Iran has announced this Sunday, through state television, its withdrawal from the international agreement that limited its nuclear program, blaming its decision to the murder on Thursday of its main general in a US bombing.
US President Donald Trump had already unilaterally withdrawn from the agreement in May 2018. Still, the treaty, signed in July 2015 by his predecessor, Barack Obama , was still backed by Russia, China and the European Union.
Iran had agreed to restrict its nuclear production for 10 years, closing thousands of uranium centrifuges, and had committed to, "under no circumstances, search, develop or acquire any nuclear weapon ." In return, trade sanctions valued at billions of dollars were lifted.
Does Iran have the atomic bomb already?
How long would it take to develop it now that it says to abandon the nuclear agreement?
Iran had more than 10,000 kilograms (22,000 pounds) of poorly enriched uranium before signing the agreement, according to expert Joe Cirincione. This product contains less than 20% of the uranium-235 isotope, and is used in nuclear reactors to produce energy . Thanks to the agreement, he had to get rid of 98% of his reserves, leaving only 300 kilograms (660 pounds).
1,050 kilograms are necessary to build an atomic bomb , but first they must be treated in centrifuges until they become 25 kilograms of enriched uranium (with at least 90% of the said isotope). Before the agreement, Iran had 19,000 centrifuges, according to Cirincione, but now it only had between 3,000 and 4,000 active.
Experts mentioned by Newsweek and The Wall Street Journal claim that Iran would need a year to make enough enriched uranium for an atomic bomb. Although he could also buy it, which would reduce the term to three months , according to The New York Times.
Then he would still have to place that bomb in a ballistic missile, which could take another year. North Korea , for example, has between 20 and 60 atomic bombs , and claims to be able to mount them in intercontinental missiles capable of reaching the United States, although it seems unclear that the latter is true.
In the case of Iran, all deadlines are also subject to the United States or Israel not acting militarily or covertly to sabotage their facilities, as seems to have happened in the past.
Israel owns the atomic bomb, and Saudi Arabia seems on track to have it; The three countries are enemies of each other.
In total, there are almost 14,000 nuclear devices worldwide, but they are under the control of only nine countries: the United States and Russia accumulate almost 13,000, and the rest have the United Kingdom , France , China , India , Pakistan , North Korea and Israel
What effect would the explosion of an atomic bomb in the United States have?
“I have studied nuclear weapons for a long time, but I always find it difficult to get to the idea of their size and their effects,” explained historian Alex Wellerstein.
To “help people, including myself, to realize more or less the consequences, beyond the extreme scenario of the end of the world that most people have in their heads,” he has developed a tool that calculates the radius of destruction and the fatalities of a nuclear explosion in the United States.
Take the test: choose your city, enter the power of the pump, and press the Detonating button to get the calculation of dead and injured.
One kiloton equals four billion the power of the trinitrotoluene explosive (TNT), used in World War I and II. The atomic bomb that the United States dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima was 15 kilotons; that of Nagasaki , 20 kilotons. A hydrogen bomb can reach 10,000 kilotons.
In New York , a 150-kilometer bomb would kill up to 730,000 people and cause injuries to 1.5 million. I would erase half of the island of Manhattan from the map. In Los Angeles , it would kill 240,000 people and hurt 630,000 more. In Washington DC , there would be 260,000 dead and 440,000 injured.