The Iranian regime is threatening to resume their nuclear enrichment program soon – possibly days.
According to the Washington Free Beacon, the leader of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Ali Akbar Salehi, told Iran’s media that it could only take a few days for Iran to reach the 20% enrichment level.
“If senior Islamic Republic officials issue an order to resume the 20% enrichment, we can do it in [the] Fordo [nuclear facility] within 4 days,” Salehi said.
Interestingly, Salehi made similar comments back in August.
“If we make the determination, we are able to resume 20 per cent-enrichment in at most five days,” Salehi said at the time.
President Hassan Rouhani also said at the time, “In an hour and a day, Iran could return to a more advanced level than at the beginning of the negotiations.”
Clearly, Iran thinks that such threats will cause President Trump to stay in the Iran nuclear deal.
Nuclear expert Mark Dubowitz told the Free Beacon that Salehi’s comments suggest that the Iran deal merely allows for Iran to bide time “to develop technologies that it hadn’t perfected such as advanced centrifuges and missiles.”
“His threats reveal what many deal skeptics have long argued: unless the JCPOA is fixed, Iran has pathways to dozens of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of striking U.S. forces, U.S. allies, and eventually the U.S. homeland,” Dubowitz said.
Last week, a report from the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies highlighted how the Iran deal was vaguely worded enough to allow Iran to advance its nuclear weapons program under the deal. Salehi’s remarks seemingly confirm that report.
Trump has been threatening to leave the Iran nuclear deal by the May 12 deadline if specific fixes aren’t made to it, including amending the deal so it targets Iran’s ballistic missile program. The Europeans, who support the deal in part because of trade, are reportedly becoming increasingly pessimistic that the deal will remain intact after the deadline passes.
