"Quite Usual" in Iran

Iran advances in centrifuge technology could speed nuclear process. And how long has this been going on? Years? So maybe we don't have ten years leeway? Forbes:

Iran's recent claim it was testing a more sophisticated type of nuclear enrichment centrifuge could mean the country has significantly sped up the process of making fuel for power plants or bombs, analysts familiar with the technology said Monday.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told students Wednesday that the Islamic republic was testing the P-2 centrifuge - a more sophisticated type. A day earlier, he had trumpeted Iran's success in enriching a small amount of uranium using a less-sophisticated type of centrifuge.

The president's words were Iran's first acknowledgment it is working with the faster P-2 and came after the country told the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency it had given up all such work three years ago. It is not clear if Iran had been doing work all along on the more-sophisticated model, or had recently restarted efforts.

So the IAEA knows?!! Monsters and Critics:

Tehran - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has already been fully informed of Iran's research programmes on P-2 centrifuges, the news agency ISNA reported Monday.

An unnamed nuclear official told ISNA that following the successful test of the P-1 centrifuges, Iran started research on the P-2 projects.

The New York Times had quoted United States security officials as saying Iran's use of P-2 centrifuges was worrisome as the process would not only accelerate the enrichment process but production of an atomic bomb.

The Iranian source termed the process as 'quite usual' and even already documented on the IAEA internet site.

Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani was quoted earlier Monday by ISNA as saying Iran would follow the research on P-2 centrifuges 'strictly within IAEA regulations.'

The source further confirmed that a new group IAEA inspectors will come to Tehran by the end of the week but denied the visit of a nuclear delegation to Vienna on Tuesday.

In the meantime Iran on Monday called on the countries meeting in Moscow to discuss the row over the country's nuclear programme to be 'rational.'

'We ask the participants in Moscow to adopt a rational approach and avoid repeating threats,' Larijani told Khabar news network.

The IAEA knows, no worries then! And who needs to repeat threats? Apparently not Iran, it's not a threat, it's a promise. Washington Post:

Iran, which says its nuclear program is purely peaceful, told world powers it would pursue atomic technology, whatever they decide at a meeting in Moscow later in the day.

Ahmadnijad, Iran's president, in his latest sunny pronouncement, threatened to cut off the hands of any aggressor. And at the end of today's Post article, here's this:

Experts say it would take Iran years to produce enough highly enriched uranium for one bomb from its current 164 centrifuges. But Iran says it will to install 3,000 centrifuges, which could make enough material for a warhead in one year.

We have no choice but to deal with Iran this year, with or without allies.