Leaked accounts of Iran’s nuclear offer indicate that the Islamic regime may be looking to accept more intrusive inspections in exchange for Western acceptance of ongoing Iranian enrichment activity. Analysis stretching back months, including testimony presented to Congress, has highlighted how such an arrangement – under which Iran would bolster its enrichment capacity while having access its stockpile of enriched material – would permit the regime to follow the North Korean playbook and sneak across the nuclear finish line.

Updated analysis published today [PDF] by the U.S.-based Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) estimates that Iran could achieve such critical capability – the ability to create sufficient weapons-grade uranium (WGU) for a nuclear weapon quickly enough to evade international detection – by mid-2014. The transparency provided by inspections “by themselves have inherent limits and cannot address fully the risk posed by short breakout times.”

The report calls attention to Iran’s “dramatically increased centrifuge capability,” which Tehran has locked in over the last year by increasing the amount and sophistication of its installed centrifuges. It also notes that there is simply no peaceful explanation for the size of the Iranian stockpile:

Since the last iteration of these calculations in October 2012, Iran has not enriched uranium beyond 20 percent; however, it has growing stockpiles of LEU enriched up to both 3.5 percent and near 20 percent. The size of its LEU stocks exceeds any realistic assessment of Iran’s need for reactor fuel in the short and near-term. Combined with its dramatically increased centrifuge capability, these stockpiles bolster Iran’s latent capability to manufacture a nuclear weapon. Given the growth in Iran’s centrifuge capabilities over the last two years, Iran may aim to create the capability to produce sufficient WGU for a nuclear weapon faster than IAEA inspectors could detect the production of one or two SQs. ISIS defines the date when Iran achieves such a breakout capability as a “critical capability”. In other reports, ISIS has estimated that Iran could achieve critical capability in mid-2014.

The highly-technical analysis models several scenarios under which Iran could conduct “a rapid dash to one significant quantity of WGU,” and outlines several steps to lengthen Iran’s breakout window that are “achievable and reasonable if Iran is committed to convincing the world that its nuclear program is indeed peaceful.” Several of the modeled scenarios indicate that Iran will soon have the capability to break out in a matter of weeks, using only known Iranian nuclear facilities with roughly known capabilities.

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