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How Close Is Iran to a Nuclear Bomb, Really?

Experts say Tehran has the capability to build a nuclear weapon within a few years but perhaps not the intent. Foreign Policy.com, BY LARA SELIGMAN, JULY 1, 2019, 

Iran confirmed on Monday that it has breached the limit on its stockpile of enriched uranium set by the 2015 nuclear deal, renewing concerns that Tehran could, within months, have enough weapons-grade uranium to build a nuclear bomb.

But experts say the violation is more of a symbolic move than a concrete step toward obtaining a nuclear weapon. Though most agree that Iran has the expertise and capability to eventually build such a device, it is not clear that Tehran has the intent or even sees the necessity of doing so.

“This is not a dash to a nuclear bomb,” said Kelsey Davenport, the director of nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association. “It is a calculated move designed to gain leverage in negotiations with the Europeans, Russia, and China on sanctions relief.”

Tehran has recently ratcheted up pressure on the remaining adherents to the nuclear deal to provide some sort of relief to U.S. President Donald Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign. Iran has allegedly attacked oil tankers in the Gulf of Oman and most recently shot down a U.S. military surveillance drone, nearly provoking a U.S. missile attack that Trump aborted at the last minute. The regime is also threatening to suspend other commitments under the 2015 deal in just days unless European powers provide sanction relief.

The 2015 deal caps Iran’s levels of uranium enriched to 3.67 percent purity—called “low-enriched uranium” and suitable for producing fuel for nuclear power reactors—at 300 kilograms. But there are still a number of steps Iran would have to take in order to build a bomb, Davenport explained……….. https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/07/01/how-close-is-iran-to-a-nuclear-bomb-really/

July 2, 2019 Posted by | Iran, weapons and war | Leave a comment

No solution found to the nuclear issue, after European talks with Iran end

European Talks With Iran End, Leaving Nuclear Issue Unsettled,  NYT, By David E. Sanger, June 28, 2019   WASHINGTON — A last-minute effort by European powers to persuade Iran not to breach limits on its stockpile of nuclear fuel ended inconclusively on Friday, with the Iranians saying that Britain, France and Germany had made only modest progress in developing a system to get around tight American sanctions on trade with Tehran.

As he left the talks in Vienna, Abbas Araghchi, the Iranian deputy foreign minister, said he expected Iran would go ahead with its plan to break the ceiling on how much low-enriched uranium it was allowed to possess. That breach could come as early as this weekend, potentially setting off another confrontation with the Trump administration, after a week of recriminations and military threats following the downing of an American drone and attacks on tankers.

“It is still not enough, and it is still not meeting Iran’s expectations,” Mr. Araghchi told reporters, according to news reports from Vienna. …….

Breaking the stockpile limit would not, by itself, give Iran enough fuel to produce a nuclear weapon. But the European participants in the 2015 agreement have been urging the Iranians not to dispense with the accord, for fear that the Trump administration might react with a military or cyberstrike against the Iranians…….

The United States’ special envoy for Iran, Brian H. Hook, said this week that the sanctions have already cost Iran more than $50 billion…….https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/28/us/politics/europe-iran-nuclear-deal.html

July 1, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Iran doesn’t want to leave the nuclear agreement, calls on Europe for trade help

No Intention to Quit JCPOA Despite Nuclear Rollbacks  Financial Tribune, 29 June 19, Europe should take further measures to ensure that the special trade channel set up to keep trade with Iran afloat satisfies Tehran’s demands, a senior diplomat said on Saturday, while stressing that the country does not intend to leave the nuclear agreement.

“I personally believe that INSTEX, in its current condition, isn’t enough. This mechanism without money is like a beautiful car without fuel,” Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Majid Takht-Ravanchi, told the media in New York, IRNA reported.

In early May, a year after US President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, Tehran announced a decision to abandon some of its commitments under the deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

Iran would resume higher uranium enrichment in 60 days if the remaining signatories fail to make good on promises to shield its oil and banking sectors from the reimposed and tightened US sanctions.

