While Western Powers Push To Revive JCPOA, Iran Officials Explicitly Brag About Making Nuclear Bombs

 

Written by
Mahmoud Hakamian

Edmund Burke once said: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” As the world leaders seek to revive Iran’s nuclear deal and do not respond to Tehran’s provocative actions, the evil regime now boasts about “being close” to a nuclear bomb.

On July 18, Mohammad Javad Larijani, a top official close to the regime’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei, blatantly claimed: “If we want to build a nuclear bomb, no one can stop us. We do not have permission to pursue weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons, but if at some point we decide to do it naturally, no one can prevent us.”

On the same day, Kamal Kharazai, former Iranian foreign minister and Khamenei’s top foreign policy advisor, told Al-Jazeera Arabic, “It is no secret that we have the technical capabilities to manufacture a nuclear bomb, but we have no decision to do so.”

These acknowledgments coincide with Western powers’ incessant efforts to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). These talks have stalled in Vienna as the regime continues its bodacious demands, parallel with its nuclear extortion.

Once signed in 2015, the JCPOA was supposed to curb the Iranian regime’s illicit nuclear activities. Western powers made a lot of fanfare about prolonging the regime’s “breakout time” to a nuclear bomb. But when in 2018, Tehran began reversing the steps it had presumably taken in the context of the deal, showing it had never abided by the restrictions set by the agreement.

In 2019, Ali Akbar Salehi, then-head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said: “They [Western powers] thought that they won the negotiation.” ”But we had a countermeasure, and while we proceeded with the case, they didn’t achieve what they planned, and we did not become trapped in the enrichment deadlock.”

Iran’s cheating in nuclear deal & deceptive measures on cementing the Arak heavy water reactor
In subsequent years Tehran took other provocative actions, such as producing uranium metal and enriching uranium above 60% purity level. News indicate Tehran has been taking new actions, thus rocking the boat of Western democracies who had high hopes for JCPOA.

In another flamboyant action, Tehran shut down all cameras set by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at its nuclear sites and threatened to keep them off until the JCPOA is resorted.

On July 22, IAEA chief, Rafel Grossi, declared he had “very limited visibility” of Iran’s atomic program and how the regime’s nuclear program has become a puzzle for him. Yet, his comments were faced with the silence of Western powers, who, instead of putting pressure on the regime, tried all ways to restore the highly flawed deal by entering a cycle of futile negotiations with Tehran.

The Iranian regime has sensed weakness and proceeded with its nuclear extortion and hostage-taking diplomacy instead of cooperation. Tehran seized several oil tanks and other ships belonging to different countries, advanced its atomic activities, and continued taking foreign and dual nationals hostage.

Since Ebrahim Raisi became the regime’s president in 2021, Tehran stepped-up its nuclear defiance, with Raisi’s negotiators demanding what was not even included in the JCPOA, such as revoking the terrorist designation of the regime’s Revolutionary Guards (IRGC).

Iran’s ruling theocracy had invested in policies of the new administrations in the United States. In January 2022, the Spectator highlighted the U.S. failure to “extract any concession from Tehran,” even “a meaningful freeze on progress toward the bomb.”

“As soon as the starting-gun was fired, US negotiators amazed international partners by tabling a proposal that was so generous that the Iranians had to rub their eyes to believe it,” the Spectator wrote.

But, these proposals further emboldened Tehran, allowing it to ask for more. Of course, the U.S. never granted Tehran’s wish of delisting the IRGC, as the U.S. lawmakers and citizens, regardless of their political orientation, urged President Biden not to give Tehran such a souvenir. As a result, futile talks continued, with the last one ending in a few hours in Doha, Qatar, without any result.

Yet, the United States and its European allies are still pursuing dialogue with Iran’s ruling theocracy. This attitude prompted Tehran to call for more, as Larijani highlighted. “I believe that the slowing down in the JCPOA process will be quickly fixed,” he said, betting on the other side’s weak approach.

Lifting sanctions on Iran’s terrorist regime and providing it with a windfall of cash wouldn’t help the Iranian people and the country’s economic crunch. Iran’s financial calamity has its roots in the regime’s corruption, mismanagement, and ineptitude. When the first round of Iran protests erupted in 2018 due to high prices, the JCPOA was fully implemented, and Tehran had received $1.5 billion in cash, plus billions of dollars in terms of investment and credit.

So reviving the JCPOA will not prevent Iran’s economic freefall. In addition, the recent remarks by Kharazi and Larijani indicate the regime has tied its destiny with producing a nuclear bomb to find a way out and push the envelope to extract more concessions. But, acquiring a bomb wouldn’t save the regime from the anger of the Iranians, and Tehran could not control the restive society.

The world powers should know that giving any concession to the regime would only facilitate the process of acquiring a nuclear bomb and will further jeopardize the world’s peace and stability.

 

While Western Powers Push To Revive JCPOA, Iran Officials Explicitly Brag About Making Nuclear Bombs

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