Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, commenting on ongoing US warnings
about the Iranian civilian nuclear program, announced that Iran will
enrich uranium to “any amount that we want.”
Iran is currently only enriching to 3.67%, and it’s not clear what
higher levels they are even considering. In the past, they did small
amounts of enrichment to higher levels for a medical research reactor.
President Trump referred to this as a “nuclear threat” in his own comments, which threatened Iran, saying such moves would “come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!“
Trump’s comments are really just the daily threats against Iran, coming
just a day after accusing Iran of “playing with fire” over their ongoing
enrichment at the current level.
In practice there isn’t none of this is a serious risk for nuclear
proliferation. Iran has never attempted to enrich above the level of
such civilian uses, and would have no conceivable reason to do so.
In reality, Rouhani’s comments are likely intended to push Europe to
come through with the sanctions relief that are promised by the nuclear
deal. Trump, on the other hand, is still trying to undermine the nuclear
deal, and wants to present everything Iran does as a threat.
Here are a few facts. If Iran wants to build a nuclear arsenal it will have to start with enriched U235 which must be enriched to more than 90% of all uranium isotopes to become a nuclear explosive. Iran enriches U235 with centrifuges using UF6 gas. Currently all production of enriched uranium is still under the control of the IAEA and will remain under that control even if Iran fully leaves the 5+1 agreement because Iran is still an NPT signatory. In order to secretly produce bomb-grade U235 Iran will have to build a hidden enrichment facility which it does not have today. Building and running such a facility cannot escape detection by our satellites. That bomb-enrichment facility will also need a lot of power. If the power lines to that new facility do not yet exist they must be built. If they already exist then the secret enrichment will show up in a substantially increased power delivery.
Hence, with regards to the secret development of a bomb, which I believe Iran does not want to do anyway, sit back and let our intelligence do the job. Within the NPT there are pathways for complaints. A serious breach by Iran would immediately trigger a big alliance to stop it.
Hence, I hold that the nuclear issue has nothing to do with Trump’s threats. It is all about oil.
Thanks again for that knowledgeable post. Should be reposted everytime these ridiculous accusations show their lying ass.
“which threatened Iran, saying such moves would “come back to bite you like nobody has been bitten before!“
So is that like obliteration threat number five?
LMFAO, I thought the exact same thing before seeing this comment. As someone else recently said on this site, Trump turns Roosevelt’s quote on its head – “Speak loudly and carry no stick.”
Seeing as how the US is the only country to have used nukes on another when no other country had them, letting the US decide who can have nukes is like letting Nazis decide who can have gas chambers. US felons lose their right to vote and the US should lose its right to vote on international nuclear policy.
Rouhani is technically correct, because Iran could at any time leave not only the JCPOA, but the NPT. All such agreements are in essence voluntary – as Trump has proved, unfortunately – and any sovereign country can leave them at any time. Khamenei made the same statement to Japan’s Abe just recently, and Rouhani was simply echoing him.
Of course, Iran has no intention of leaving the NPT or developing nuclear weapons. They never did. The most they ever did was a “feasibility study” back when they were afraid Saddam Hussein had a program – because Saddam with nukes was an existential threat to Iran that even Israel or the US never was.
Beyond that now eliminated specific threat, Iran has no use case for nuclear weapons. So unless some extreme hardliners come to power – and only after Khamenei dies – Iran is never going to develop and deploy nuclear weapons. Even if the US attacks them, Iran won’t do that. They didn’t deploy chemical weapons during the Iran-Iraq war due to Khomeini’s fatwa, and Khamenei has reissued that fatwa. Plus there’s no way to develop nukes in the middle of a war with your entire infrastructure bombed to rubble. And of course, the US and Israel won’t allow Iran to develop nukes anyway – they’re already threatening Iran with war even though Iran demonstrably doesn’t have even a program to develop one, let alone actual nukes (despite what the overwhelming majority of US citizens think, according to polls.)
I expect they probably will leave the JCPOA since they have no benefit
from staying in it, unless Europe and the other countries actually do
manage to offset US sanctions, which is problematic. It was never anyone
other than the US that was the primary reason for agreeing to the
JCPOA in the first place. Europe was never the main driver for Iranian sanctions. And Europe is likely to buckle under US pressure to not
evade the sanctions. Iran can count on the rest of the world for support.
And that’s the main reason for Iran to stay in the JCPOA – simply the propaganda value. It once again establishes to the rest of the world that Iran has no interest in nukes and will continue to play by the rules of international law, as contrasted with the US which doesn’t.
Trump makes some noise on Twitter, threatening some other country with something ‘they’ve never felt before!!’
Like all of Duh-Duh-Duh-Donnie’s imperial proclamations, you can safely ignore this, and he will have flip flopped on the issue another 200,000 times before this time next week.