On Friday, the European Union announced in a statement that the Instrument in Support of Trade Exchanges or INSTEX, the financial mechanism set up by France, Britain and Germany to facilitate some trade with Iran, is now operational and the first transactions are being processed. ….. (subscribers only) https://financialtribune.com/articles/national/98697/no-intention-to-quit-jcpoa-despite-nuclear-rollbacks

July 1, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Progress in diplomatic talks with Iran, but might not save the nuclear deal

Nuclear talks progress ‘not enough’ for Iran to change course, INSTEX payment system now operational, but Iran says needs to be used for oil purchases to be useful. Aljazeera, 29 June 19

Diplomats meeting in Vienna in a bid to save a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers made progress but it was “not enough” to stop Tehran scaling back compliance with the accord, according to the Iranian deputy foreign minister.

Officials from the deal’s remaining signatories – China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Iran – as well as the European Union, held talks in the Austrian capital on Friday after Tehran warned that it would soon breach a limit on the amount of enriched uranium set out in the agreement.

“It was a step forward, but it is still not enough and not meeting Iran’s expectations,” Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told reporters. “I don’t think the progress made today will be enough to stop our process but the decision will be made in Tehran.”…….https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/06/nuclear-talks-progress-iran-change-190628160308104.html

June 29, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Turkey’s President Erdoğan admits that Sinop nuclear power plant has been halted (too costly)

Anti-Nuclear Platform: ‘We Won’t Get Carried Away Until Project is Officially Canceled’

President Erdoğan admitted for the first time that the construction of the nuclear power plant in Sinop has been halted. Bianet, Hicran Cengiz, İstanbul – BIA News Desk28 June 2019, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said yesterday (June 27) the nuclear power plant project in the Black Sea province of Sinop has been halted, in an interview with a newspaper from Japan.

Zeki Karataş from the Sinop Anti-Nuclear Platform told bianet that they don’t want Sinop to be a subject of international negotiations.

“There similar claims and statements before but a statement on the essence of the matter did not come…….

The project was signed in 2013 and projected to be partly operational in 2023. However, there have been reports that the construction has been halted due to increasing costs. Erdoğan confirmed such reports for the first time in the interview he gave to the daily Nikkei. ….http://bianet.org/english/environment/209874-anti-nuclear-platform-we-won-t-get-carried-away-until-project-is-officially-canceled

June 29, 2019 Posted by | politics, Turkey | Leave a comment

Iran close to exceeding uranium stockpile limits set by the nuclear agreement

Iran Is About To Exceed Uranium Limits. Is The Nuclear Deal Dying? NPR,  26, 2019 , Heard on All Things Considered, GEOFF BRUMFIEL

Iran is on the verge of crossing a key line included in the nuclear deal it reached with the U.S. and other powers in 2015. As soon as Thursday, it’s expected to announce that its uranium stockpiles have exceeded limits set by the deal.

“I think it’s a major bridge for them to go across,” says David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security, which monitors Iran’s nuclear program. Albright and other experts believe that breaching the limit could spell the beginning of the end for the nuclear agreement, which the U.S. exited in May 2018.

The nuclear deal is full of numbers and figures, but its purpose is simple: to slow down Iran’s nuclear program. Before the deal, Iran was within a few weeks of getting enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb if it chose to. The deal pushed that timeline back from weeks to about a year.

Under the multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, Iran was forced to get rid of lots of low-enriched uranium. Low-enriched uranium is kept at levels far below the 90% level considered suitable for building nuclear weapons. But large quantities of low-enriched uranium can be refined to bomb-grade relatively quickly. So the deal capped Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched material to just 300 kilograms, or 661 lbs.

But that was then. Last year, President Trump pulled out of the deal. Without the economic benefits Iran was promised in exchange for limiting its nuclear program, it has begun going back on the agreement. In May, it announced it would begin accumulating more low-enriched uranium. ……..

European companies had hoped to do business with Iran. But in the face of U.S. sanctions, “We’ve seen those companies have to step back and say, ‘We can’t afford to lose the U.S. market,’ ” Hinderstein says.

Iran is now stepping across one line in the deal at a time, in an effort to pressure European nations to provide promised economic relief. European negotiators are racing to complete a package of humanitarian aid by early July, says Aniseh Bassiri Tabrizi with Great Britain’s Royal United Services Institute.

“They are working towards that end goal, to showcase to the Iranians that they are actually working in practical terms to address some of these issues,” Tabrizi says.

