SPECIAL REPORT: Iran-Israel Nuclear End Game Now Much Closer - Oil Supply At Risk
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Israeli spokesperson tells BBC that they are ready to take out Iran's Nuke Facility
Is this the tip off?
Exclusive from Edwin Black
TheCuttingEdgeNews.com
In recent days, four key developments have clicked in to edge Iran and Israel much closer to a military denouement with profound consequences for American oil that the nation is not prepared to meet.
 Edwin Black |
Second, the International Atomic Energy Agency recently admitted that it had underestimated Iran’s nuclear stockpile by about one-third. The watchdog group now confirms Iran possesses 2,227 lbs. of nuclear material, sufficient to create at least one nuclear bomb. That stockpile includes 1,010 kilograms of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride, or approximately 700 kilograms containing the vital uranium 235 isotope, the stuff needed to weaponize.
Third, Iran has ramped up its enrichment program with thousands of new home-grown, highly advanced centrifuges. As The Cutting Edge News reported in April 2008, Iran wants 6,000 centrifuges to speed the enrichment of weapons grade material. The number of working centrifuges now exceeds 5,400, including 164 new centrifuges believed to be the faster and more efficient IR-2 and IR-3 models made in Iran. These new Iranian centrifuges are at least as sophisticated as its recently imported P-2 centrifuges. American policymakers are now convinced that Iran, despite all protests and charades, is in a mad dash to create a deliverable nuclear weapon. The Obama administration has almost openly abandoned the assertions of the CIA’s much-questioned 2008 National Intelligence Estimate that concluded Iran was not pursuing nuclear weaponry for the simple reason that its atomic program and military programs were housed in separate buildings.
Fourth, Benjamin Netanyahu has just become Prime Minister of Israel. He is determined to take action before—not after—Iran achieves its nuclear potential. Israeli Military Intelligence Maj. Gen. Amos Yadlin days ago confirmed that Iran has now crossed the technology threshold needed to weaponize. This creates a volatile, hair-trigger situation that could explode at any moment. Hence, the end game is now vastly closer today that it was in mid-January, when many believed Israel might take action during the lame duck interregnum.
Israeli countermeasures to date have included a massive international covert program of equipment sabotage, assassination of key nuclear personnel, and a vibrant diplomatic offensive. But all these efforts combined amount to nothing more than delaying tactics as Iran is irrevocably determined to achieve a nuclear weapon as fast as possible. Many believe such a weapon will be used to fulfill its prediction that Israel will soon be wiped off the map.
The consequences for this confrontation are apocalyptic because Iran’s full partner in this enterprise is Russia. The Russian company, Atomstroiexport, has provided most if not all of the nuclear material for the 1,000 megawatt Bushehr reactor, along with thousands of technicians to service and operate it. Following its invasion of Georgia, Moscow forged ahead with final delivery plans for the S-300 advanced air defense system which can track scores of Israeli airborne intruders simultaneously, whether low-level drones or high-altitude missiles, and shoot them down. But, the S-300, the lynchpin of Iran’s defense against Israel, will not be fully operational for several months creating a narrow window for Israel to act. Russia has just announced a pause in missile deliveries for the system in fear that it will accelerate an Israeli response.
Iran, of course, has repeatedly threatened to counter any such attack by closing the Strait of Hormuz, as well as launching missiles against the Ras Tanura gulf oil terminal, and bombarding the indispensible Saudi oil facility at Abqaiq which is responsible for some 65 percent of Saudi production. Any one of these military options, let alone all three, would immediately shut off 40 percent of all seaborne oil, 18 percent of global oil, and some 20 percent of America’s daily consumption.
America’s oil vulnerability has been back-burnered due to the economic crisis and the plunge in gasoline prices. However, the price of gasoline will not mitigate an interruption of oil flow. The price of oil does not impact its ability to flow through blocked or destroyed facilities. Indeed, an interruption would not restore prices to that of last summer—which Russian and Saudi oil officials say is needed—but probably zoom the pump cost to $20 per gallon.
American oil vulnerability in recent months has escalated precisely because of oil’s precipitous drop to $35 to $40 a barrel. At that price, America’s number one supplier, Canada, which supplies some 2 million out of 20 million barrels of oil a day, cannot afford to produce. Canadian oil sand petroleum is not viable below $70 a barrel. Much of Canada’s supply progress has already been cancelled or indefinitely postponed. America’s strategic petroleum reserve can only keep our country moving for approximately 57 days.
The Obama administration, like the Bush administration before it, has developed no plan or contingency legislation for an oil interruption, such as a surge in retrofitting America’s 250 million gas guzzling cars and trucks—each with a ten year life—or a stimulus of the alt fuel production needed to rapidly get off oil. Ironically, Iran has undertaken such a crash program converting some 20 percent of its gasoline fleet yearly to compressed natural gas (CNG) as a countermeasure to Western nuclear sanctions against the Tehran regime that could completely block the flow of gasoline to Iran. Iran has no refining capability.
The question of when and how this end game will play out is not known by anyone. Israeli leaders wish to avoid military pre-emption at all costs if possible. But many feel the military moment must come; and when that moment does come, it will be swift, highly technologic and in a twinkling of an eye. But as one informed official quipped, “Those who know, don’t talk. Those who talk, don’t know.”
Edwin Black is the New York Times best selling investigative author of IBM and the Holocaust, Internal Combustion and his just released book, The Plan: How to Save America When the Oil Stops—or the Day Before (Dialog Press). For more information about Edwin and any of his best-selling books visit www.edwinblack.com.
