Israel has adjusted its estimates of when it believes Iran will have nuclear bombs due to the belief that that Iran no longer runs independent military and civilian nuclear development programs. According to the new estimates, Iran will probably have a nuclear bomb by 2012, but could have the capability as early as 2008 "if all goes well for it," a high ranking IDF commander told The Jerusalem Post yesterday.

Last January IDF Intelligence Branch chief Maj.-Gen. Aharon Ze'evi Farkash said in a lecture at the University of Haifa's National Security Studies Center that if Teheran did not stop its uranium enrichment activities, it would develop its first atomic weapon between 2007 and 2009. He also said that Iran was six months away from enriching uranium required to build a nuclear bomb, a step that has been described as the "point of no return."