Soure: Dean Calma/IAEA

Revisiting the question of whether an Israeli strike on Iran is imminent, there have been some interesting developments recently. I had mentioned a few weeks back that the United States had nixed a proposed deal to sell refueling aircraft to Israel. Mid-air refueling would likely be necessary for the air strikes against Iran to succeed. The journey to Iran is significantly longer than to Iraq or Syria, which Israel bombed in 1981 and 2007 respectively. However, last week there were reports that the US would sell 1,000 GBU-39 bombs to Israel as part of a larger $330 million arms deal that would eventually include state-of-the-art F-35 fighter aircraft as well. According Global Security (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/sdb.htm), the GBU-39 is capable of penetrating about 6 foot of steel re-enforced concrete. This would probably not be the ideal weapon for attacking Iran’s nuclear complex, but, by putting many bombs on each target, they could presumbably achieve a high degree of confidence of destroying the enrichment facility. Other key facilities seem to be more fragile than the Natanz uranium enrichment facility that is under who knows how much concrete and may be partitioned to reduce the likelihood of complete loss. The GBU-39 bombs do offer the advantage of being lighter than the much more massive bunker buster bombs that the US Air Force would be likely to use. (This speaks to the limited range and mid-air refueling capacity mentioned above.)

The more immediate story is the IAEA’s showing of photos of an attempt to modify the Shahab-3 missile to carry a nuclear warhead. This is further indication of Iran’s attempts to get its ducks in a row so that when it obtains enough material for a nuclear device, it would be ready to put that material into use in short order. Earlier there had been stories of Project Green Salt, which was allegedly Iran’s initiative to conduct the research (other than fissile material production) that would be needed to build a nuclear weapon (i.e. ostensibly this involved testing of the specialized conventional explosives and precision electronics required and questions of that nature.) A much bemoaned National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) of November of 2007 indicated that the US had cultivated intelligence that suggested that Iran had paused its weapons development program (note: this is referring to those activities specifically intended to produce a weapon and not to uranium enrichment, for which an expanding capability has been under development throughout the period in question.) At any rate, the photos are an indication that Iran is working in a direction that would present a dire threat to Israel.

Yesterday, the IAEA distributed its latest safeguard report on Iran to the Board. This report will not be made available to the public at least until after the Board meets on September 22nd to discuss it. Given the stalwart refusal of Iran to change its behavior in the face of global demands to do so, one would imagine that the report will document continued progress in building up a centrifuge enrichment capability and a lack of resolution of the outstanding issues that are keeping Iran in hot water with the international community.