The Cascade Effect

Every day Iran gets closer to its objectives of having enough enrichment equipment to produce weapons grade nuclear materials. They're in the process of starting a second uranium enrichment cascade, which means that while the diplomats talk and debate the merits of a toothless UN or IAEA action, Iran is taking concrete steps towards its ambitious goals.

Diplomats said earlier this week that Iran, which faces possible U.N. Security Council sanctions because of its refusal to suspend uranium enrichment, appeared to be testing the second batch of centrifuges which can enrich uranium for either power plan or nuclear bomb fuel.

Its original cascade first produced a tiny amount of home-grown enriched uranium in April.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said on Monday that Western powers were wrong if they thought his country would retreat under political pressure from its nuclear plans.

The Islamic Republic says it wants to enrich uranium only to generate electricity. The West suspects that OPEC's No. 2 oil exporter is trying to build bombs under the guise of a civilian program to threaten Israel and Western interests.

Western intelligence experts estimate Iran remains 3-10 years away from an industrial-scale operation of thousands of centrifuges that could yield enough fuel for nuclear bombs.

I would discount the intel sources, which underestimated the North Korean threat, overestimated the Iraqi nuclear program, and didn't even know that the Libyians or Saudis were working on nuclear weapons programs until revealed by the PSI. Besides, with such a spread (3 to 10 years?!), the problem is that we're facing a threat before it becomes imminent and no one appears willing or capable of dealing with the matter, including the US.