With Americans distracted by their own economic problems and the
media swooning over Barack Obama, we
learn:
Iran has now produced roughly enough nuclear material to make,
with added purification, a single atom bomb, according to
nuclear experts analyzing the latest report from global atomic
inspectors.
The figures detailing Iran’s progress were contained in a
routine update on Wednesday from the International Atomic
Energy Agency, which has been conducting inspections of the
country’s main nuclear plant at Natanz. The report concluded
that as of early this month, Iran had made 630 kilograms, or
about 1,390 pounds, of low-enriched uranium.
Several experts said that was enough for a bomb, but they
cautioned that the milestone was mostly symbolic, because Iran
would have to take additional steps. Not only would it have to
breach its international agreements and kick out the
inspectors, but it would also have to further purify the fuel
and put it into a warhead design — a technical advance that
Western experts are unsure Iran has yet achieved.
As I
reported earlier this week, Israeli officials are saying that
they are prepared to do what it takes to thwart Iran's nuclear
ambitions, and this has now been more explicitly corroborated by
other reports. One of the early challenges of the Obama
administration will be to determine how it would respond to any
preemtive action by Israel, including any likely consequences of
such action. Or, alternatively, what diplomatic tools he would
use to prevent Iran from making the political decision to kick
out inspectors and go independent, at which point Iran would
possibly be able to build a weapon within a year. Personally, as
an American, I'm not comfortable delegating this job to the
Israelis, but I don't view it as feasible that Obama would launch
a preemtive strike should it come to that. Either way, can we now
finally discredit last year's national intellegence estimate
that claimed Iran halted its nuclear program in 2003?
