Sufficient Verification...

Satellite imagery facilities at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s safeguards department. The IAEA will use imagery purchased from commercial satellite operators as part of its regime for verifying Iran’s compliance with the recent agreement to limit its nuclear activities.

DEAN CALMA/IAEA

Citation: Phys. Today 68, 12, 26 (2015); http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/PT.3.3014

Topics: Nuclear Physics, Nuclear Power, Politics

The International Atomic Energy Agency will use the latest surveillance technologies to ensure compliance.

As early as the end of this month, Iran says it will complete actions to dramatically scale back its nuclear program. Once those steps are completed and verified, the world’s declared nuclear weapons states and Germany, collectively known as the P5+1, are to begin lifting the crippling economic sanctions that were imposed on Iran beginning in 2006.

Experts are confident the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), is sound. In a statement released in August, 77 nonproliferation specialists wrote, “The JCPOA is effectively verifiable. The agreement will put in place a multi-layered monitoring regime across Iran’s entire nuclear supply chain, including centrifuge manufacturing sites for 20 years, uranium mining and milling for 25 years, and continuous monitoring of a larger number of nuclear and nuclear-related sites.”

...3...2...1... counting down to the blowhards.

Fear is a lucrative business, and the Internet allows some to sound fairly legit with a URL and a few techno tricks in Dreamweaver. Playing footsies with Armageddon is an insane venture, with only one unpleasant end.

There is a general disdain for expertise and facts in an era where the louder one continues bloviating, the more likely you are to be taken at face value. Our media is more concerned with ratings than journalism; the ideals of "holding power accountable" sacrificed on the Baal altar of Nielsen.

I unfortunately, have used Isaac Asimov a lot lately.

Also sadly, our political establishment in collusion with the business of war, where "peace on Earth and good will to all men" must be counter to the business model. After all, profits go up in this country after every mass shooting, navel-gazing, hand-wringing nothing; the arsenal at ISIS/ISIL's disposal didn't just "drop out of the sky."

I wish the effort well as anyone sane should. "Duck and cover" should be a quaint part of our history of the previous century...not rediscovered.

Physics Today: Experts say Iran nuclear agreement is sufficiently verifiable
David Kramer