neutrons (a component of an atom, and that’s all you need to know). This will cause the Uranium atoms to split and is called nuclear fission. 

Nuclear fission releases energy in accordance with Einstein’s equation E=mc². This means that if one kg of matter (a bag of sugar, for instance) is converted into pure energy, that energy will be just shy of 90 PetaJoules. That’s the number nine with 16 zeroes following it. 

A Joule is how ‘work’ is measured, but not the kind measured using a time-sheet. Work is defined as physical effort. One Joule is the physical effort needed to move the aforementioned bag of sugar one metre in one second as part of increasing the distance it can travel every second by one metre. 

This is before considering any other external forces, such as gravity or wind resistance, on that bag of sugar. So, about one Joule of work would be used on that bag of sugar on the International Space Station to move that bag of sugar one metre while making it move slightly faster than it was previously.

If my definition of a Joule is too complicated, don’t worry. 

All you really need to know is that 90 Petajoules of energy applied to that bag of sugar would make it travel faster than the speed of light, if that were possible. 

As Einstein’s Theory of Relativity starts to interfere when objects start to move extremely fast, the maximum velocity that bag of sugar can travel at will be just shy of 90% of the speed of light.

So converting mass into energy releases a lot of energy.

An awful lot.

In addition to releasing energy, splitting a Uranium atom will release more neutrons. These will then go on to split more Uranium atoms, releasing more energy and more neutrons. This creates a rapid chain reaction if there is enough Uranium to be what is known as a ‘critical mass’ of a minimum 45 Kgs of Uranium.

A controlled flow of neutrons causing a slow chain reaction, and you get a nuclear power station. A rapid release of neutrons, and you get an atomic bomb.

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Less than one gram of matter being converted into energy through nuclear fission in an atomic bomb was sufficient to destroy Hiroshima.

That’s most of the unpleasant science bit over. Unless you believe that anything to do with nuclear energy is unpleasant science, in which case you may be disappointed.

It’s not every bit of Uranium that can be split by showering it with neutrons. All elements, such as Carbon, Oxygen, Hydrogen, and Uranium have isotopes, which are based on the different number of neutrons they have. The isotope of Uranium used to such devastating effect at Hiroshima was Uranium-235 (U-235). This means each Uranium atom had an atomic mass of 235 (the unit of measurement is not important), of which 143 are neutrons. U-235 occurs in nature in 0.72% of all Uranium. Most Uranium is U-238, which has 146 neutrons. U-235 can be split using nuclear fission. U-238 can’t. Neither isotope is ‘stable’ meaning that over time, they will naturally release neutrons and other particles to turn into another element. This is why they are called ‘radioactive’.

To build an atomic bomb, it is necessary to have a critical mass of U-235. Chemically, U-235 and U-238 are identical, so it is not possible to use a chemical that will attract U-235 atoms out of the surrounding U-238. The only difference is the atomic mass, and how each isotope will decay, initially over billions of years by releasing neutrons, into another element. Approximately 40-50% of Earth’s naturally-occurring uranium has decayed into lead, which is a stable element.

So U-238 is heavier than U-235. But this does not mean that all you need to do is to get a load of Uranium in a container and wait for the U-238 to flow to the bottom. You would be waiting an awfully long time. There needs to be a little bit more science.

Uranium is combined to fluorine to form what becomes a gas at a few degrees below 60°Celsius, Uranium Hexafluoride. So what was a solid metal can now be moved through a network of pipes. The difference in molecular weight remains. It is this physical difference that can be used. Gaseous diffusion was the method employed in the USA to create enough U-235 for the first atomic bomb, where the different isotope weights meant that the lighter U-235 would pass through a filter with microscopic holes in a slightly greater quantity than the heavier U-238. Repeating the filtering process millions of times, and the gases were separated into a set which was primarily U-235 (enriched Uranium, the stuff used for bombs and nuclear reactors) and another which was primarily U-238 (depleted Uranium, denser than lead, used for armour-piercing tank shells, amongst other things).

Gaseous diffusion has been replaced by using centrifuges, where the centrifugal force acts directly on the difference in mass. This is the method used today to enrich Uranium.

To make nuclear fuel from naturally occurring Uranium, a quantity of Uranium only has to be enriched to increased its U-235 content from the natural 0.72% to just 2%. The RBMK reactor at Chernobyl ran on Uranium Oxide in the form of solid pellets with this 2% enrichment, and the other 98% being U-238. And 2% enriched uranium in quantity is sufficient to cause a disaster if it is mismanaged, by, as at Chernobyl, allowing the nuclear chain reaction to run wild. 

The Chernobyl disaster was caused by a steam explosion as the runaway nuclear reaction caused by just 2% of the uranium generated massive amounts of heat. The steam explosion ruptured the containment vessel, and brought the superheated steam in contact with cladding materials made from zirconium. This led to a chemical reaction that released hydrogen gas which led to a second explosion and a major fire that was fuelled for weeks by highly radioactive graphite, an isotope of carbon. The radioactive pile of Uranium reached sufficient temperatures to melt its way down through the floor. The nuclear reaction was only halted by dropping tons of material that reduced the flow of neutrons and also prevented oxygen from feeding the fire.

