Iran's Radiological Clock Is Ticking

Now that Iran has shown it has no interest in good faith negotiation and is clearly setting about uranium conversion and enrichment in facilities formerly sealed by U.N. inspectors, it's only a matter of time before they are able to weaponize the material.

Tehran is throwing up its hands, claiming it just needs to get into the facility for sake of "research and access to technology" for its nuclear energy program and that it doesn't plan to produce nuclear fuel (well that's a relief).  Yet the centrifuge cascades in the facility need only refurbishment and time to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

This doesn't seem like the time to be taking Iran's word, given Ahmadinejad's call for Israel to be wiped out.  Condoleeza Rice put it succinctly, saying Iran "demonstrates that it has chosen confrontation with the international community over cooperation and negotiation."

The next step is for the IAEA to refer Iran to the U.N. Security Council for [toothless and symbolic] sanctions.  While this would only be the first in an inevitably long line of empty diplomatic maneuvers (given Iran's brash defiance and clear intent to become a nuclear power, not to mention the U.N.'s almost laughably diminished threat cred), it's not even clear if or when this first step will take place.

Still, however impotent the process may be, we need to get the ball rolling.  There are two parallel timelines in play here:

1. Iran's path toward developing fissile material (and concurrently, toward acquiring or building missiles capable of reaching Europe or beyond), which is simply a matter of the time it takes to refurbish and re-orient their centrifuge cascades and set them spinning; and


2. The slowly grinding gears of U.N. diplomacy, likely followed by swift preventive (or reactive, depending on timing) action taken by willing nations upon the eventual failure of U.N. diplomacy (caused either by deadlock or a called bluff).

If Iran reaches the end of path 1 before we reach the end of path 2, we're in big trouble.  And Iran is already off and running.

Sounding the bugle elsewhere:

John Hinderaker and Michelle Malkin