If they had the capability , why was this a bad move and how does taking out their bomb making facilities more likely they can now just produce a bomb ?
The main reason to want a bomb is to stop people from interfering with/attacking you.
It has now become even more obvious to them that the most powerful country on earth is willing to attack them in order to control them and their region. Their calculus just went from “probably screwed if we don’t have nukes” to “definitely screwed if we don’t have nukes”. They’ll find a way now, they can always dig deeper.
I’m not sure that’s true. Israel has nukes, so if Iran has them too it help prevent large scale war due to MAD. Like India and Pakistan both have them is better than if only one of them had nukes.
Respectfully, drop the conspiracies, the dept of intel has been consistent on this line since 2003, even if she were some kind of whatever you're hoping for, were all the directors since 2003 in the same position?
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34. During the monthly interim verification (IIV) on 22 January 2023, the Agency took environmental samples from the product sampling point at FFEP, the analytical results of which showed the presence of high enriched uranium (HEU) particles containing up to 83.7% U-235. The Agency informed Iran that these findings were inconsistent with the level of enrichment of the UF6 produced at FFEP, as declared by Iran, and requested Iran to clarify the origin of these HEU particles.
35. In a letter dated 20 February 2023, Iran informed the Agency that “unintended fluctuations in enrichment levels may have occurred during transition period at the time of commissioning the process of [60%] product (November 2022) or while replacing the feed cylinder”. Discussions between the Agency and Iran to clarify the matter are ongoing.
36. On 26 February 2023, the Agency took destructive analysis samples from the cylinder containing the HEU product at FFEP, the results of which showed that the enrichment level of UF6 produced at FFEP remained up to 60% U-235. This cylinder has been collecting the HEU product since the start of production of UF6 enriched up to 60% at FFEP in November 2022.
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If Iran "hasn't been working on" a weapons program since 2003, did the uranium just jumped from 5% (required for the claimed purposes) to nearly 83% (not consistent with any purpose besides nuclear weapons as far as I understand)?
Sounds like a strange claim, I wonder if that was really the consensus in the US intelligence community, or an opinion of Gabbard.
I think it's not an american org, and you've just shown that an international org talked about iranian uranium - which is a non sequitur.
I do think that you can look at what the DNI has been saying since 2003 on Iran nuclear program and notice they never raised the alarm about Iran making bombs - which would have been a real threat and merited some notice.
As an aside, your personal conclusions on what Iran says it has been doing and what the IAEA says are not very productive unless you have some experience handling uranium production/stockpiling. Is that something you're knowlegdeable on? If not, could you possibly be wrong? Could it be that they are producing uranium normally?
Has the IAEA raised alarms in 2022 when they got that 60% sample?
Could it be that you don't know enough about this?
Edit0: also your 87% is from an environnemental sample - no one saw a uranium product at that concentration anywhere. You just assume that Iran is lying from the get go. What if this was actually byproduct of moving to 60% as they said?
I'm not sure what you think the IAEA is, but it's not just some blog of some guy on the interwebs that speculated about things.
> 87% is from an environnemental sample
and we all know, highly enriched uranium occurs naturally and can be found anywhere! Getting almost-weapons-grade uranium is actually a random byproduct when you try to enrich it from 1% to 3%, because that's how math works: you purify something and it suddenly catapults to 30x the purity that would've otherwise taken you months to years to achieve.
Again, is the IAEA a US gov. org responding to DNI? Or is ot an international org unrelated to US nat defense?
So why are we talking about them? Do you think DNI is an organ of IAEA?
And if you want to talk about them, can you see what they thought of Iran producing 60% enriched voluntarily (and disclosed to the IAEA)?
Your second paragraph seems to misunderatand both the situation, the process behind uranium enrichement and the IAEA report.
Actually - you seem to cherry pick bits of the report to support your dubious claims - don't you think they would have raised a flag if rhey yought Iran was making nukes, instead of the bits you fished out?
Edit0: this whole thing is you arguing that the US has been "aware that iran was making nukes" before the bombings but you fail to show any evidence of that. You show the IAEA report on Iranian urianium production, which DOES NOT talk about nukes, especially not in the extracts you've put here.
What are we doin' here?
Edit1: it just dawned on me - I don't think you know what en env. sample is. It's not some soil or "environnement" that they analysed - they swabbed surfaces around the plants (probably close to the centrifuges) and on one swab yhey detected up to 87%.
