WarSclerotic

Iran crossed the red line Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu set in his speech at the UN in September, former military intelligence head Amos Yadlin said on Tuesday.

“By the summer, Iran will be a month or two away from a decision about the bomb,” the current director of iNSS said at a conference in Tel Aviv. According to Yadlin, a decision will made after the Iranian presidential elections in June.

Once Iran reaches this stage, “it will be very hard to stop Iran,” Yadlin said. “If the US, Iran and Israel all stand behind its announcements, then we are on a course of collision towards the end of the year,” he added.

According to Yadlin, Tehran already has enough 3.5% enriched uranium for six bombs and nearly enough 20% enriched uranium for one bomb. “They have no problem reverting back what they allegedly turned to nuclear fuel. Within a week it could be turned into nuclear material for a bomb,” he warned.

The Arak nuclear reactor would become operational by 2014, he said.

Yadlin stressed that without a drastic change in the sanctions placed on the Islamic Republic, Iran would continue buying time and expanding its nuclear program. “There will be no agreement if there is no motivation to reaching an agreement,” he said.

He added that the credibility of the American military action is a condition to the success of the negotiations. “This credibility will be achieved if the US aims a precise strike to stop the Iranian nuclear program and show that it can deal with the escalation that would follow this strike.”

Prime Minister Netanyahu drew a “red line” for Iran in a speech he made at the UN General Assembly in September. The prime minister said that red line should be before they have stockpiled enough low-grade and medium-grade uranium to begin working on high-grade uranium and a nuclear detonator.

“Iran has completed the first stage. It took them many years, but they completed it and they’re 70 percent of the way there,” the prime minister said. He said Tehran was well into the second stage, and would be able to move onto the final stage by next spring or summer.

Iran has kept its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent below 250 kilograms, the amount that would be needed, if further processed to weapon grades fuel, to make one nuclear bomb, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal. The 250 kilogram mark was noted as the “red line” for a military strike which Iran should not be allowed to pass by Netanyahu in his speech.

Earlier this month, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayayollah Ali Khamenei has reportedly  decided to rein in the country’s nuclear progress in order to avoid passing Netanyahu’s “red line.”