Iran to Have Nuclear Bomb in a Few Months? - by Majid Rafizadeh - https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/15214/iran-nuclear-bomb-months
The Iranian government is shortening its nuclear breakout time -- the amount of time required to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a single nuclear weapon. Tehran has accomplished this through several steps in the last few months.
Iran's government first increased its enriched uranium stockpile beyond the 300 kilogram limit; it enriched uranium to levels beyond the cap of 3.67 percent, and then activated 20 IR-4 and 20 IR-6 advanced centrifuges. The Iranian leaders even boasted that their government is now exploring new uranium enrichment programs and producing centrifuges.
Most recently, the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, Ali Akbar Salehi, declared that Iran has an adequate supply of 20% enriched uranium., "Right now we have enough 20% uranium," he told the Iranian Students News Agency, ISNA, "but we can produce more as needed". He added that the country is resuming uranium enrichment at a far higher level at the Fordow nuclear facility -- an underground uranium enrichment facility which is reportedly located on one of bases of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) -- injecting uranium gas into centrifuges, and operating 60 IR-6 advanced centrifuges.
This marks a dangerous phase in Iran's nuclear defiance. Tehran is now using a kind of prototype centrifuge that enriches uranium almost 50 times faster.
Iran's nuclear breakout time in 2015 was estimated at less than one year. Tehran has advanced its nuclear program since then. In an interview with Iran's state-owned Channel 2, Salehi admitted that the "nuclear deal" initiated by then-US President Barack Obama not only failed to restrict Iran's nuclear program; it actually helped Iran to advance its nuclear program through the flow of funds thanks to the lifting of sanctions. "If we have to go back and withdraw from the nuclear deal," he stated, "we certainly do not go back to where we were before ... We will be standing in a much, much higher position."
Although Iran is a party to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it refuses to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to inspect its sites. The IAEA is also not allowed to inspect or monitor Iran's military sites, where nuclear activities are most likely being carried out.
Among the many concessions that the Obama administration granted to the Iranian government, one was accepting the Iranian leaders' demand that military sites would be out of the IAEA's reach. Because of this surrender, at various high-profile sites such as the Parchin military complex, located southeast of Tehran, the regime has been free to engage in nuclear activities without the risk of inspection.
The Iranian leaders keep claiming that their nuclear activities are solely for peaceful purposes. This claim is bogus. If the Islamic Republic is advancing its nuclear program for peaceful purposes, why has Tehran repeatedly failed to report its nuclear facilities, including those at Natanz and Arak, to the IAEA?
Also, why does the Iranian government keep refusing to answer the IAEA's questions regarding a secret nuclear facility, reportedly located in the suburbs of Tehran? Two nonpartisan organizations based in Washington -- the Institute for Science and International Security and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies -- last year released a detailed report on Iran's clandestine nuclear activities at this site.
In addition, why did the Iranian government place an S-300 anti-aircraft missile system at the Fordow underground nuclear site after the 2015 nuclear agreement? Finally, why does the Iranian regime never adequately address reports about its efforts to obtain illegal nuclear technology and equipment? Germany's domestic intelligence agency, the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution, revealed in its annual report for 2016 that the Iranian government had pursued a "clandestine" path to obtain illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies "at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level."
The truth is that, from the perspective of the ruling clerics of Iran, obtaining nuclear weapons is a must to help Tehran advance its hegemonic ambitions to dominate the region. Also, by having nuclear weapons, the Iranian government can more powerfully support terror groups and proxies to destabilize the region without being concerned that the West might strike Iranian military targets.
Most of all, in the view of the ruling clerics, having nuclear weapons can ensure the survival of their theocratic, anti-American and anti-Semitic establishment.
That is why, before it is too late, which it is fast becoming, it is incumbent on the US and the international community to take seriously Iran's nuclear advances and urgently address its rush to obtain nuclear weapons.
Spinning Out of Control - By Matt Ward -
Many today believe that the Middle East stands on the very brink of all-out war: that huge regional chaos is just around the corner.
At present, the only real certainty in the Middle East is that nobody actually wants all-out war. Certainly, Donald Trump, coming into a re-election season, would at all costs wish to avoid the quagmire of another Middle Eastern conflict, one that would inevitably drag the United States back into a full military commitment from which it has only just managed to extricate itself.
