Skip to main content

Putting the Pieces Together

Reports on December 24 by Iran International and Euronews gave a sobering view that can be put together as follows. 

Iran’s position on nuclear may have shifted 
        Director of US National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Intelligence Committee in March "in the past year, we have seen an erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran's decision-making apparatus." 
        Ali Shamkhani, a top adviser to Khamenei, in October, openly mused about Iran pursuing a nuclear weapon, saying: "now that it has become clear, Iran should have developed this capability for itself." 
        The 12-day war exposed weaknesses in Iran’s air defenses, while highlighting the limits of its missile arsenal in a prolonged conflict. “The only true deterrent that could save the Iranian regime in the event of a conflict against Israel and its US allies would be nuclear weapons.” 
        December 24 report by Italian Institute for International Political Studies: Iran appears to be prioritizing warhead design over enrichment to reduce the risk of exposure to military strikes. “Our sources in Tehran now tell us that, Khamenei made a decision in October to authorize development of compact warheads for ballistic missiles, though not to increase uranium enrichment beyond 60%."
        “While enrichment to 90% would require only a few weeks if there were still enough working centrifuges, compact warheads remain a far more complex challenge,” citing Pakistan in the 1990s requiring years of testing and design work before a viable compact warhead was achieved. Iran could seek external assistance to shorten the timeline for developing compact warheads 

IAEA cannot verify enriched uranium in Iran 
        Eslami, head of Iran’s atomic agency, said on December 24: “It must be made clear what response is required if a military attack is carried out against a nuclear industry that is registered with and monitored by the IAEA.” He said Tehran would ignore calls for renewed inspections of nuclear sites hit by the United States in June until that question is settled.  
        Satellite imagery from the Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security indicates that Iran has made efforts to access the Isfahan tunnel complex where enriched uranium may be stored. 
        The Italian report said rumors persist of an undisclosed enrichment effort at a covert site not declared to IAEA. 

        And the drumbeat for Iran and Israel reengaging is getting louder. Recall Netanyahu will be at Mar-a-Lago on December 29.

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