If that aid — which includes things like medical supplies — can be delivered without U.S. objection, then it may open the possibility of more economic benefits flowing to Iran. But Tabrizi says it remains to be seen whether it will be enough.

“Iran has made it clear that it needs also to be able to continue to export its oil, to see the incentive of remaining a party of the nuclear deal,” she says.

For now, Hinderstein says, Iran is still about a year away from getting material together for a bomb — should it decide to do so. “We still have some time to work with,” she says.

But with each line that Iran crosses, the timeline shrinks, and the nuclear deal fades further. https://www.npr.org/2019/06/26/736008919/iran-is-about-to-exceed-uranium-limits-is-the-nuclear-deal-dying

June 27, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international | Leave a comment

Iran’s foreign minister claims that Iran will never build a nuclear weapon

Iran says it will never build a nuclear weapon, Minister says Islam forbids such a move as country prepares to breach nuclear deal,  Guardian   Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor,  26 June 2019

Iran will never pursue a nuclear weapon, its foreign minister has claimed, saying Islam prevented the country from doing so.

Iran has previously said it is ideologically opposed to acquiring nuclear weapons and seeks nuclear power only for civilian purposes. But in the current unpredictable climate it is possible Donald Trump could pick up Javad Zarif’s remarks as a signal to talk.

The White House is pursuing a twin-track strategy of seeking talks while trying to throttle the Iranian economy through sanctions that block trade with Europe and oil sales, and freeze the assets of political and diplomatic leaders.

Iran has said it will breach the uranium enrichment limits set out in the 2015 nuclear deal on Thursday, but that does not imply the country is on the path to building a nuclear weapon…….

The US president again threatened Iran with “obliteration” in a Twitter tirade in which he also accused the country’s leaders of killing 2,000 Americans. …..

The angry tweets came after Iran said the US’s decision to impose sanctionson its supreme leader and other top officials was “idiotic” and had permanently closed the path to diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.

Trump imposed fresh sanctions on Monday against the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and military chiefs, in an unprecedented step designed to increase pressure on Iran after Tehran’s downing of an unmanned American drone. Khamenei is Iran’s utmost authority, who has the last say on all state matters.

Washington said it would also impose sanctions this week on Zarif, who negotiated the 2015 nuclear deal with the US and other major powers and has spearheaded Iranian diplomacy since.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, described the White House as “afflicted by a mental disability” and said the sanctions against Khamenei were “outrageous and idiotic”, especially as the 80-year-old cleric has no overseas assets and no plans to ever travel to the US.

Tehran said the US had spent weeks demanding that Iran match America’s diplomacy with its own diplomacy, rather than military responses, but was now trying to immobilise its chief diplomat.

“Imposing useless sanctions on Iran’s supreme leader and the commander of Iran’s diplomacy is the permanent closure of the path of diplomacy,” the foreign ministry spokesman Abbas Mousavi said in a tweet on Tuesday. “Trump’s desperate administration is destroying the established international mechanisms for maintaining world peace and security.”…….. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jun/25/iran-says-us-sanctions-on-supreme-leader-means-permanent-closure-of-diplomacy

June 27, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

HBO TV series ” Chernobyl” causing great interest in Iran

With ‘Chernobyl,’ Iranians talk other people’s nuclear problems, for a change, Al-Monitor, Rohollah Faghihi June 26, 2019 Iranians, who have been under pressure from the United States over the country’s nuclear program, are enjoying discussing someone else’s nuclear problems for a change. The recently released HBO miniseries “Chernobyl,” focusing on the catastrophic nuclear accident in 1986, has proved to be wildly popular in Iran.

Despite four decades of enmity between Iran and the United States, Iranians have always been big fans of American television series. …… https://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2019/06/chernobyl-series-raises-debates-in-iran.html

June 27, 2019 Posted by | Iran, media | Leave a comment

The Middle East presents a dangerous nexus of nuclear reactors and violence: military action is still an option

Trump’s new Iran sanctions have put airstrikes on hold — but nuclear risks remain
History suggests these dark scenarios cannot be dismissed. Even more critical, available measures to reduce these dangers must not be ignored. June 25, 2019, NBC News THINK,  By Bennett Ramberg, Former policy analyst at the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs

The Middle East presents a dangerous nexus of nuclear reactors and violence. It remains the only region where foreign powers have attacked their enemies’ nuclear plants. On Monday, President Donald Trump signed an executive order putting in place what he called “hard-hitting” new sanctions on Iran. Should continuing tensions between Tehran and Washington boil over into intense hostilities, one ominous nuclear policy question cannot be ignored: Will the presence of reactors in an enlarged conflict zone open a Pandora’s box to the first radioactive war in history?

