"It is Slow, Meticulous and Can be an Extremely Deadly Process"

"We haven't seen big movements [since the U.S. bombing in June]. Maybe a car or a truck [but] not bulldozers digging things out." 

"[The cylinders are] not very big [and] not specially protected [though it is possible that some] decoys [have been placed among them to confuse and impede anyone trying to remove them]."

"[While not privy to any military decisions] what I can say is that this considerable amount of material ... is highly contaminant, so there could be some contamination if there was a direct hit on it."

Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general, IAEA

 

"[To get to the buried Isfahan stockpile], you have to get excavation equipment, break through the concrete and lead shield [and any other protective covering], and then you somehow have to get to the bottom of this silo and remove the containers full of nuclear material and fly them out."

Anonymous expert 

 

"There's a lot of risks associated with it. This is a very high order of complexity. There likely will be casualties."

"But this is the problem set for U.S. Special Operations forces. It's what we do."

"We have people who are specifically trained to go into these types of environments."

"[The best way to recover the material would be following a ceasefire and accompanied by IAEA personnel.] But if you have to fight your way in [it could be feasible]."

Retired General Joseph Votel, U.S. Central Command/U.S. Special Operations Command 

U.S. President Donald Trump appears to be mulling over the possibility of monitoring or retrieving highly enriched uranium believed to be buried at the Iranian nuclear sites attacked by the U.S. last year at Isfahan. "Intense satellite surveillance" could help to monitor the location of the nuclear material. Should the plan be to seize Iran's uranium it "would be one of, if not the largest, most complicated special operations in history" in the opinion of former deputy assistant secretary of defence, retired CIA and Marine officer, Mick Mulroy. "It's a major risk to the force." 

"It's the job of the Pentagon to make preparations in order to give the commander-in-chief maximum optionality."

"It does not mean the president has made a decision."

White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt 

Iran, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, has stockpiled some 970 pounds of uranium enriched to 60 percent; short of weapons-grade level. A nuclear facility outside Isfahan holds over half of that total stored in tunnels over 300 feet deep. Satellite imagery from early June analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security show a large flatbed truck carrying 18 blue barrels toward the southern entrance of the Isfahan facility. The barrels, it was conjectured, contained highly enriched uranium cylinders moved for storage within the tunnel mere days prior to Israel and the U.S. launching airstrikes on Iranian targets. 

 

The logistics of an operation of recovery of those barrels are extraordinarily complex; to begin with, striking Iranian defences and equipment to clear a safe passage for ground troops to fly hundreds of miles into the country to establish a defence perimeter at the facilities. The Army's 82nd Airborne and Rangers parachuting to seize the ground within range of enemy artillery, missiles and drones. Engineers might build an airstrip to bring in supplies and equipment airdropped from cargo aircraft; operations vulnerable to enemy fire.

 

A large number of support troops -- mechanics, drivers, refuellers and others would be required to work 24-7 with food and water resupplied constantly. Nuclear specialists would be on site to assess risks and supervise the removal of uranium. The need to blast through rock and enter the storage area would be a yard-by-yard process for commandos to enter an unknown facility. Saws and blow torches would be needed to breach the area, possibly the Army Delta Force or Navy SEALS, to pass underground facility obstacles. 

South tunnel entrance of the Isfahan underground complex near the Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center, Iran. (Bulletin / Google Earth)

 

Commandos geared with protective uniforms and rebreathers, carrying radioactive detection sensors while shooters covered them. Anything shot at, that might explode or cut through, could hit dangerous material. Radioactive exposure requires arduous and repeated decontamination of personnel and equipment. "It is slow, meticulous and can be an extremely deadly process", stated a former operator. Troops, equipment and nuclear material would be exposed to possible attacks by Iranians through the exfiltration process as personnel are airlifted through enemy airspace.  

 

An Iranian woman walks past a view of Tehran's research reactor in Tehran. Morteza Nikoubazl/Getty

 

Interrupting Iran's Nuclear Program

"The fact that Iran is the only non-nuclear-weapon State in the world that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60 percent remains a matter of serious concern, which has drawn international attention given the potential proliferation implications."

"[The IAEA cannot] ignore the potential proliferation implications [and it is not in a] position to provide assurance that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful."

International Atomic Energy Agency 

 

"The Iranian regime is the most destabilizing force in the Middle East and the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world."

"A nuclear-armed Iran would pose a grave threat to global security and U.S. national security."

"Allowing Iran to obtain nuclear weapons is an outcome that must never be allowed."

"This military escalation was ordered unilaterally, without Congressional authorization or meaningful consultation."

"There are important Constitutional implications that must be addressed going forward." 

New Jersey Democrat Senator Cory Booker

 

"Presidents of both [U.S. political parties] have deployed U.S. forces and ordered the use of military force, without congressional authorization, on numerous occasions."

"Over the last two decades, Congress has acquiesced more and more to uses of military force by presidents of both parties without congressional approval and with little congressional oversight."

Adjunct senior fellow for international and national security law, Council on Foreign Relations, John Bellinger

An Israeli Air Force fighter jets takes off for strikes in Iran, June 18, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

Three Iranian nuclear facilities, Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz, were struck on Saturday in preemptive assaults by the United States, which decided to join Israel in its aerial bombardment of Iran's nuclear installations with a view to prevent the Islamic Republic from succeeding in the manufacture of atomic bombs to add to its ballistic missile arsenal in its aspirations to produce warheads. Short-range ballistic missiles to be used to destroy Israel, long-range missiles to strike the United States; as threatened time and again.

 

According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the largest sponsor of world terrorism is estimated to possess sufficient uranium to enable it to create nine nuclear weapons after undertaking the short step to enrich its uranium product from the current 60 percent to the required 90 percent enrichment. "Since 16 February 2021, the Agency has not been able to verify Iran's total enriched uranium stockpile precisely on any given day", reads the IAEA's May report of verification and monitoring in Iran. 

 

As far as cooperating with the international inspection agency is concerned, Iran has never been open and above-board with respect to its nuclear plans and actual research and production practises. Inspectors were withheld the opportunity to monitor heavy water production required for the nuclear program; access to enrichment facilities were refused for Natanz and Fordow; and centrifuge inspections or other infrastructure were not allowed to proceed. 

