The Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control has put together a “nuclear timetable” for Iran’s nuclear program. According to their study, “[b]ased on the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran has stockpiled, and the amount it is believed to be producing each month, the Wisconsin Project estimates that by inauguration day, Iran could have enough U-235 to fuel one bomb quickly.”
By quickly, they mean two to three months–low-enriched uranium has to be fed into the centrifuges again to produce weapons-grade uranium. If this is accurate, Iran will produce its first bomb any time between March and May 2009 – in time for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s bid for re-election and well before the next U.S. President will have formulated a coherent Iran policy, let alone gotten his foreign policy team confirmed. One more reason for the Bush administration in its waning days to consider the possibility that the Iran problem should not be left unsolved for the next White House tenant.
