JERUSALEM — Iran has moved dangerously close to enriching weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb, but the regime has not but crossed the essential threshold of declaring it has constructed an atomic weapon.
Fox News Digital reached out to consultants on Iran’s greater than two-decade effort to be a part of the small group of nations which have nuclear weapons for explanations about what’s stopping Tehran from crossing the nuclear threshold.
“If there is reason to believe that there are a number of retardants that have put a pause in their weapons development, they’d relate back to targeted attacks by the US and Israel, who clearly are very much concerned about stopping the mullahs,” said Lisa Daftari, an Iran professional and editor-in-chief of the Foreign Desk.
Daftari added, “Israel has reportedly conducted at least two dozen targeted operations on Iran’s regime in the last 15 or so years, including drone attacks, cyberattacks, if you recall Stuxnet and assassinations of key players in Iran’s nuclear program.”
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The flag of Iran waves in entrance of the International Center constructing at the headquarters of the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria, May 24, 2021. (AP Photo/Florian Schroetter, FILE)
“We cannot underestimate the power of international pressure on Iran’s regime,” Daftari advised Fox News Digital.
“That pressure has been assured under this current administration, who, while stepping away from the nuclear deal, are still hoping to revive some form of normalization agreement with Tehran. Otherwise, when there is consistent and targeted pressure on Iran’s regime in the form of enforced sanctions and economic and political isolation, we see a weakened regime and an emboldened Iranian people who are brave enough to take to the streets,” she mentioned.
Kamal Kharrazi, a senior advisor to the Supreme Leader of Iran’s regime, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, boasted final yr that “Iran is on the nuclear threshold, and this is not something secret,” in accordance to a 2022 report in the state-controlled Tehran Times. .
Just this yr, the International Atomic Energy Agency revealed Iran’s regime enriched 84% purity of uranium, 6% shy of the 90% enriched uranium required for a nuclear weapon.
An Iranian navy truck carries surface-to-air missiles previous a portrait of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei throughout a parade on the nation’s annual military day April 18, 2018, in Tehran. (Atta Kenare/AFP by way of Getty Images)
Iran’s regime is testing the resolve of the United States and different world powers who’ve repeatedly said they won’t allow Iran to construct a nuclear weapon. Israel views Tehran’s atomic weapons program as an existential risk as a result of Tehran has continuously declared it seeks to obliterate it.
“It’s an open question as to whether Khamenei wants to die as the father of the Shiite atomic bomb or as the one who kept the Islamic Republic on the nuclear path without provoking a war or pulling the trigger,” Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior fellow and Iran professional at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, advised Fox News Digital.
“Currently, however, Khamenei’s perception of diplomatic and security policy success abroad and ascendancy at all costs at home may be sufficient to push him over the edge as he continues to age,” added Taleblu, who lately authored a complete evaluation of Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and intentions.
Fox News Digital reported this week that Iran is burrowing deep into tunnels close to a peak of the Zagros Mountains in central Iran to defend a nuclear facility from typical weapon assaults.
This file picture launched Nov. 5, 2019, by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, exhibits centrifuge machines in the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran by way of AP, File)
Aside from the technological impediments to the development of a contemporary nuclear weapon, Iran’s regime has been confronted with deterrence from Israel and the United States over the years, together with Stuxnet laptop worm sabotage of the regime’s nuclear gas manufacturing system.
“I think Iran’s leadership to date has calculated the costs of doing so would outweigh the benefits at this juncture — mainly a destructive attack which targets its entire nuclear infrastructure,” Jason Brodsky, coverage director of the US-based United Against a Nuclear Iran ( UANI), advised Fox News Digital.
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National safety advisor Jake Sullivan speaks throughout a press briefing at the White House March 22, 2022. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
“But my concern is that calculus risks changing as the US and Europe’s non-response to Iran’s nuclear escalation over the last two years — for example 60% enrichment and production of uranium metal — has emboldened Tehran’s leadership to continue testing international red lines.”
Brodsky added that “If that perception is not altered, Iran is likely to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels at 90″. Tehran’s risk-aversion to date exhibits that it may be deterred. But that may change shortly if the Islamic Republic receives no pushback because it advances its nuclear program.”
