Author: Amir massoud Farahmand

Having a missile that can penetrate the Earth is important for armies as it enables them to destroy their enemy’s deeply-buried strategic targets. A sample of those strategic targets is Iran’s nucliear facilities that many people are talking about these days.

Fortunately (or might be unfortunately as you will see), it is not easy to penetrate the Earth much as it absorbs most of the energy of any rocket quickly. Practically, it is not possible to go more than a few meters underground even with the fastest missiles with very hard casing. One possible solution is using a nuclear warhead to compensate this problem by producing much more energy than conventional warheads. However, as it is shown in [Nelson03], even if you use a nuclear warhad, you need a very powerful one to destroy things deeply buried. For instance, if you use nuclear weapon with the power of Hiroshima’s bomb, you can just destroy stuff buried 30-40m deep. If you increase that power ten times, you cannot still destroy anything more than a hundred meters below the Earth’s surface (well! rougly speaking!). The important issue is that you cannot increase the yield of you nuclear warhead that much because if you do, you would ruin the whole area and hence kill thousands of people (I assume that you just want to destroy some special target and not the whole country).

If Bush wants to destroy nuclear facilities of Iran using his Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrating weapons, he would kill many people alongside. There is no safe way for destroying those with a missile (or you may propose a one and get DARPA’s fundings! (; ). And I think you, like me, do not want people get killed.

I want you to talk about this whole problems with your friends, write about it in your weblogs, write in your journals, and any other possible way. I know that no single one can do anything special about it, but I believe that if we talk about it much for a long time, and persuade others to talk about it too, we can spread the word to the world (remember the small-world network). If the world becomes concerned about the consequences of this possible act, those silly politicians may not think more about this hazardous option anymore.

Anyway, if you are not concerned about it at all, or you think that there is no use in talking/thinking about that possible nuclear disaster, you may still want to read [Nelson03] paper. It is fun specially for those who is/was interested in weapons, destruction, bombs, explosions, and etc. (;

-Robert Nelson, “Nuclear Bunker Busters, Mini-Nukes, and the US Nuclear Stockpile,” Physics Today, Nov. 2003. ((html) – (pdf))

P.S: You may also like to see this clip

Nuking Iran: Jorge Hirsch interviewed by Foaad Khosmood
…
FKh: What will be the likely Iranian response to a conventional air strike? What about a nuclear strike?

JH: Iran is likely to respond to any US attack using its considerable missile arsenal against US forces in Iraq and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf. Israel may attempt to stay out of the conflict, it is not clear whether Iran would target Israel in a retaliatory strike but it is certainly possible. If the US attack includes nuclear weapons use against Iranian facilities, as I believe is very likely, rather than deterring Iran it will cause a much more violent response. Iranian military forces and militias are likely to storm into southern Iraq and the US may be forced to use nuclear weapons against them, causing large scale casualties and inflaming the Muslim world. There could be popular uprisings in other countries in the region like Pakistan, and of course a Shiite uprising in Iraq against American occupiers.

Finally I would like to discuss the grave consequences to America and the world if the US uses nuclear weapons against Iran. First, the likelihood of terrorist attacks against Americans both on American soil and abroad will be enormously enhanced after these events. And terrorist’s attempts to get hold of “loose nukes” and use them against Americans will be enormously incentivized after the US used nuclear weapons against Iran.

Second, it will destroy America’s position as the leader of the free world. The rest of the world rightly recognizes that nuclear weapons are qualitatively different from all other weapons, and that there is no sharp distinction between small and large nuclear weapons, or between nuclear weapons targeting facilities versus those targeting armies or civilians. It will not condone the breaking of the nuclear taboo in an unprovoked war of aggression against a non-nuclear country, and the US will become a pariah state.

Third, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will cease to exist, and many of its 182 non-nuclear-weapon-country signatories will strive to acquire nuclear weapons as a deterrent to an attack by a nuclear nation. With no longer a taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, any regional conflict may go nuclear and expand into global nuclear war. Nuclear weapons are million-fold more powerful than any other weapon, and the existing nuclear arsenals can obliterate humanity many times over. In the past, global conflicts terminated when one side prevailed. In the next global conflict we will all be gone before anybody has prevailed. (+)

A bunch of interesting course lecture notes in Lawrence Craig Evans‘s homepage:

– An Introduction to Stochastic Differential Equations
– An Introduction to Mathematical Optimal Control Theory
– Entropy and Partial Differential Equations

I do not like to write about politics. I do not like to write about human rights and related things in this weblog. I am fascinated about science, about philosophy, and about knowledge in its most general sense. However, I decided to write about exactly those things that I don’t like. You should excuse me if I write a few posts about Iran, politics, and human rights these days as my country’s political situation worsen day by day and I feel I may help -not actually very much- my country and my people by writing about it. At least, those people who love to attack this country may become more familiar where they are going to go.
The sad point is that most countries have a bad feeling about Iran. They consider Iranians as terrorist. I guess many people around the world act strangely when they hear anything about Iran. They think that Iranians are people who want to make the world a real chaos; they are potentially invaders who may nuke other countries as soon as they find out how to make a nuclear bomb. Many other think that Iranian use camel to travel around their country; they live in tents, and many other things that are simply not true.
I want to write more about Iran, their friendly and warm people, and what they believe. I think media are biased against Iran. They write in such a way that one may think Iran is really an axis of evil. I want to show you that it is not that correct.
Please don’t hesitate to ask me about any concern you may have about Iran. I try to answer you as far as I can. Remember that I am not a politician and do not like politics at all. For instance, I cannot tell you exactly why Iran’s president, Mr. Ahmadinejad, acts ridiculously and unfriendly to other nations (probably, nobody else can answer!). Nevertheless, I can more or less tell you that what my family, my friends, my classmates, people in the street, and many others think about.
Wait for my other posts about Iran!

The tension between Iran’s President and the West worsen day by day (See here as an instance).
I wished Ahmadinejad have not said those words against Israel and Holocaust. It is not my current business whether he was true or not, but as a politician he should consider many things before his talks.
I wish the West does not impose sanctions on Iran, or consider a war against it. My concern is my family, friends, and my country’s people who would suffer much from a war. They do not like Ahmadinejad, they do not hate Jews, and many other things that western people do not know. They should not be punished for what they have not done.

I read this story and many similar ones in these years: the story of killing many men and women by Americans. This is not a recent story. It has been started many years ago, in Iraq, in the war between Iran and Iraq, in the Vietnam war, in the WWW II, and etc.
U.S.A. government has a misbelief that they have the right to do whatever they wanted to do. They mistakenly believe that they are those who should solve all problems of the world, they are messengers of the God, and they must be promoters of Democracy and civilization. THIS IS JUST NOT TRUE!
They are not allowed to make a war against other countries, kill thousands of innocent people only to bring them Democracy. One cannot act democratically without believing in it and you cannot change beliefs by force. One cannot kill thousands of people because there was a guy who killed one of you. You cannot make peace by being violent! Calm down America, you are not the owner of the world!

P.S: It is notable that I do not mean American people are not good. They are as good or bad as any other people in the world. They have their own value which might be similar to many others. I do not want to offend American people. This post is about US government and those who believe that US government has the right to kill other people, including those people who kill others by their hands.