What lies between Teheran and the bomb?

Jon Snow of Channel 4 News (UK) asked yesterday, "So what lies between Teheran and The Bomb then?" The answer he got was "Oh, about ten years." –

Iran announced yesterday that she has started uranium conversion for energy production purposes at its Isfahan facility (Photo from AP). Washington in particular believes Iran’s nuclear program is aimed at producing weapons- Now how long it really takes, the reasons and the eventual repercussions of Iran’s nuclear ambitions are all up for debate.. What is sure is that the announcement comes from a new hard-line Government at a time of great change and rebalancing in the middle east. Also worthy of note is the role Iran and Syria are playing behind the scenes in Iraq and the pressure that is starting to mount on them both from the US and its allies.

As a reflection on all that, today is the anniversary of the last atomic explosion used in anger (and I hope the last ever) over Nagasaki in Japan. Sometimes the limits of mankind’s destruction seem boundless, I have seen that in the cemeteries for war victims (including of the Japanese invasions of WWII) and equally in the instant vaporizing of 140,000 human beings by atomic device. I certainly believe in a world free of the nuclear threat but I also believe that hypocrisy will not stop proliferation, but rather the countries that have arsenals should set the lead and give them up.

“(Aug6) Hiroshima's Mayor Akiba delivered an eloquent plea for the abolition of nuclear weapons. "The city of Hiroshima," he stated, "along with the Mayors for Peace and our 611 member cities in 109 countries and regions," had declared the period through the following August a "Year of Remembrance and Action for a Nuclear-Free World." The goal would be the signing of a Nuclear Weapons Convention in 2010 and the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2020.” http://japanfocus.org/article.asp?id=336