Iran's Nuclear Bomb Unstoppable?

The Financial Times on Feb. 13 reported a document compiled by the staff of EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana concluding that Iran will be able to develop enough weapons-grade material for a nuclear bomb and there is little that can be done to prevent it. In an admission of the international community's failure to hold back Iran's nuclear ambitions, the document says the atomic programme has been delayed only by technical limitations rather than diplomatic pressure, concluding: "Attempts to engage the Iranian administration in a negotiating process have not so far succeeded".

The downbeat conclusions of the "reflection paper" will be seized on by advocates of military action, who fear that Iran will be able to produce enough fissile material for a bomb over the next two to three years. Tehran insists its purposes are purely peaceful.

The paper, dated Feb. 7 and circulated to the EU's 27 national governments ahead of a Feb. 12 foreign ministers meeting, says: "At some stage we must expect that Iran will acquire the capacity to enrich uranium on the scale required for a weapons programme. In practice the Iranians have pursued their programme at their own pace, the limiting factor being technical difficulties rather than resolutions by the UN or the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The problems with Iran will not be resolved through economic sanctions alone".

The admission is a blow to hopes that a deal with Iran can be reached and comes at a sensitive time, when tensions between the US and Tehran are rising. Its implication that sanctions will prove ineffective will be unwelcome to moderate EU diplomats. Only on Feb. 12 the EU agreed on how to apply UNSC sanctions on Tehran, overcoming a dispute between Britain and Spain over Gibraltar.

Iran has several hundred centrifuges to enrich uranium, a process which can yield nuclear fuel and weapons-grade material. But Iran is behind schedule on plans to install 3,000 centrifuges to produce enriched uranium on a larger scale. Ernst Uhrlau, the head of German intelligence, said Tehran would not be able to produce enough material for a nuclear bomb before 2010 and would only be able to make it into a weapon by about 2015.

The EU document is embarrassing for advocates of negotiations with Iran. Since 2005 it was Solana and his staff who spearheaded talks with Tehran on behalf of both the EU and the permanent members of the UNSC. The document adds that Tehran's rejection of the offer put forward by Solana "makes it difficult to believe that, at least in the short run, [Iran] would be ready to establish the conditions for the resumption of negotiations".