 

Then-Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz Uranium Enrichment Facility some 200 miles (322 kilometers) south of the capital Tehran, Iran in 2008. (AP/Iranian President’s Office)

 

Iran is a signatory to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action between it and the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Russia, China and Germany, agreed to in 2015. When the deal was signed then-U.S. President Barack Obama, described the outcome as: "The historic deal which will prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon". This was a deal that failed to include Iran's emerging technology in the production of ballistic missiles, and one that completely sidestepped its primary links to terrorist groups.

 

Since that signing and the pledge inherent in its agreement a decade ago,  Iran has  hindered inspectors, flouted a key point of limiting levels of uranium enrichment to an agreed-upon 3.67 percent -- instead proceeding with enrichment of uranium to 60 percent in direct violation of the agreement. The Islamic Republic succeeded in amassing a stockpile of 408.6 kilograms of 60 percent uranium.

 

Figures from the IAEA state that 42 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium can produce one atomic bomb, enriched further to 90 percent. 408 kilograms therefore, represents a potential for nine weapons if further enriched. A controversy has erupted in the wake of Saturday's bunker-busting bombs aimed at penetrating the mountain fastness of the Fordow facility. There is uncertainty over the extent to which Iran's nuclear program was impacted. 

 

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his military leaders face an enemy with superior military hardware. Anadolu via Getty Images

 

Iran is unlikely to be entirely shut off from obtaining nuclear weapons in months or years into the future. What the strikes accomplished was to address the immediacy of the situation whereby prevention was required to ensure atomic bombs, so close to completion on the horizon, was set back for possibly a considerable amount of time. In that time, it would be possible, even feasible, that the regime would fall, and with it the Islamist ideology of acquiring weaponry of a striking calibre that could result in catastrophic loss of human life.

 

Were Iran to be left to its malign devices as it has been to the present time -- prior to Israel's unleashing of an aerial campaign of precision and determination to not only strike nuclear emplacements, but military and IRGC bases, weapons caches, along with assassinations of key government, military and scientific leading figures to send the program into disarray while eliminating many of the figures deeply involved in supporting nuclear weaponry development -- the production of nuclear weapons was assessed to be mere weeks or months ahead.

 

Iran's bad faith relationship with the nuclear inspectors, its hidden nuclear sites, its stated intentions threatening the survival of an entire country in the Middle East, naming other countries as enemies to be dealt with harshly as "Death to America" portends, made it a mandatory intervention of survival for at least two countries, and likely more, inclusive of the majority-Sunni Arab countries sharing the geography of the Middle East, which Iran's Shi'ite-led 'axis of evil' was groomed to conquer.

 

 

 

Iran has furthermore, trained and armed terrorist groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza, Houthis in Yemen, and Shiite militias in Iraq, providing them with updated technologically advanced rockets. There are no guarantees that Iran would withhold from its proxy terrorist groups atomic weaponry that would make them infinitely more dangerously effective at carrying out their directives from Iran to do its bidding in attacking and annihilating the Jewish state. Jihad demands total loyalty to the concept of killing non-believers as an obligation to Islam.

 

Terrorist groups in possession of nuclear weapons would represent a nightmare scenario of helplessness for any targeted population living in fear and  trepidation of imminent attacks by terrorist groups for whom a massive death toll would be viewed as a success in following through that obligation to prove to Islam that the world stands in awe and suspense over where and when the final blow from Islamist terror would strike in its challenge of the non-Muslim democratic world.

 

The decisions made by Israel and the United States in striking at Iran and its threatening forces was long overdue in view of the simmering antagonisms and terrorist attacks taking place throughout the world as Islamist terror normalized its presence as a counter-weight in world affairs to long-distant colonial rule and the supremacy of Western thought, technology, laws and values in a world that Iran believes belongs to Islam and its values and laws.

 

Harakat Hezbollah al Nujaba, an Iraqi militia trained by Iran's Revolutionary Guards  Wilson Center

 

Playing With Nuclear Fire

"Every morning we wake up and see that they have hit only residential homes."

"Our forces don't shoot back because the 30km (19-mile) zone around the power station is sacred. You don't want to shoot there. But the Russians are terrorists. There's nothing sacred to them."  

"It's meant to scare us, [Rockets have hit Nikopol every night since the middle of July]."

Local Businessman

A covered Russian tank outside the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on 4 August   ENERGOATOM/Reuters

"As the initiator and main instigator of the Ukrainian crisis, Washington, while imposing unprecedented comprehensive sanctions on Russia, continues to supply arms and military equipment to Ukraine."

"Their ultimate goal is to exhaust and crush Russia with a protracted war and the cudgel of sanctions."

Beijing Ambassador to Moscow Zhang Hanhui

"The cowardly Russians can't do anything more so they strike towns ignobly, hiding at the Zaporizhzhia atomic power station."

Andrei Yermak, chief of staff to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy

The outliers of the United Nations Security Council in lock-step denial of representing tyrannical governments coveting territory of neighbours and exercising their ambitious penchant for bullying and threatening and finally committing to a military advance to correct historical errors so they can 'reclaim' a territorial prize by absorbing another sovereign country's geography into their greater grasping fold. The mirror image of Moscow's 'special military operation' to bring Ukraine kicking and screaming back into the Soviet Union fold, is reflected in Beijing's plan to violently disabuse Taiwan that it is a separate country.

Mutual support for one another's irenic plans of absorption through violent takeover enables them to give each other comfort. Russia's experience with the West firmly clamping down on sanctions to fully impress on the Kremlin that its actions assault international norms presents as an example to Beijing, labouring under similar sanctions and for aspirationally awaiting the opportunity when it too feels prepared to launch an all-out conflict with Taiwan to achieve its goal of an 'individed China' 

Ukraine raises the alarm once again over the Russian military occupying the Ukrainian nuclear power plant representing the largest such facility in all of Europe, in a dangerously cavalier manner. Ranging from the storage of explosives and military equipment in sensitive areas of the nuclear plant, to recklessly firing off missiles from the plant's campus at surrounding towns where Ukrainian military units are stationed in the hope of driving out the Russian troops to reclaim the plant and its security.

