NEW ANALYSIS OF IRANIAN NUKES - AT 9:20 A.M. ET:  We reported on Iran's expanded uranium enrichment last night.  Here is a new analysis, even more troubling, from Eli Lake of the Washington Times.  Lake is one of the best reporters covering this subject:

Ignoring overtures for talks from the Obama administration, Iran has continued to build a stockpile of low-enriched uranium and could, within three to six months, convert the material into a nuclear weapon, according to nuclear specialists.

And what, precisely, has been the punishment for Iran?  Why, tough talk and very impressive frowns.

..according to an analysis of the latest IAEA report on Iran by the Institute for Science and International Security a Washington think tank that focuses on nuclear proliferation Iran produced an additional 329 kilograms (724 pounds) of low-enriched uranium from November through May, a 20-percent improvement in Iran's capacity to make the fuel.

And...

Nuclear weapons 'breakout capability' is a scenario that involves enriching LEU [low-enriched uranium] to weapon-grade uranium, said the analysis by nuclear specialists David Albright and Jacqueline Shire.

This could be accomplished within three to six months at either the Natanz facility or a clandestine gas centrifuge facility.

Lake points out that whether Iran is intent on building a bomb is controversial.  A 2007 U.S. intelligence estimate said that Iran had ceased the weaponization part of its program.  However...

European intelligence services and Israel assert that Iran is operating an active weapons program in secret.

Last month, President Obama appeared to let slip that he also believed the Iranians were seeking a weapon.

Former Israeli national security adviser Giora Eiland, in a briefing I attended, startled his audience by saying that Europe now has a tougher line on Iran than does the United States.

A second IAEA report released Friday found traces of uranium at a previously undisclosed site in Syria, raising the prospect that the Middle Eastern nation could be preserving nuclear capacity after Israeli jets bombed a fledging North Korea-style reactor in Syria in 2007.

Punishment?  Anyone?

June 6, 2009