Russian nuclear rods arriving at Bushehr this week, launching the reactor's fueling process, expected to complete by September 5, 2010. Photo: FARS News Agency.

With the fueling of the Bushehr nuclear reactor initiated this weekend, the Shi’ite Mullahs mark the culmination of their nation’s long ambition to acquire access to atomic energy. Whether this should remain a peaceful overture to similar reactors to follow suit, or the mark the omen for a more sinister nuclear weapons construction effort- will remain to be seen. This article is an abstract, continue to Defense Update News Analysis.

Although the 1,000 Mw plant will be the first operational nuclear power station in the Middle East, its very composition does not pose serious proliferation risks. Being constructed from a light water reactor, fueled with low enriched uranium, at first sight it seems, that it should not fit into the known weapons grade plutonium production process.

What concerns America and the Israelis, more than fueling Bushehr, is Iran’s refusal to halt uranium enrichment, a process that can be used to make fuel for nuclear arms. Tehran already has one potential weapons stream through its enrichment program and another pending, being the heavy water Arak reactor that is ideal for weapons-grade plutonium production.

President Barack Obama’s top adviser on nuclear issues, Gary Samore, told The New York Times that he thinks it would take Iran “roughly a year” to turn low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material. “We think that they have roughly a year “dash time,” Gary Samore was quoted as saying. By “dash time,” the official referred to the shortest time Iran would take to build a nuclear weapon, judging from its existing facilities and capacity to convert stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material, a process known as “breakout”.

Read the full version in today’s Defense Update News Analysis