Special to WorldTribune.com

WASHINGTON — A U.S. think tank has raised the prospect that
Iran acquired nuclear weapons capability.

[See also: Connecting the dots: N. Korea’s nuke was bought and paid for by a key end-user — Iran]

The American Foreign Policy Council said the administration of President
Barack Obama was quietly mulling the possibility that Iran and North Korea
succeeded in a joint nuclear weapons project. The Washington-based council cited the North Korean nuclear test last month of what was believed to have been that of an Iranian missile warhead.

“During Secretary of State John Kerry’s listening tour of the Middle
East, one troubling regional issue might go unspoken: the possibility that
Iran already has nuclear weapons capability,” the council said in a report.

The report, titled “Does Iran Already Have The Bomb?” said Iran was
believed to be testing its nuclear warheads in North Korea. Senior fellow
James Robbins, who wrote the report, said the likelihood of an Iranian
nuclear weapons capability would top Obama’s agenda during his visit to
Israel on March 20. The national security specialist said the emergence of
an Iranian atomic bomb would “represent a U.S. foreign policy failure of
historic proportions.”

“It is not the kind of crisis that Kerry would like to face in his first
month on the job or that Obama would like to shape his second term,” Robbins
said. “Fortunately for them both, if Teheran does have the bomb, odds are it
will keep it under wraps, at least for the time being.”

[On Feb. 28, the Senate mulled a resolution that would require the
United States to help Israel in any war against Iran. The resolution
introduced by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Robert Menendez
and Sen. Lindsey Graham called on Washington to provide military, diplomatic
and economic support should Israel attack Iran’s nuclear weapons
facilities.]

The administration has determined that Iran remained undecided over
whether to acquire nuclear weapons. But Western intelligence sources said
an Iranian delegation attended the North Korean underground nuclear test on
Feb. 12, believed to have marked a breakthrough in the joint weapons
program.

“Iran and North Korea have long cooperated on nuclear and ballistic
missile technologies,” Robbins said. “Iran’s ballistic missiles are based on
North Korean designs, and the two countries have long exchanged defense
scientists and engineers.”

A senior U.S. official did not rule out that Teheran was using North
Korea to test Iran’s nuclear warheads. The official told The New York Times
that Iran could not hope to conceal a nuclear explosion.

“It’s very possible that the North Koreans are testing for two
countries.” the official was quoted as saying.

The Rand Corp., a leading consultant to the U.S. Defense Department and
military, determined that the latest North Korean nuclear test differed from
the two previous blasts. Rand said the latest explosion was believed to have
been that of highly-enriched uranium, a method developed by Teheran.

“Given the relative seismic readings, this test likely had about 2.5
times the weapon yield of North Korea’s second test, which according to Dr.
Sieg Hecker of Stanford was in the range of two to seven kilotons, putting
this test at about 5 to 18 kilotons,” Rand defense analyst Bruce Bennett
said.

For his part, Robbins raised the prospect that Iran was already
signaling that it reached nuclear weapons capability. He cited a statement
by Iranian supreme leader Ali Khamenei in wake of the North Korean nuclear
test that if Teheran “intended to possess nuclear weapons, no power could
stop us.”

“This strange construction — saying the Islamic republic does not
desire nuclear weapons but there was no way to prevent it from having
them — might have been the first in a series of diplomatic signals
intending to inform the United States that, with North Korea’s help, the
game is already over and Iran has won,” Robbins said.

  Ali Khamenei, American Foreign Policy Council, John Kerry, Report: North Korean test may mean Iran has a nuclear missile warhead, Sen. Lindsey Graham, Sen. Robert Menendez, The Rand Corp.