Since December, the head of the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA warned that Iran would “dramatically” accelerate enrichment near the level of about 90%, which is at the level of armaments.
President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday called Iran a major “strategic and security challenge” for France and Europe. “Accelerating the nuclear program will almost get us to the point where there is no way back,” he said at the French ambassadors’ annual conference.
However, it remains anything but clear whether the Islamic Republic has actually decided to build a nuclear weapon, which the CIA recently (and surprisingly) acknowledged.
Still, constant daily headlines about progress in Iranian enrichment set things up for a collision course with the Trump administration after the Jan. 20 inauguration.
According to a recent report by Axios, the likelihood that Trump will commission a preemptive military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is now higher than ever:
Iran’s recent nuclear advances give President-elect Trump a decisive decision he must make in his first months in office: try to neutralize the threat through negotiation and pressure, or order a military attack.
Trump’s 2018 decision to withdraw from the Obama-era nuclear deal prompted Tehran to accelerate its nuclear program, so it is now a de facto “nuclear threshold country.” U.S., EU and Israeli officials and diplomats all told Axios they expect Trump to face the Iranian crisis in 2025.
Trump and his advisers plan to quickly return to the “maximum pressure” campaign they conducted against Iran from 2018 to 2020.
Axios further emphasizes that “Several Trump advisers privately acknowledge that the Iranian program is now so far away that the strategy may not be effective. It makes military choice a real possibility.”
But one gets the impression that U.S. attacks on the Islamic Republic would certainly only accelerate possible efforts to get a bomb. Much of the country’s nuclear infrastructure and technology is now likely to be underground, which would make it difficult for any external force to destroy everything.
While in previous years the Ayatollahs have condemned nuclear weapons as “non-Islamic” – if Iranians perceived themselves as in imminent danger of destruction, they would quickly feel the need for an urgent bomb.
Below is more about Axios about Trump, who expresses his position on the previous campaign track:
As recently as October, Trump criticized President Biden for advising Israel not to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. “They asked him what you think of Iran, would you hit Iran? And he says, “As long as they don’t hit the nuclear stuff.” That’s the thing you want to hit, right?” said Trump at a campaign rally.
It’s no secret that Iran has also long been engaged in sanction-related global oil transit and sales to powerful BRICS countries like China. Trump is expected to become “tough” on this as well, and he has already named many Iranian hawks to top foreign policy positions.
But from Tehran’s perspective, the problem remains that Israel has a large undeclared nuclear arsenal that has long been an “open secret.” If Iran is striving for spies, it is the creation of a balance of power and deterrence against Israel and the United States in the region.
Ironically, when Trump orders “preventive” military attacks on Iran in the name of stopping weapons of mass destruction, it is deeply at odds with his stated goals on the campaign path, which is a desire to stop and rule U.S. wars abroad.