Trump’s national security adviser, John Bolton, wrote in a 2015 New York Times opinion piece that Washington needed to aim for “breaking key links in [Iran’s] nuclear fuel cycle” through military action. (And envisioned Israel playing a role.) That military option became moot when the Obama administration signed the Iran deal. Now that Trump has withdrawn from the agreement, however, military action is again an option — as well as serious consequences should any action go forward.

Consider, for example, if the current tensions escalate to the point that Tehran crosses Washington’s red line, as it has threatened, and expands nuclear materials production, openly breaking the deal struck with the Obama administration and its allies. Would the United States decide the time had come to eliminate Iran’s nuclear enrichment and related facilities?

In the powder keg of the Middle East, would Iran’s mullahs or their Hezbollah proxy then seek to make good on longstanding threats to launch reprisal rockets at Israel’s Dimona weapons reactor, releasing radioactive elements? And would such an attack propel Israel to respond in kind by striking Iran’s much larger Bushehr nuclear power plant?

History suggests these dark scenarios cannot be dismissed. Even more critical, available measures to reduce these dangers must not be ignored……..

Today’s Middle East nuclear reactor profile has become more complex, though. Iran now operates one Russian-designed 1,000-megawatt nuclear power plant at Bushehr and is building two others. In 2020, a new power reactor is scheduled to go online in the United Arab Emirates, where three others are under construction. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt also now plan power reactors. …..

If a nuclear plant is hit, the results could be radiation hazards never seen in warfare. Several factors complicate risk projections…….

Acknowledging that mutually assured radioactive contamination would result from nuclear reactor attacks should be sobering enough to prompt all across the Middle East to heed the terrible lessons of Chernobyl: Releases of large inventories of radiation into the environment only sow grief that will last generations, benefiting no one. now https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/trump-s-new-iran-sanctions-have-put-air-strikes-hold-ncna1021056

June 25, 2019 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics international, safety, USA | Leave a comment

Israel’s Netanyahu ramps up the rhetoric against Iran

June 25, 2019 Posted by | Iran, Israel, politics international | Leave a comment

Concerns about the safety of Israel’s aging Dimona nuclear reactor

Israel’s Dimona nuclear reactor isn’t Chernobyl, but does have vulnerabilities  A disaster at Israel’s reactor would be far less catastrophic than the 1986 meltdown, but the core is being kept in service far longer than intended, and experts warn that’s risky, Times of Israel, By JUDAH ARI GROSS 24 June 19, The hit television miniseries “Chernobyl” has reminded the world of the ever-present specter of a nuclear catastrophe made possible by the deadly combination of negligence, ignorance and incompetence…….

The effects of the reactor explosion are still seen and felt today, inside the exclusion zone and far beyond, with a still unfolding impact on people, wildlife and plants. Notably, hundreds of thousands of so-called liquidators risked their lives and long-term health to contain the radiation after the explosion, including some 1,500 who live in Israel and are woefully neglected by the government.
Could such a catastrophe occur in Israel’s own nuclear reactor, the Shimon Peres Negev Nuclear Research Center outside Dimona, in the south of the country? In a rocket strike on the facility — which Iran, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hamas and Syria have each threatened or attempted to carry out — would large swaths of the Jewish state become contaminated with radioactive material? Or what about in a large earthquake along the Syrian-African rift, which is expected at some point in the coming years?
………… there are safety concerns connected to Dimona — namely that its core is aging, and will nevertheless continue to be used as Israel is unlikely to get a new one — and these often go undiscussed in public due to the largely classified nature of the facility, which produces fissile material for nuclear weapons, according to foreign media reports.
Israel is believed by foreign governments and media to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear power, but has long refused to confirm or deny that it has nuclear weapons, and officially maintains that the Dimona plant focuses on research and energy provision ……
In a nuclear catastrophe in Dimona, cleaning up this molecule    [Cesium-137 ] — which can easily mix with groundwater and is readily absorbed by people, animals and plants — would present a significant challenge, requiring large amounts of resources. This radioactive molecule is still being foundin marine life around Japan, some eight years after the meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear reactor.  ………

