(Image source: Haaretz)

BY STEVEN SPARKMAN

The U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA, is set to release a report on Iran’s nuclear activities this week. Diplomats who’ve already seen the report say it’s the strongest evidence yet that Iran is building a nuclear weapon.

Here’s CNN’s state department analyst.

Elise Labott: “Now we understand from diplomats the charges in this report are irrefutable. That the case is made that Iran has been trying to develop a nuclear weapon, it’s been simulating computer models trying to develop a nuclear warhead ... And this is going to really give a lot of leverage to the United States and other countries as they seek to increase pressure on Iran.”

The report is said to center on the Parchin military base near Tehran. It claims reinforced bunkers at the base have already been used to simulate explosions. As an editorial for the Guardian explains, the report comes at a tense moment in Middle East politics.

“...with each new IAEA report on Iran comes a familiar diplomatic ritual of threatened new sanctions from the US and its allies and reports of threatened military strikes from Israel. If there is a difference this time, it is in the strong impression, after years of veiled threats from Israel, that it will act alone if necessary...”

U.S. officials say they’re committed to diplomacy but the military option is still on the table. President Obama reportedly discussed the IAEA’s findings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, and is expected to make his case for tougher sanctions to China and Russia soon.

But a defense analyst on the conservative blog American Thinker writes a military strike would have little chance of success anyway.

“...there is no simple action, Israeli or otherwise, that will ‘take out’ the Iranian nuclear capability. There is no ‘Osirak option’ as there was in Iraq against Saddam's French-built reactor in the early 1980s. That is because the Iranians, like the North Koreans, learned from Osirak that it is important to separate, bury and harden facilities and create redundancies wherever possible.”

A Middle East analyst for Fox News says strikes could slow the development of nuclear weapons in Iran, but the preferred option would be a new government.

Aaron David Miller: “Isn’t this just like mowing the lawn? I mean, you’re going to cut the grass, you’re going to retard the Iranian program for a while. Unless you change the regime, the development is going to pursued even more intensely, and the costs to us are going to be considerable.”

Iranian officials called the IAEA’s report baseless and inauthentic.