Earlier this month US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in a speech to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy that the Biden administration had “Made it clear to Iran that it may by no means be permitted to acquire a nuclear weapon. As President Biden has repeatedly reaffirmed , he’ll take the actions which might be crucial to stand by this assertion, together with recognizing Israel’s freedom of actions.”
“We’ve restored unity of objective between the United States and Europe and far of the world in opposition to Iranian provocations, nuclear actions,” he said while also noting that the US is exerting pressure on “Iran by sanctions.”
Iranian Armed Forces Chief of Staff Major General Mohammad Bagheri and IRGC Aerospace Force Commander Amir Ali Hajizadeh stand together during the unveiling of a Kheibar Sheka missile at an undisclosed location in Iran Feb. 9, 2022. (West Asia News Agency/Handout via Reuters)
“Iran has not crossed the threshold into constructing a nuclear weapon as a result of the supreme chief has not determined to weaponize the program,” Joel Rubin, a former deputy assistant secretary of state who served in the Obama administration, told Fox News Digital.
“This place has been confirmed by a number of US intelligence neighborhood assessments over the previous a number of years.” He continued that “While solely the supreme chief can actually say why he has taken this place, it is recognized that continued diplomatic isolation by the worldwide neighborhood that adopted the enlargement of its nuclear program is inflicting ache for the Iranian regime.”
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Rubin said it was clear that Tehran was “Still open to pursuing a diplomatic path because it is aware of that if it crosses into weapons-grade nuclear arsenals, which it’s able to doing, the nation could be additional remoted internationally — even by its allies. It would set off a regional nuclear arms race, and Tehran would by no means get out from underneath the sanctions stress it’s presently experiencing,” he said.
“What is evident from current years is {that a} agency, verifiable diplomatic settlement with Iran over its nuclear program is the greatest manner to be certain that it by no means obtains a nuclear weapon. Military threats alone won’t get us there,” Rubin concluded.
US Central Command and the IDF are taking part in a joint military exercise known as “Exercise Juniper Oak” taking place in Israel and the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. (IDF Spokesman’s Unit)
Low-intensity military deterrence against Iran’s regime has been playing out for a number of years, according to Israeli media outlets.
“We have the capability to hit Iran,” Israel’s defense chief warned this week.
The United States military and Israel Defense Forces launched a joint drill, Juniper Falcon, in February. The IDF’s website stated “The train examined collective US-Israel readiness and strengthened the interoperability between the two militaries,” the IDF stated on its website after the drill.
Yet there are growing concerns the Biden administration is not inflicting enough pressure on Iran’s regime to change its conduct. Over 100 former world leaders urged Biden this week to get tough on Iran.
Earlier this week Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reportedly said during a visit to Hatzor Air Force Base that Israel is preparing for a “advanced, tough and extra important goal.”
Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel, points to a red line he drew on a graphic of a bomb while addressing the United Nations General Assembly Sept. 27, 2012, in New York City. (Mario Tama/Getty Images)
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Military deterrence has been the single greatest factor in slowing Iran’s illicit nuclear program. US saber-rattling has influenced a change in the Islamic Republic’s behavior.
In 2007, a declassified US National Intelligence Estimate determined with “excessive confidence” that Iran’s regime stopped it nuclear weapons program in 2003. Iran experts believe the Islamic Republic temporarily pulled the plug on its illegal nuclear program due to the US invasion of Iraq and fears the US would launch a military incursion into Iran.
The sheer survival of Iran’s regime forced the then supreme leader Khomeini to agree to a cease-fire with Iraq in 1988 after eight years of war. At the time he compared the truce to drinking from “a chalice of poison.”
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American pressure prompted Khomeini to release US hostages in 1981 during the diplomatic crisis. All of these examples suggest Iran’s regime is enormously vulnerable to military pressure and other forms of leverage that threaten its legitimacy and existence.
“Iran’s regime is kind of calculating,” Daftari said. “As rogue as they’ve been in capturing oil tankers in the seas, persevering with the help of regional terror and, after all, the brutal wholesale executions of harmless protesters, they proceed to weigh out the penalties of a heated navy confrontation with Israel or the United States.”