Iran, despite bellicose rhetoric to the contrary, also does not want any kind of a region-wide confrontation with the United States or, indeed, Israel. Iran knows well that it would not win either of those wars.
Israel, for her part, seems to be more than happy maintaining the status quo, confining military operations to limited and controllable single-strike missions into Syria, Gaza and Lebanon, against a range of non-state proxy groups.
Yet, Israel is also desperate to avoid a region-wide war for one other reason. Israel knows that in the next major war it will be bombarded by many thousands of rockets from the northern, southern and eastern fronts, all at once. Despite Israel's recent successes in nullifying this rocket threat, in the next significant war, there is every prospect Israel will be completely swamped by the sheer weight of rockets that will be fired at her.
Yet, despite each of these main Middle-East players not wanting war, the Middle East landscape has never looked more like war is coming. Indeed, I would even go so far as to say that the region has never looked more as if it is on the brink of an imminent all-out war in my lifetime.
In every direction one chooses, there are bubbling pressures, each of which is a potential trigger. Only recently, there was the unprecedented attacks on oil refineries in Saudi Arabia. Iran, no doubt indirectly responsible for these attacks, is actively goading the United States into a limited military confrontation that could easily get out of hand and draw in all her regional allies and enemies, quickly spiraling out of control.
Equally, any one of a number of Israeli operations against Iranian hubs of power in Syria, and now in Iraq, could also provide the spark triggering an escalation into major, region-wide war.
Any confrontation or bloodletting in any of these areas will have a ripple effect upon the entire Middle East that could see it descending into chaos. One of the main, and most misunderstood, reasons why the Middle East is more volatile today than it has been in the past is because of the sheer number of proxy wars taking place there right now.
Take, for example, the current war in Yemen, between the Houthis and the Yemeni government. On the surface, it is a simple conflict between two relatively unimportant regional actors. However, this war is in fact a proxy war where Saudi - Iranian rivalry has come to a direct head.
It is on Yemeni battlefields that Saudi Arabia has finally chosen to confront Iran, and neither side at this point looks to be backing down. This war stopped being about merely the Houthis and the Yemen government long ago. Now it is morphing into no less than a confrontation between two competing ideologies, between Sunni and Shia Islam.
Syria is another fine example of this. On the surface, it would appear to be a brutal and bloody internal civil war, essentially between pro and anti-Assad forces. However, like Yemen, this war has become much more than that now. It is the epicenter of a confrontation between major world powers, and every one of them have deeply entrenched interests in Syria that prevent them from backing down or giving an inch.
Indeed, when one spends any serious time considering Syria, the only conclusion one can draw is that it would be truly remarkable if all-out war did not come from here. Interesting, and more than a little frightening, this is just the scenario that Isaiah describes in his Burden of Damascus prophecy. The house of Israel suddenly attacked, from Syria, provoking a reaction that can only be a nuclear retaliation, and thus Damascus, the oldest continually inhabited city on Earth, is reduced overnight into a heap of ruins. This could happen today or it could happen tomorrow.
This volatility in the Middle East is unlikely to change any time soon either because a number of huge power bloc confrontations upholds the current situation. It is these vast power blocs, similar to those that existed in pre-First World War Europe, that are fueling the chaos in the Middle East. Firstly, there is Israel, backed by America, against all her many regional enemies. Currently, these enemies consist of Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Syria. This power struggle is manifesting itself in sporadic violence between Israel and the West Bank and Gaza.
However, there are other competing power blocs in the Middle East too. Iran is actively engaged all over the region against Saudi Arabia, mainly through the proxy war both sides are fighting in Yemen, but also in Iraq and elsewhere.
Add to this mix Turkey and their ongoing, burgeoning offensive against the Kurds - and remember that Russia has very fixed commitments now in the Middle East too - and it is not hard to see how things could quickly spiral out of control.
Skeptics, though, would argue that the Middle East has always been this dysfunctional and volatile. However, this time is different. The dynamics of this present-day Middle East are different from any that have come before it, for three main reasons.
