Iran

Ever since the Biden Administration shifted Washington’s Iran policy from maximum pressure to total appeasement, the ruling mullahs’ nuclear advances have been remarkable.

The Iranian regime is rapidly forging ahead with uranium enrichment. Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), recently found uranium particles in Iran that were enriched up to 83.7%, just shy of the 90% needed for nuclear weapons. The enrichment has been taking place in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site. Before the Biden Administration, the regime was enriching uranium at 3.5%. This is a remarkable nuclear escalation in just two years.

So far, more than 1,000 schoolgirls in 15 cities have reported symptoms consistent with those experienced by victims of toxic gas attacks. Girls interviewed by the state media say that they were suddenly overcome by a smell “of rotten fruit or rotten eggs or a strong perfume” and could barely breathe. Some say they passed out and had to be dragged into the fresh air by their friends. Others say they felt dizzy and sick. Many girls were taken to hospital.

“U.S. support for demonstrations in Tel Aviv isn’t about the future of Israel’s judiciary. It’s about handcuffing Israel while Iran gets the bomb,” writes Lee Smith in Tablet Magazine.

This week, US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl announced, in a statement confirmed by the United Nations, that Iran has enriched uranium to nearly weapons-grade level at an underground nuclear site, and could produce “nuclear material for a bomb in about 12 days.”

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Burns tried to reassure the House of Representatives: “We don’t see evidence that they’ve made a decision to resume that weaponization program.”

This may very well be a prelude to the Iranian regime’s asking the US, “How much will you pay us not to go nuclear on the Biden Administration’s watch?’

The Biden administration is still attempting to revive the disastrous nuclear deal with Iran, which paved the way to lift the arms embargo on the country and helped the Iranian regime to currently become a major global arms exporter.

Among the many gifts that the Obama Administration offered to the Iranian regime was one setting October 18, 2020 as the date when the arms embargo on Iran would be removed, allowing the regime to export, import, buy and sell weapons legally, as it might wish. The arms embargo for Iran had been previously placed on it by the five members of the United Nations Security Council in 2007, during the Bush administration. The embargo encompassed a wide range of weapons, including large-caliber artillery, drones, combat aircraft, battle tanks, armored combat vehicles, attack helicopters, some missiles and missile launchers, and warships.

Iran has taken a major step towards acquiring a nuclear weapon, it emerged on Sunday, after Western diplomats revealed that it has enriched uranium to its highest levels so far, standing just short of the threshold for a bomb.

Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA] found enrichment levels of 84 per cent at Iran’s nuclear sites, the highest levels recorded so far and just six per cent shy of the threshold for acquiring a nuclear weapon.

… It also increases the risk of a major confrontation between Iran and Israel, its arch foe which regards the nuclear programme as an existential threat. Israel is suspected of carrying out a series of surgical strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in recent years to slow down the Iranian weapons programme.

The government of Iran marked the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on Saturday with demonstrations around the country.

The state-organized rallies differ markedly from the widespread protests that erupted after 22-year-old Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the controversial morality police last year.

Human rights organizations estimate thousands of Iranians have been arrested and several protesters have been executed, but smaller acts of rebellion continue, such as an increasing number of women choosing to ignore the country’s mandatory headscarf rule.