Iran: The facts are clear, what they mean is something else
Whether it’s six months, nine months or a year, it’s clear that the West doesn’t have much time left to stop Iran.
The declaration by U.S. President Barack Obama on Friday that Iran is more than a year away from building a nuclear bomb reflects a disagreement between Washington and Jerusalem over interpretation, not facts.
Obama was responding to a question from Julie Pace of the Associated Press in an interview: “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said this week that Iran is about six months away from being able to produce a nuclear weapon. You said in March, before your trip to Israel, that you thought Iran was a year or more away. What’s the U.S. intelligence assessment at this point on that timetable?”
In fact, aides to Netanyahu said last night they did not remember the prime minister making such a statement last week, neither at the United Nations nor in his interviews with American media outlets.
In any event, the differing assessments are not necessarily based on substantially different intelligence. Israel and the United States share intelligence regularly, especially with regard to Iran’s nuclear program. The recent statements by Netanyahu and by Obama reside in the very fluid area between intelligence, policy and propaganda. In recent years, as Obama himself told Pace, Washington’s estimate of Iran’s timetable is “probably more conservative” than Israel’s.
Pace’s question referred to the earliest date that Iran could possibly produce an operational nuclear bomb that could be carried by a surface-to-surface missile, not just a nuclear device for the purposes of demonstration. Obama was not specific in his response, but it can be assumed from Pace’s question that he was referring to an actual nuclear warhead.
Netanyahu noted during his U.S. trip that Iran had not crossed his “red line” from last year’s UN speech a year – what was explained later as the accumulation of 250 kilograms of 20 percent-enriched uranium. Iran has about 190 kilograms now. But its installation of even faster centrifuges has shortened the distance to the goal of a bomb.
The fear in Israel, which Netanyahu noted in his speech last week, is that with the aid of these faster centrifuges Iran could cover the home stretch to bomb-making capability within weeks or months without being detected, due to incomplete international monitoring, and could then present the international community with a fait accompli.
It seems the Americans do not see eye-to-eye with Netanyahu on this. David Albright, founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, testified to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that Iran could produce a nuclear weapon by mid-2014.
Whether the time frame is six months, nine months or a year, it’s clear the West doesn’t have much time left to stop Iran. (Russia and China are less concerned by the prospect of an Iranian nuclear bomb.) The talks between the major powers and Tehran scheduled for next week will be one of the last opportunities to reach a compromise.
The United States, Britain, France and Germany may intend to consult with Israel over the formula of any compromise, but their demands are expected to be lower than Netanyahu’s in some areas. Nor will they give Israel veto power. While the West still takes Netanyahu’s warning about a military strike on Iran seriously, it also recognizes that he will have a hard time carrying it out, in defiance of Obama and against the advice of the Israeli security establishment, if a deal is reached – even one that is less than ideal from Israel’s perspective.
Since the window of opportunity for a military strike will not reopen until the spring, Israel is focusing now on encouraging the West to raise its demands on Iran and not ease sanctions. Israel even wants Congress to impose harsher sanctions to pressure Tehran during the critical stage of the international talks.
Undersecretary for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, the lead U.S. negotiator with Iran, asked Congress on Thursday not to impose additional sanctions as long as negotiations continue.
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WarSclerotic 
October 6, 2013 at 6:48 PM
Worse, the West has no intention to stop Iran.
Speaking about facts,
I recommend everyone to read the newest document from the ISIS institute.
It may help you to assess where we stand in the timeline for a strike. At least it helps me.
Testimony of David Albright
Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
Reversing Iran’s Nuclear Program:
Understanding Iran’s Nuclear Program and Technically Assessing Negotiating Positions
October 3, 2013
Click to access Testimony_Albright_senate_foreign_relations_committee_oct_2_2013.pdf
Highlights:
“Iran’s current nuclear infrastructure is large. It has two gas centrifuge sites, the underground Natanz plants and the deeply buried Fordow enrichment plant. It has stated plans to build a total of ten enrichment plants and suspicions are growing that it is building another one in secret.”
“Overall, Iran would likely need anywhere from a few months to about a year to build a crude nuclear explosive device and longer to build a warhead for a ballistic missile. The “long pole in the tent” of such an effort is Iran’s lack of sufficient WGU. It is assessed as not possessing WGU, and thus its priority would be the production of enough for a nuclear weapon, or more likely several nuclear weapons.”
“Recent estimates by the University of Virginia experts and ISIS incorporate the data from the August 2013 IAEA report on Iran. According to this estimate, if Iran used some of its existing stock of 3.5 percent LEU, all of its near 20 percent LEU hexafluoride, and all of its installed IR-1 centrifuges, it could dash to produce one significant quantity (SQ) of WGU needed for a nuclear weapon, or 25 kilograms of WGU, in 1.0 – 1.6 months. If it used in addition the installed IR-2m centrifuges at Natanz and Fordow, it could reduce this breakout time to 0.9 – 1.4 months.
If Iran chose to dash at these plants to WGU without using its near 20 percent LEU stockpile, it could produce 25 kg of WGU in 1.9 – 2.2 months with its IR-1 centrifuges, or in somewhat less time if it also used its installed IR-2m centrifuges at the FEP. Iran currently has enough 3.5 percent inventory to produce approximately 100 kg of WGU, according to this estimate.
These estimated breakout times today are sufficiently long enough to allow for detection by IAEA inspectors and a military response that could end further production. However, breakout times are growing dangerously short as Iran builds up its stock of near 20 percent LEU hexafluoride and installs more centrifuges”