Moscow for its part insists that the town Ukraine identifies as being targeted by Russian troops from within the power plant's footprint, Marhanets, claims that the Ukrainian military, stationed there, is using it as a staging platform to send rockets to hit Russian soldiers at the Zaporizhzhia plant. The alarm was raised in the West when the United Nations atomic energy watchdog warned of a potential nuclear disaster with the current situation, leading the Group of Seven leading industrialized countries to tell Russia it must return the plant to Ukraine.

This was once the Group of Eight, but after Russian rebels began their conflict in Ukraine's eastern province of the Donbas and Russia seized Crimea in 2014, Vladimir Putin was disinvited and the group reverted to its original members, as the Group of Seven. Ukraine's state nuclear power company Enerhoatom, warns that Russian shelling has compromised the plant, causing critical damage to two areas of the plant, creating the potential for devastation.

Containers with radioactive material might, they warn, also come under danger of shelling. In its own defence, Russia resorts to its usual stance of claiming to be acting responsibly, that it is Ukraine that is responsible for any dangerous situations eventuating because of its military's carelessness, repeating that Russian troops behave responsibly and never target civilians.

 

Ukrainian technicians remain at the plant, working to ensure whenever an emergency arises they're present to use their expertise in safety and security of the plant forestalling the possibility of a disaster. Needless to say, they have no control over what Russian troops do. What they do is shell surrounding towns from the relative safety of the nuclear plant in the knowledge that Ukrainian troops cannot afford to strike back and risk creating a more dangerous situation. 

 

According to Kyiv, roughly 500 Russian soldiers with heavy vehicles and weapons remain at the plant where they are behaving responsibly, ensuring the safety of the complex, as the Kremlin has it. The former's statement can be guaranteed to be correct, the latter's, true to form is a risible canard. Moscow and Vladimir Putin never uttered a lie they couldn't be proud of. 

"I am extremely concerned by the shelling yesterday at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant, which underlines the very real risk of a nuclear disaster that could threaten public health and the environment in Ukraine and beyond."

"The IAEA has received information about this serious situation – the latest in a long line of increasingly alarming reports from all sides."

?According to Ukraine, there has been no damage to the reactors themselves and no radiological release. However, there is damage elsewhere on the site.?

"Military action jeopardizing the safety and security of the Zaporizhzya nuclear power plant is completely unacceptable and must be avoided at all costs.?

"Any military firepower directed at or from the facility would amount to playing with fire, with potentially catastrophic consequences."

"I strongly and urgently appeal to all parties to exercise the utmost restraint in the vicinity of this important nuclear facility, with its six reactors."

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Mariano Grossi

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant outside the Russian-controlled city of Enerhodar, Ukraine. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

 

Playing With Nuclear Fire

"The situation is very fragile. Every principle of nuclear safety has been violated one way or the other and we cannot allow that to continue."

"You have a catalogue of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility."

"[I and my team need protection to reach Zaporizhzhia - which means co-operation of both Russia and Ukraine]. I'm pleading to both sides to let this mission proceed."

"While this war rages on, inaction is unconscionable. If an accident occurs at Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, we will not have a natural disaster to blame - we will have only ourselves to answer to. We need everyone's support." 

"When you put this together -- [supply chain of equipment and spare parts interrupted], so we are not sure the plant is getting all it needs. [The IAEA also needs to perform very important inspections to ensure that nuclear material is being safeguarded], and there is a lot of nuclear material there to be inspected -- you have a catalog of things that should never be happening in any nuclear facility. And this is why I have been insisting from day one that we have to be able to go there to perform this safety and security evaluation, to do the repairs and to assist as we already did in Chernobyl." 

Rafael Grossi, head, United Nations nuclear agency, International Atomic Energy Agency

Russian serviceman guarding the plan  ANDREY BORODULIN/AFP

Moscow seems not to understand, perhaps not to care, how its troops are cavalierly treating the very real danger of causing a nuclear disaster in the largest nuclear plant in Europe, located in the south-eastern city of Enerhodar, which has been under Russia occupation almost from the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The power plant is being used, inexplicably, by Russian troops to shield themselves from Ukrainian bombardment.

From the shelter of the power plant roughly 500 Russian troops launch attacks against civilian and military Ukrainian targets. Ukrainian forces, knowing full well the danger of launching return attacks, have had to withhold their fire. Last month Russian military authorities ordered the plant's staff to surrender access to the engine rooms of three of the Zaporizhzhia plant's reactors. To be used as storage facilities for Russian heavy weaponry.

The ammunition was stored in close proximity to highly combustible materials with the potential to trigger a nuclear disaster if detonated, according to Energoatom, Ukraine's state-operated nuclear company. To make the situation even more complex and dangerous, Russian occupiers of the plant made it almost impossible for plant emergency personnel to enter the engine rooms in the case of emergencies.

 

The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, across the Dnipro River from the Ukrainian town of Nikopol, is being used by occupying Russian forces to fire on Ukrainian towns and military positions.  Credit...David Guttenfelder for The New York Times

Against all logic, Russian troops use the plant as a base from which to pummel Ukrainian-held positions on the Dnipro river's west bank. The one-way fire represents the unaccountable recklessness of the Russian military banking on the Ukrainian military withholding return fire in the interests of avoiding a devastating disaster of dreadful proportions. An accidental strike of a nuclear reactor to be avoided at all costs. And in this instance the cost is an inability to strike back.

 

Flames can be seen after Russian shelling of the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine on March 4, 2022. (Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant via Storyful)

"We are ready to show how the Russian military is guarding the plant, and how Ukraine, which receives weapons from the West, uses those weapons including drones to attack the nuclear powerplant", stated Yevgeny Balitsky of the Zaporizhzhia region, defending the Russians against Ukrainian accusations of dangerous power plays, while refusing to accede to requests by the IAEA to enable them to inspect the facility..

Since the  plant's capture by the Russian military, plant workers have had little option but to maintain the facility despite terrifying conditions, utterly lacking technical support. Anti-personnel mines have been planted by the Russians around the shore of the reservoir used to cool the plant's six reactors. Ukraine has launched limited attacks near the plant on Russian targets.

