UN nuclear inspectors are in Iran this weekend visiting a variety of facilities in what they described as their “ongoing interactions”
with the Iranian nuclear program. This includes confirming the
“violations” claimed related to Iran moving away from some voluntary
compliance.
The main news out of this, according to diplomats, was “trace” amounts of uranium found at a site in Iran, which had been tapped by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a “secret atomic warehouse.”
UN officials are still working on sourcing the uranium in question, and
have not made any announcements on it, leaving open the question of if
it was unenriched, low-enriched, or otherwise.
Officials conceded that there were a lot of potential explanations for
such trace amounts. In the past, the UN inspectors accidentally
cross-contaminated a site they were inspecting by bringing in small
amounts of uranium from the last site they’d visited, and then
“discovering” it again. The Israeli link to this site must also raise
the potential of Israel planting something there to try to sell this as a
smoking gun.
Iran should kick them out… they get nothing from continuing to comply with a deal long since dead and useless.
The “deal” in question where the IAEA is concerned isn’t the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, it’s the Non-Proliferation Treaty.
To the extent that the Iranians continue to meet their obligations under the NPT, they get two useful things out of doing so. One is the ability to point out that there’s a non-NPT rogue nuclear state in the region and that it’s not Iran. The other is to point out that they are operating in the space between their NPT obligations and their JCPOA obligations.
That’s helpful info. My position is the same though. There is no merit or legitimacy to preventing nuclear proliferation while the nuclear weapons states completely ignore their commitments under the treaty and actively undermining it with plans for a new generation of advanced, more usable nuclear weapons. Iran should withdraw from that oppressive farce, whether or not they choose to develop nuclear weapons.
Doesn’t matter what it is – it only matters how much Trump and Netanyahu are going to make of it to issue more threats (tweeted in the case of Trump.)