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Source: http://www.policyreview.org/jun05/sokolski.html
Defusing Iran's Bomb
(Policy Review-Hoover Institution) Henry Sokolski - Iran is now no more than 12 to 48 months from acquiring a nuclear bomb, lacks for nothing technologically or materially to produce it, and seems dead set on securing an option to do so. Iran's continued insistence that it acquired its nuclear capabilities legally under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty would, if unchallenged, encourage its neighbors (including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, and Algeria) to develop nuclear options of their own. With a nuclear weapons option acting as a deterrent to U.S. and allied action against it, Iran would likely lend greater support to terrorists operating against Israel, Iraq, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Europe, and the U.S. The objective would be to elevate Iran as an equal to the U.S. and its allies on all matters connected to the Persian Gulf and related regions. The writer is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center in Washington.