Debka so salt as neededPresident Barack Obama and John Kerry promised that the nuclear deal to be signed with Iran in Switzerland this week will give the world powers a year's warning after the Islamic Republic's breakout up to an operational weapon. DEBKAfile's intelligence sources disclose that, to clinch the framework deal in Lausanne, even this concession, which imperils Israel, the Gulf and the Middle East at large, was not enough. In a further surrender, the president authorized the US delegation to fall back again on the space granted the world powers for reacting to breakthrough, dropping it from a year to six or seven months:
Our nuclear experts explain why even that grim arithmetic does not do full justice to the advantages Iran has gained for its push to a nuke:
1. Because Iran is permitted to continue running up to 6,500 elderly IR-1 centrifuges for enriching uranium to a low 3.5 percent grade, even if it is permitted to keep only 500 kilos of its stock of 7.5-8 --tons, Tehran would still be able to build a bomb in 7-8 months, i.e. a lot faster than Obama and Kerry have promised.
2. But if Tehran activates secret facilities undetected by US intelligence, it can produce a larger quantity of enriched uranium and so shrink the time between breakout and bomb to three, at most, four months, totally insufficient for the world powers to detect, step in and abort the bomb's manufacture, in view of the following considerations:
There goes another month of valuable time for action, cutting it down to 10-12 weeks.
3. And, finally, the US President, Secretary of State and International Atomic Energy leaders have affirmed Iran's faithful compliance with the first interim nuclear accord -- known as the Joint Plan of Action -- JPOA -- that was signed in Geneva November 2013.
That information is equally false.
It is a fact which is known to intelligence agencies that Iran never complied with its commitment to reduce its UF6 stocks below 7.5 tons and convert added amounts to harmless oxides. Indeed, they estimate that Iran has enlarged its approved amount of stock to 8.5 tons or more, by means of the "creep-out" strategyit has repeatedly pursued in the past to conceal its nefarious nuclear activities.
3. A final concession which Iran has managed to wring out of the six world powers led by Washington allows Tehran to keep an extra 9,000 IR-1 centrifuges Tehran idle - though not dismantled - and permission to continue research and development on high-speed IR-8 or IR-5 centrifuges.
This mans thatn the Islamic Republic will not only keep its nuclear infrastructure under the accord the six powers plan to sign, but add improvements along with the freedom to shorten at will the critical time lapse between breakout and bomb.
The tons of spoken and printed verbiage poured out on the Iranian nuclear issue and ongoing diplomacy year after year have exposed, rather than disguised, President Obama's willingness to sign a nuclear deal with Iran -- however bad and whatever the price.
The inescapable conclusion is that the US president has come around to accepting the reality of a nuclear-armed Iran. As seen from Washington, America never stopped India, Pakistan and North Korea from becoming nuclear powers, and has therefore decided it can live with a fourth - Iran.