US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned this past Friday that Iran now has the ability to produce enough weapons-grade fissile material to create a nuclear weapon in less than a month.
It’s a scenario Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been warning about — screaming about — for decades.
Iran’s ability to achieve that nuclear weapon is “now probably one or two weeks away,” Blinken said, and blamed the former administration under President Donald Trump for its withdrawal from the nuclear deal that was believed to impose effective restrictions on the Iranian nuclear development program.
“Iran, because of the nuclear agreement that was thrown out, instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that,” the Secretary told the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado this weekend.
“They haven’t produced a weapon itself, but that’s something of course that we track very, very carefully,” he said.
“You put those two things together, the fissile material and an explosive device and you have a nuclear weapon, so we’re focused on that,” Blinken said. “What we’ve seen in the last weeks and
months is Iran is actually moving forward with this program.
“The first thing we need to see is if Iran is serious about engaging is actually pulling back on the work that it’s doing on its program. Second, we of course have been maximizing pressure on Iran across the board; we’ve imposed more than 600 sanctions on Iranian persons and entities of one kind or another,” Blinken said. “We haven’t lifted a single sanction,” he insisted.
Tracking is, of course, quite different from actively preventing Iran from creating such a weapon. Blinken told the Forum that the Biden Administration would prefer to achieve that prevention via diplomacy — which has repeatedly failed to produce results when it comes to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
While uranium needs to be only 3.67 percent pure to generate nuclear power, Iran has enriched its uranium stockpile to 60 percent purity and possibly higher, a degree of purity that no country without an atomic weapon has ever pursued. A nuclear bomb requires uranium to be enriched to 90 percent purity.
Netanyahu: A Bad Deal
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the JCPOA, warning that Iran would violate the terms of the agreement and that Tehran had already proven itself as a bad faith partner in any deal.
“One hundred thousand files right here prove that they lied,” Netanyahu said on the evening he exposed the long-held Iranian plans to create five atomic warheads for ballistic missiles already in production in violation of the United Nations sanctions.
The JCPOA, Netanyahu said, “gives them the three elements required for creating nuclear weapons of mass destruction: — unlimited enrichment in a few years, ballistic missiles, and it fails to address the secret nuclear bomb program and its advanced work on nuclear weaponization.”
Israel Exposes Iran’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Program
Documents from a comprehensive Iranian nuclear program called Project Amad that ran from 1999 to 2003 were secretly stored, to be used at a time of Iran’s choosing, to build nuclear weapons. Those documents and other files were brought out of Iran in a special Mossad operation that exposed Tehran’s lies.
Watch: PM Netanyahu Exposes Iran’s Secret Nuclear Weapons Program
The wealth of material brought out from Iran by Mossad agents in April 2018 included 55,000 pages of Iranian nuclear weapons files in binders, and another 55,000 files on 183 CDs, half a ton of material, that had been hidden in armored vaults for more than a decade in a dilapidated warehouse in the Shorabad district in Tehran.
The Israeli prime minister said there were four conclusions to be drawn from the material:
1. Iran lied about never having a nuclear weapons program;
2. Even after signing the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal, Iran continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons know-how for future use;
3. Iran lied again in December 2015 when it didn’t “come clean” to the IAEA as required by the nuclear deal; and
4. The nuclear deal is based on lies.
Trump Withdraws the US from the JCPOA
In May 2018, President Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) nuclear deal signed in July 2015 by Iran with six world powers, including the United States.
Under the terms of the deal, which was orchestrated by the Obama Administration and went into effect in January 2016, Iran would dismantle much of its nuclear program and allow more extensive inspections by the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Iran agreed as part of the deal not to produce highly-enriched uranium or plutonium that could be used to create a nuclear weapon, and allegedly took steps to ensure its nuclear facilities at Fordow, Natanz and Arak engaged solely in civilian medical and industrial research.
The so-called “sunset clauses” in the deal included expiration dates on the restrictions: In January 2026, restrictions on the centrifuges used to enrich uranium were to be lifted. In January 2031, restrictions on the amount of low-enriched uranium Iran could possess would also be lifted.
Netanyahu to Meet Biden, Address Congress This Week
Israel’s prime minister is scheduled to meet this Tuesday with President Joe Biden, who served as vice president during the Obama Administration.
The meeting will precede by one day Netanyahu’s address at 2 pm on Wednesday to a joint session of Congress. The event will make the Israeli prime minister the only world leader to address the Congress four times.
The address comes at a time when Democrats are more divided than ever over whether and how to support the State of Israel. The party’s anti-Israel fifth column in the House of Representatives, known as The Squad, is clamoring for fellow Democrats to boycott Netanyahu’s address. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson has said he invited Netanyahu so he could thank the lawmakers for all the military aid and international support the US has provided to Israel since the horrific October 7th massacre led by Hamas terrorists in southern Israel, and the subsequent abduction of some 250 hostages — including many American citizens.
At least five Americans are still being held captive by Hamas in Gaza as of this writing.
Following is a comprehensive explanation of the precise terms of the deal by the Arms Control Association.
