Iran Poised to Transform the Middle East

The basic facts have not changed: Iran is galloping toward nuclear weapons. The Iranian clock is currently ticking at the rate of three kilograms of enriched uranium per day. Despite impressive successes in the realm of prevention, prevention is not preventing the Iranian bomb, it is merely postponing the assembly date. Delay is important, but it is not enough. Fact: Again and again, the Iranians have deceived those who are trying to thwart it. When its storehouses contain enough raw material for 30 nuclear bombs and enough semi-processed material for one bomb, the Shi'ite power is on the threshold. Its distance from full nuclear-power status ranges from one year in the worst-case scenario to three or four years in the best case.

Nor have the strategic implications of the basic facts changed: If one fine day Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announces he has a nuclear bomb, the world will be a different world. Morning coffee in Tel Aviv's Florentine neighborhood will not be the same coffee; Kir Royale in the Place de la Bastille will not taste like the same champagne. Even if we assume that Tehran will behave rationally and refrain from using its doomsday weapon directly, the very fact that it has nuclear weapons will cause the entire Middle East to go nuclear. A nuclear Iran will also change the balance of power between Middle Eastern radicals and moderates. It will turn the Middle East into a multipolar nuclear system sitting atop a seething, unstable region.