After all, the NIE affirms not only that attaining nuclear weapons remains a central goal within the Iranian leadership, but also that, by continuing to enrich uranium, Iran has maintained efforts to make that goal achievable. For Israeli security analysts, the suspension in 2003 of Iran's covert nuclear military program--the NIE's defining issue--is hardly pivotal. Partly that's because the working assumption in Israeli intelligence is that the Iranians have resumed their covert military program. "The Syrians were working on their nuclear project for seven years, and we discovered it only recently," says one security analyst. "The Americans didn't know about it all. So how can they be so sure about Iran?"
The more compelling reason, though, for minimizing the significance of a suspension of the covert military program is that the program itself is of secondary importance at this stage in the development of an Iranian bomb. The Iranians have continued to vigorously pursue two other programs--uranium enrichment and missile delivery systems--whose success would ensure them relatively quick access to military capability, even without a weapons program already in place. Says Shabtai Shavit, former head of the Mossad: "My assessment is that, after they decided to aim for nuclear weapons, they advanced on three parallel tracks: enriching uranium, creating components for a bomb, and developing missiles. The missiles are ready for operation. As for enrichment, they have encountered all kinds of problems, like exploding centrifuges. I estimate that they made great progress, and very quickly, on the military track. Since they have problems with the uranium enrichment track, they can allow themselves to delay the military track, and wait for progress with uranium." Given that world attention has been focused on the military track, a tactical Iranian concession made sense.
Shavit notes that the problem with the NIE isn't in its facts but its deliberate ambiguity. "The whole report is filled with assessments of 'high probability,' 'middle probability,' 'low probability.' I don't need that." And if he had written the report? "I would have based my assessment on the facts and said unequivocally that Iran is going to create the ability to make a bomb."
Nor do senior analysts here take seriously the NIE's vague assessments of when Iran will reach the point of no return: beginning in 2010, it says, though not likely until 2013 or even 2015. Israel's point of no return is when Iran attains the potential to produce sufficient fissile material for making a bomb. And they believe that is likely to happen--barring continued mishaps, accidental or not, in the Iranian nuclear program, like exploding centrifuges--somewhere within the next two years.