00:00Yet if it is strikes and uncertainty, I mean, one of the uncertainties, just listening to what you're saying as
00:04well, that occurs to me is those enriched uranium stockpiles.
00:09I mean, is it dangerous? Are there hazards attacking a country that has stockpiles like this?
00:15And then as an extension of that question, trying to seek regime change in a country where there are these
00:22stockpiles.
00:23I mean, isn't there a terrible danger here that those stockpiles end up in the wrong hands?
00:29So, yes, I mean, there is a danger.
00:31What we're talking about is enriched uranium hexafluoride gas that then has to be turned into salts and then into
00:38metal and then into a sphere that you put in the center of a bomb that you can detonate.
00:41There's a couple of technical steps that I think Iran understands the technical challenge, too, and they can overcome.
00:48But if you were to know, we suspect that the actual containers with this enriched uranium may be buried under
00:56rubble.
00:57Some of them, according to IAEA reports, may have been moved off site to another location as to whether they're
01:03also buried at that site.
01:04We just don't know. So the location of that material is a number one concern.
01:09And the IAEA, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has demanded that Iran fulfill its safeguards obligations, its treaty obligations, and
01:17tell the IAEA where this material is.
01:19And they've refused to do so.
01:20So the first threat is that this material itself could now be vulnerable to theft or, as you point out,
01:27if U.S. strikes occur, that it could be destroyed.
01:30Now, there is no threat except in the immediate area of the actual uranium storage containers of breathing it in.
01:39But it's not going to cause some Chernobyl-like event.
01:41It's not going to explode and cause a nuclear fission.
01:44That's not to be feared.
01:46But, yeah, if you're in the room where one of these things explodes, you're going to have a bad day.
01:54You're probably not going to live through that.
01:57But if you're 10 miles away, if you're 5 miles away, you're going to be okay.
02:00So the U.S. may prioritize destroying any containers with this uranium.
02:05It would be much better if Iran just declared them.
02:08As to your rate, I mean, you know, if Iran does cross the nuclear threshold and has a number of
02:13actual nuclear weapons, then that's a huge danger because what are they going to do with those nuclear weapons?
02:18They could use them for terrorism.
02:19They could proliferate them to other states, et cetera.
02:21That's why we don't want them to cross that threshold.
02:23And quite frankly, I would much rather they were disarmed from this material now.
02:28The longer-term problem is that they've already gone through the intellectual exercise.
02:32They've developed the capabilities and expertise and technologies.
02:35So without real safeguards in the future, they could do this again.
02:40They could negotiate away what they've already enriched and then just wait and then build secret facilities, which, you know,
02:46we know that they've constructed additional ones that have not been bombed, and move material and technologies in there and
02:52do this again.
02:53And that's why you're going to need, like I said, really, really strict safeguards and verification to prevent them from
02:58doing this again.
02:59And what will Iran ask for in return for that, you know, openness, trade, reintegration into the global economy, and
03:07that's going to require them behaving on a regional basis.
03:09So that's why, again, this is a really complex situation.
03:12But I wouldn't be afraid of a nuclear release occurring now.
03:15I don't think there's any threat of a major, you know, nuclear radiation incident unless the U.S. decides to
03:21strike one of Iran's nuclear power reactors.
03:23But I don't think we'll do that.
03:24I think if there are strikes, they're going to concentrate on leadership, on air defenses, on missile capabilities, and possibly
03:31going after where we think this nuclear material might be stored.
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