Obama prepares public to accept first Iranian nuclear test
DEBKAfile, Jan 15 2013
Netanyahu told an Israeli TV interviewer on Jan 14 that his government had spent billions of shekels to outfit the IDF with offensive and defensive options which were hitherto lacking. He stressed Israel is obliged to be extremely strong, whether to stand up to the Iranian nuclear threat and the extremist Islamist wave lashing the Arab world or to make peace. Earlier that day, Chief of Staff Lt-Gen Benyamin Gantz ceremonially installed Maj-Gen Gadi Eisenkott as deputy chief of staff, after the state attorney had approved his taking up the post irregularly in the middle of an election campaign in view of Israel’s security situation. When the AG made that decision some days ago, a decision by Assad to attack Israel with chemical weapons was taken into account as a possibility. Not that the danger is over, only that it was pushed into a quiet corner by the statements made on Jan 11 by Panetta and Dempsey. They explained at a joint news conference in Washington that if Assad chose to use his chemical stockpiles, it would be virtually impossible for US intelligence to detect it in advance or to stop him. Dempsey said: “You would have to actually see it before it happened.” However, last August, Panetta and Barak said they were certain that if Khamenei gave the order to build a nuclear bomb, “we will know it, we and you and some other intelligence services will know about it.”
The latest comments on the Syrian chemical threat let the cat out of the bag on another WMD menace lurking in wait for the region. If US intelligence finds itself unable to detect an Assad order for a chemical attack, how can they be sure to know when Iran starts building a nuclear bomb? They can’t. Anticipating this question, the Obama administration had its answer ready. On Jan 14, David Albright, who often represents thinking in US security and intelligence agencies, presented a 154-page report in Washington titled “Strategy for US Nonproliferation in the Changing Middle East.” He was one of the co-chairs of this project, which once again shifted all the way to mid-2014 the key timeline for Iran to be able to produce enough weapon-grade uranium for one or bombs without detection by the West. Obama is obviously preparing for his second term in office a policy that lines up his Middle East unconventional weapons ducks, Syrian chemical and Iranian nuclear, under the same revised estimate. Contrary to previous official US statements, Albright now establishes that US intelligence is incapable of pinning down the moment when Iran starts assembling a nuclear bomb, any more than it can detect the Syrian order to embark on chemical warfare. Therefore, a preemptive operation is out, and people must get ready to wake up one morning to find Iran has carried out its first nuclear test, in the same way as they must expect to be surprised by Assad’s launch of a chemical attack. Only then may Washington and Jerusalem begin wondering what to do. To stave off that moment, Obama still hopes the secret negotiations he initiated with Iran last month, plus stiff sanctions, will do the trick of holding Tehran back from building a bomb. Failing this result, the Albright report provides him, and Iran, with another 18 months’ grace.
This new estimate may be convenient for some, but it is false. Iran already has enough enriched uranium, produced or procured, for building at least five nukes. This is no secret. On Jan 9, the Financial Times reported that a stock of 5 tonnes of unenriched uranium, enough to produce weapons grade fuel for five atomic devices, had gone missing in Syria and may have passed to Iran. The stock had been prepared for the nuclear reactor Assad was building at al-Kibar in eastern Syria before it was destroyed by Israel in 2007. The information was based on British intelligence sources. he nuances in Netanyahu’s current reference to the Iranian nuclear threat suggest that he too is aware of the new winds blowing in Washington. In his latest statement, he departed from his standard assertion that his government would not permit Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon and said instead: “The government which I head has invested billions to prepare the country for the Iranian threat.”
Niqnaq 