Nonproliferation, revisited.

The Wall Street Journal has a good article by congresswoman Harman (D-CA) about the need for new nonproliferation activities. Read that here.

Speaking about Iran, she writes "the dangers posed by unsupervised, weapons-grade material in the hands of a regime that has threatened to 'wipe Israel off the map' are unacceptable."

I tend to agree, especially after attending a lecture on enrichment safeguards yesterday. To sum it up, we all got a glimpse of the Iranian centrifuge bank, with an estimated separations capacity of 3000 tonne-swu (a unit measuring how much separations can be done per year; to put it in context, a 5000 tonne-swu capacity can produce a enough for a weapon in one year...)

Now, I can't readily say I'm for preemptive war, for I've seen what that does. However, comments like "wiping" countries off the map coupled with the potential means to do so is alarming.