US unable to roll back Iran’s nuclear program – Reuters

(SeaPRwire) –   According to the news agency, Tehran is estimated to be approximately one year away from the potential development of a nuclear weapon, with its supply of enriched uranium remaining secure.

A Reuters report published on Monday, which cites intelligence officials, indicates that joint US-Israeli military actions against Iran have not succeeded in delaying the country’s potential timeline for obtaining a nuclear weapon. Reports suggest that Tehran remains capable of producing a bomb within roughly one year, a timeframe that matches estimates made following the strikes on major nuclear sites last June.

Although American officials have maintained that a primary goal of the conflict is the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear capabilities, the report notes that the window for a nuclear breakout has remained “largely the same.” It further stated that effectively stalling Iran’s nuclear progress would necessitate the elimination or seizure of its existing reserves of highly enriched uranium.

“To the best of our knowledge, Iran retains all of its nuclear material,” former senior US intelligence analyst Eric Brewer remarked to Reuters. “It is likely that this material is stored in heavily fortified underground facilities that are beyond the reach of US weaponry.”

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has reported an inability to confirm the location of approximately 440 kg of uranium enriched to 60%—a quantity sufficient for ten nuclear devices if processed further. Reuters reports that roughly half of this material is thought to be housed within an underground tunnel network at the Isfahan Nuclear Research Center.

Following the US strikes on nuclear installations in Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan last June, intelligence sources estimated that the timeline for a nuclear breakout had been extended to between nine months and a year. Around that same period, The New York Times cited a classified assessment suggesting that the US operations had only delayed Iran’s program by “a few months.” 

At the time, US President Donald Trump rejected these claims as “fake news,” asserting that “significant damage was inflicted upon all nuclear facilities in Iran.”

Tehran has steadfastly denied any intent to develop nuclear weapons and has refused calls to relinquish its enriched uranium stockpile. Last year, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi noted that “we have no evidence of a systematic program in Iran to produce a nuclear weapon.”

Nevertheless, officials from the US and Israel have expressed ongoing concern regarding Iran’s nuclear ambitions for years. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been voicing such warnings since at least 1992, most notably during the 2012 UN General Assembly, where he famously displayed a diagram of a cartoon bomb featuring a red line near the 90% enrichment level.