Iran Could 'Break Out' by June

According to Washington, Iran could make nuclear bombs by June of this year if it wanted to.

P5+1 talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna, Austria, on April 8, 2014.

“I think it’s public knowledge today that we’re operating with a time period for a so-called ‘break-out’ of about two months,” United States Secretary of State John Kerry told the US Senate last week.

Kerry made the comments the day before Iran and the P5+1—Britain, France, China, Russia, Germany and the United States—concluded a two-day round of talks in Vienna.

While, a permanent agreement to resolve the Iranian nuclear dispute is being sought, there is still a wide divide between the two sides.

Despite Iran’s insistence that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes, such as nuclear energy, the P5+1 wants Iran to scale back its nuclear capacities to the point that it would take as much as a year to produce enough fuel for a nuclear bomb using enriched uranium from Iranian centrifuges.

Nevertheless, Ali Akbar Salehi, the Iranian negotiator in talks with six world powers, recently stated that Iran needs 30,000 more centrifuges in order to produce enough nuclear fuel to run its Bushehr power plant for a year so that the country does not rely on other powers for fuel.

Iran’s tradition of repeated threats against Israel’s existence combined with its enormous long-range missile capacity and upcoming nuclear prowess makes the country a palpable threat to Israel.

“We will not be able to adopt and accept any agreement that keeps Iran within a range of months to a year from nuclear weaponry, because such an agreement would not hold water,” Yuval Steinitz, the Israeli cabinet minister in charge of nuclear affairs said.

“It would also prompt Iran to get nuclear weaponry, and Sunni Arab countries like Algeria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, perhaps also Turkey and the UAE, to seek to launch a nuclear arms race.”

The range of Iran’s Shabab-3 missiles: Israel is well within Iran’s reach if that country is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

Because of Iran’s rogue nuclear program, it has faced stifling sanctions for continuing to develop nuclear facilities and to refine nuclear material that could be used in atomic weapons.

And while Kerry expressed gratitude last month for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s alleged fatwa banning nuclear weapons, many debate that this fatwa really exists.

For instance, Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) has stated that such a fatwa was never recorded officially. (Jerusalem Post)

“There is no agreed-upon date, place of where it was said, who heard him say it nor the exact phrase used,” said MEMRI’s Iran desk head, Ayelet Savyon, to the Jerusalem Post. “Iranians close to the supreme leader don’t know the date of the supposed fatwa themselves.… The U.S. wants to reach an agreement with Iran and is using the fatwa as a basis from which to proceed.”

Meanwhile, last Wednesday, Israel launched a satellite capable of monitoring Iran’s suspected nuclear weapons development, as well as its involvement in supporting militant groups in neighboring Arab countries.

This satellite, called Ofek 10, is Israel’s 10th and most advanced to date.