Fueling Iranian nuclear power 142

Pretending to save the world from a nuclear onslaught by Iran’s Islamic regime, Obama went to great lengths to enable it. 

It was clear, sheer, obvious treason. Obvious despite the elaborate deceptions attempted by his administration.  

The State Department acted vigorously to implement Obama’s furtive plan.

With only a few days before the treasonous administration passes away and a patriotic one replaces it, the State Department continues to help Iran towards its evil goal.

The Tower reports:

Global powers, including the United States, have reached an agreement to provide Iran with nearly 130 tons of uranium — which experts believe would be enough to make 10 nuclear bombs. … 

David Albright and Andrea Stricker of the Institute for Science and International Security criticized Iran’s excess heavy water deals in a research paper (.pdf) published last month, pointing out that instead of insisting that Iran abide by the terms of the deal, “the United States tolerated and minimized Iran’s violations and sought to legitimize its international standing as a commercial supplier of heavy water”. Albright told the AP that “depending on the efficiency of the enrichment process and the design of the nuclear weapon”, Iran could create more than 10 atomic bombs with the uranium it will receive. …

Iran has not stated what it will do with the uranium. It could store it or process it into low-enriched uranium to be sold as nuclear fuel. But the nuclear deal itself allows Iran to step up approved nuclear enrichment activities even before the 15-year deal expires.

In addition to Iran’s heavy water violations, the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] warned last month that Iran was likely to exceed its cap on low-enriched uranium if it continued producing it at current levels. That warning came just days after Iranian President Hassan Rouhani ordered his nuclear agency to draw up plans to develop nuclear-powered engines that would require uranium to be enriched to 20 percent (in violation of the terms of the deal, which only allows Iran to enrich up to to 3.67 percent).

The IAEA publicized documents last month that essentially showed that Iran could violate the deal without receiving penalties. Certain amounts of low-enriched uranium in Iran’s possession are considered “unrecoverable”, and therefore do not count against its cap. “If this whole thing rests on [Iran] promising not to build a facility that they’d probably only build in secret if they were going to actually break out, then this material probably should not be deemed non-recoverable,” Albright wrote.

When serving as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Rouhani agreed to a temporary halt of uranium enrichment as part of the November 2004 Paris Agreement. But Iran backed out of the deal nine months later and began enriching uranium again. The following year, Rouhani boasted to a meeting of clerics that during the time that talks were ongoing in Paris, Iran was able to install equipment for converting yellowcake, a necessary step in enriching  uranium.

Omri Ceren explains how dangerous this is, and reveals how the State Department wriggles out of admitting the danger:

As long as the deal is in place, Iran will be able to blackmail the U.S. on non-nuclear issues by threatening to collapse the deal and pocket the uranium — Iran deal advocates have already been making a two-step argument for why the U.S. must not act against Iran’s terrorism, ballistic missiles, etc: 1st, they say the deal was front-loaded to give Iran most of its benefits at the beginning, while the U.S. only benefits from long-term Iranian compliance, so the Iranians win if the deal collapses now, 2nd, they say new non-nuclear pressure would cause the deal to collapse. It’s the blackmail scenario predicted by deal critics in late 2015, and the new uranium will play out the same way: Iran deal advocates will argue the U.S. must not act against Iran because the Iranians will walk away from the deal, and now they have enough new uranium for 10+ nuclear bombs.

Once the deal expires, Iran will be able to enrich the uranium to weapons-grade levels — President Obama told NPR the deal enables Iran to shrink its breakout time “almost down to zero” as soon as 13 years after implementation, which is 12 years from now. Restrictions on enrichment levels expire over that period.

The criticisms came up at yesterday’s State Department briefing. Spokesperson Kirby responded that as long as the deal has not collapsed or expired, the new uranium will be monitored. It’s not clear how that addresses any of the major criticisms of the swap: Iran profits from violating the deal, Iran gets blackmail leverage to prevent U.S. action on non-nuclear issues, and the deal will expire.

Transcript of Q & A, with John Kirby, State Department spokesman:

QUESTION: Well, is it not correct… if they store it away for 25 years, can they then not take this 116 tons and then do whatever they want with it?

MR KIRBY: Well, the – first of all, I really hate – I hate hypotheticals —

QUESTION: Or whatever the quantity —

MR KIRBY: — particularly the ones that go out two and a half decades from now, but —

QUESTION: Look, the – your whole point is that don’t worry, this is going to be subject to inspection and verification… under the JCPOA, but those – that expires at some point… So after those limitations expire, is it not correct that they could do whatever they want with it?

MR KIRBY: I’m not going to speculate one way or another here about something that… may or may not happen 25 years from now, Matt. There’s a strong inspection regime in place —

QUESTION: Now.

MR KIRBY: — to – and for well into the future to prevent Iran from —

QUESTION: For 25 years.

MR KIRBY: — to prevent Iran from ever being able to achieve a nuclear weapon, and that’s on page – by the way, not 25 years. The deal says Iran will never achieve nuclear weapons capability, but let’s get beyond that. I’m not going to speculate about what might or might not happen 25 years from now… I just don’t think that’s a useful exercise.

That last part about the deal saying “Iran will never achieve nuclear weapons capability” is not true.

Will the State Department switch sides and become an ally of the United States when Donald Trump is president?

We long to see heads roll at Foggy Bottom!

Posted under Iran, United States, War by Jillian Becker on Tuesday, January 10, 2017

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