Skip to main content

President Pezeshkian: “They do not want a powerful Iran."

Prime Minister Netanyahu meets President Trump again in the White House today. Victor Gilinsky wrote in the Bulletin on Atomic Scientists on September 23, ‘When Israel tells the United States, as it will, what it expects it to contribute militarily to the next round of attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities, the US answer should [be, Bibi}, “you may include me out.”’ 
        Netanyahu stated clearly at the UN General Assembly on September 26, “Iran's stockpile of enriched uranium…must be eliminated.” "We certainly know where it is. We have a pretty good idea of where it is," dpa reported that Netanyahu said on September 28. 
        So, it is easy to imagine that in the White House today Netanyahu will trade going along with Trump on Gaza (for a couple months) for the U.S. commitment to drop more MOABs on Iran (in the coming months). 
        All that is well understood in Tehran. Iran International reported on Sep 28, 2025, that Major General Mohsen Rezaei, former chief commander of Iran's Revolutionary Guard, said, “If we enter negotiations [with the U.S.], military force must in no way be used against Iran. Otherwise, we will retaliate; not only against Israel, but also against American targets in the region.” 
        Negotiations? With the Trump administration? Recall what Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said the other day, “The [U.S.] breaks its promises in everything, lies about everything, and constantly threatens with military action.” “If they can, they assassinate our figures such as Martyr Soleimani or bomb our nuclear facilities; one cannot negotiate with such a side, nor sit down with trust and confidence to make agreements.” 
        And recall what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the UN General Assembly, the West's rejection of "a rational proposal by China and Russia to extend the 2015 Iran deal in order to allow time for diplomacy, finally exposed the West's policy of sabotaging the pursuit of constructive solutions"…"This is a deliberate operation aimed at starting the next stage of strangling the Islamic Republic of Iran economically, financially and so on.” 
        And all that makes very understandable what Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said upon returning to Tehran, “If today their issue is nuclear, tomorrow they will raise non-nuclear matters, because they do not want a powerful Iran."

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

‘New war with Israel at any moment’, ‘still digging through rubble’

The news about Iran has taken an ominous tone in the last couple days. Here is some reporting and commentary.  Newsweek on August 18, 2025, reported that Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said ‘ We are not in a ceasefire; we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the U.S. or Israel. A new war with Israel could break out at any moment .’  Yonah Jeremy Bob commented in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2025, that ‘ Khamenei can either “drink from the poisoned chalice” of diplomatic concessions … or face more airstrikes, possibly next time some targeting him directly ’.   Bob also noted that ‘ right now Iran is still digging through rubbl e’. The U.S. attacked Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan on June 22. Two months of digging. No surprise that there has been no public news about that.
Post a Comment
Read more

Assessing possible outcomes of the snapback mechanism

The initiation by the E3 of the 30-day snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council makes everything more difficult and there is great uncertainty about the outcome. Will it be peaceful with a new nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by the U.S., endorsed by the UNSC and verified by IAEA, or will Iran withdraw from NPT with further military action by Israel and the U.S.?                 To perhaps shed a little light on what the outcome will be, here is my analysis of how the players - Iran, U.S. and E3 - may be assessing the acceptability of the range of outcomes. Four levels of acceptability were used: 1 Fully acceptable; 2 Less acceptable; 3 Just acceptable; and 4 Not acceptable. Four near term 30-day outcomes are listed, and two optimistic outcomes with an interim U.S.-Iran agreement reached within a 6-month extension.                 For the 30-day near term, the best outcome would b...
Post a Comment
Read more

‘Making nuclear fuel’ under the NPT

It is with some hesitation that I take issue with the latest publication of the renowned Henry Sokolski and Sharon Squassoni on August 15 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, titled: “ Actually, the NPT doesn’t guarantee a right to make nuclear fuel .”  But someone should defend the IAEA and international safeguards! Here are points in question.            ‘ The [NPT] treaty was designed to prevent dangerous bombmaking activitie s.’  NPT is far more complex than that. It is common to state the three pillars of NPT: nuclear disarmament; nuclear nonproliferation; and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Nonproliferation involves the commitment of non-nuclear states not to pursue nuclear weapons and to accept IAEA inspection to confirm that commitment is being followed. Perhaps Sokolsky intends to refer to INFCIRC/153, which lays out how IAEA and the state cooperate to carry out that confirmation. If so, INFCIRC/153 is not designed to ‘prevent’...
Post a Comment
Read more