Env. samples are more likely to be contaminated than product (obviously) and the small amounts are prone to error compared to sampling product. It is more likely to get a false positive on an env. sample.
Edit2: Man I loooove reading IAEA's statement on the situation - they unequivocally say that nuclear sites should NEVER be attacked. Isn't that neat?
It might be splitting hair, but I do agree that if a new regime gained power that was tightly aligned with some world super power, and got some kind of serious protectorate status, then they could be totally fine without nukes.
The current regime is not safe without them. You can’t honestly believe they are unless you are totally ignorant of the history and state of the region. So the current regime will keep trying until they succeed or are replaced.
Egypt and Jorden are totally fine without nukes. The only thing they had to do is stop attacking Israel, stop funding terrorist organizations that do and stop threatening Israel with annihilation. Iran is the aggressor here. If they would just chill, they would have nothing to fear.
Both Egypt and Jordan are US protectorates with no regional superpowers threatening their ruling regimes. Jordan couldn’t if they dreamed of it, Egypt might have but the US shows no interest in toppling its regime and mediation between them and Israel has been going about as well as possible given their histories.
You’re right, they could chill and be fine. If they trusted the US, or Russia, or China enough to protect them, or trusted Israel to leave their regime alone for the next 100 years. Do you think it’s reasonable for them (the current theocracy) to have this trust in their current position? I find it much more rational that they do not.
Who needs protecting ? From what I’ve seen not even the populace really wants the current regime there, if it’s wiped out I’m not sure anyone cares but NK China and Russia (terrorist or terrorist funding countries)
It’s one of the reasons I’m torn on what the US should do here. I think this intervention is the most likely way a regime change occurs, but the least likely way to stabilize the region. So some small chance of a great outcome, much larger chance of a bad outcome.
I think allowing nuclear weapons in Iran is a very small chance of a very bad outcome, and an almost guaranteed chance of a middling outcome.
How do you balance these? What are the actual risks? I’d love to read more people’s analysis on it.
Nuclear weapons in the hands of crazy islamist terrorists and sponsoring all other terrorists around the world (Hutis, Hezbollah, Hamas, ...), with crystal clear public plans to destroy israel, what could go wrong?
I don't see how it could be worst, any other gov in Iran would be better for the world and for the peoples in Iran.
Are you genuinly thinking that giving nuclear weapons to terrorists is a good idea?
Nuclear weapons are already in the hands of crazy Jewish ethnonationalists and religious nuts. Those guys have been going completely crazy for the last two years, carrying out a genocide in Gaza, invading Lebanon and Syria, and attacking Iran.
By comparison, the Iranian goverment looks calm and rational. Israel has attacked Iran three separate times in just the last two years. The first two times, Iran tried to prevent escalation by calibrating its response and informing Israel beforehand.
It's pretty obvious why Iran would want nuclear weapons. The US and Israel have made it clear that they want regime change in Iran. Iran tried making a deal with the US, and what happened? The very next US administration ripped up the deal. Then, the Iranians tried to negotiate a new deal, but Israel and the US attacked them while the negotiations were ongoing. What lesson are the Iranians supposed to draw from that?
Iran tried option 3 in 2015, when it agreed to the JCPOA, but Trump withdrew from the agreement and applied "maximum pressure" on Iran.
There were forces in Iranian politics who argued for making a deal with the US. They even won out in 2015. But now, they've been proven wrong, and the hardliners (who should perhaps now be called the "realists") were proven right. The US isn't a reliable partner, and is willing to rip up any deal Iran makes.
Agreeing to an agreement while continuing the obvious weapon program they've claimed to not even have anymore isn't "trying option 3" though. That's slowing down in exchange for fewer sanctions.
Yes, because agreements guarantee that they are being adhered to, which is why the IAEA always had access to everything (narrator: they did not), Iran did not deploy more and more advanced centrifuges than agreed (narrator: they did), and Iran did not stockpile more enriched uranium than agreed (narrator: they did).
Iran gave the IAEA access to everything, and reduced its centrifuges and enriched uranium stockpiles to the agreed-upon amounts. Even the Trump administration certified that Iran was abiding by the JCPOA.
The reason Israel did not like the JCPOA was not because Iran was somehow not complying or because the deal wouldn't prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Israel didn't like the deal because Israel wanted sanctions to be maintained on Iran and for Iranian conventional military strength to be limited. Israel wants a weak Iran.
