Stratfor: Iran: Crossing the Redline?

Summary

Iranian officials are trumpeting a major advance in their country's
nuclear program. Here is what it means -- and does not mean.

Analysis

Former Iranian President and Chairman of the Expediency Council Ali
Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani announced April 11 that Iran has successfully
completed an enrichment cascade using 164 gas centrifuges, Kuwaiti
state news agency KUNA announced. Such a cascade would empower Iran to
produce a richer fissile blend of uranium for use in nuclear power
plant fuel or perhaps a nuclear weapon.

Technically, the announcement means that Iran has established its
ability to enrich uranium in something other than very small amounts.
The Iranians are, however, not yet at the point that they can make
weapons or fabricate nuclear fuel to run a reactor. A weapons program
will require several of these cascades, and a power program requires
dozens of them. Establishing enrichment cascades on that scale is
still -- at bare minimum -- several months off. And even once that is
achieved, enriched uranium would need to be fabricated into fuel for a
reactor, or go through a weaponization process if it is to have
military value. Neither process is simple, quick or cheap.

Politically, however, this step has immediate implications. In Europe,
enrichment of any kind, much less on an industrial scale as the
Iranians are clearly aiming for, is a redline. Once the Iranians move
past enrichment, information on their nuclear weapons program can be
garnered only through intensive intelligence efforts. Iran's
announcement means that European states that see a limited reason to
participate in such intelligence efforts no longer feel they have any
leverage in negotiations. Europe will now simply put its relatively
disinterested diplomatic efforts behind the United States and let
Washington run the show. It is not carte blanche -- the Europeans
still do not want military action -- but it is close.

For Israel, the issue is more complex. As noted above, enrichment does
not automatically equate to weaponization. Israel, unlike Europe, has
a deep and abiding interest in directing intelligence efforts against
Tehran. Thus, Israel's picture of the Iranian nuclear program is more
complete than Europe's. As one would expect, this deeper awareness and
interest translates into a different redline, likely somewhere in the
weaponization process. The world can be certain that Iran has not yet
stepped over Israel's redline; after all, Tehran is still a city, not a crater.

But ultimately the Iranian announcement is about the United States.
Iran and Washington are currently -- for the first time in a
generation -- engaged in direct talks, officially about all topics
Iraqi. This revelation, like the U.S. leaks over the weekend that
nuclear strike options against Iran had been drawn up, are all part of
the ebb and flow of those negotiations .

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