As of January 2016, under the agreement the United States would:
* Cease the application of economic sanctions against lran’s oil and banking sector allowing Iranian banks and companies to reconnect with international systems
* Remove designation of certain entities and individuals
* Allow licensed non-US entities that are owned or controlled by a US person to engage in activities with lran permitted under JCPOA
* Allow the sale of commercial passenger aircraft to Iran
* Allow license for importing Iranian-origin carpets and foodstuffs into United States
United States takes appropriate measures to address laws at state or local level preventing full implementation of JCPOA – United States would actively encourage officials to adhere to JCPOA policy
* For 8 years after Adoption date, or sooner if IAEA concludes that all nuclear activity in Iran remains peaceful, U. will seek legislative action to terminate/modify nuclear related sanctions
* US sanctions on Iran targeting human rights, terrorism and missile activities remain
United States can impose additional sanctions for non-nuclear issues (terrorism, human rights, etc.)
As of January 2016, the European Union agreed to:
* Terminate all provisions of the EU Regulation related to Iran’s nuclear program, including: financial and banking transactions; transactions in Iranian Rial; provision of U.S. banknotes to Iranian government; access to SWIFT; insurance services; efforts to reduce Iran’s crude oil and petrochemical product sales; investment; transactions with Iran’s energy and shipping sector; trade in gold and other precious metals; trade with lran’s automotive sector
* Remove individuals and entities designated under sanctions
* Refrain from re-introducing sanctions terminated under JCPOA (Iran viewed any re-introduction as grounds to cease performing its commitments)
* Refrain from policy intended to adversely affect normalization of economic relations with Iran
* After eight years or at the finding of the IAEA broader conclusion, LIFT EU’s arms embargo and restrictions on transfer of ballistic missiles.
Iran, for its part, agreed to the following restrictions:
Enrichment
* For 10 years operating centrifuges reduced to 5,060 IR-1 machines, total machines is 6,104 IR-1s
* Excess centrifuges (over 13,000) dismantled and stored under IAEA monitoring
* For 15 years level of uranium enrichment capped at 3.67 percent uranium-235
* For 15 years enrichment only at Natanz
* For 10 years no production of additional IR-1 centrifuges
* Between years 11-13 Iran can replace IR-1s with the equivalent capacity of IR-6 and IR-8 machines and limits lasting to years 14-15
Uranium Stockpile
* For 15 years the stockpile is kept under 300 kilograms of 3.67 percent enriched uranium in total (all forms)
* Excess enriched uranium sold, shipped abroad for storage, or diluted to natural uranium levels
* Uranium oxide and scrap material enriched up to 20 percent fabricated into fuel for Tehran Research Reactor, blended down, or shipped out
Fordow
* Converted to research facility for stable isotope production with Russian cooperation
1,044 IR-1 centrifuges in six cascades will remain here, 328 for production, the remaining 700 are idle
* For 15 years no introduction of uranium at the facility
Advanced Centrifuge Research and Development
* For 8.5 years Iran may conduct research with uranium on a single IR-4, IR-5, IR-6 and IR-8 centrifuge at Natanz
* After 8.5 years test up to 30 IR-6s and 30 IR-8s
* After 8 years manufacture up to 200 IR-6s and 200 IR-8s centrifuges without rotors
* For 10 years Joint Commission review and approval of changes to the research and development plan
Arak Reactor
* Remove and disable the original core of the Arak reactor
* Replace the core of the Arak reactor to reduce weapons-grade plutonium output, certified by the Joint Commission
* For 15 years no reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel with an intention to never reprocess
Permanent commitment to ship out spent nuclear fuel
* For 15 years no heavy-water reactors in Iran
* For 15 years no accumulation of heavy water in Iran
* Construction of hot cells or shielded glove boxes of certain specifications subject to approval of the Joint Commission
Monitoring and Verification
* By 15 October 2015 Iran fully implements PMD “roadmap” agreed with IAEA
* For 10 years approval of the purchase of dual-use materials by the Joint Commission working group
* For 25 years continuous monitoring of lran’s uranium mines and mills
* For 20 years continuous monitoring of lran’s centrifuge production facilities
* For 15 years Joint Commission oversight of IAEA access requests to inspect undeclared sites
Joint Commission
* For 25 years Joint Commission (composed of P5+1, EU and Iran for a total of 8 voting members) will hold quarterly meetings, or by request, to oversee the deal
* Dispute resolution mechanism within 35 days; 15 day dispute resolution mechanism within the Joint Commission, with optional 15 day ministerial review and/or arbitration opinion from a 3 member panel, followed by 5 day review of the arbitration opinion. If no resolution and complaining party sees action as “significant non-performance,’ the unresolved issue can be treated as grounds to cease performing commitments in whole or part, complaining party will notify UN Security Council
* Any party can go to the UN Security Council to put sanctions back in place if there is noncompliance by vetoing a resolution calling for the continuance of sanctions
The UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the agreement terminated all prior resolutions targeting Iran’s nuclear program once the deal was implemented. For 10 years, sanctions were to be subject to snapback by veto of a resolution calling for the continuation of suspension.
The heavy arms embargo — which Iran had consistently ignored, was to be lifted after five years; the ballistic missile restrictions, which Iran had also ignored and continues to ignore, were to be lifted after eight years.
