What else will happen to Iran?
THE saying 'East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet' once held true in ancient times, but today, with advances in communication and technology, it has become outdated. Yet, this mindset still influences Eastern elites, contributing to the ambiguous relationship between the West, Europe, and the Middle East. There is a long history of negotiations between Middle Eastern countries and the West and Europe, often ending in favor of the latter. Consequently, talks between the United States, Iran, and Europe frequently reveal ambiguity surrounding Iran's stance, especially on critical existential issues like the nuclear program. Iranian negotiators often rely on a culture of ambiguity, manipulation of terminology, and postponement of decisions under the guise of further study.
On the other hand, a clear and direct response is the best way to resolve difficult issues that could otherwise cause more hardship for the people. Questions persist about Iran's intentions to acquire a nuclear weapon, and why it enriches uranium to levels far beyond what is needed for peaceful nuclear activities, levels dangerously close to those required for producing a nuclear bomb.
This question is not only raised by the West and the United States but also by Iran's friends and neighbors. Because the answers are unconvincing, ambiguity has become a core element of the issue. Even after the 2015 nuclear agreement was signed, Tehran failed to reassure the other parties involved. Consequently, the world witnessed that as soon as Washington withdrew from the agreement in 2018, Tehran rapidly increased its uranium enrichment to higher levels, threatening global peace and bringing Iran closer to possessing a nuclear bomb. Allowing inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to Iran's nuclear reactors was insufficient, and surveillance cameras proved ineffective, as many nuclear facilities were undisclosed. This situation fueled doubts and suspicions that the Tehran regime has yet to dispel. Furthermore, a mere religious fatwa forbidding the possession and use of nuclear weapons is not enough to reassure the international community, especially since such fatwas can be quickly revoked or amended, as recent reports circulating from Iran indicate.
It is true that some countries have possessed nuclear weapons but have not used them, except for the United States, which dropped nuclear bombs on Japan in 1945 and has since come to understand the horrific consequences of their use. Moreover, the world does not tolerate any country being subjected to an existential threat, especially when that country already exists, is internationally recognized, and enjoys the support of many Western and international nations, namely, Israel. Therefore, when former US President Trump stated that 'Iran is raising the slogan of annihilating Israel and the United States,' it represents a serious threat to Western consciousness that cannot be dismissed or minimized as mere rhetoric for domestic audiences.
This issue has placed the current Iranian regime in a critical position and has become a major obstacle to any solution that could reassure the international community. This explains the muted international response to the US bombing of Iranian nuclear sites. Tehran still looks to the example of isolated North Korea, which possesses nuclear weapons, yet the world collectively agrees to prevent their use, due to North Korea's limited capabilities on one hand, and the reluctance of its own allies to permit the use of nuclear weapons on the other.
All of this stems from an Eastern culture of ambiguity, whereas what is truly needed is clarity in positions. Some may argue that Israel practices strategic ambiguity regarding its possession of weapons of mass destruction. However, this policy cannot be justified. Tel Aviv fully understands that any attempt to use nuclear weapons would provoke global condemnation, especially from the United States, which would be the first to punish Israel for crossing the red lines set by Washington and the West. Ultimately, Israel is a functioning state that cannot make unilateral decisions without consulting its allies, and those who are perceptive will understand this reality.
