We have heard this same tale for 3 years or more; Iran is just months away from having a workable bomb - if they chose to make one.

This time it’s German intelligence who is making the claim - a claim an official spokesman shot down almost immediately according to this Reuters article:

Germany’s foreign intelligence agency BND denied a report in a magazine on Wednesday that its experts believe Iran is capable of producing and testing an atomic bomb within six months. The report, in German weekly Stern, cited BND experts as saying Iran had mastered the enrichment technology necessary to make a bomb and had enough centrifuges to make weaponised uranium.

It quoted one expert at the agency as saying: “If they wanted to, they could detonate an atomic bomb in half a year’s time.”

But a BND spokesman said the article did not reflect the view of the agency, which is that Iran would not be able to produce an atomic bomb for years.

“We are talking about several years not several months,” the spokesman said.

Iran says its nuclear programme is for electricity generation to help it export more of its oil and gas, but Western countries suspect it of trying to make a nuclear bomb.

The U.N. Security Council has imposed three sets of sanctions on Tehran for defying its demands to suspend uranium enrichment.

Some analysts say Iran may be close to having the required material for producing a bomb, but most say the weaponisation process would then take one to two years due to technical and political hurdles.

That last is pure wishful thinking. It is more than possible Iran has a working bomb design, probably purchased from Pakistan’s “Father of the Atomic Bomb” A.Q. Khan whose black market nuclear shop helped North Korea, Libya, and other nation’s nuclear programs. Khan was a big supplier of technical knowledge to the Iranians as well as  hardware during the 1990’s and there are indications from a seized laptop and other documents that Iran does indeed possess a bomb design.

The real problem Iran has is in keeping the weaponization process secret. Right now, they have more than 100 lbs of enriched uranium. It is only enriched to a level of 5% which is suitable for nuclear reactors but far short of the 85-90% necessary for bomb making. The access they have granted the IAEA inspectors has been grudging but has been enough for the IAEA to be reasonably certain they are not enriching their uranium to bomb making levels - at least at facilities we are aware of.

Jeffrey Hart recently pointed out that Iran is in the process of speeding up the process of building and making operational centrifuges. I daresay that if they were contemplating making any deal at all with Obama, they might show a little good faith by slowing down or stopping the process of bringing those centrifuges online.Rather, this would seem to indicate a desire to push their program along faster - the ultimate goal of which is to install 50,000 centrifuges at their main enrichment plant at Nantanz.

This is still not evidence that Iran is building a bomb. But if they were contemplating such action, vastly increasing the number of working centrifuges would certainly help them along.

But there is one technical hurdle that Iran would need to overcome before becoming a significant threat; warhead design for their ever growing missile count. Most experts believe it will take at least two years for Iran to marry their bomb to one of their missiles - perhaps even longer given their inexperience in the field. But on the other hand, they don’t need a missile to explode the bomb which is probably small enough to fit in the trunk of a car. That kind of threat keeps Israeli leaders awake at night.

The CIA dismisses the notion of a secret military facility where the additional enrichment can take place but they too are guessing. Even the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran which stated that the mullahs abandoned their bomb program in 2003 acknowledged the existence of a secret military program until that date. It makes one wonder if such facilities could be reactivated and no one - including the IAEA - would be any the wiser.

The fact is, the entire reason for UN sanctions was that Iran has been less than forthcoming about many aspects of its nuclear program and the security council wants straight answers from the mullahs before they lift the milquetoast restrictions they’ve placed on the Iranian economy. Our intelligence people are still telling the president that Iran won’t have a bomb until 2015.

This won’t happen because Iran sees their nuclear program as a matter of national pride - as do most of the Iranian people. Even regime change might not stop the nuclear program in Iran which is something to contemplate before undertaking any such action.

It is extraordinarily doubtful the US will take any military action against Iran to prevent it from building a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, almost the entire world agrees that a nuke in the hands of Iran would be very bad - bad for the region, bad for Israel, and bad for the west.

Obviously, Israel has not decided 100% to go after the nuclear infrastructure of Iran itself. They realize full well that any attack on Iran by them would be seen by the Iranians as an attack by the United States. And there is no doubt that US officials have been very blunt with the Israelis about our opposition to such an attack.

But if Prime Minister Netanyahu receives intelligence that indicates the Iranians are on the cusp of possessing a nuke, no consequences to the Israel-US relationship would stay his hand from launching a military operation. Otherwise, the kind of cloudy, dimly perceived intel that the Germans are leaking doesn’t change the situation at all. It certainly isn’t enough for the Israelis to act on which at this point, would seem to be all that matters when it comes to war and peace.

The German intel guess is probably right. But whether the Iranians can keep it secret if they choose to boost the enrichment of their uranium is another question.