New intelligence reveals Iran reaches close to develop nuclear bomb

Israel and Western countries keep tracking the nuclear program of Iran, as they believe if the latter succeeds in developing nuclear weapons it will be disastrous for the whole region. Iran is considered a rogue state that has got hegemonic designs in the region. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has repeatedly stated that Israel is an illegitimate state in the Arab world and therefore it must be removed. He has even threatened Israel several times that his country will remove Israel from the face of the earth if it continues to plot against Muslims.

According to the latest intelligence information gathered by Israel, the United States, France, Germany and Britain, Iran has made greater progress on developing components of nuclear weapons. Based on the intelligence information, these countries say that Iran is rapidly heading towards its goal – development a nuclear bomb. Some officials of these countries disclosed to the media on the condition of anonymity that the new information had shocked them, as they were not expecting such fast progress by Iran on the controversial nuclear program.

The information gathered by these countries separately is coherent and similar. All the five countries agree on the assessment and emphasize the need to force Iran to suspend uranium enrichment. The six world powers including the United States, France, Britain, Russia, China and Germany have been forcing Iranian officials to suspend the uranium enrichment, but they have failed to convince the country so far despite having three comprehensive rounds of dialogue on the issue. The three rounds of dialogue between representatives of these countries have been held in Istanbul, Baghdad and Moscow, but they all remained inconclusive.

Through the course of all these dialogues, Iran remained stuck to its official position that the country’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Iranian officials say that the country desires to obtain nuclear energy from the program, besides conducting medical researches for different lethal diseases like cancer. However, facts on the ground suggest something totally different from the position of Iran.

It is being reported that Israel and the four Western countries started comprehensive spying of Iran’s nuclear program after the country refused permission to nuclear inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit Parchin nuclear site in February.

Parchin is considered a military nuclear site, where Iran was conducting tests. An American think tank known as Institute for Science and International Security recently released a satellite snapshot of the Parchin site showing that Iran was developing nuclear weapons there. After the pressure from the Western countries for entry of nuclear inspectors, Iran reportedly cleaned up the site to remove traces of nuclear activity. The international community should do something viable to pressurize Iran to halt uranium enrichment before it gets too late.