The possible and highly probable Iran nuclear threat has stirred some worry in high places once again. This is due to two major leaks that recently occurred.
In the first leak, ‘the New York Times published an article reporting that staff at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear oversight group, had produced an unreleased report saying that Iran was much more advanced in its nuclear program than the IAEA had thought previously.’
This means that Iran now has all the necessary materials in terms of imperative information and useful data to actually make a nuclear bomb. US intelligence is now said to be seriously reviewing its earlier assumption that ‘Iran was not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon.’
In the second leak, the British paper The Sunday Times ‘reported that the purpose of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s highly publicized secret visit to Moscow on September 7 was to provide the Russians with a list of Russian scientists and engineers working on Iran’s nuclear weapons program.’
This points to the scenario that ‘the presence of Russian personnel in Iran would mean that the Iranians had obtained the needed expertise from the Russians. It would also mean that the Russians were not merely a factor in whether there would be effective sanctions but also in whether and when the Iranians would obtain a nuclear weapon.’
Whether these leaks are true or not, they serve as wake up call in evaluating the capability and capacity of Iran to, indeed, produce a nuclear bomb. For some, it is no longer the time to assume that Iran cannot produce a weapon of mass destruction.
Via STRATFOR
