JERUSALEM – The Islamic Republic of Iran retaliated this week against the Biden administration’s support for the United Nations watchdog’s mild condemnation of Iran’s covert and illegal nuclear weapons program.
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said on Monday that inspectors had confirmed that Iran had begun loading uranium into three cascades of advanced IR-4 and IR-6 centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment facility – a collection of centrifuges that spin uranium gas together to enrich uranium more quickly.
So far, Iran has enriched uranium in these cascades to 2% purity. Iran is already enriching uranium to 60%, within technical reach of weapons-grade levels of 90%.
Iran could build nuclear bomb in a week, report says amid rising Middle East tensions
President Joe Biden (right) and Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei (left) (Getty Images)
Avigdor Lieberman, a member of the Israeli parliament (Knesset) and former defense minister last week, told Israeli Army Radio on Tuesday that Iran is “planning a holocaust against us over the next two years.”
“Iran seeks to continue to expand its nuclear program in ways that have no credible peaceful purpose,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement about Iran’s moves.
“These planned actions further undermine Iran’s claims to the contrary. If Iran follows through on these plans, we will respond accordingly,” he said. Miller declined to say what action the U.S. government might take against Tehran’s rogue regime, which the State Department has designated as the world’s worst state sponsor of international terrorism.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense Democracies (FDD), strongly disagreed with the State Department’s position. He told Fox News Digital: “Washington has promised an “appropriate response,” but delays, failures, and Tehran’s absorption of previous nuclear efforts are what have led to this situation.
On April 28, 2024, Iran’s first nuclear power plant in Bushehr, Iran, will begin operation. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Taleblu added that “to reset any troubling impressions in the minds of Iranian policymakers about U.S. and Western resolve, Washington must aggressively enforce oil and petrochemical sanctions and militarily threaten what Iran holds dear in the region.”
Earlier this week, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital: “As we have made clear to the IAEA for many years, and again today, the United States has serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear program. Iran’s record speaks for itself, as does its failure to demonstrate to the IAEA and the world that its nuclear program is entirely peaceful.”
“The Iranian regime continues to grow its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which has no basis for civilian use, and we look forward to working with our council colleagues,” the spokesman added. [on]Sustainable, An effective solution would include, inter alia, Iran’s full cooperation with the IAEA. Looking ahead to October 2025, that will mark a turning point in the international community’s efforts to ensure that Iran’s plans remain peaceful.”
US uses ‘flawed’ definition to ignore Iranian nuclear weapons activities: expert
TEHRAN, IRAN – MAY 7: Iran’s medium-range ballistic missile Heybel (Hurremshah-4) is seen after being launched during a promotional program with the participation of senior military officials in Tehran, Iran on May 7, 2023. The Heybel liquid-fueled ballistic missile has a range of 2,000 kilometers and can carry a 1,500 kilogram warhead. (Photo by Iranian Ministry of Defense/Hanowdut/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) (Iranian Ministry of Defense/Hanodut/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
Asked by Fox News Digital whether the US would impose new sanctions on the Iranian regime, including cracking down on Tehran’s oil exports to China, a State Department spokesman said: “We continue to work with the E3.” [France, Germany and Great Britain] Consult with the international community on ways to increase pressure on Iran [a] “We are aggressively increasing pressure on Iran through a combination of sanctions, deterrence and international isolation to counter Iran’s destabilizing behavior and prevent it from acquiring a nuclear weapon. President Biden has made it clear that we will not allow this to happen. Any notion that we are retreating is false.”
Talebr, whose primary focus is the Iranian regime’s threat to international security, said, “Iran continues its hourglass strategy, expanding its nuclear program while limiting international oversight reporting on the installation and operation of more advanced centrifuges. The Iranian regime cannot ignore this. These machines provide a better means of enriching more uranium in less time.”
Technicians work inside a production unit at the uranium conversion facility outside the city of Isfahan, about 254 miles (410 km) south of Tehran, Iran’s capital, on March 30, 2005. The cities of Isfahan and Natanz in central Iran are the centers of Iran’s nuclear program. The Isfahan facility produces hexafluoride gas, which is then fed into centrifuges at the Natanz facility in Iran for enrichment. Iranian President Mohammad Khatami and Gholamreza Aghazadeh, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, toured the facility. (Photo by Getty Images) (Getty Images)
Iran also plans to install 18 IR-2m centrifuge cascades at Natanz and eight IR-6 centrifuge cascades at the Ford nuclear facility, both of which enrich uranium faster than Iran’s benchmark IR-1 centrifuges, which remain the workhorse of Iran’s atomic program.
Ali Shamkhani, the former chief security officer of the Iranian theocratic state who still advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, wrote on X that Tehran would “not bow to pressure” but remained committed to its nuclear security.
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FILE – Footage from Iranian state broadcaster IRIB on June 6, 2018. A live broadcast from Iran’s uranium enrichment plant in Natanz, Iran, showcases three types of domestically manufactured centrifuges. After President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from Iran’s nuclear deal with world powers, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is reportedly set to announce how Iran will respond to U.S. pressure. Iranian media reports that Rouhani will deliver a national address as early as Wednesday, May 8, 2019, outlining the steps the country will take. (IRIB via The Associated Press, File)
“The United States and some Western countries would dismantle Iran’s nuclear industry if possible,” Shamkhani wrote.
The country has been pursuing nuclear enrichment just below weapons-grade levels since the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal Iran struck with the world’s world powers following the unilateral U.S. withdrawal in 2018. The Trump administration withdrew from the deal in 2018, arguing that the accord had enabled Iran to build a nuclear weapon. Fox News Digital revealed last year that the Iranian regime continues to build an atomic bomb.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
