Iran 'lacks fuel' for nuclear bomb

Washington: Iran has yet to decide whether to build a nuclear bomb and lacks the weapons-grade highly enriched uranium needed to do so, top US intelligence officials told a key congressional panel on Tuesday.

At the same time, the Islamic republic has pursued uranium enrichment in defiance of international sanctions and pushed ahead with "mastering" the know-how to build long-range missiles that typically carry nuclear bombs to their targets oceans away, director of US intelligence Dennis Blair said.

And most spy agencies believe Tehran will probably be able to produce highly enriched uranium somewhere in the 2010-2015 timeframe, with the US State Department's apparatus setting the early date at 2013, he said.

"Although we do not know whether Iran currently intends to develop nuclear weapons, we assess Tehran at a minimum is keeping open the option to develop them," said Blair told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

His comments came as US President Barack Obama wrestled with how to convince the Islamic republic to halt what the West views as a secret nuclear weapons drive.

The Obama administration is settling on an eyes-wide-open approach to Iran that will test the potential for a significant breakthrough in relations. The approach will start with small diplomatic steps, yet be mindful that the window is fast closing on peacefully halting Iran's progress toward a nuclear weapon.

The tougher international sanctions that have also been contemplated are unlikely to get crucial support from Russia and China before the fall at best - and only after the US is seen as making good on President Obama's campaign pledge to engage with America's adversaries, including Tehran.

At the same time, however, a harder Israeli government is coming on board and sending signals that it will not wait much into 2010 before taking military action against Iranian nuclear sites if diplomacy bears no fruit.

So the US is now moving to test the diplomatic channels with Tehran, even before Iran's national elections in June.

The Americans "will engage the Iranians, they will do it before the [Iranian] elections, and they will do it by first sending signals of the will of the US to engage," says a senior European official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

He had hours of talks on Monday with State Department officials focused on Iran policy. Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced plans for a global conference on Afghanistan, and she said that, as a neighbouring country, Iran was likely to be invited.

That announcement raised speculation that US and Iranian officials could make initial direct contacts in the conference's margins. Secretary Clinton's overtures to Russia - including last week's meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, are also partly seen as an effort to enlist Russia's support for a new American approach to Iran.

Yet such steps are widely seen as manoeuvring around the edges, and they would have to be followed by some larger action, Iran analysts say.

"Inviting Iran to a conference on Afghanistan or having ambassadors meet in Baghdad, those are tactical moves, and Tehran is saying it's not interested in tactical overtures anymore," says Alex Vatanka, Islamic affairs analyst at Jane's Information Group in Alexandria, Virginia.

- The Christian Science Monitor with inputs from AFP