UN watchdog warns Iran’s enriched uranium 18 times higher than Obama nuclear deal limit

Despite all the political machinations on all sides, critics have always said Iran is intent on developing nuclear weapons and the Persian Gulf state is now better positioned to achieve this troubling milestone than ever before.

Iran has accumulated a stockpile of enriched uranium more than 18 times the limit set out in Barack Obama’s infamous nuclear deal with the world’s leading state-sponsor of terrorism that was signed in 2015, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.

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The deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), forbade Iran from exceeding 300 kg of a compound that translates to roughly 202.8 kg of uranium. As of May 15, the Islamic nation had amassed an estimated 3,809 kg of enriched uranium, the IAEA found, according to Agence France-Presse.

A new IAEA report noted that while the JCPOA also capped Iran’s uranium enrichment levels at 3.57% – 90% is needed for a nuclear weapon – Iran currently has 43.1 kg of uranium enriched to 60%, up 9.9 kg since March. They also have 238.4 kg of 20% enriched uranium, up 56.3 kg since March.

 

The Obama administration assured the world that the deal would ensure that “Iran’s nuclear program will be exclusively peaceful,” insisting that the agreement was “the best solution available to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon without taking military action.”

But the deal had an expiration date.

“Tehran acceded to a 10-year restriction on nuclear production, agreed to shut down thousands of centrifuges and exported almost all of its bomb-making material. Under the agreement, Iran agreed that “under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons,” NBC News reported in 2018.

President Donald Trump called it “the worst deal ever,” in part over concerns about the agreement’s limitations on ensuring long term prevention of Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. On May 8, 2018, he announced the U.S. would reimpose sanctions on the Islamic nation that were lifted as part of the deal, effectively scrapping the agreement. The Biden administration, which blames the drop in Iran’s breakout time on Trump’s decision, is negotiating with Iran to revive the nuclear deal, but talks are reportedly at an impasse over Iran demanding that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps be removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Iran continues to insist that its nuclear program is peaceful in nature, the amount of uranium enriched to 60% now qualifies as what the IAEA deems a “significant quantity,” according to Fox News. The agency says “the approximate amount of nuclear material for which the possibility of manufacturing a nuclear explosive device cannot be excluded.”

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz warned two weeks ago that Iran was just weeks away from having the necessary materials for a nuclear weapon.

In a tweet noting that he was speaking at the Institute of Policy and Strategy at Reichman University, Gantz said: “Iran stands a few weeks accumulating fissile material that will suffice for a first bomb. It holds 60 kg of enriched material at 60%, produces metallic uranium at 20% enrichment and prevents the International Atomic Energy Agency’s access to the production system.”

“Iran continues to accumulate irreversible knowledge and experience in the development, research, production and operation of advanced centrifuges,” Gantz said during his address, stating that Iran is working on 1,000 new advanced centrifuges, including at an underground facility near Natanz, Fox News reported.

Tom Tillison

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