The NIE said they did, the Brits say they didn’t. Guess what: They’re going to get the bomb anyway because no one on our side has the nerve to stop them. Whether you think they tailed off five years ago or three years ago or not at all, you’re just playing with numbers.
Britain’s ambassador to the IAEA, Simon Smith, said the material presented to the board of governors on Monday contained information about possible weapons work beyond that date.
“Certainly some of the dates that we were talking about, or that the secretariat was presenting in there, went beyond 2003,” Smith said…
Diplomats attending the briefing said the material presented to the board of governors had infuriated Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh…
The board was presented with material “from multiple sources” suggesting “detailed work put into the designing of the warhead, studying how that warhead would perform, how it would be detonated and how it would be fitted to a Shahab-3 missile,” Smith said.
The material was “serious and substantial,” the ambassador continued.
And it underlined the IAEA secretariat’s concern that the deficit of confidence in Iran, rather than being reduced, “if anything, is getting deeper,” he said.
Coming soon: A third round of fang-less sanctions, followed by Iranian stooge Mohammed ElBaradei asking them pretty please to play nice and show their cards. Exit question: Assume for a moment that the left is right and Iran is a perfectly rational, Soviet-esque actor. If you’re Khamenei, what would you do — give up your nukes or broker a deal and try to build the bomb secretly?
Join the conversation as a VIP Member