In Nikopol, across the Dnieper river, hospitals maintain emergency supplies of iodine in the event radiation poisoning occurs as a result of an explosion at the nuclear plant. The town's residents fled, to escape the incessant shelling.

Israel and Iran are not Nuclear Bedfellows

"I have spoken directly with over 30 presidents, prime ministers and foreign ministers. I explained that there was no place to hold a discussion of this kind as long as the main problem in the Middle East is Iran’s efforts to arm itself with nuclear weapons and its clear declarations regarding its intention to destroy the State of Israel. I welcome the fact that the gap in Israel’s favor was significantly larger than the votes in previous years. I thank all those countries that supported Israel, especially the US, Australia and Canada. I thank the EU for voting as a single bloc in favor of Israel against the decision."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

The IAEA General Assembly voted 61-43 this week, against forcing inspections of Israel’s nuclear reactor in Dimona. Egypt had submitted a proposal to the IAEA General Assembly that Israel be forced to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency inspection of its nuclear facilities. That proposal was supported by Iran, Syria, Iraq and Libya, for the IAEA's 59th General Conference.

Clearly, though Israel has never publicly admitted to its nuclear weapons, it is widely acknowledged that the ambiguity surrounding them represents a strategic defense policy.

Given the unambiguous nature of the hostility with which Israel is viewed throughout the Middle East, a country that has had numerous wars inflicted upon it by the collective Arab nations surrounding it, this move represented nothing but a political ploy, and a fairly transparent one at that. Countries like Egypt, Syria, Iran, Libya and Iraq are repressive tyrannies and failed nations. 

 

Obviously this move was associated with the Iranian nuclear deal; the suspicion with which the West holds Iran's nuclear file is not reflective of how Israel's facilities are considered.

 

The head of Israel's Atomic Energy Agency gave due notice to the IAEA General Assembly that attempting to force such inspections would have a deleterious effect: "If the resolution passes, it will only hurt the credibility of the IAEA by politicizing the organization and reducing its valuable resources. This debate has been forced upon the economic committee year after year and most of the member states have understood this after voting down these proposals three times in recent years", emphasized Ze'ev Snir, head of Israel's AEA.

 

There are occasions, even within the United Nations and its various arms when reason does occasionally prevail.

The Flaw In The IAEA/Iran Agreement

"Why not make this public so we can see whether is this a good agreement or not? Put the facts on the table and then we can have a better understanding of what takes place. I don’t see any reason for secrecy here."
"The key question is: will the IAEA be present during the sample-taking or not? It looks to me that they might be witnessing the sample-taking through some camera view, or from a distance. If that’s really the case I have a lot of reservations about the reasonability and credibility of the arrangements."
"You need to know what you sample, how you sample, and if the sample is representative of the object you sample. You need to be present and see physically the place. Therefore, for the IAEA to do a credible job they need to get to that chamber and take independently their samples."
"This is not only just to take swipe samples and then that thing gets resolved. This is [a] much more wider thing the IAEA wants to investigate. Therefore, again, the camera view is not [satisfactory] for that."
"I don’t think you can establish through the camera if that has been done. On the spot, you can see some places where [such alterations meant to hide nuclear activity] has been done in a imperfect way. These are the places you want to sample. You can’t see this from a camera. You have to look at things from various angles. Therefore it’s essential to be physically present."
Ollie Heinonen, one-time deputy director-general, International Atomic Energy Agency

Iranian nuclear negotiator Javad Vaeedi and then-deputy Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency Olli Heinonen, after talks in Tehran, July 12, 2007. (photo credit: AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)

According to a leaked draft of the agreement on Iran's nuclear program, reached through lengthy negotiation between the permanent members of the UN Security Council, China, Russia, United States, France, Britain, plus Germany and with European Union input, there is no clarification over how inspections, particularly at the disputed-approach military site at Parchin, inspections will be conducted. 

Much hinges on how that data is received through inspections meant to provide definitive information on Iran's nuclear activity. Ollie Heinonen, in an interview, expressed grave doubts over the workability and trustworthiness of the possibility that Iran may insist on providing the IAEA with photographs, videos and environmental samples. In other words, that the IAEA and the P5+1 would agree to accepting that Iran, which has in the past used deception and is famously skilled in deceit, would provide its own data and samples, not an outside, neutral agency.

 

It’s difficult to assess changes that might have been done to such a questionable and hidden facility — such as the installation of false walls or efforts to hide or sanitize equipment — efforts to evade notice which the Islamic Republic of Iran is particularly skilled at, by merely looking at photographic or video material provided by them as proof of what they assert to be true.

Article five of the Safeguards Agreement between the IAEA and Iran addresses the requirement for confidentiality of proprietorial data, of commercially sensitive matters, and of safety and security-related issues, but should the AP report be correct and any Parchin investigation restricted to the provision of footage to IAEA inspectors by Iran: "There’s no need to keep secrecy around this approach. There’s no safety-related information that is compromised if this procedure is made public."

 

As someone integrally involved in IAEA inspections for close to three decades, and a man who headed the Department of Safeguards for the agency, Mr. Heinonen emphasized that the taking of samples at a site suspected of having hosted illicit nuclear activity is not simple. The IAEA's Parchin mission is not meant only to take environmental samples, but it is crucial to carefully examine the diagnostic equipment and technical arrangements on site. To do this, the IAEA must have a physical presence, right there, and right then.

Sketch of a large-explosives containment vessel believed to have been situated inside Iran’s Parchin military site, in which hydrodynamic experiments can be conducted. (photo credit: AP)

 

There are various ways in which the surfaces of equipment at Parchin could be surreptitiously altered: the Iranians could add layers of paint or lacquer, scrape them, or both, said Mr. Heinonen . "One must welcome this global innovation and outside-the-box thinking", Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz said sarcastically at the time. "One can only wonder if the Iranian inspectors will also have to wait 24 days before being able to visit the site and look for incriminating evidence?"

2004 satellite image of the military complex at Parchin, Iran. (AP/DigitalGlobe-Institute for Science and International Security)

Any of the 35 states on the International Atomic Agency’s board of governors can demand of the  secretariat that it disclose the secret agreements should they feel it would aid their understanding of any particular verification process. Canada has done just that on a number of occasions. Israel,  a member of the IAEA since its founding in 1957, has been adamant in demanding all secret side agreements with Iran be released.