Rocket attacks aren’t the only threat

In addition to the overt threats posed to the Dimona nuclear reactor by terror groups and enemy nations, as well as by earthquakes and other natural disasters, one of the less-discussed concerns surrounding the core is its advancing age and Israel’s apparent resolve to keep it running regardless, the expert said.

The Dimona nuclear core, which was given to Israel by France and went active in the early 1960s, is one of the oldest still operating in the world.

Originally designed to operate for 40 years, the core is now being pushed to remain in service for twice that, according to the expert.

This is not from frugality or unwillingness on Israel’s part to purchase a new core, but a legal inability or disinclination by the countries that produce these cores to sell one to the Jewish state, as Jerusalem refuses to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, which is meant to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

As a result of Israel’s inability to replace the nuclear core, it is motivated to keep it in service for as long as possible, the atomic expert said, replacing and upgrading whatever parts it can and carefully monitoring the components it can’t for any possible “show-stopping” signs of trouble, notably in its aluminum reactor tank…….

Despite the government’s assurances, several Israeli nuclear experts — including some of the scientists who founded the Dimona reactor — as well as politicians have for years been calling for the aging core to be shut down over the risks it posed. ……

One of the central issues regarding Dimona’s safety is that it has no independent oversight. Since Israel is a non-signatory of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the International Atomic Energy Agency do not inspect the site, nor do American inspectors, who did monitor the reactor in its early days until they determined that their checks were effectively worthless as many aspects of the site were being kept hidden from them. Instead, the reactor is monitored by Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission — the same body that is responsible for running it.

The highly classified nature of the work there also limits the amount of public debate about the nuclear research center……..

This secrecy and lack of independent oversight means Israelis (and to a lesser extent Jordanians) can only hope that the government is doing its all to prevent a nuclear catastrophe — albeit one that would be far smaller than Chernobyl. https://www.timesofisrael.com/israels-dimona-nuclear-reactor-isnt-chernobyl-but-does-have-vulnerabilities/

June 25, 2019 Posted by | Israel, safety | Leave a comment

Donald Trump threatens Iran with ‘obliteration’

Trump warns Iran of ’obliteration like you’ve never seen before’  https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/trump-obliteration-iran-nuclear-weapons-pursuit-1376744, By MARTIN MATISHAK, 06/23/2019

President Donald Trump warned the United States may launch a devastating military attack on Iran unless it comes to the negotiating table and drops its bid to develop nuclear weapons.

“I’m not looking for war, and if there is, it’ll be obliteration like you’ve never seen before. But I’m not looking to do that. But you can’t have a nuclear weapon. You want to talk? Good. Otherwise you can have a bad economy for the next three years,” Trump said during an interview with NBC’s “Meet The Press” airing Sunday.

The president said he’d be willing to sit down with Iranian officials without preconditions.

The comments, made during an interview taped Friday, came the same day Trump confirmed on Twitter that he called off a retaliatory strike on Iran at the last minute Thursday night. He said he decided that the potential cost of human lives was “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.”

Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said Thursday it had shot down an American  drone, claiming it had entered Iranian airspace, a claim disputed by the U.S., which has maintained the drone was over international waters. Both countries have since produced what they say is evidence supporting their respective positions.

Trump said the U.S. had a “modest but pretty, pretty heavy attack schedule,” but planes were not in the air when he called off the attack.

The commander in chief said the response now should be increased sanctions on Iran’s economy.

“We’re increasing the sanctions now,” adding the country’s economy has already been “shattered.”

Trump said he believes Iranian officials want to negotiate and that any deal would have to be about nuclear weapons. He also claimed that Iran had violated the nuclear agreement struck by the Obama administration and other world powers. International inspectors have repeatedly declared that Iran has complied with the 2015 deal.

“They cannot have a nuclear weapon,” he said. “They cannot have a nuclear weapon. They’d use it. And they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon.”

