Iran’s Bomb and Fuel Cell Cars – Almost

Your Minor Heretic used to be in the electric car business, in a minor way. I tracked all the developments in batteries, controllers, and other relevant hardware. That included hydrogen fuel cells, the darlings of the engineering geeks. Thing was, practical fuel cells for cars were always ten years away. They still are. And Iran's bomb?

One of my favorite bloggers, The Rude Pundit, just posted a piece about Iran’s supposed quest for nuclear weapons. According to the pundits and military experts, Iran has been two, or three or six years away from having an Islamobomb since around 1984. What an appropriate date. The year of mullahgeddon keeps getting pushed back because, in fact, they have never developed the capability. The general consensus among U.S. intelligence agencies is that they gave up on any effort towards nuclear weaponry as far back as 2003.

A theory that makes sense to me is that Iran doesn’t want an actual atomic bomb. It wants the potential for a bomb. Always the potential. One or two actual bombs wouldn’t really do it much good, strategically speaking. Israel has over 200, with thousands more sitting around in the U.S., France, and the U.K. An actual atomic bomb would just be a shit magnet.

However, uncertainty about Iran’s intentions and development of a bomb is better, albeit a tricky balancing act. Iran is suffering from some imbalance right now, what with sanctions and saber rattling. With Russia and China on its side Iran can expect to survive this wobble. Where Iran would like to be is the center of attention, with the major powers split. It can then use its nonexistent nuclear weapons non-program as a bargaining chip for whatever its priorities are at the time. Nothing like trading something you don’t have for something you actually want. The uncertainty has done wonderful things, by Iranian standards, for the price of oil. The nuclear non-program also plays well internally. A sense of being embattled helps the mullahs keep people’s minds off other issues. (Sound familiar?) If they can finesse the situation, keeping the western powers’ meter on “nervous” but short of “aggressive,” they win.

It works on our side as well. Getting back to fuel cells, a lot of companies sucked up a lot of money almost perfecting them. People wanted to believe, and both investors and taxpayers ponied up billions for that “almost”. The military and security industries must love Iran. If I were the CEO of a major military contractor I’d be sending thank-you cards to Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"Mahmoud: Love what you do. Insult Israel again, ok? And do a photo op next to a centrifuge. Our 3^rd quarter earnings need a boost.”

Now that Iraq is winding down and we’re looking at an end date for Afghanistan, our war life needs a little spicing up. Iran looks to be the next excuse for bankrupting ourselves and enriching the likes of General Dynamics. It will work out beautifully for Mahmoud, the mullahs, and the millionaires if we can keep things at “almost.”