"In order for there to be a truly informed discussion of the deal with Iran it is crucial that all relevant documents be opened to scrutiny", insisted a senior Israeli official.The six world powers who negotiated the deal — the US, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany — are currently on the IAEA board, along with Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, known to be not so pleased with the agreement with Iran.

"It’s up to the member states. They are in the driving seat here. If they are happy with [the current arrangements], then fine. But one should exercise good judgment how to proceed with that", emphasized Mr. Heinonen in the interview. However, should the IAEA agree to the current arrangements and inspect Parchin at a remove via video cameras, reversal of the procedure would be difficult to obtain.

"It would be very difficult to make another mission there after you’ve already agreed on certain technical arrangements. This is the time to do a proper job", he stated unequivocally.

Inspections? Verification? No Problem!

"International inspections should be done by international inspectors. Period. The standard of 'anywhere, anytime' inspections -- so critical to a viable agreement -- has dropped to 'when Iran wants, where Iran wants, on Iran's terms'."
Rep. Ed Royce, chairman, U.S. House foreign affairs committee

"Trusting Iran to inspect its own nuclear site and report to the United Nations in an open and transparent way is remarkably naive and incredibly reckless."
"This revelation [secret agreement between the IAEA and Tehran] only reinforces the deep-seated concerns the American people have about the agreement."
John Cornyn, 2nd-ranking Republican senator

"[The Obama administration is] confident in the agency's technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran's former program."
"The IAEA has separately developed the most robust inspection regime ever peacefully negotiated."
Ned Price, White House National Security Council spokesman

"I am disturbed by statements suggesting that the IAEA has given responsibility for nuclear inspections to Iran."
"Such statements misrepresent the way in which we will undertake this important verification work."
International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Yukiya Amano

"One must welcome this global innovation and outside-the-box thinking. One can only wonder if the Iranian inspectors will also have to wait 24 days before being able to visit the site and look for incriminating evidence?"
Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz

A view of Iran’s controversial heavy water production facility in Arak, south of the Iranian capital of Tehran. in 2004. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Surely this isn't the same IAEA which has formerly cited evidence from satellite images of what looks impressively like Iranian efforts to cleanse the Parchin military site of evidence that nuclear high-explosive detonators were experimented with in a specially-built concrete enclosure meant to absorb the impacts?

This cannot possibly be the same agency  to whom Iran has steadfastly refused access for years, despite the insistence of the IAEA that it cannot effectively perform its work without direct access to the military site? The very site where intelligence by U.S., Israeli, other nations and the agency's own research leads to the belief that nuclear experiments have taken place there?

In which case we are discussing a reclusive scientific community -- in a country known to support terrorism, engaged in wreaking havoc in other countries and planning attacks on other nations, one famous for its bombastic threats -- working surreptitiously to avoid detection while building a nuclear installation in the side of a mountain outside the holy city of Qom, undetected.

A country whom members of its own political opposition disclosed to the world was engaging in unlawful nuclear research, madly spinning advanced centrifuges to achieve a high degree of nuclear enrichment, oh not for malign purposes, but for the production of benign medical isotopes. A country which sought to hide from outside scrutiny its true agenda, but whose pride in unveiling more powerful ballistic missiles lacking only nuclear warheads shouted at realities.

A country which has delighted in its penchant for obfuscation and taqqa, its skill in diplomatically leading inspectors and international critics astray while using any subterfuge available to it to continue its nuclear research undaunted by alarm expressed by the international community. A country which found common cause with another outlier in nuclear research, where it could learn from North Korea's feints and dodges.

The fact that the United States, China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany signed an agreement with Tehran which effectively capitulates to its insistence that it has the right to develop nuclear 'power' for domestic purposes when its true purpose is well known, and which the agreement caters to, is in and of itself sufficiently alarming. Additional compromises to Iran's intransigence rather ices that cake.

Endorsed by the world powers of the Security Council and Germany, the Parchin agreement secures Iran's defiance of UN demands that all nuclear facilities be open to inspection. Grand Ayatollah Khamenei's adamant refusal has been rubber-stamped by those who have the authority and the means to halt the Islamic Republic of Iran's nuclear agenda, but haven't the will to do so.

Gambling on a future that will see other Middle East powers acquiring nuclear weapons.

And with that, the spectre of violently bloodthirsty barbarians like Islamic State, terrorist groups like Hezbollah and Hamas and Islamic Jihad acquiring nuclear arms of their own. Nothing is sacrosanct, no human life, no heritage, no culture, no religion beyond Islam to jihadists awaiting the appearance of the Mahdi to hasten Armageddon and the raising of the faithful to Paradise.

The rubbish assurances of the Obama administration of 'robust inspections peacefully negotiated' affirms what Iran believes of its destiny. Permitting Tehran to use its own experts and equipment to search its own nuclear installations for evidence of sanctioned actions which it denies it has ever planned in the development of nuclear weapons, transcends lunacy.

This is not 'trust', it is complete and utter dementia on a massive scale. A country that denies claims of nuclear aspirations but enriches uranium to the point where a bomb is feasible, all the while refusing to permit entry to its military facilities, underhandedly continuing its agenda while claiming otherwise, is to police itself and report any possible infractions.

Olli Heinonen, in charge of the Iran probe as the deputy director general in 2050-10 of the IAEA, professes to being unable to identify anything remotely similar as a concession to any other country at any other time. IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano claims he is obligated to keep the document signed with Tehran confidential. No secret side deal that favours Tehran is involved, claims the White House.

Trust them.

