Trump's Iran Anti-Nuke Policy: Maximum Pressure Catastrophically Failing

Iran's Leader Re-inspects Plutonium to Uranium Plant

(Now exceeding IAEA Limits)

Slim Pickens in the Movie: Looks a Lot Like Trump 

(The Image Trump Imagines) 

Iran pushes uranium limit more with irony of the century story:

Background and my personal input: The 2015 JCPOA deal with P5+1 (US, UK, France, Russia, China and the plus one: Germany) was working by all accounts including on-site IAEA inspections. 

Trump wins, then he takes steps to cancel the deal saying: “It was awful – the worse in history - I can get better deal.”

(Note: Trump’s real main reason? Barack Obama was the main part of getting Iran the deal and Trump is blind with his jealousy of Obama about anything).

Now Iran is really breaking the limits of the deal and Trump says: “See I told you it was a bad deal (no mention that he cancelled the as I said, was working).

Now almost daily Trump blames Iran for breaking the deal that Trump himself broke. How pathetic is that.

If by chance, Iran backs down and goes back and sticks with the deal, guess what Trump will say: “See I told you I could get a better deal – I’m good at deal making.”  

Story Development References: NPR here and WSJ here (Iran's new breaches).

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Main post from here: The U.S. under Donald J. Trump has pushed Iran over the line and to this point. All current, factual, and damn scary. 

WASHINGTON (NY Times via MSN) — Iran has exceeded a key limitation on how much nuclear fuel it can possess under the 2015 international pact curbing its nuclear program, effectively declaring that it would no longer respect an agreement that President Trump  abandoned more than a year ago (IAEA reports).

The breach of the limitation, which restricted Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium to about 660 pounds, does not by itself give the country the material to produce a nuclear weapon. But it is the strongest signal yet that Iran is moving to abandon the limits and restore the far larger stockpile that took the United States and five nations (U.S., UK, France, Russia, China, and German (so-called P5+1) years to persuade Tehran to send abroad.

It was unclear how much the action would escalate the tensions between Washington and Tehran after the downing of an American surveillance drone in June nearly resulted in military strikes, but it returns the focus to Iran’s two-decade pursuit of technology that could produce a nuclear weapon — exactly where it was before President Barack Obama and President Hassan Rouhani of Iran struck their deal four years ago.

While the Trump administration had no immediate reaction to the announcement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month that the United States would never allow Iran to get within one year of possessing enough fuel to produce a nuclear weapon. His special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, has often said that under a new deal, the United States would insist on “zero enrichment for Iran.” 

Iran has so far rejected beginning any negotiation, saying that the United States must first return to the 2015 agreement and comply with all of its terms.

On June 28, after meeting in Vienna with European officials who had promised to set up a barter system with Iran to compensate for the effects of American sanctions that Britain, France and Germany say are unwise, Iranian officials said the effort was insufficient. The estimated impact of the sanctions have cost Iran $50 billion in lost oil sales, far more than the system the Europeans are putting in place would generate.

As they left the meeting, Iranian officials hinted that the breaking of the limit would go forward, though it could just as easily be reversed in the future. For now, however, Iran seems on a pathway to step-by-step dissolution of key parts of the accord. Mr. Rouhani has said that Iran will begin raising the level of uranium enrichment this month.

“The UK remains committed to making deal work & using all diplomatic tools to de-escalate regional tensions,” said Jeremy Hunt, the British FM. He urged Iran to avoid any further steps away from the 2015 nuclear agreement and to “come back into compliance.”

It is possible that exceeding the stockpile limit is largely a negotiating tactic, a way for Tehran to impose costs on Washington after enduring more than a year of sanctions.

But the move is risky. Mr. Rouhani and Iranian FM, Mohammad Javad Zarif, who negotiated the deal with the John Kerry Secretary of State at the time are both betting that the Europeans will declare that Trump, not Iran, is responsible for the collapse of the nuclear accord. 

That may prove the case. European officials, in their most vivid split from Trump, are scrambling to preserve the agreement, fearful that if it falls apart, the United States and Iran could be headed toward military conflict — and perhaps war. But a section of the pact allows the Europeans to invoke a so-called snapback of sanctions if Iran violates the terms. The Iranians say they are within their rights because the re-imposition of sanctions last year by the United States gave them the grounds to halt their commitments, as well.

For advocates of the 2015 deal, like former members of the Obama administration, Mr. Trump pushed Iran into the announcement. Among the recently imposed sanctions was one that threatened action against any country that bought low-enriched uranium from Tehran. To comply with the stockpile limits, Iran shipped low-enriched uranium to Russia in return for natural uranium. With that exchange now barred, it was only a matter of time before Iran exceeded the limits.

Even before the announcement, the Pentagon and the nation’s intelligence agencies — led by the CIA and the NSA — were beginning to review what steps to take if the president determined that Iran was getting too close to producing a bomb.

A decade ago, the Obama administration conducted a highly classified cyberattack, code-named Olympic Games, at the Natanz enrichment site. The breach neutralized Iran’s centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speeds to enrich uranium, and destroyed about 1,000 of the 5,000 machines then in operation. But after two years, Iran rebounded, and when the nuclear accord came into effect, it had more than 17,000 centrifuges, most of which were dismantled under the agreement.

If the United States targets Iran’s uranium enrichment operations, experts say, it is likely to take aim again at the Natanz site. But this time, the Iranians appear far better prepared.

Other major nuclear sites, including the primary production facility for converting raw uranium to a gas form, and factories that produce next-generation centrifuges, are also likely targets, according to former officials.

In the weeks before the announcement, Saudi Arabia’s state news media has called for “surgical strikes” against Iran, as has Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR), who pressed for military action after the downing of the drone.  

Trump initially agreed, then pulled back. Any operations against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, either with conventional arms or cyber-weapons, would be highly risky. And some administration officials warn that acting now would be premature.

Even if Iran possesses 800 or 900 kilograms of uranium, it would be insufficient for a single bomb. That threshold is not likely to be crossed until later this summer, leading Pompeo to say while in India recently: “If there is conflict, if there is war, if there is a kinetic activity, it will be because the Iranians made that choice. I hope that they do not.”

My 2 cents and a short review: The 2015 deal (JCPOA) saw Iran commit: (1)  to acquire an atomic bomb, (2) to accept drastic limits on its nuclear program, and (3) submit to IAEA inspections in exchange for a partial lifting of crippling international sanctions. Then came along Donald J. Trump.

He single-handedly and unilaterally withdrawal the U.S. from the deal on May 8, 2018, and added subsequent sanctions, thus depriving Iran of the economic benefits it expected and plunged it into recession.

Now, exactly one year after that action by Trump and no other country, President Hassan Rouhani said Iran would temporarily cease to limit its stocks of heavy water and low-enriched uranium.

Iran has also threatened to start enriching uranium above the agreed maximum purification level of 3.67 percent from July 7. That remains far short of the 90 percent purity required to build a weapon.

So, spin this any way you choose Mr. Pompeo and Mr. Bolton and Senator Cotton, and yes more so by Trump.

But the fact remains that Trump is the cause of this present turmoil driven by his jealousy and hatred of Obama for the deal. He has a general dislike of anything Obama did that still drives his mood today and this nearly out of control train loaded with nukes is at the center.

Trump thrives on praise and kudos and daily accolades on a daily basis – well this may give him the biggest label of all time: The First President Ever to Start a Nuclear War.

Stay tuned – this is apt to very ugly and more like Armageddon.

Thanks for stopping by.