China, for the first time ever, is now very much present in the Middle East in a way it has never been before. Russia, that generation-old nemesis of NATO, is resurgent, and its influence over the region cannot be overestimated or overemphasized.
Yet, significant though these two pivotal factors are, by themselves they are no harbinger of war shortly ahead. What does create that harbinger is the relative decline of the United States, both in a general foreign policy sense, and in its "boots on the ground" influence in the region.
There is a sense in the Middle East that the old rules simply do not apply any longer. There is a belief that what might once have been out of bounds is now very much up for grabs, and that if these state and non-state actors don't rush in and take what they perceive to be the new spoils, that opportunity may be lost to them forever. All of this reinforced by the obvious desire of the United States to disengage from all Middle Eastern military commitments.
In the past, there were known certainties in the Middle East that everyone counted on, all underpinned by one thing: the unyielding presence of the United States. Now that cannot be taken for granted, and the impact of this on the Middle East has been the removal of the restraint that once curtailed nations like Iran, and also transnational actors, from acting too rashly or foolishly.
Any future war between nation-states in the Middle East will easily spill across borders and quickly draw in a host of other nations. The paradox for America is that even despite Trump's obvious efforts to disengage from the region, any conflict between any of these nations would see the United States inevitably drawn back in to the region, and a situation that Donald Trump has spent the last four years trying to escape from will repeat itself.
The Middle East, at present, seems to be spinning out of control. When war does finally come, as it will, it is also looking more and more likely that Israel will stand in this war all alone.
Israel Rebuffs Iran's Attempt To Force New Rules Of The Game - By Yaakov Lappin/JNS.org -
Israel launched a broad wave of precision airstrikes early on Wednesday morning, hitting dozens of Iranian and Syrian military targets, and sending a very strong message that Israel is rejecting Iran's attempt to force new "rules of the game" against it.
Most of the Iranian military targets that were hit were situated within Syrian military bases, underlying the Iranian tactic of embedding and disguising its threatening presence within the Syrian Arab Army.
According to international media reports, 23 people, including 16 "foreigners"--an apparent reference to Iranian operatives--were killed in the strikes.
The Israeli action came in response to an Iranian-directed rocket attack on Tuesday morning, in which projectiles were launched from the Damascus area in the direction of Israel. An Israeli Iron Dome battery intercepted the four rockets, which set off warning sirens in northern Israeli communities.
That rocket attack could be linked to a reported Israeli strike on a key Iranian military installation in the Damascus area this week, though Israel has not commented on such reports.
Iran is continuing its efforts to build a war machine in Syria and entrench itself militarily by moving weapons, military forces, militias and building missile bases on the territory controlled by the Bashar Assad regime. The goal of Iran is to build a second Hezbollah in Syria and to move its own military capabilities into the area so that it can threaten Israel from multiple fronts.
Israel has been pursuing an active campaign of removing these threats as it detects them, taking the initiative, and relying on high-quality intelligence and precision firepower to deal with the ongoing Iranian challenge from Syria. The goal is to nip the threat in the bud and not wait until it takes on monstrous proportions, as Hezbollah's rocket and missile arsenal has become in Lebanon.
The Quds Force, Iran's overseas special operations unit, is in charge of the Iranian expansion program in Syria. Its commander, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, has attempted to enforce new rules on Israel, according to which any Israeli preemptive strike will result in Iranian retaliation.
This Iranian equation is essentially designed to deter Israel from taking the initiative and removing threats to its security preemptively. Iran wants to impose a "price tag" on Jerusalem for the active defense campaign that Israel has been pursuing with much success.
Hundreds of Israeli airstrikes in recent years have prevented the Iranians from achieving most of their goals in Syria, leading to frustration in Tehran, though its confidence has been rising recently.
The successful Iranian cruise missile and drone attack on Saudi state-oiled oil fields on Sept. 14 were a display of highly advanced, long-range firepower. The Iranian attack was a threat directed at Israel as much as it was to Iran's other regional arch-foe: Saudi Arabia. Israel heard the message and sent one of its own on Tuesday, rejecting Iran's attempt to deter it from taking action in the region to defend itself.
It appears as if the Iranians absorbed a painful blow in Syria, just as they did in May 2018 during "Operation House of Cards," when Israel struck a series of Iranian targets in response to an Iranian truck-mounted rocket attack.