Iran has enriched half a tonne of Uranium to contain 60% U-235, 30 times the purity of the Chernobyl reactor, but not quite pure enough to make a bomb.

There are non-military uses for Uranium at such levels of enrichment. But they can all be achieved at lower levels of enrichment, such as at about 20% U-235.

Iran had successfully enriched a quantity of Uranium to about 20% in 2021, the first year of the Biden presidency, when it announced it would start to enrich this quantity to obtain higher levels of U-235. Nothing much happened noticeably thereafter. 

For the better part of two decades Israel has been repeatedly warning that Iran was “months away” from developing an atomic bomb. When no such bomb materialised after every claim, the world stopped paying attention. Israel crying “bomb!” seems to have become similar to the boy who cried “wolf!”

But there remains no other plausible use in Iran for Uranium enriched to 60% or beyond other than an atomic bomb. Israel had been trying to draw attention to a world with a low attention-span.

However, other Third World countries have successfully developed nuclear weapons, such as Pakistan, India, and North Korea. Why shouldn’t Iran be allowed to do so?

Reference now has to be made to Iranian policy.

Iranian policy has been, for the past 30 years or longer, to seek the destruction of the state of Israel, with rallies and prayer sessions involving the leadership loudly chanting “Death to Israel!” or some such (they may use the euphemism “Zionist entity” instead). During that time Iran has been making war on Israel through the use of proxies, primarily Hamas and Hezbollah.

To put this into perspective, imagine if every single British Prime Minister had proclaimed “Death to Russia!” at the end of every Prime Minister’s Questions, to the wild acclamation of the House of Commons, and Her Late Majesty the Queen had been doing so at the end of every single Christmas broadcast. Russia would have had to be informed of this official pronouncement. 

In 1956, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev threatened the UK with nuclear attack if our forces did not withdraw from Suez. This threat was taken very seriously by British authorities and shaped Britain’s nuclear deterrent and contingency planning. Had the Kremlin seen how the highest figures in the British state were calling for Russia’s destruction this would have informed their policy in a more aggressive manner, especially when the RAF started deploying their V-bomber force from 1955 onwards, after first successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1952. After all, the Politburo were so paranoid that in 1983, they believed that a NATO exercise ‘Able Archer’ was actually preparations for a nuclear first strike on the Soviet Union.

Israel and the USA could not wait for Iran to test their first nuclear device before going to war, especially since Iran had started to use long range-missiles to attack Israel in April 2024 directly after Israel had assassinated Mohammad Reza Zahedi, a senior figure within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s version of the SS and Gestapo in an airstrike in Damascus. 

It is credible to believe that Iran would have created a number of warheads, and if there had been a single successful nuclear test, these remaining warheads would have been used immediately on Israel. Iran’s leadership seems quite willing to impose its perverted version of martyrdom onto civilians in the furtherance of its aims, and using its own population as a form of human shield appears consistent with its overall policy.

The recent US and Israeli attacks also underline the abject failure of Joe Biden’s foreign policy. The 46th President was asleep at the wheel when he allowed Iran to continue its enrichment. Whoever was in charge in the White House, and it is increasingly clear it was not Joe Biden, they believed that doing nothing of significance while Iran developed atomic warheads was the best solution. Donald Trump has had to come in to clear up the mess caused by the left wing of the Democrat party manipulating his doddering predecessor.

The USA is effectively at war with Iran now. The casus belli is very clear. Iran has been making war indirectly on the USA, Israel, and the West for decades, and the pace of this war has now increased. Iranian policy seeks annihilation rather than coexistence. Iran’s leaders have overstepped the boundaries observed by the USSR that limited the Marxist-Leninist state’s aggression while it maintained its ideological hostility to Western capitalism.

The next move is up to Iran. Its leadership cannot accept capitulation, and compromise seems no longer possible, so it is likely that the Ayatollahs will order that the Straits of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world’s oil travels in tankers, be closed. Internationalising the war means that other major powers, such as China, who depends on that oil, may get involved and seek a diplomatic solution. However, it also may mean more war from the USA. 

Shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, but before Saddam Hussein launched his war against Iran, President Jimmy Carter stated that the free flow of oil tankers through the Persian Gulf was vital to US interests, and if compromised, would be defended as if an attack had been made on US soil. Under Trump, the USA is self-sufficient in oil and gas, so it is open to question if the Carter Doctrine persists.

Iran’s best move would be to not retaliate against the USA and also to verifiably abandon its nuclear weapons programme. But since the country is run by religious fanatics holding an apocalyptic mindset, it remains to be seen how apocalyptic they are willing to be.

As I mentioned in my previous article for the magazine, Iran seems to be on the losing side in an  endgame of Middle East power politics. The leadership has both literally and metaphorically dug itself into a hole, apparently running affairs from bunker complexes as Israel has seized air superiority in the skies above Iran, and can fly bombing raids at will. Some of the leadership appears to have fled to Oman.

The Ayatollahs know they are in a hole. It remains to be seen if they have enough sense now to stop digging.

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Paul T Horgan worked in the IT Sector. He lives in Berkshire.