In the world outside the American media’s obsession with the “Great Race” the ticking time bomb that is President Bush’s desire to bomb Iran before he leaves office just advanced a little closer to zero. Iranian officials have confirmed that its capacity to enrich uranium has increased dramatically.

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iran said Sunday that it has started using new centrifuges that can churn out enriched uranium at more than double the rate of the machines that now form the backbone of the Islamic nation’s nuclear program.

The announcement was the first official confirmation by Tehran after diplomats with the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog reported earlier this month that Iran was using 10 of the new IR-2 centrifuges.

“We are (now) running a new generation of centrifuges,” the official IRNA news agency quoted Javad Vaidi, deputy of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, as saying. No futher details were provided.

Iran and the United States have been sparring diplomatically about the intelligence behind Iran’s presumed nuclear weapons program that may or may not have been suspended in 2003, depending on whom you wish to believe: The Iranians or the Bush administration.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog has been told Iran may have continued secret work on nuclear weapons after 2003, the date US intelligence suggested the work ceased.

A US National Intelligence Estimate released last December said Tehran had frozen its atomic programme in 2003.

But documents presented to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) suggest the work continued.

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, angrily dismissed the documentats as “forgeries”.

Simon Smith, Britain’s ambassador to the IAEA, said material presented to the IAEA in Vienna came from multiple sources and included designs for a nuclear warhead, plus information on how it would perform and how it would fit onto a missile.

Meanwhile, representatives of the US and other major powers met yesterday to discuss a new diplomatic initiative to bring Iran to the negotiating table:

(cont.)

The meeting here among representatives of Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States focused on possible new overtures, such as international help with Iran’s growing narcotics crisis, deals on energy field exploitation and support for security talks among the oil-rich Persian Gulf nations, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because diplomacy is ongoing. The goal of the new economic and security incentives is to persuade Iran to finally suspend uranium enrichment, a process that can be used for both peaceful nuclear energy and the production of deadly weapons.

The Bush administration is prepared to consider new outreach but is hesitant to go too far, mainly out of concern that Tehran will conclude that delays help it win concessions from the international community. “These are all European ideas, and the U.S. took a very conservative stance,” a senior State Department official said. One of the proposals rejected outright was that the United States be party to security guarantees for Iran, an official in the talks said.

Of course, without explicit security guarantees for Iran’s regime which include agreements from the United States to abandon regime change as our policy, any such effort is doomed from the start. The Bush administration is well aware of that fact, as are the Europeans promoting this proposal. Especially now that Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has just given President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad his official stamp of approval for Ahmadinejad’s handling of the nuclear issue:

“One example of an advance by the Islamic system has been the nuclear issue, in which the Iranian nation has honestly and seriously achieved a great victory,” Mr Khamenei said on Tuesday.

“Those people who used to say Iran’s nuclear activity must be dismantled are now saying we are ready to accept your advances, on condition that it will not continue indefinitely.

“This is a great advance that would not have been realised except with perseverance,” he said.

It seems the lines are hardening. In my view, Iran’s leadership has decided the US is too weak, both militarily and diplomatically, to force Iran to halt its nuclear program. In addition, President Bush’s attempt to form an American/Israeli/Sunni Arab security alliance against Iran in the region, combined with increased US arms sales to the Gulf states has seemingly convince Iran’s leaders that they have nothing to lose by accelerating their nuclear program. From their standpoint, they see how North Korea has managed to keep the US at bay simply by testing a small nuclear device. Surrounded by religious, ethnic and economic rivals on all sides, and faced with two states, Pakistan and Israel who have previously joined the “Nuclear Club,” not to mention an American regime dedicated to regime change in Iran and not adverse to using nuclear weapons itself, if need be, to accomplish that goal, Iran seems to have decided that it is best to continue down the nuclear path and keep all of its options open.

Unfortunately, officials in the Israeli and US governments are still attempting to rally support for (or at the least tacit acceptance of) a possible military strike against Iran by either Israel or American forces. Just look at the language employed by US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, in his recent interview with Le Figaro which plays up the threat posed by Iran:

“From a certain point of view, time is not working in our favor — the Iranians are now planning to develop a new, more efficient generation of centrifuges and if they master that technology to produce fissile material they will have access to better enriched uranium,” he said in comments written in French. […]

“Given that Iran had a nuclear weapons program in violation of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty, given the regime’s policy, its rhetoric, its association with certain groups … it would be too risky to let it acquire the capacity to obtain nuclear weapons,” he added.

That’s not the approach of someone who wants to reassure other countries that the United States has taken military force off the table in its dealings with Iran. Quite the contrary. Bush and Cheney are still dedicated to a confrontational approach in their dealings with the Iranian regime, in which the threat of military force remains their principal means of diplomacy . Rest assured, if given the opportunity, Bush will pull the trigger on a strike against Iran, or allow Israel to do so. And he won’t give a damn what effect that might have on our military, on the shipment of oil from the Gulf or the increased threat of terrorist attacks in the United States. Indeed, I can see him authorizing a strike after November if McCain doesn’t win, because I doubt he trusts either Clinton or Obama to have the “guts” to do the deed.

Indeed, if matters continue on their present course with Iran’s leadership confirming their support of the hardliners, led by President Ahmadinejad, who have openly pushed Iran’s nuclear program forward in the face of international opposition, and with an increasingly desperate Bush administration fearful that their one chance to take down Iran will pass them by unless they act before turning over the reins of power to a new administration next January, I foresee a very bad ending. It isn’t a certainty at this point, but with each day that passes the risk that Bush will take the plunge into another preventive war increases, and will continue to increase. And there is little that the other major powers or our Congress can do to stop him. After all, there is nothing more dangerous than a man with nothing to lose.