CIA contact reveals Israel-Iran fears

A former CIA contact of mine with specialist knowledge on the Middle East, and good connections, suggests there could be moves inside the embryonic Netanyahu government to reopen the question of bombing Iran.

Such rumours – and I will restate we are just talking about the reopening of a question – have to be taken with a pinch of salt, and it is hard to imagine that Washington will supply the ammunition Israel needs to attack Iran at this time.

The overall assessment seems to be that whatever the speculation, the Israelis cannot yet do such an attack on their own with any confidence that they would destroy the nuclear installations.

Unless, of course, they go for a nuclear option and that would appear to be beyond madness…

For their part, the Iranians say they have now installed 7,000 centrifuges in their nuclear installation at Natanz.

This is still far short of the number needed to refine the fuel necessary to make an atomic bomb.

However, it is an advance on the 5,500 centrifuges reported by the UN nuclear inspectorate earlier this year. President Ahmadinejad, fighting for re-election in June, still stresses the peaceful nuclear power ambition behind the development.

The West continues to disbelieve the “peaceful” bit.

It seems the Iranians are now actually making the centrifuges themselves having previously bought others of indifferent quality on the black market.

The Obama administration, we are told, is still desperately seeking non-nuclear diplomatic mechanisms for engaging with Iran.

We are in a pre-election maelstrom…a dangerous time…one obvious victim is the journalist Roxana Saberi (dual Iranian/ American citizenship).

She was caught working as a journalist after her permit had expired and may now be tried for espionage as early as a fortnight’s time.

Matters Iranian are pulling in all directions at once: evidently helpful on the Afghan front after the Hague meeting two weeks ago; awkward over Ms Saberi; uppity over the nuclear.