Iran Continues to Develop Nuclear Weapons

 By Henry Srebrnik, [Moncton, NB] Times & Transcript

There is no longer any meaningful obstacle to Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The American administration is too predictable and fearful. The debacle in Afghanistan and the rhetoric about ending “forever wars” has emboldened Tehran, which now toys with the United States through on-and-off nuclear talks. 

In his address to the U.N. General Assembly last September, Iran’s president, Ebrahim Raisi, mocked America. “From the Capitol to Kabul,” he told the assembled delegates, “one clear message was sent to the world: The U.S. hegemonic system has no credibility, whether inside or outside the country.”

Raisi, who became the country’s political leader last August, is the most hard-line president the country has had, and he pulls no punches. Known for his involvement in a massacre of nearly 30,000 political prisoners in 1988, he’s been called the “Butcher of Tehran.” And he has the ear of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

Until now, the theocracy has relied on Shiite proxies and militias to project its power and influence across the Middle East in a relatively low-cost and effective way.  However, that only goes so far. To ensure that Iran can counter the United States, Israel and the Arab Gulf States, the regime will need more weapons – and nothing spells power like a nuclear arsenal.

Under the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 (the United States, Great Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany), Tehran agreed to dismantle its nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of crushing international sanctions and the unfreezing of billions of dollars in frozen Iranian assets. But the deal was abrogated by former U.S. President Donald Trump in 2018. Today, however, President Joe Biden’s vision of re-entering the agreement, then building something “longer and stronger,” appears all but gone.

Initially, American officials hoped Raisi would just take the agreement that had been negotiated, make minor alterations and celebrate a lifting of most Western sanctions. But that proved a miscalculation. In fact, Ali Bagheri Kani, Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, does not refer to the new round of talks as nuclear negotiations at all. Instead, he refers to them as “negotiations to remove unlawful and inhuman sanctions.”

Raisi has said his government will support talks that “guarantee national interests,” but will not allow negotiations for the sake of negotiations. Iran, now in the driver’s seat, will insist on the lifting of both nuclear and non-nuclear sanctions and will want a guarantee that no future president could unilaterally abandon any new agreement, as Trump did.

Iran of course denies that it has any intention of ever building a nuclear weapon, though it has already been violating provisions of the old JCPOA. Earlier this year, Tehran began restricting some inspection activities by the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Yet the Biden administration, in an attempt to revive the nuclear deal, is continuing to forge ahead. Its objective is not even to halt Iran’s nuclear program but just to limit it for a period of time, while removing the sanctions that hurt it economically.

Washington has suggested a new so-called sunset period of 25 years, which would stipulate when the various restrictions imposed on Iran’s nuclear program expire. This would allow the Islamic Republic to resume enriching uranium at any level they desire, make its reactors fully operational, build new heavy water reactors, produce as much fuel as they desire for the reactors, and maintain higher uranium enrichment capability with no restriction after the period of the agreement.

The sunset period terms would most likely ensure that after the pause detailed in any agreement, Iran will effectively be a nuclear state. After all, the most likely scenario is that it wants a “threshold capability,” one that would leave it able to produce a weapon in weeks or months, if it felt the need.

It is also pretty safe to assume, from Iran’s track record, that during the life of any agreement, Iran will be covertly violating the rules and getting ready to create a nuclear arsenal.

America, Israel, and Europe should start considering what comes next after Iran’s first test detonation of a bomb. Not a pleasant thought as we move into 2022.