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Kuwait Times
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- Kuwait Times
US strikes on Iran nuclear sites are real-life test of hard power's limits
North Korea-style race for bomb is one possible scenario VIENNA: US military strikes overnight in which President Donald Trump said Iran's main nuclear sites were 'obliterated' will put to the test the widely held view that such attacks can delay a nuclear program but not kill a determined push for atom bombs. As Iran's nuclear program has expanded and become more sophisticated over the past two decades, many officials and nuclear experts have warned: You can destroy or disable a nuclear program's physical infrastructure but it is very hard or impossible to eliminate the knowledge a country has acquired. Western powers including the United States have publicly suggested as much, complaining of the 'irreversible knowledge gain' Iran has made by carrying out activities they object to. 'Military strikes alone cannot destroy Iran's extensive nuclear knowledge,' the Washington-based Arms Control Association said in a statement after the US strikes with massive bunker-busting bombs on sites including Iran's two main underground enrichment plants at Natanz and Fordow. 'The strikes will set Iran's program back, but at the cost of strengthening Tehran's resolve to reconstitute its sensitive nuclear activities, possibly prompting it to consider withdrawing from the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and possibly proceeding to weaponization.' Zionist entity has also said it has killed Iranian nuclear scientists but, while little is known about the personnel side of Iran's nuclear program, officials have said they are sceptical about that having a serious impact on Iran's nuclear knowledge, even if it might slow progress in the near term. The West says there is no civilian justification for Iran's enrichment of uranium to near weapons-grade fissile purity. Iran says its nuclear objectives are solely peaceful and it has the right to enrich as much as it wants. Iran's nuclear program has made rapid advances since Trump pulled the United States out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Tehran and major powers that placed strict limits on its atomic activities in exchange for sanctions relief. After the US withdrawal in 2018 and the re-imposition of US sanctions, Iran pushed past and then far beyond the limits imposed by the deal on items like the purity to which it can enrich uranium and how much it can stockpile. At least until Zionist entity's first strikes against its enrichment installations on June 13, Iran was refining uranium to up to 60 percent purity, a short step from the roughly 90 percent that is bomb-grade, and far higher than the 3.67 percent cap imposed by the 2015 deal, which Iran respected until the year after Trump pulled out. The last report on May 31 by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN nuclear watchdog that inspects Iran's nuclear facilities, showed Iran had enough uranium enriched to up to 60 percent, if enriched further, for nine nuclear weapons, according to an IAEA yardstick. It has more at lower levels like 20 percent and 5 percent. The exact impact of Zionist and US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and materials has yet to be determined. In addition to the enrichment sites, the US struck Isfahan, where officials have said much of Iran's most highly enriched uranium stock was stored underground. One important open question is how much highly enriched uranium Iran still has and whether it is all accounted for. A senior Iranian source told Reuters on Sunday most of the highly enriched uranium at Fordow, the site producing the bulk of Iran's uranium refined to up to 60 percent, had been moved to an undisclosed location before the US attack there. Deputy Foreign Minister Kazem Gharibabadi told state TV last weekend Iran would take measures to protect nuclear materials and equipment that would not be reported to the IAEA, and it would no longer cooperate with the IAEA as before. The IAEA has not been able to carry out inspections in Iran since the first Zionist airstrikes nine days ago, but has said it is in contact with the Iranian authorities. What Iran will do next in terms of its nuclear program is also unclear. Its threat to pull out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hints at a race for nuclear weapons, but Iran has maintained it has no intention of doing so. The only other country to announce its withdrawal from the NPT is North Korea in 2003. It expelled IAEA inspectors and went on to test nuclear weapons. 'Our biggest concern is that we end up with a North Korea scenario whereby these strikes convince the Iranians that the only way to save the regime is to go for the bomb. Nobody is bombing North Korea now, are they?' a European official said. Even if inspections continue, because of Trump's withdrawal in 2018 Iran had already scrapped extra IAEA oversight provided for by the 2015 deal. That means the agency no longer knows how many centrifuges Iran has at undeclared locations. The IAEA says that while it cannot guarantee Iran's aims are entirely peaceful, it also has no credible indication of a coordinated nuclear weapons program. The Zionist and now US strikes have already raised fears among diplomats and other officials, however, that Iran will use those centrifuges to set up a secret enrichment site, since one could be built inside a relatively small and inconspicuous building like a warehouse. 'It is quite possible that there are enrichment sites that we don't know about. Iran is a big country,' a Western official said, while adding that Iran could also choose to bide its time. 'In two years, if Iran were to start from scratch, they would only need a few months to reconstitute a new program and to get back to where they were yesterday.' — Reuters
