The Pentagon’s new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) says the US believes Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon, but Biden administration officials are still threatening military action against Tehran to prevent it from acquiring one.
The NPR was released last week and reads: “Iran does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one.”
The National Defense Strategy (NDS) that was released with the Nuclear Posture Review also acknowledges that Iran has not made a decision to build a nuclear bomb. It reads: “Iran is taking actions that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so.”
Despite the Pentagon’s conclusion, President Biden’s special envoy for Iran, Robert Malley, said this week that the US would use military action as a “last resort” to prevent Iran from acquiring a bomb.
“We will use other tools, and in last resort, a military option if necessary, to stop Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” Malley said.
Malley also said that the US wasn’t going to “waste our time” on negotiations with Iran to revive the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA, even though the NPR recognized the agreement puts strict constraints on Iran’s nuclear program.
The NPR says that Iranian nuclear activity that the JCPOA previously constrained is “of great concern as they are applicable to a nuclear weapons program.”
After the US withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, lifting Iran’s obligation to the agreement, Tehran waited a year before slowly increasing its nuclear activity. In more recent years, Iran has increased uranium enrichment in response to Israeli covert attacks and assassinations, operations the US tacitly endorses by never condemning them.
The US government is like the octopus — its various arms have separate brains and do not coordinate with each other. No problem with that!
It’s mildly reassuring. Very mildly,
Sometimes US uses this structural arrangement to justify refusal to meet obligations and to deny to foreign countries what already have been agreed to .
Converse is eqaully handy for uncke Sam . It wants Brussel, dictators kings and bribery shape the decisions abroad. Throw under the bus who dares to question and dismantle the department who fails to echo the hackneyed worn out blah blah of Washington Consensus.
How about Israel’s nukes ? When will the world address them ?
Well, as you know, what passes for “the world” in the West is not going to address Israeli nukes. But what difference would it make if “the world” did?
No nation that possesses nuclear weapons, on this planet, now, is going to give them up.
When hell freezes over???……………………
Ahem, and I’m as surprised as anybody by this, but-
UN votes 152 to 5 telling Israel to get rid of its nuclear weapons
https://mronline.org/2022/11/03/un-votes-152-to-5-telling-israel-to-get-rid-of-its-nuclear-weapons/
… and damn, when all you can corral is Canada, Palau, and Micronesia I’d say you’ve pretty well lost the herd. It looks like the light is more than seeping by this point.
Yeah, but . . . General Assembly votes are mostly theater.
If you can’t even control theater anymore you can’t control reality.
If you can control the UN Security Council, you can control the UN. That’s the reality that matters and it’s firmly under control, as it has been from Day One. The General Assembly has never been controllable, and that has never mattered much.
Ahhhh, so now that we’re in a proxy war blatently with Russia, we can finally drop the facade of all our missile placements are for Iran. Which Russia always said was laughable from the start.
“”Iran is taking actions that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so.””
Yes, so lay off them and don’t put them in the position where they feel the only path to survival is building the bomb.
The US president is a de facto warlord. We should disband congress, let them be useless sheep on their own time.
Look no further than Citizens United as the main engine fanning the flames of discord and danger for us all.
It reads: “Iran is taking actions that would improve its ability to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so.”
Meaning, they were in compliance the whole time and we have nothing else.
Everyone not fully immersed in delusion, or ignorance, has known for a long time that Iran is not pursuing nuclear weapons. Some, however, have found it advantageous and profitable to insist that it is.
Why haven’t I read this in the New York Times? I expect I will still see throwaway phrases implying just the opposite even in restaurant reviews.
Another pellucid illustration of the Post-Truth neocon world. Global hegemony is the their utopian monomania. Truth will simply not be allowed.
Pellucid- Easily understood; clear.
…. just to pellucidify it there
US is run by lobbyists and donors.: AIPAC, Saudi lobby, Ukraine lobby, MIC, Pharma etc. US citizens with a vote come last.
Good relations with Iran would help US alot more than blind (paid) fealty to any of the other ME potentates.
Israel will get rid of their Nukes when the US does. In other words never. They are useful gadgets to have around to terrorize your various opponents.They want North Korea to divest. On the other hand the US is arming Ukraine,Australia and Poland.Japn is opposed but probably not for long. It would appear that the leadership of either party is incapable of moving toward peace and survival
Why should China have nukes? Their 1.5 billion people is the most pwerful weapon on earth.
Why should China have nukes? Perhaps because a faltering planetary hegemon with thousands of nukes has declared holy war against it.
The Pentagon, which represents, to me anyway, our soldiers, would know. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe a few years ago the Pentagon stated that the only reason for Iran to obtain nukes would be as a deterrent, not to attack another country. That said, you are correct as to what is running policy in the U.S.. Add to that, former members of Israel’s Unit 8200 working for Google, Microsoft, and others, bringing their spy experience and there is a recipe for what we have.
I don’t recall the Pentagon making any such statement. If you have a source, please cite it.
I also don’t agree that the Pentagon represents the interests of US soldiers. The Pentagon is a tool of the political establishment that represents the billionaire elites and the Zionist and Neocon/Neolibertal lobbies.
This is what you get with senility at the top.
So what’s the f*cking problem?
Oh wait, I know! The ByeDone administration is run by the likes of Zionazis the Blinkin’Idiot, what-the-f*ck Chuck Schumer, Kagan and Cookies Nuland ( who appears to have consumed far too many cookies herself.)
Not to mention the drooling senile POTUS himself.
I always feel better, when I read your posts Gypsy! 😉
Yeah-her posts must be censored,yet you love them.