Trump also disputed that he sent a message to Iranian leaders through a third country, saying he did not want conflict, dubbing it “fake news.”

However, he also declined to send a message during the interview to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

“Wouldn’t be much different than that message,” Trump said.

June 24, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international, USA | 1 Comment

“It’s absolutely essential to avoid any form of escalation in the Gulf” – UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

UN chief says essential to avoid escalation in the Gulf https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/iran-nuclear-deal-sanctions-europe-1.5186743  Thomson Reuters · Jun 23, 2019  
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres attends the Lisboa+21 conference in Lisbon, Portugal on Sunday. (Rafael Marchante/Reuters)

United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned on Sunday that it is essential to avoid “any form of escalation” in the Gulf as tensions continue to rise following the shooting down of an unmanned U.S. drone this week by Iran.

“The world cannot afford a major confrontation the Gulf,” Guterres said on the sidelines of the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth in Lisbon. “Everybody must keep nerves of steel.”

On Thursday, an Iranian missile destroyed a U.S. Global Hawk surveillance drone, an incident that Washington said happened in international airspace. Trump later said he had called off a military strike to retaliate because it could have killed 150 people.

Tehran repeated on Saturday that the drone was shot down over its territory and said it would respond firmly to any U.S. threat.

CBC EXPLAIN    Tensions between the U.S. and Iran are intensifying. What might come next?

Guterres’ comments come a day after U.S. President Donald Trump said he would impose new sanctions on Iran.

“It’s absolutely essential to avoid any form of escalation,” Guterres added.

June 24, 2019 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, politics international | Leave a comment

Fears that a nuclear Saudi Arabia will destabise the region. Trump’s secret support.

‘Alarm bells’: Saudi Arabia’s nuclear ambitions cast shadow over the region

Analysts fear Riyadh is seeking to develop the technical capabilities that would allow it to quickly pursue nuclear weapons,  Middle Eastern Eye,  By Maysam Behravesh,23 June 2019  “…….  Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman,  continues to receive extraordinary support from US President Donald Trump’s administration. …..Saudi Arabia’s nuclear and missile programmes are bound to have significant regional implications.

Earlier this month, Tim Kaine, Democratic senator from Virginia, revealed that the Trump administration had approved the transfer of nuclear know-how to Saudi Arabia seven times, including twice after the murder of Saudi critic Jamal Khashoggi in early October 2018.

One of the transfers was authorised on 18 October, only 16 days after Khashoggi, a Washington Post columnist, was brutally eliminated inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, according to the US senator.

“The Trump administration is seeking to negotiate a nuclear cooperation agreement that would allow Saudi Arabia to use US technology for energy purposes, but not nuclear weapons,” Nicholas L Miller, professor of government at Dartmouth College, told Middle East Eye. ……

Trump’s ‘secret’ approval

In late March, the Reuters news agency disclosed the Trump administration’s “secret” approval of licences for six US firms to sell atomic power technology to Riyadh.

Simultaneously, the Saudis are seeking to develop a ballistic missile programme of their own, apparently with Chinese assistance.

In November 2018, satellite imagery taken by the US company Planet Labs showed what appeared to be rocket engine tests for ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons at a military base near the town of al-Dawadmi, about 230km west of Riyadh.

Several months later, in an exclusive report published on 5 June, CNN cited US intelligence sources as claiming that Riyadh had significantly advanced the missile programme with the help of China.

nterestingly, the discovery infuriated Democratic lawmakers as the White House had “deliberately” refrained from sharing its knowledge of the high-stakes development with key members of Congress until they found out about it “outside of regular US government channels”.

“Saudi Arabia’s development of ballistic missiles goes against long-standing US policy of opposing missile proliferation in the region,” said Miller.

“But the Trump administration has so far been relatively quiet about its response.

“There seems to be a pattern in this administration of looking the other way at provocative Saudi behaviour due to the laser-like focus on Iran.”

