Iran will have enough uranium for nuclear weapon in one month - report

The Jerusalem Post

Iran has reportedly not been this close to nuclear capability since before the nuclear accord in 2015. 

By YONAH JEREMY BOB, JERUSALEM POST STAFF   SEPTEMBER 14, 2021 13:51

Iran is on track to obtaining enough enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb within one month, according to a report published on Monday by the Institute for Science and International Security, a US-based think tank.

The institute estimated, in a worst-case scenario, that in as little as a month Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear weapon. In three months it could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a second weapon and in five months a third. 

Iran already has 200 grams of enriched uranium metal, which is an integral element for the production of nuclear weapons. 

The late Tuesday report by ISIS – also known as the “good ISIS” – would not mean the Islamic Republic could fire a nuclear weapon, as this requires additional tasks relating to detonation and delivery, but if correct, it would mean Tehran is at a new nuclear threshold where all that is needed is the political decision.

This dire prediction by the think tank came with criticism of the IAEA’S latest deal with Iran on Sunday in which a new dialogue was opened with Iran’s new government over nuclear issues, but without Tehran stopping its 60% enrichment violation of the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal.

Since April, the Islamic Republic jumped its enrichment from 5% and 20% to the 60% level, which is considered only one level down from the 90% weaponized level.

At lower levels, Iran has in fact had sufficient quantity for multiple nuclear bombs for several months.

However, what was most significant about the report was that it was laid out in quantitative scientific terms based on IAEA reports itself, as opposed to the sometimes more vague statements by Israeli or other politicians.

Critics will note that the think tank’s founder David Albright is a hawk on Iran issues, but the report is based on IAEA data.

The report concluded that all Iranian moves are designed to pressure the US into concessions in the nuclear negotiations which broke down between May-June and have been totally frozen since new Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi was elected.

The current and former Israeli governments both oppose a return to the JCPOA without massive changes to fill holes whereas the Biden administration has moved aggressively to return to the deal.

To date, Biden administration officials have vaguely threatened that their patience for Iran to return to the negotiating table was not limitless, but have avoided any actual deadline.

Defense Minister Benny Gantz stated back in August that Iran was two months away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. 

My comment:

So now what? Does Bennett fully understand the magnitude of the Iranian threat? Since nobody in the world is going to lift a finger, it is up to Israel. This is one of those crucial moments in history like May 28, 1940 when Churchill decided not to negotiate with Hitler or June 5, 1967 when the IAF destroyed the Egyptian air force.

Looks like my blog will soon become redundant.  

Dry Bones: The Threat Increases

 

Goodwill gestures

 Jerusalem Post, Letters to the Editor, August 31, 2021

“Israel will make a series of goodwill gestures to the Palestinian Authority, Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Monday after a rare meeting with PA President Mahmoud Abbas the night before in Ramallah.”

Goodwill gestures? Historian Benny Morris in his lecture “Jihad and Antisemitism in the 1948 War” said, “On the basis of the research I did for book 1948, which came out in 2008, I pointed out that the war was also a religious war, certainly from the Arab side, a jihad, they were waging jihad against the Jewish Zionists who were seen as infidels and were fighting over what they regarded as sacred territory.”

Goodwill gestures is not exactly something that worked at all throughout history during the Islamic conquest of Jerusalem, Persia, Anatolia, the Balkans, North Africa, Sindt, India and Andalusia.

Is it not time that our political leadership started reading history? To quote Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s remark made regarding the US debacle in Afghanistan, but which is fully applicable to the Palestinians as well: “What makes you think they will act differently and how many times do you want that to happen before you wake up and realize that it is just not true? Take the world as it is not as you fantasize it to be.”

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC

Beersheba

Kabul 2021 vs. Saigon 1975

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, August 18, 2021

Kabul 2021 may resemble Saigon 1975 yet there is a crucial difference – and not the one Seth Frantzman mentions (“Kabul disaster isn’t like Saigon, where US saved thousands in 1975,” August 16). The West in 1975 understood Communist ideology very well. The West today has yet to do its homework on Islamic “Medina” ideology.

It is therefore imperative that in view of Defense Minister Benny Gantz’s Aug 4 warning that “Iran is 10 weeks from breakout to a nuclear weapon,” Israel should make its own decisions and not be distracted by the Biden administration whose understanding of the Shia “Twelvers” in Iran is no better than their understanding of the Taliban Sunni jihadists in Afghanistan.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC 

Beersheba

Gantz: Iran is 10 weeks from breakout to a nuclear weapon

 The Jerusalem Post

By LAHAV HARKOV, TOVAH LAZAROFF 

 

Iran will be able to break out to a nuclear weapon within 10 weeks, Defense Minister Benny Gantz told diplomats from UN Security Council member states on Wednesday.

“Iran has violated all of the guidelines set in the JCPOA [nuclear agreement] and is only around 10 weeks away from acquiring weapons-grade materials necessary for a nuclear weapon,” Gantz warned.

 “Therefore,” he added, “it is time to act. The world must apply economic sanctions and take operative action against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.”

 In recent weeks, top Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid and Gantz have expressed alarm to the US and others that Iran is taking advantage of a long pause in negotiations to return to the JCPOA to dramatically advance its nuclear program. The talks have been on hold since June, and the regime in Tehran says they will not restart at least until after its new president, Ebrahim Raisi, forms a new government later this month.

 Gantz’s remarks were made in a presentation with Lapid to diplomats from UN Security Council member states on Wednesday, as part of a push by Israel for the UNSC to sanction Iran for its maritime attacks, including on the Mercer Street, which is managed by an Israeli company, and Asphalt Princess in the Gulf in the past week.

 Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud repeated Riyadh's stance at a virtual conference of the Aspen Security Forum on Tuesday that it could live with a "longer and stronger" version of Iran's 2015 nuclear deal with world powers if it ensured Tehran never obtained nuclear arms know-how.

 "We certainly support a deal with Iran as long as that deal ensures that Iran will not now or ever gain access to nuclear weapons technology," he said, saying Riyadh would welcome an Iran that contributed to regional stability and prosperity.

 "But that would require (Iran) engaging in the region as a state actor in a normal way..., not supporting militias, not sending weapons to armed groups, and most importantly, giving up a nuclear program which might be used... to develop nuclear weapons."

 Reuters contributed to this report

 

My comment:

If this is true Israel has no choice but to preempt.

 

Douglas Murray at his best - Israel & Nuclear Iran

 

Navi Pillay returns

 

Letters to the Editor, Jerusalem Post, July 26, 2021

 

Regarding “Israel critics comprise UNHRC’s permanent war-crimes probe,” Lahav Harkov, July 22

“International jurist Navi Pillay has been tapped to head the United Nations Human Rights Council’s permanent three-person probe into alleged Israeli war crimes.”

This is the same Pillay who in 2014 suggested that Israel should be sharing its Iron Dome defensive technology with Hamas, the very terror group that was launching rockets at Israeli civilians.

This was not a joke. Navi Pillay was serious. The UN has become a bad joke.

MLADEN ANDRIJASEVIC

Be’er Sheva 

Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Prey: A Panel Discussion on Europe, Islam, and Women’s Rights