US intelligence’s amended estimate, that Iran will be ready to build its first bomb just one month after the next US president is sworn in, is disclosed by DEBKAfile’s Washington sources as having been relayed as a guideline to the Middle East teams of both presidential candidates, Senators John McCain and Barack Obama.

The information prompted the assertion by Democratic vice presidential nominee Joseph Biden in Seattle Sunday, Oct. 19: “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy.”

DEBKAfile’s military sources cite the new US timeline: By late January, 2009, Iran will have accumulated enough low-grade enriched uranium (up to 5%) for its “break-out” to weapons grade (90%) material within a short time. For this, the Iranians have achieved the necessary technology. In February, they can move on to start building their first nuclear bomb.

US intelligence believes Tehran has the personnel, plans and diagrams for a bomb and has been running experiments to this end for the past two years. The UN International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna last week asked Tehran to clarify recent complex experiments they conducted in detonating nuclear materials for a weapon, but received no answer.

The same US evaluation adds that the Iranian leadership is holding off its go-ahead to start building the bomb until the last minute so as to ward off international pressure to stop at the red line.

This development together with the galloping global economic crisis will force the incoming US president to go straight into decision-making without pause on Day One in the Oval Office. He will have to determine which urgent measures can serve best for keeping a nuclear bomb out of the Islamic republic’s hands - diplomatic or military – and how to proceed if those measures fail.

His knowledge of the challenge colored Sen. Biden’s additional words in Seattle: “Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

Israel’s political and military leaders also face a tough dilemma that can no longer be put off of whether to strike Iran’s nuclear installations militarily in the next three months between US presidencies before the last window closes, or take a chance on coordination with the next president.

Waiting for the “international community” to do the job of stopping Iran, as urged by governments headed by Ariel Sharon and Ehud Olmert - and strongly advocated Tzipi Livni, foreign minister and would-be prime minister - has been a washout. Iran stands defiantly on the threshold of a nuclear weapon.

In an October 18, 2008 article on the Iranian website Aftab, Wahid Karimi, director of the Europe and U.S. department in Iran's Foreign Ministry, recommends that Iran mark London as a target, since it is the capital of the country that is the U.S.'s closest ally in Europe. This, says Karimi, would be with the aim of ensuring that the Bush administration does not attack Iran in its final weeks, after the U.S. presidential election next month and before Bush officially leaves office on January 20, 2009.

Following are the main points of Karimi's article:

Karimi: "The Most Appropriate Means of Deterrence that Iran Has, in Addition to a Retaliatory Operation in the [Gulf] Region, Is to Take Action against London"

"... It is clear to everyone that George Bush will remain the official president of the United States until January 20, 2009. U.S. presidents are usually adventuresome in their second terms... [among them Richard] Nixon, disgraced by the Watergate scandal; [Ronald] Reagan, with the Irangate adventure; [and Bill] Clinton, with Monica Lewinsky - and perhaps George Bush, the sitting president, will create a scandal connected to Iran's legitimate nuclear activity so as not to be left behind.

"In the past, Iran has marked as a target the U.S. military bases in the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, so as to deter American adventurism. Shortly after that, it gave the requisite warnings regarding [a possible Iranian move to] paralyze 'the Jerusalem-occupying regime [i.e. Israel],' so as to deter American adventurism...

"Although a U.S. military attack on Iran's nuclear installations is not likely... the last two months of Bush's presidency, from late November 2008 to January 20, 2009, will be the worst possible days of his presidency [for Iran, and during them he can] exploit his power to carry out political adventurism and a ill-conceived operation. If so, how can we restrain him?

"It is possible that after the next president of the United States is determined in November - that is, [either John] McCain or [Barack] Obama - Bush and the president-elect will reach an agreement about an ill-conceived operation against Iran.

"In the worst-case scenario, George Bush may perhaps persuade the president-elect to carry out an ill-conceived operation against Iran, prior to January 20, 2009 - that is, before the regime is handed over and he ends his presence in the White House. The next president of the U.S. will have to deal with the consequences...

"If we agree that such a scenario - with America, England and Israel at its center - is conceivable, then it would seem that the most appropriate means of deterrence that Iran has, in addition to a retaliatory operation in the [Gulf] region, is to take action against London. Experience proves that the [part played] by politicians in Tel Aviv and in London, in the [fanning of the] flames against Iran and in the urging of America to strike Iran, is no less than [the part played] by Bush."