I’m here to spread happiness, Donna 😁
Iran has never tried to obtain a nuclear weapon. In fact it would be impossible for Iran to have a nuclear weapons program because Iran is a theocracy where the religious leadership has repeatedly declared nuclear weapons technology as unIslamic and forbidden. In other words, even if some Iranian government tried to develop a nuclear weapon, it would be impossible to implement a program or to maintain secrecy when millions of Iranians are under a religious duty to oppose a nuclear weapons program.
Aside from religion, developing a nuclear weapon would make no strategic, political or economic sense for Iran.
Strategically, a nuclear weapons program would weaken Iranian security since it would make Iran a target for Israel and the United states who would strike Iran long before Iran developed a production and delivery system that could threaten Israel. With Iran’s current conventional capabilities, Iran could close the Strait of Hormuz and strike at targets anywhere within 1500 miles of its borders. That includes Israel and the Fifth and Sixth Fleets and AFRICOM.
Politically, the Iranian regime believes that it will prevail over Israel and the US in the long run by mass mobilization tactics.
Economically, Iran’s top diplomatic priority is to end the sanctions that are hurting the Iranian economy and its people. Developing a nuclear weapon would make that impossible.
The idea the Iran wants to develop a nuclear weapon is a baseless lie. But the truth is that Iran wants to develop high technology including nuclear technology that will enable it in the long run to be independent of Western technology and enable Iran to continue its rise to become the major economic, military and religious power in the Middle East and the leading voice of reform in the Islamic world.
Israel’s problem is that the development of Iran with its strong support of the Palestinian resistance and its refusal to accept a Zionist state is an existential threat to the Zionist occupation of Palestine. But Israel and the US have perpetrated the fraud that Iran wants a nuclear weapon to justify the hostility of the Zionist and pro-Zionist neocon and neoliberal animosity to a rising anti-Zionist and anti-imperialist regime in Iran.
“Iran has never tried to obtain a nuclear weapon” Never? Why would they build centrifuges to enrich uranium? And why were they building a heavy water plant? I don’t think they are working on a bomb now, but they certainly appeared to be interest in the past.
Never! Iran wants world class nuclear technology. Like Japan or Germany. Unlike the Arab sheikdoms, Iran is preparing for a post-fossil fuel economy based on high technology.
I have a hard time buying your “never” argument. I think they did in the past. Not saying that Iran is currently interested.
US and Israeli public intelligence statements over the last decade say that IF they were ever working on a nuke, they had stopped by 2004.
They’ve never enriched uranium to weapons grade. Until the US abrogated the JCPOA, they enriched to very low grade for reactor fuel and medical isotopes.
The main purpose of a heavy water reactor is that it doesn’t require the uranium to be as highly enriched.
I believe Iran stop its interest in nuclear weapons. By the way, Reactors that used heavy water can be designed to make electricity or weapon grade plutonium, or both. So that is why the concern about Iran having a heavy water facilities.
Centrifuges are necessary to enrich uranium to reactor grade, and heavy water has a number of non weapons applications. While development of such capabilities facilitates production of nuclear weapons it does not in and of itself establish, or even necessarily indicate, an interest in doing so.
Ted you are correct abut enrich uranium is needed in light water reactors. The number of centrifuges Iran way exceeded the amount needed to enrich uranium for a reactor that was still under construction, the centrifuges existed in a secret underground bunker and for amount of fuel rod needed it would have been cheaper to buy them. To fuel their reactor Iran would need 6000 centrifuges, they build 20,000.
Heavy water has a limited non nuclear weapons uses, mostly in research. That amount heavy water could be made in a lab or purchased.
As I said, I don’t believe that they never had a interested bomb, just too much “smoking gun” evidence. But I do believe at this point they have given up on the idea.
When you consider smoking guns, you have to consider who is gathering the smoke.
The “underground bunker” isn’t secret. You know about it. The cost of reactor fuel is immaterial, the Iranians want fuel cycle independence and a reliable supply. 6k vs. 20k centrifuges is a sizing exercise, precise interpretation isn’t possible. Heavy water has a variety of uses, and again the Iranians want an indigenous and secure production capability. You apparently know your way around a tech manual but don’t get carried away. And just so somebody’s said it, the US lecturing from this particular bar stool is too ridiculous for words.
Are you serious? You are unbelievable. Learn something about nuclear power and nuclear medicine.
What would you like to know about nuclear power? Let me see how much you know? I will start with a few simple questions and than we can hit the harder ones. Compare and explain the thermal efficiency of nuclear plant vs a coal fired plant. That is an easy one. Bonus question? Which season of the year is a nuclear plant more efficient?
Tell me what the yellow line is? Tell me the difference between a reactor cooling pump for an aircraft carrier and for a submarine? Is the fugacity of steam important in the design of a PWR and why? Now I can answer all those questions and more with zero research, can you?
Oh by the way have you ever seen much less studied the PID for an AP1000? I have. Have you ever designed a sub system for a nuclear plant? I have. How many nuclear plants have you visited?
Badabing!
So the US now admits that Iran is not building nukes. No surprise here. But lets change the rules and now the sanctions are to “prevent Iran from obtaining nukes”. This is really all BS and what is really going on is the US is trying to force Iran to sell it’s oil in USD which Iran has not done since the year 2006. And until Iran agrees to sell its oil/gas in USD the US illegal sanctions will remain. Good luck with that as Iran already sells oil/gas in currencies other than USD. Time the EU grew a pair and returned to trading with Iran.