Run Up to War More Likely a Walk

Or at least it should be. The New York Times reports that despite the screeching of the Bush Administration, Iran is YEARS away from getting the bomb.

Western nuclear analysts said yesterday that Tehran lacked the skills, materials and equipment to make good on its immediate nuclear ambitions, even as a senior Iranian official said Iran would defy international pressure and rapidly expand its ability to enrich uranium for fuel.

[...]

Still, nuclear analysts called the claims exaggerated. They said nothing had changed to alter current estimates of when Iran might be able to make a single nuclear weapon, assuming that is its ultimate goal. The United States government has put that at 5 to 10 years, and some analysts have said it could come as late as 2020.

[...]

It took Tehran 21 years of planning and 7 years of sporadic experiments, mostly in secret, to reach its current ability to link 164 spinning centrifuges in what nuclear experts call a cascade. Now, the analysts said, Tehran has to achieve not only consistent results around the clock for many months and years but even higher degrees of precision and mass production.

A little different than what we're hearing out of top Bush officials, but we've come to expect that. At least the media is starting to call BushCo. on it.

And you can't say that news isn't encouraging. I mean, if we're dealing with a 5 year time frame, we have some time to pursue diplomatic means, right? It's not like the White House would invade just because 'God's' voice in Bush's head was telling him to reclaim Iran for Christ...

Oh, shit.

George W. Bush Iran Nuclear Proliferation