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Olympic chief Kirsty's steeliness honed by hard knocks
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Hezbollah, Iraqi Militias Avoid Direct Involvement In Iran-Israel War—for Now
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The 'Axis of Resistance' Hezbollah was formed with Iranian support in the early 1980s as a guerilla force fighting against Israel's occupation of southern Lebanon at the time. The militant group helped push Israel out of Lebanon and built its arsenal over the ensuing decades, becoming a powerful regional force and the centerpiece of a cluster of Iranian-backed factions and governments known as the ' Axis of Resistance.' The allies also include Iraqi Shiite militias and Yemen's Houthi rebels, as well as the Palestinian militant group Hamas. At one point, Hezbollah was believed to have some 150,000 rockets and missiles, and the group's former leader, Hassan Nasrallah once boasted of having 100,000 fighters. Seeking to aid its ally Hamas in the aftermath of the Palestinian militants' Oct. 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel and Israel's offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border. That drew Israeli airstrikes and shelling, and the exchanges escalated into full-scale war last September. Israel inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah, killing Nasrallah and other top leaders and destroying much of its arsenal, before a U.S.-negotiated ceasefire halted that conflict last November. Israel continues to occupy parts of southern Lebanon and to carry out near-daily airstrikes. For their part, the Iraqi militias occasionally struck bases housing U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria, while Yemen's Houthis fired at vessels in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route, and began targeting Israel. Keeping an ambiguous stance Hezbollah has condemned Israel's attacks and the U.S. strikes on Iran. Just days before the U.S. attack, Hezbollah leader Naim Kassem said in a statement that the group 'will act as we deem appropriate in the face of this brutal Israeli-American aggression.' A statement issued by the group after the U.S. strikes called for called for 'Arab and Islamic countries and the free peoples of the world' to stand with Iran but did not suggest Hezbollah would join in Tehran's retaliation. Lebanese government officials have pressed the group to stay out of the conflict, saying that Lebanon cannot handle another damaging war, and U.S. envoy Tom Barrack, who visited Lebanon last week, said it would be a 'very bad decision' for Hezbollah to get involved. Iraq's Kataib Hezbollah militia — a separate group from Hezbollah — had said prior to the U.S. attack that it will directly target U.S. interests and bases spread throughout the region if Washington gets involved. The group has also remained silent since Sunday's strikes. The Houthis last month reached an agreement with Washington to stop attacks on U.S. vessels in the Red Sea in exchange for the U.S. halting its strikes on Yemen, but the group threatened to resume its attacks if Washington entered the Iran-Israel war. In a statement on Sunday, the Houthis' political bureau described the U.S. attack on Iran as a 'grave escalation that poses a direct threat to regional and international security and peace.' The Houthis did not immediately launch strikes. Reasons to stay on the sidelines Hezbollah was weakened by last year's fighting and after losing a major supply route for Iranian weapons with the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad, a key ally, in a lightning rebel offensive in December. 'Hezbollah has been degraded on the strategic level while cut off from supply chains in Syria,' said Andreas Krieg, a military analyst and associate professor at King's College London. Still, Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst close to Hezbollah, said a role for the militant group in the Israel-Iran conflict should not be ruled out. 'The battle is still in its early stages,' he said. 'Even Iran hasn't bombed American bases (in response to the U.S. strikes), but rather bombed Israel.' He said that both the Houthis and the Iraqi militias 'lack the strategic deep strike capability against Israel that Hezbollah once had.' Renad Mansour, a senior research fellow at the Chatham House think tank in London, said Iraq's Iran-allied militias have all along tried to avoid pulling their country into a major conflict. Unlike Hezbollah, whose military wing has operated as a non-state actor in Lebanon — although its political wing is part of the government — the main Iraqi militias are members of a coalition of groups that are officially part of the state defense forces. 'Things in Iraq are good for them right now, they're connected to the state — they're benefitting politically, economically,' Mansour said. 'And also they've seen what's happened to Iran, to Hezbollah and they're concerned that Israel will turn on them as well.' Badawi said that for now, the armed groups may be lying low because 'Iran likely wants these groups to stay intact and operational.' 'But if Iran suffers insurmountable losses or if the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei) is assassinated, those could act as triggers,' he said.
