“The question is not when Iran will acquire the bomb, but how long until the Supreme Leader decides to begin enriching [uranium] to 90 percent,” Brigadier General Aviv Kochavi told parliament’s foreign affairs and defense committee. It was Kochavi’s first briefing since taking the job in November.
Once a decision to enrich to 90 percent is made, it would take “a year or two” to actually produce a nuclear warhead, he said, adding that Iran would still need more time to develop an effective missile delivery system for it.
The United States has said Iran won’t have a missile capable of lofting a nuclear weapon before 2015. Kochavi said it could take “several years” for Iran to develop that kind of missile. That “several years” put the much-feared Iranian threat to Israel far out into the future. In the 1990s, Israeli officials were commonly saying each year that Iran was only a year or two away from having a bomb.
Kochavi said it was unlikely that Iran, which currently enriches uranium to 20 percent, would start enriching it to the 90 percent level needed for a bomb, because it would be in open breach of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), exposing the Islamic Republic to harsher sanctions or even a US or Israeli military strike.
As a practical matter, Iran would have to boot the inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) out of the country if it wishes to start enriching to 90 percent, which would set off an international furor.
Kochavi said Iran was reluctant to go to that extreme at a time when the country was going through a period of “instability” and “religious tension.” He said, “At the moment, it’s not in Iran’s interest to move their program ahead.”
Recently, several senior Israeli officials, including the former head of the Mossad overseas intelligence agency, Meir Dagan, have said Iran is unlikely to acquire nuclear weapons before 2015. Kochavi dropped the date debate by making clear that he felt the key issue was when Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi will give the go-ahead for a bomb project.
Right now, the Iranian policy appears to be to get lined up all the bits and pieces needed for a bomb that Iran can complete without blatantly violating the NPT, at which point Khamenehi will have to decide whether to push ahead for a bomb or put everything on hold.
Kochavi’s view paralleled that of the CIA announced in 2007 that Iran wasn’t working on a bomb because the other parts of its program weren’t ready yet.
Kochavi also addressed another popular issue—the impact of sanctions. “The sanctions have had an impact on the Iranian economy. But they have had no impact on Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.
He said there was no sign that any economic problems had prompted the regime to reduce the nuclear budget.
American officials, however, have said that sanctions have made it almost impossible for Iran to continue getting carbon fiber and maraging steel, two items Iran needs to import for the nuclear program and that sanctions seem to have cut Iran off from.