Media Hype Leaves Nations Expressing Concern About Iran’s Enrichment

Nations' complaints reflect false reports on enrichment levels

On Monday, news media issued a series of panicky reports surrounding the Iranian government’s increased enrichment levels. Those were vastly overstated, based on Iran reporting an input of 5 kg of raw uranium per day and falsely claiming an output of 5 kg of enriched uranium, which would have been a massive change.

But if you get enough media outlets repeating a false claim and acting scared, you’ll get a number of nations echoing them, with the EU saying they view the nuclear deal with Iran as being “at risk” because of their increased enrichment.

France similarly said the operations were against the P5+1 deal’s commitments, which they deliberately were, as Iran is trying to force the other parties in the deal to talk about everyone not getting what they expected since the US withdrawal from the deal.

But with the latest media furor even Russia is expressing concern about Iran’s intentions, which again are based on relatively minor changes to a civilian nuclear program that all these parties agree Iran has a right to have.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.