Hassan Rouhani. (photo credit:REUTERS)

 Reading The Tea Leaves

"We're hearing the echoes of some of the same policies and mindsets that failed us in the past. [There is] a lot of shaky information out there [about the deal with Iran]."
"The same politicians and pundits that are so quick to reject the possibility of a diplomatic solution to Iran's nuclear program are the same folks who were so quick to go to war in Iraq and said it would only take a few months."
"[My administration has] done the hard and patient work of uniting the international community to meet a common threat. Instead of chest-beating that rejects the idea of talking to our adversaries, which sometimes sounds good in sound bites but accomplishes nothing, we're seeing that strong, principled diplomacy can give hope of actually resolving a problem peacefully, instead of rushing into another conflict."
U.S. President Barack Obama

President Obama is fairly cavalier about the realities relating to the Islamic Republic of Iran. It's not that he isn't aware that the country sponsors terrorism abroad and funds proxy militias which it can call upon to do its bidding. Iran's al-Quds section of the Republican Guards Corps. was responsible for the creation of Hezbollah in Lebanon, convincing the Lebanese Shiites that a martyrdom devotion to Islam merited their dedication.

Hezbollah exists primarily as a vehicle whereby the Republic of Iran can at what it deems the right time, instruct the terrorist group to advance an attack against Israel. With the relaxation of sanctions and the re-funding of its economy, Iran will now be enabled once again to spread its financial largess and the purveying of technically advanced rocketry to beef up Hezbollah's munitions stock. The Shiite group's actions in Syria, bolstering the al-Assad regime's hold in power represents Iran's interest. Iraq and Yemen are falling into place.

President Obama has failed miserably in his administration's choices on the international stage. From Libya to Yemen, Syria to Egypt, Israel to Saudi Arabia he has indeed foisted on the Middle East and the Muslim world a new tradition in relations between it and the United States. As he promised when he addressed the Muslim world in Egypt, as the new administration began. While he righteously fulminates against the administration that preceded his own, he has not succeeded in steering the United States and its relations with traditional allies in a manner to gain their confidence and respect.

He can boast to his heart's content and anticipate a legacy that will gain him imagined admiration and a place in history, living up to the expectation inherent in his Nobel Peace prize, but his decisions and his judgements have done nothing to advance world peace, let alone peace in the Middle East and North Africa. America's might and its legacy as the world's sheriff has, in fact, been undermined by Mr. Obama's mistaken views. Acrimonious criticism offends this man.

His continued and arbitrary back-pedalling on already-stated and firm red lines in favour of second thoughts and diplomacy have done nothing to garner him the trust of those who depend on the intervention when obviously required of the United States. He has actually made the United States look weak and untrustworthy. His actions are interpreted in the Arab world of jihad and Islamist tribal violence as the work of a cowardly weakling.

"It is clear that a facility of sizable scale cannot simply be erased in three weeks’ time without leaving traces [the issue of the 24-day advance notice of IAEA inspection]. The likelier risk is that the Iranians would pursue smaller-scale but still important nuclear work, such as manufacturing uranium components for a nuclear weapon]" Ollie Heinonen, formerly deputy director of the IAEA said in an interview. He also said there had been cases in which Iran had  hidden evidence of illicit nuclear work involving nuclear enrichment.

He gave as an example the experience of the IAEA when it attempted to inspect the Kalaye Electric Company site in Iran in 2003 to check whether the Iranians were using centrifuges that they had obtained from Pakistan. At that time the Iranians kept inspectors waiting for weeks while they removed equipment and renovated the building where the centrifuges in question had been kept.

"Certain parts of the installation were renovated, leaving no trace of enrichment activities that had taken place", he stated. "Non-renovated parts had uranium in the 2003 contamination, which raised concerns". Mr. Heinonen said Iran would be better prepared to remove evidence of illicit activities should they decide to dishonour the accord. "There will likely be plans to be executed promptly to avoid getting caught."

Voices like his were like a gentle breeze blowing past President Obama's notice.