Iran now has three options going forward: It can choose not to respond, launch a minor response or order a more significant response.
The fact that the regime is under pressure at home due to domestic unrest, that its economy is bleeding due to biting American sanctions, and that it is facing unrest in other zones of influence--like Lebanon and Iraq--means that Iranian decision-making may become more unpredictable going forward.
'We are prepared for any scenario'
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday after the strike, Israel Defense Forces' spokesman Brig. Gen. Hadi Zilberman stressed that the IDF still has the initiative. "We will not allow Iran to entrench itself in Syria," he said.
"We prepared a battle procedure that included deployment of air defense and attack preparations. The wave of strikes was broad in its targets."
According to an IDF statement, dozens of targets were struck in the Damascus area, south and west of Syria's capital, and on the Syrian Golan Heights near the Israeli border.
In addition, the Israeli Air Force destroyed Syrian surface-to-air missile batteries that are considered advanced after they fired at Israeli aircraft. Syrian weapons storage facilities, military headquarters and observation posts were all destroyed by Israeli aircraft.
When it came to the Iranian assets, the IAF demolished Iranian military buildings, a headquarters situated in Damascus International Airport and an observation post on the Golan Heights.
"We acted against the Syrian host and the Iranian guest," said Zilberman.
Outlining Israel's posture, he assured that "we are prepared for defense and offense, and we will act with severity against any attempt to respond. We are prepared for any scenario. We will not accept Iranian entrenchment. This is a red line."
It also appears as if the Assad regime keeps failing to heed Israel's warnings to refrain from joining the Iranian-Israeli showdown, and Syria's decision to fire surface-to-air missiles resulted in a loss of a number of its air-defense batteries.
Referring to Tuesday's rocket attack on the Israeli Golan, the IDF stated, "Yesterday's Iranian attack towards Israel is further clear proof of the purpose of the Iranian entrenchment in Syria, which threatens Israeli security, regional stability and the Syrian regime.
Furthermore, the IDF holds the Syrian regime responsible for actions taken in its territory and warns it from operating or allowing hostilities against Israel. Such actions will be followed by a severe response. The IDF will continue operating firmly and resolutely against the Iranian entrenchment in Syria."
Israel has heard Iran's message and sent its reply. The ball now returns to Iran's court.
Iran, Russia, China to Hold Joint Wargames in 'Message to the World' - Adam Kredo -
Iran, China, and Russia will hold in the coming weeks their first-ever joint war drills, which leaders say are meant to send a "message to the world" about increased military cooperation between the rogue countries.
The commander of Iran's navy, Rear Admiral Hossein Khanzadi, said Wednesday that the Islamic Republic will team up with Moscow and Beijing within the next month to hold the mass war drills.
"When we talk about joint wargames, we are talking about two or more countries with a high level of relations in various political, economic and social fields, which culminate in cooperation in the military sector, with wargames usually being the highest level of such cooperation," Khanzadi was quoted as saying in remarks to Iran's state-controlled press.
"A joint wargame between several countries, whether on land, at sea, or in the air, indicates a remarkable expansion of cooperation among them," the military leader said.
The joint war drills will be aimed at sending a message to the world, particularly Western nations, like the United States, that have sought to constrain Iran's expanding military ambitions.
"The joint wargame between Iran, Russia, and China, which will hopefully be conducted next month, carries the same message to the world, that these three countries have reached a meaningful strategic point in their relations, with regard to their shared and non-shared interests, and by non-shared I mean the respect we have for one another's national interests," Khanzadi was quoted as saying.
The Iranian military leader emphasized the importance of performing military drills in the sea, where the Islamic Republic has been particularly troublesome for Western nations. Iranian naval vessels routinely harass American military ships and have played a role in various sabotage efforts aimed at disrupting international shipping lanes.
"The wargame seeks to deliver this message to the world that any kind of security at sea must include the interests of all concerned countries. We do not condone the kind of security that only caters to the benefits of one specific country at a specific time and which disregards the security of others," Khanzadi said. "Seas, which are used as a platform for conducting global commerce, cannot be exclusively beneficial to certain powers.