KAHLILI: Heavy traffic across Iran’s ‘red line’

Obama’s failure to act invites frightening consequences

Written by: Reza Kahlili for The Washington Times

In an annual report to Congress March 12, Director of National IntelligenceJames R. Clapper said Iran  could not produce weapons-grade uranium without it being detected. It already  has.

While the Islamic republic has had some progress in its nuclear program, Mr. Clapper said, “We assess Iran  could not divert safeguarded material and produce a weapon’s worth of  [weapons-grade uranium] before this activity is discovered.” He added, “We do  not know if Iran will eventually decide to build  nuclear weapons.”

In an interview with Israel’s Channel 2  television that same week, President Obama said Iran  is still “over a year or so” away from building a nuclear weapon. Mr. Obama said  then that during his stay in Israel, he would  reiterate the U.S. stance to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin  Netanyahu that all options are on the table to prevent Iran  from getting nuclear weapons capability.

He’s too late.

Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy  Agency in their last two trips to Tehran in January and February failed to  get approval to visit several key sites, including the Parchin military facility  suspected of carrying out tests on nuclear-bomb components. The agency  clearly stated in its Feb. 21 report that Iran is on  a potential second path to the bomb through its Arak heavy-water plant, which is  to go live next year and could provide enough plutonium for several atomic  bombs.