Column One: Time's up on Iran

Caroline Glick
JPost
04 September 09

Over the past few weeks evidence has piled up that Iran is not years away from being capable of building nuclear bombs at will. It is months away. As the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Teheran's nuclear program makes clear, at its present rate of uranium enrichment, Iran will have sufficient quantities of enriched uranium to build two atomic bombs by February.

What is most notable about this IAEA finding is that it comes in a report that does everything possible to cover up Iran's progress and intentions.

Israel responded angrily to the report, alleging that the agency's outgoing director, Mohamed ElBaradei, suppressed information that confirms the military nature of Iran's program. In a statement released last Saturday, the Foreign Ministry alleged that the report "does not reflect the entirety of the information the IAEA holds on Iran's efforts to advance their military program, nor their continued efforts to conceal and deceive and their refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and the international community."

Two weeks before the IAEA released its report, the US State Department published its assessment that Iran won't have the wherewithal to develop a bomb until 2013. According The Washington Post, this conclusion is based on the State Department's analysis of Iran's "technical capability."

For all its failures, the latest IAEA report puts the lie to this State Department assessment.

Moreover, as a recent study by Israeli missile expert Uzi Rubin shows, Iran already has several delivery options for its burgeoning nuclear arsenal. In a report published by The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Rubin, who has been awarded the Israel Defense Prize and oversaw the development of Israel's Arrow missile defense system, concludes that Iran today has the capacity to develop solid-fuel-based intermediate ballistic missiles with a range of 3,600 kilometers. That is, today, Iran has the capacity to attack not only Israel and other states in the Middle East. Since its successful test of its solid-fuel based Sejil missile in May, it has the demonstrated capacity to attack Europe as well.

Furthermore, Teheran's successful upgrade of its ballistic missiles to satellite launchers has given it the capacity to launch nuclear weapons into the atmosphere. This renders Iran capable of launching an electromagnetic pulse attack from sea against just about any country. An EMP attack can destroy a state's electromagnetic grid and thus take a 21st-century economy back to the pre-industrial era. Such an attack on the US, for instance, would cripple the American economy, and render the US government at all levels incapable of restoring order or preventing mass starvation.

THESE LATEST disclosures should focus the attention of Israel's leaders on a singular question: What can Israel do to prevent Iran from further expanding its nuclear capacity and block it from emerging as a nuclear power?

The answer to this question is the same as it has been for the past six years, since the scale of Teheran's nuclear program was first revealed. Israel can order the Israel Air Force to bomb Iran's nuclear and missile facilities with the aim of denying Iran the ability to attack the Jewish state.

The necessity for Israel to exercise its one option grows daily in light of what the rest of the world is doing in regards to Iran. Following the release of the IAEA report and ahead of the UN General Assembly's opening meeting later this month, this week US, German, British, French, Russian and Chinese diplomats met in Germany to discuss the possibility of ratcheting up Security Council sanctions against Iran. Ahead of the meeting, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel both announced that they support stronger sanctions.
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