Iran-Israel War is coming to the Middle East

 

Naftali Bennett, the prime minister of Israel, issued a dire warning: "is dangerously close to putting their hands on a nuclear weapon." The premier noted that "Iran is enriching uranium at an unprecedented rate" in an interview with The Telegraph. "Iran's nuclear program won't stop until it is stopped," Bennett continued.

America has also expressed concern. Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) noted that Iran has made "significant progress" and has "reduced its [nuclear] breakout time to several weeks from a year" in comparison to what it was under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, during a hearing of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee in March 2022. Iran's breakout time was in fact "down to a handful of weeks," according to American secretary of state Antony Blinken in April 2022.

Tehran was "extremely near" to achieving nuclear status on June 6, 2022, according to Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and it "cannot be averted at this time." Additionally, according to the news site JNS, Grossi gave the board a paper "demonstrating that Iran practically already has enough enriched uranium for three bombs."

Additionally, according to Grossi, "Iran has not presented technical viable answers in respect to the Agency's findings at three undeclared installations in Iran." The present location, or locations, of the nuclear material and/or of the equipment contaminated with the nuclear material, according to Grossi, have not been provided by Iran to the IAEA.

Concerns have been raised by the Islamic Republic's decision to start putting in advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its subterranean enrichment facility in Natanz and its declaration that it intends to put in additional at other locations. The Islamic

Republic will be able to increase enrichment by up to 50% thanks to the centrifuges. Iran's actions were formally condemned by the agency.

The Islamic Republic responded by labeling the IAEA "ungrateful" and turning off the cameras that the organization was using to keep an eye on Tehran's nuclear activity at its stated facilities. This, according to Grossi, dealt a "fatal blow" to talks between Washington and Tehran over the latter's nuclear weapons development. But this ignores certain important details.

The IAEA hasn't had access to the data gathered by the cameras for more than a year, as observed by Reuters and others, among others. The organization "hopes that it will eventually be able to access that data, which is still with Iran."

But hope is a bad foundation for policy, especially when that policy aims to stop the world's top state sponsor of terrorism from gaining nuclear weapons.

Although many observers have noted that a standstill in U.S.-Iran discussions has raised tensions and made a breakout likely, it is important to remember that the JCPOA's very parameters did not stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. And Israel won't let the Islamic Republic develop into a superpower. That's how easy it is.

Iran was eventually able to join the nuclear club because to the JCPOA's sunset clauses and lax verifications regime. In fact, Barack Obama, who was president at the time, said in an interview from 2015 that the agreement would allow Iran to have "near zero" breakout time in as short as thirteen years, or six years from now.

Even so, the JCPOA did not oblige Iran to be transparent about its prior nuclear behavior, making it impossible to accurately measure its progress. The JCPOA similarly restricted inspections to "declared" sites. Additionally, it does not entirely ban research and development in important fields, potentially allowing Iran to shorten the time to a nuclear breakout even further.