Not good news coming out of Iran.
Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have concluded that Iran appears to have solved most of its technological problems and is now beginning to enrich uranium on a far larger scale than before, according to the agency’s top officials.
The findings may change the calculus of diplomacy in Europe and in Washington, which aimed to force a suspension of Iran’s enrichment activities in large part to prevent it from learning how to produce weapons-grade material.
In a short-notice inspection of Iran’s operations in the main nuclear facility at Natanz on Sunday, conducted in advance of a report to the United Nations Security Council due early next week, the inspectors found that Iranian engineers were already using roughly 1,300 centrifuges and were producing fuel suitable for nuclear reactors, according to diplomats and nuclear experts here.
Obviously, there are great uncertainties involved in estimating exactly how close Iran is to producing highly enriched uranium at an industrial scale.
There are, however, some distressing facts that isn't entirely consistent with Iran's claim that its nuclear programme is entirely peaceful.
Inspectors are concerned that Iran has declined to answer a series of questions, posed more than a year ago, about information the agency received from a Pakistani nuclear engineer, Abdul Qadeer Khan. Of particular interest is a document that shows how to design the collision of two nuclear spheres — something suitable only for producing a weapon.
And how close is Iran to producing a nuclear weapon? Well, the actual delivery system will pose its own significant challenge for the Iranians, but if we are to believe the IAEA on this, Iran may be able to build a crude bomb within a much shorter timescale than we had hoped.
“They are at the stage where they are doing one cascade a week,” said one diplomat familiar with the analysis of Iran’s activities, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the information. A “cascade” has 164 centrifuges, and experts say that at this pace, Iran could have 3,000 centrifuges operating by June — enough to make one bomb’s worth of material every year. Tehran may, the diplomat said, be able to build an additional 5,000 centrifuges by the end of the year, for a total of 8,000.
The diplomatic work to prevent Mullahs with nukes presents some very difficult dilemmas; whether to stand on the line that Iran must be prevented from doing any enrichment, or concede defeat and run for the inner barricades, trying to prevent Iran from reaching the "breakout capability" where it can throw out inspectors and produce nuclear weapons on its own, secure in the knowledge that the deterrent factor is already at work.
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