aNewDomain — News of U.S. President Barack Obama’s controversial deal with Iran is everywhere. The deal will restrict nuclear fuel and research is restricted, but it will eventually lift embargoes on ballistics and conventional arms. So Obama is now on a 60-day mission to convince Congress, the American public and nay-sayers on all sides that this really is the best course of action.
Israel and Iran have vested and separate interests in this PR junket, but they both know that the U.S. has another method of dealing with Iran’s nuclear program. A precise military solution. Enter the B61-12 nuclear bomb.
What is the B61-12 nuclear bomb?
The B61-12 is a guided nuclear bomb that has been under development in Sandia National Laboratories for the U.S. The B61 nuclear bomb is one of the primary lasting thermonuclear devices from the Cold War, and the new version, which is officially called an “upgrade,” was tested, unarmed, three times on July 1, 2015 by the National Nuclear Security Administration.
Reports Reveal:
Seventy years ago this week, the US Army detonated the first atomic bomb in New Mexico. In the race to build the bomb, the code name “Trinity” was used for the first test of the Manhattan Project – a top-secret research and development program that produced nuclear weapons for America and its allies during World War II.”
Seventy years later, and five years after Obama’s speech that called for the ridding of nuclear weapons, we are watching his “non-proliferation strategy” come to fruition. But something isn’t quite right.
The U.S. plans to invest roughly $350 billion over the next decade to maintaining its nuclear array, including improvements.
‘The hypocrisy and double-speak couldn’t be greater,’ said Becker, of ANSWER. ‘At the very moment the United States is negotiating with Iran insisting that it not acquire any future nuclear weapons program, the Obama Administration in violation of the NPT, is expanding not diminishing its nuclear arsenal.'”
Another Reveal report reveals this:
Hans Kristensen, a nuclear weapons expert at the nonpartisan Federation of American Scientists in Washington, is resolute that the bomb violates a 2010 Obama administration pledge not to produce nuclear weapons with new military capabilities.”
“We do not have a nuclear guided bomb in our arsenal today,” Kristensen said. “It is a new weapon.”
“Kristensen’s organization was formed in 1945 by nuclear scientists who wanted to prevent nuclear war. And it’s not the maximum force of the B61-12 that worries him the most on that front.”
“Instead, he says he fears that the bomb’s greater accuracy, coupled with the way its explosive force can be reduced electronically through a dial-a-yield system accessed by a hatch on the bomb’s body, increases the risk that a president might consider it tame enough for a future conflict.”
Reveal also has an interactive map that shows the effects of a nuclear weapon in your “hood.” Check it out.
It’s clear there are multiple factors at work on the nuclear front. There are different rules for different players in this non-proliferation global game. Israel is under no inspection, as it never signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty, while Iran will be under a new regime of close international inspections. And the U.S. plays by its own rules as it invests billions in upgrading its nuclear capabilities.
So it’s really about grand political power plays that have little to do with an ideal, non-nuclear world. The Muslim (Pakistan/Iran) bomb, the Jewish (Israel) Bomb and the American bombs are not to be compared … it’s not about the nuclear power you have, but where your regime is positioned in the multi-polar global game of interests.
For aNewDomain, I’m David Michaelis.
Featured image: B-61 bomb rack via Wikimedia Commons.
Body image: B-61 assembly via Wikimedia Commons.
I for one am glad we have an upgraded system though 350 billion dollars over 10 years sounds like the American public is getting raped!