Even though Iran denies having a nuclear weapons program and despite a CIA National Intelligence Estimate that was portrayed by our press, with CIA spinning, as showing Iran had stopped their nuclear weapons program, our president says that Iran could go nuclear in the near future:
President Barack Obama says U.S. intelligence assessments show Iran is still "a year or more away" from building a nuclear weapon.
He may be at odds with Israel's assessment that no more than 6 months are necessary, but you have to keep in mind a couple things.
One, Uranium enrichment can be manipulated to change the time frame. If Iran wants to appear farther away, they use some of their stockpile for nuclear fuel purposes. For Iran, they get to look farther away from a bomb by reducing the on hand nuclear bomb material while increasing their production capacity to quickly enrich Uranium.
And keep in mind that Iran needs long-range missiles and a warhead to go along with their bomb material. They don't have a nuclear weapon until they have all three, so getting all programs to cross the finish line at the same time is ideal. And the bomb material stockpile is the most visible indicator.
So if Iran draws down that stockpile it is likely because the other legs of their weapons program are not keeping up.
Two, what changed since 2007 when the CIA spun their NIE as showing Iran had halted their nuclear weapons program and which our press corps eagerly reported? That took the wind out of any efforts to strike Iran back then.
The key change took place back in 2008, of course, when the CIA backed away from the political spin of the reporting on the non-classified public summary of the 2007 NIE and said that they thought Iran continued to work toward the capability of building a nuclear missile.
And today, Iran continues to pursue nuclear weapons capabilities. Our estimates of when Iran can go nuclear keep changing, but Iran has their hand on one major factor that changes. The key to remember is that this is the path that Iran is on, regardless of when Iran gets there.
My biggest worry is that the Iranians are well aware that their capacity in those three areas is under heavy scrutiny and that we or Israel really might strike them if Iran gets close to nuclear weapons.
Were I in charge, I'd be trying to quietly create the missiles and warheads while creating the ability to quickly produce nuclear bomb material. That way, a final quiet blitz could start putting warheads on missiles.
More important, knowing that the interval between being seen with the ability of producing nuclear weapons and actually having nuclear weapons will be the last window for American or Israel to strike, I'd want a small arsenal of purchased nuclear missiles before weapons production capacity is visible (although we have a potential--ir risky--answer to that breakout strategy, I think).
Pakistan is a potential source of nuclear missiles but as long as we are reasonably friendly, no sales are going to take place. And it seems unlikely that sympathetic jihadis within Pakistan could secretly sell part of the arsenal. I think we're too focused on the Pakistani arsenal to lose track of any. Perhaps I hope too much.
That's where North Korea could come in. Iran and North Korea cooperate on missile work and nuclear work (Iranians are known to work with North Korea on missiles and North Koreans were killed when Israel knocked out a secret nuclear reactor in Syria--Iran's client--half a dozen years ago), and North Korea is broke and I'm sure would love to sell Iran nuclear missiles. Luckily, North Korea hasn't weaponized their nuclear devices--yet.
I don't think Iran's mullah-led government can be trusted with nuclear weapons. I'd rather change the government. A new government might decide it has better things to spend their money on. And just having a non-nutball regime with nukes is far less dangerous. I don't worry about the French nuclear arsenal, after all.
But if we can't support anti-mullah elements in Iran to replace their government, I'd rather the existing government didn't have nuclear weapons, even if we're just buying time to get a better government in Tehran.