Proposed Deal with Iran Not Legal; Iranian Nukes in South America by Peter Huessy March 23, 2015 at 5:00 am http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/5430/iran-nuclear-deal-npt The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbids any of it signatories to have nuclear weapons. Full stop. Under the terms of the NPT, the P5+1 have no legal authority to amend the treaty unilaterally, to abrogate the treaty, or to allow nations that are signatories to the NPT to abrogate the treaty. Since when can the UN Security Council amend U.S. treaty law? The UN can certainly propose amendments, but it cannot approve such changes on behalf of the U.S. Congress and the American people. If Iran is allowed nuclear weapons capability, other nations -- especially throughout South America, already infiltrated by Iran -- will doubtless follow suit. In Iran, would this agreement have the force of law, or would the Supreme Leader -- who just this week said, "Death to America" -- be allowed to change its terms unilaterally? And what would be the consequences to him if he did? Senate critics of the pending deal seem opposed to an agreement that comes with a note saying, "Trust us," as an adequate substitute for the Senate scrutiny such a deal would require. On the date the agreement would "sunset," or expire, Iran could return to being an ordinary member of the NPT again, despite its centrifuges, despite its terrorism and missiles. It will then be free to enrich uranium to its heart's content -- a "right" that is not in the NPT. Iran also happens to be the country with which North Korea most cooperates on ballistic missile development. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbids any of its signatories to have nuclear weapons. Full stop. The P5+1 have been attempting to amend the NPT without going through the process established by the NPT itself -- and attempting to do this for just one of its 190 signatories: Iran. Under the terms of the NPT, the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, plus Germany) have no legal authority to amend the treaty unilaterally, to abrogate the treaty, or to allow nations that are signatories to the NPT to abrogate the treaty. The NPT can only be changed through a review conference of all parties. All changes agreed to after that must be consented to by the signatory nations, according to their own legal requirements. The rules, therefore, ever since the U.S. Senate consented to the treaty in 1969, are that the Senate would have to approve any change to the treaty. Otherwise, any nation that is a signatory to the NPT could say that it is no longer bound by the terms of the agreement and decide to have their own nuclear weapons capability --- as many have already stated they would do, starting with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates. If Iran is allowed by the P5+1 to violate the NPT, not only will it have nuclear weapons capability with impunity, but also lifted sanctions, and a strong economy that will enable it go on expanding its reach, while remaining the world's largest promoter of terrorism. As there already is an internationally agreed-upon law totally forbidding Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons -- even if Iran were fully to cooperate -- which, considering its proven track-record, is doubtful -- why does anyone need yet another agreement to stop Tehran's nuclear program? Why is the international community not simply enforcing the current NPT? Iran has already violated so many provisions of the NPT that the UN Security Council and the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) imposed a second protocol requirement on Tehran, to ensure that it abides by the 1970 treaty. The second protocol was also intended to ensure that, in the event of violations, major economic sanctions were imposed Iran by key members of the international community, including and most importantly the United States. Iran has not abided by the second protocol of the NPT, either. Iran continues to spin its centrifuges and enrich uranium, while demanding that all sanctions immediately be ended. Instead of simply requiring Iran to live up to its obligations under the NPT -- signed and ratified by Tehran in 1968 and 1970, respectively -- the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany are trying to give Iran a special deal. How special? Well, the P5+1 have proposed unilaterally to amend the NPT -- just for Iran, no other nation. If Iran is allowed nuclear weapons capability, other nations -- including in South America, already infiltrated by Iran -- will doubtless follow suit. The P5+1 would allow Iran, while still a member of the NPT, permanently to enrich uranium and produce plutonium in return for agreeing for some number of years (possibly ten), not to enrich "too much." There is, however, no "right to enrich" at all under the NPT or any other law, contrary to some misinformed "conventional wisdom." There are nearly two dozen countries that produce nuclear energy, which do not enrich uranium. Others that do are under IAEA safeguard agreements that do not allow -- in theory and mostly in practice -- the diversion of such fuel to highly enriched weapons-grade uranium. The original NPT allows for that, if you follow the rules. Iran has not. Highly enriched uranium is not needed for peaceful purposes. So this new deal is not needed to provide Iran with nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. Iran is therefore asking for special status in the nuclear bomb business, regulated by the NPT. Iran is asking that it be allowed to maintain thousands of centrifuges that enrich uranium. It is also demanding to be allowed nuclear reactors that produce plutonium, which can also make nuclear weapons. In addition, Iran is demanding that there be no restrictions on its ballistic missiles. Its arsenal is already the largest in the Middle East. According to the Director of National Intelligence, Iran has rockets that can reach all of the Middle East and much of Europe, and is moving in the direction of having an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability, as early as this year, to strike other continents, presumably including the U.S. Iran is further demanding that there be no restrictions on its state sponsorship of terror, which includes its support, financing and arming of terror groups such as Hamas, Al Qaeda and Hezbollah. Tehran also apparently will be given a pass on its complicity in attacks against Americans in Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan, as well as the terror attacks at Khobar Towers, the African embassies and the World Trade Center in 2001, (as outlined by the 9-11 Commission Report). Despite demands by the UN Security Council that Iran provide UN inspectors with access to facilities that members of the IAEA believe are or were used for nuclear weapons work, Iran has refused to comply. Some of these facilities have meanwhile been razed to the ground by Tehran, thereby eliminating what evidence might have been available for inspection. In 2009, the Manhattan district attorney indicted a Chinese company -- for the second time -- for providing the top Iranian military commission in Iran with nuclear weapons technology components, now likely buried under tons of Iranian dirt and sand. In light of this sad history, it is understandable that any agreement with Iran should, in the eyes of Congress, have the solid concurrence of the House and Senate; and if not a legal agreement requiring a simple majority vote, then a treaty requiring the concurrence of two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. But as Secretary of State John Kerry has testified to Congress, the contemplated agreement with Iran would not be a treaty and would not have the force of law. It would be akin to an executive agreement, although the U.S. State Department spokesperson said that, at some time down the road, while the agreement in still in place, Congress might be asked to remove the congressionally-imposed sanctions against Iran. U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during nuclear talks in Vienna, Austria, July 14, 2014. (Image source: U.S. State Department) In other words, if the potential agreement is neither law nor treaty, subsequent congressional action will be required for an executive agreement to which the Congress has not agreed in the first place. There are also five other significant issues. The deal would seek to amend the NPT unilaterally by the agreement of only seven of the 190 member nations of the NPT. Others have not given their consent. Such a change would also be in direct violation of the current provisions of international law, which lay out a well-defined path for any changes to the NPT. Given that the NPT is a treaty to which the Senate consented in 1970, the NPT can only be amended by Senate concurrence in any such changes. If the agreement with Iran is not law insofar as the U.S. obligations go, what about those of the government in Tehran? In Iran, would this agreement have the force of law, or would the Supreme Leader, who this week said "Death to America," be allowed to change its terms unilaterally? And what would be the consequences to him if he did? If the agreement is not law, this means, insofar as the U.S. constitutional system is concerned, that any future President need not abide by its terms, and certainly any future Congress is not bound by its terms. If the administration is seeking UN Security Council approval of the agreement, but not Senate approval, it is seeking to violate the U.S. Constitution, which has primacy over all laws, including international treaties. Since when can the UN Security Council amend U.S. treaty law? The UN can certainly propose amendments, but it cannot approve such changes on behalf of the U.S. Congress and the American people. Forty-seven U.S. Senators put many of these same points in a March 2015 letter, which they sent to the rulers of Iran. This was met with thunderous condemnation by the Obama Administration. The letter indicated that the Senate signers obviously did not trust the Administration to abide by the terms of the Executive's agreement. Unfortunately, the Administration complaint has things backwards. The Senators who signed the letter are worried that any agreement with Iran that is not required to secure Senate or House concurrence, will be, by its very nature, weak and filled with concessions to Tehran that could be harmful to U.S. national security. Implicit in the letter is the concern that any agreement between just the Iranian regime and the U.S. Administration will not have sufficient safeguards. Considering the experience of the U.S. with North Korea, what would be safeguards tough enough to assure Iran's compliance? The negotiators, for instance, might be concerned that any realistic safeguards acceptable to the Senate might not be acceptable to the mullahs in Iran -- making approval by the Senate unlikely. The Senators who signed the letter certainly trust that the Administration will, in fact, abide by America's obligations in a new agreement. To them, that is the problem: if the agreement is terrible, the U.S. should not be forced to abide by it. Requiring Senate concurrence would obligate the provisions of a new agreement to stand the sunlight of a tough examination during a Senate debate. The Senate critics of the pending deal with Iran simply do not share the belief of the Obama administration that Iran can become a "partner for peace" with the U.S. They seem, understandably, opposed to an agreement that comes with a note saying, "Trust us," as an adequate substitute for the Senate scrutiny such a deal should require. One important safeguard not in the agreement, for example, according to the Secretary of State, is that the agreement will "sunset" (expire) after a number of years. And on that date, Iran could return to being an ordinary member of the NPT again, despite its centrifuges, its terrorism and its ballistic missiles. It would then be free to enrich uranium to its heart's content -- a "right" that is not in the NPT. Then Tehran, unfettered by second protocols, sanctions, or enhanced inspections, can decide either 1) publicly to throw away the confines of the original NPT and break out toward nuclear weapons; or 2) surreptitiously to sprint to the development of nuclear weapons under the cover of the NPT. Supporters of the Administration's position say: Don't worry; down the road a decade or so, the government of Iran will have changed. How likely is that? North Korea, which joined the NPT in 1985, actually signed a nuclear agreement with the U.S. After the IAEA in 1992 found suspicious discrepancies in its nuclear fuel production, North Korea agreed, in an October 1994 "Agreed Framework," not to produce nuclear weapons. In 1998, North Korea launched a long-range missile that had the capability, if further developed, of carrying a 2000-pound warhead to Hawaii and Alaska. In 2002, North Korea admitted to cheating on the Agreed Framework, and to producing enriched uranium at a secret centrifuge facility. In 2003, North Korea withdrew from the NPT. In 2006, North Korea exploded a nuclear weapon. In 2007, North Korea actually signed a new "agreement" with the United States, to denuclearize the Korean peninsula and end its nuclear weapons program. North Korea, however, never implemented that agreement. North Korea subsequently complained that the U.S. requirement for a "permanent" end to a North Korean nuclear weapons program was unfair. So did many in the American arms control community. They criticized the George W. Bush Administration for pushing an agreement that was "too tough." In 2009 and 2013, North Korea exploded more nuclear bombs. Today, intelligence estimates indicate that North Korea has 10 nuclear warheads, as well as ballistic missiles that can, with a small nuclear payload, easily strike the West Coast of the United States. In 2014, North Korea launched into orbit a small mock satellite that passed over New York and Washington, D.C. The Director of National Intelligence says that this space-launch capability gives North Korea a pathway to develop an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capability. Iran also just so happens to be the country with which North Korea most cooperates on ballistic missile development. During the nuclear bomb tests by North Korea, satellite photographs showed members of the Iranian military, including the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, visiting the North Korean nuclear test site. And in Washington, the Senate's letter is considered the problem?

