O Rhodium,
Oh yes, I do confess, I did digress, at length, at best. With pseudoscientific ramblings better suited to a diary than to this game, this game, our game of chess.
But how on Earth you plan to get 2,5-DMA or DOI from reductively aminating 4-iodo-P2P is well beyond me. I thought that the synthesis would at least involve 2 methoxyphenyl groups somewhere and at some point, no?
Captain_America,
To avoid dehalogenation such as de-iodination of the benzene ring, one must be careful to keep the temperature cold and to use only 1 equivalent of LAH. Using this method usually does not strip away the aromatic halogen.
obia, How do you plan to obtain the 4-nitro-2,5-dimethoxyphenyl-2-nitropropene itself, make it from scratch (meaning, starting from 1,4-dimethoxybenzene and then formylating)? Is this not an uncommon chemical which you mention, or am I missing something?
However, synthetically speaking, I find your proposed synthetic outline to be factually correct if not a tad bit too laborious, or perhaps as the case may be, just laborious enough to work as you might reply.