Just when you thought the Iran problem couldn’t get worse, it’s worse.
Earlier this week Tehran agreed to a deal, brokered by Brazil and Turkey, to ship out more than 2,500 pounds of its enriched uranium across the border to Turkey. In exchange the Iranians will receive fuel rods containing about 250 pounds of uranium enriched to 20 percent for use in their low-wattage Tehran Research Reactor, which the regime says will be used to generate medical isotopes (for instance, sodium iodide 131I to treat thyroid cancer).
The wonky details are important. Natural uranium is overwhelmingly made up of u-238, which is highly stable. It will not undergo fission in a reactor or in a bomb pit primary (though in a thermonuclear secondary—i.e., the fusion part of a hydrogen bomb—it will when bombarded by a cataclysmic surge of neutrons). U-235 is the more easily splittable isotope. This is what makes nuclear power reactors work and bombs go boom.
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