'Students' in Tehran's Azadi Square protesting support for Iran's nuclear programme

It is one of the central questions for Western governments dealing with Iran: How close is the regime to a nuclear bomb? According to stern magazine they have nearly reached their aim. Experts from the Bundesnachrichtendienst, the German Foreign Intelligence Service, claim that Iran will be able to set off an atomic bomb within a few months.

Iran will soon be able to produce atomic bombs and to perform underground nuclear testing, just as North Korea has done, experts in the German Foreign Intelligence Service (Bundesnachrichtendienst, BND) have told the weekly, Hamburg-based news magazine stern. “If they want to, they will be able to set off a uranium bomb within six months,” a BND-expert is quoted in the latest edition of stern magazine to be published on Thursday.

Iran has by now mastered the entire nuclear enrichment technology and also possesses enough centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium, reports the BND according to stern. “Nobody would have thought this possible some years ago,” an expert said. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna, Austria, Iran has installed more than 7000 centrifuges at the nuclear power plant in Natanz. The 4290 of them in operation at the beginning of June had enriched at least 1.3 tons of uranium – enough for one to two nuclear bombs.

2004 cartoon predicting accurately what has come to pass

As reported by stern, Iran is focussing on building missiles capable of transporting nuclear bombs to targets as far as Europe. According to a senior BND official, these efforts are pursued “with massive intensity”. The German Foreign Intelligence Service has “no doubt” that the missile program in Iran is “exclusively” aimed at the production of atomic warheads. However, it is said be another three years before Teheran will be capable of producing suitable ballistic missiles.

Research conducted by stern magazine shows that the necessary missile components are being obtained through a massive network of dummy companies. According to the BND, it is headed by “one of the most wanted men of the world” – the Iranian Said Mohammad Hosseinian. The magazine reports that several German companies are also involved.

Having watched the cat-and-mouse game of rule-bending and obfuscation Iran has played with the ‘EU-3′ (see cartoon above), the US and the UN/IAEA for the past few years – we’re more surprised that the world is wondering how Iran has been allowed to come so close to an offensive nuclear capability; than by the fact that the achievement of this objective appears to be imminent.

Iran has stated insistently its intention to pursue a peaceful nuclear policy, saying that hers is an energy-only plan. If this were the case however, then why would the Mullahs feel the need to play so many games with the IAEA and the wider world?

Negotiating theatrics may provide part of the answer. But Iran has a history of allowing, then cancelling inspection visits at the last possible moment. It has also roofed extensively its main facility at Natanz, then covered large parts of it with earth; in an attempt to both protect it from an air attack and to frustrate aerial surveillance efforts (well – we don’t think it was to grow an eco-garden).

Additionally – and as discussed here in a previous article –  Iran may also be linked with a North Korean-built facility in neighbouring Syria, which nuclear experts have said could really only be used for weapon-related nuclear work (it seems outsourcing and off-shoring, so prominent in Western business practice over the past decade, may finally have reached the Axis of Evil).

Are these the actions of an ‘entirely peaceful’ nuclear programme? We don’t think so. And it’s a combination of relentless dhimmitude, vacillation and appeasement from the EU, the US (becoming increasingly so under Obama’s watch) and the UN, that has facilitated this alarming state of affairs; whilst Israel, ever the canary in the mine, has been wilfully ignored and sidelined.

Do not count on her to stand idly by for much longer.

[Main story: Stern.de  Cartoon credit: Cox & Forkum - www.coxandforkum.com]

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