It's Called Capitulation

"Today’s meeting was useful and facilitated a better understanding between the two sides."
"The discussions focused on the need to resolve, as soon as possible, all outstanding issues related to Iran’s nuclear program."
International Atomic Energy Agency

Parchin military installation, Iran

Outstanding issues? That would of necessity include the outstanding issues dating from November of 2011 where twelve sets of questions about Iran's past work were to have been resolved, and simply have not been. Promising two weeks later to step up cooperation with the IAEA, Iran has managed to partially tackle but one of those issues. Talks surrounding them have made no progress since last summer when Iran managed to miss a deadline to provide fresh information on two of the issues.

Details, boring details. Setting aside those details which may be of immense importance of disclosure aiding the world to understand just what it is that Iran is aiming for, and which the Islamic Republic is determined to avoid having that clarity proceed with, it would seem now that its recalcitrance has paid off rather handsomely. Stalling techniques and diplomatic overtures to demonstrate its earnestness in attempting to satisfy its unreasonable critics have had their result.

Numerous reports now suggest that the obstacles remaining to the completion of a deal have been narrowed. Get that? Refusal to cooperate in the guise of wanting to, but not quite understanding the efforts required to get there have caused a narrowing of the gap between what Iran intends and what the international community feels is required to put a stopper in the bottle of the nuclear genie's escape.

The resulting deal is seen by some as representing one of the most important international agreements to cloud the future, of the past half-century. Some believe the result will guarantee that Iran will be forced to surrender its nuclear weapons-state dream, while others insist it will lead to a nuclear-armed Iran; perhaps not immediately but in the medium to longer term; guaranteed.

If any side to the negotiations has faltered in original intent, it has certainly not been Iran. The United States, on the other hand had an unambiguous goal, to eliminate Iran's potential of producing a nuclear weapon, and in the process roll back those key elements of its program that would enable it to succeed. A second goal was to have a verification regime installed to ensure Iranian compliance.

In each of these areas, Iranian overtures and successful efforts at finessing doubts of its sincerity have resulted in American back-tracking, giving the benefit of the doubt to Iran, a country which has expressly threatened the safety and security of other countries, a country which has distinguished itself as a supporter of terrorist groups, a country which has excelled in the past at gulling its adversaries.

But the U.S. has made critical concessions in the areas it had initially said were non-negotiable; the elimination of Iran's ability to enrich uranium whose potential for weaponization has defaulted to the American administration now preparing to accept an infrastructure of thousands of Iranian centrifuges; because Iran has resisted putting them to rest. The revised goal now is to monitor and limit the industrial base to prevent Iran's production of material for a warhead in under a year.

Such a deal would leave Iran a threshold nuclear state, giving the international community time to respond should Tehran proceed with weaponization. So who actually is in charge here? Looks like Iran is guiding the United States in the direction it wants, not the reverse. Iran has insisted on a five to seven year period where the agreement would remain in force, freeing Iran up afterward for expansion of its production of potential bomb materials.

As for the 2003 signing of the Additional Protocol granting the IAEA authority to undertake more intrusive inspections of Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty member states, Iran somehow overlooked ratifying it. And stopped its adherence to the protocol in 2006. Since then it has refused to revisit its position, continuing to resist IAEA access to military installations, such as the Parchin facility where the IAEA suspects nuclear weapons research has taken place; the site of a massive explosion last fall.

Iran's international relations, its actions in Iraq, Syria and Yemen gave a fairly good picture going forward into the future of a country with alarming aspirations. Alarming at the very least in Jerusalem, Riyadh and Amman for what those aspirations portend for their very own futures. But then, the United States, China, Russia, Germany, France and Britain are not next-door neighbours to Iran.

Their reaction time to a nuclear breakout won't concern them as much as it does Israel, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, needless to say.