Zero hour approaches

by Hal Lindsey

We've been counting down to the year that Iran will finally become a nuclear power ever since Iranian dissidents exposed the Iranian nuclear program in 2002. European intelligence estimated it would take Iran until 2012 to achieve this. Israeli intelligence figured late 2007.

Last year's National Intelligence Estimate completely undercut the Bush administration's Iran foreign policy when it estimated Iran was still "many years" from being able to build a bomb.

The NIE predicted: "… with moderate confidence that the earliest possible date Iran would be technically capable of producing enough HEU [highly enriched uranium] for a weapon is late 2009, but that is very unlikely."

Unlikely though it may have been, the International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran had enriched enough uranium to make its first atomic bomb on Nov. 21, 2008. By now, as it brings new centrifuges online, Tehran may well have enough for a second.

The head of Russia's state nuclear corporation, Sergei Kiriyenko, was quoted from the Kremlin on Wednesday confirming the launch of the Bushehr reactor later this year. Iran's nuclear ambitions are no longer even remotely unclear.

Yet, knowing this, Moscow fully intends to supply Iran with all the nuclear material it needs. ....