Enriching Iran

There is no doubt that news out of Iran, that they will be installing more centrifuges, is going to re-energize the marching band leading us to a war with Persia. However, before jumping into the fear-monger express, is it really such a big deal?

The AP is reporting that Iran will install 6,000 more centrifuges to complement the 3,000 they already have. Centrifuges are necessary to enrich uranium for both nuclear power development and nuclear weapons armament. Of course, the thing is, if they simply wanted to build nuclear weapons, 3,000 centrifuges would suffice. I think by bringing in more, it shows that they DO desire to build a nuclear power infrastructure.

"But why? They have so much oil."

Yes, they do have a lot of oil, which is their major export and the source of what wealth that country has. They'd likely rather sell the oil, than use it to power cities which could be done with nuclear energy (which is better for the environment to boot, though I'm not sure if thats a big concern of Ahmadenijad).

Now, would they like to build nuclear weapons? I'm sure they would. After all, the message from America is that if you have WMDs (North Korea) we won't attack and we'll negotiate, but if you don't (Iraq) we'll invade under the precepts that you do. So they'd be stupid not to want a nuclear weapon. Whether they'll actually go through with building one is hard to say...I think they may, but frankly I'm not too concerned if they do have one, as they'll do what every other country besides America has done, and use them as deterrents, not tools of aggression.