‘Reckless leadership in Riyadh’

Combined with bin Salman’s warnings that the kingdom would pursue atomic weapons if its chief nemesis Iran did, these concurrent and mostly clandestine missile and nuclear activities are sounding alarm bells in certain capitals in the region, not least Tehran.
“A nuclear Saudi Arabia means nuclear proliferation in the most unstable and volatile region of the world,” Ali Bakeer, a Turkey-based political analyst told MEE.   “Given the reckless leadership in Riyadh, this is an alarming development for small states in the Gulf in particular, which might either seek a nuclear umbrella from great powers or consider constructing parallel deterrence capabilities of their own if they could afford it.”……….https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/alarm-bells-saudi-arabias-nuclear-ambitions-cast-shadow-over-region

June 24, 2019 Posted by | politics international, Saudi Arabia, USA | Leave a comment

Iran has NO nuclear weapons program

Dear Trump (and the US Media): Iran Doesn’t Have a Nuclear Weapons Program, Common Dreams, by Juan Cole,  23 June 19   “…….Trump is now citing Iran’s non-existent bomb-making as the reason for his breach of the treaty and not mentioning any of the things the hawks mind.

Iran isn’t making a bomb and gave up 80% of its civilian nuclear enrichment program in the JCPOA.

In fact, there have been no US intelligence assessments that Iran had decided to try to make a bomb since Tehran admitted in early 2003 that it had an enrichment program (it was supposed to report the program to the UN under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran had signed).

Uranium comes in nature in two isotopes, U-238 (very common and relatively inert) and U-235 (rarer and much more volatile). In order to use uranium to fuel a nuclear reactor, it has to be enriched to roughly 3.5% of U-235. If it is enriched to 95% U-235, it can be made to blow up in a thermonuclear explosion, as the US did at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

Iran knows how to enrich uranium, but has never enriched to levels above what is considered “Low Enriched Uranium.” The cut-off is above 20% U-235. It has a medical reactor that uses 19.5% enriched uranium.

Although the US CIA has not assessed that Iran has during the past decade and a half had a nuclear weapons program, its civilian enrichment capacities were potentially dual use, so that there was always a chance Tehran might decide to militarize.

I can’t get anybody to believe me on this, but Iran is a Shiite theocracy led by an Ayatollah, and Ali Khamenei has given several fatwas (fatwas or considered legal rulings can be oral) in which he has forbidden the making, stockpiling or use of nuclear weapons. Khamenei rules according to Islamic law, which disallows the deliberate infliction of mass casualties on civilian noncombatants in war. Nuclear weapons obviously target the populations of whole cities and so the ayatollahs consider them tools of Satan.

On the other hand, having the world know that you could whip up a nuclear bomb in short order is a form of deterrence against invasion. Japan has that capability. Iran probably had that capability before 2015.

The 2015 agreement attempted to forestall any move by Iran to develop a nuclear weapons enrichment program (again, it has never done so and says it never would).

Still, for the suspicious, the JCPOA took away the option of quick militarization with four steps:

1. Regular UN inspections of sites for signatures of high-enriched uranium or for plutonium

2. Reduction of number of centrifuges to 6,000, which would take a year to make bomb-grade uranium even if they were turned to that purpose

3. The bricking in and abandonment of a proposed heavy water nuclear reactor at Arak. Heavy water reactors can accumulate fissile material for a bomb faster and easier than light water reactors, so Obama and the UN teamp insisted on this step for Iran.

4. The stockpiles of low-enriched-Uranium (LEU) built up for the medical reactor (and which had come to much exceed the actual needs of that reactor) were cast in a form that prevented further enrichment, and much of it was exported.

Under these circumstances, there is no way Iran can make a bomb without everybody knowing it is trying. It would have to kick out the UN inspectors, build thousands more centrifuges under the gaze of US satellites, etc., etc.

So if what Trump wanted was no Iranian nuke, he had that when he was sworn into office in 2017. By breaching the treaty and refusing to reward Iran’s good behavior by ceasing sanctions, Trump put the US on a war footing with Iran.

He has stopped Iran from selling its oil, a form of blockade that probably amounts to an act of war. He is also stopping European concerns from investing in Iran.

It is frustrating that Trump is dancing on the brink of a war for a purpose that had already been attained. This is why it is bad to elect people to high office who have mental health problems. https://www.commondreams.org/views/2019/06/23/dear-trump-and-us-media-iran-doesnt-have-nuclear-weapons-program

June 24, 2019 Posted by | Iran, politics international, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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