Iran has dramatically increased its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium in recent months as it escalates its conflict with Israel, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Western officials are becoming increasingly worried that Iran could race to develop a nuclear weapon now that it has the fuel needed to do so, and it appears to have made significant advances in acquiring the knowledge needed, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The IAEA has indicated that it will censure Iran for expanding its stockpile of enriched uranium, to which Iran has responded by saying that it will take more steps to advance its nuclear weapons program.
David Albright, president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security, says that Iran has enough nuclear material to now produce up to 15 nuclear weapons.
Andrea Stricker, Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program Deputy Director and Research Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), told The Daily Wire that Iran’s actions were self-defeating.
“In a major own-goal, Iran kept expanding its ability to make fuel for multiple nuclear weapons despite Trump’s election,” Stricker said. “The days of America tolerating Tehran’s unchecked nuclear expansion are about to be over.”
Iran has repeatedly tried to assassinate Trump in recent months in retaliation for the death of Qasem Soleimani to prevent Trump from taking power again.
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After his election victory, Trump has stacked his cabinet with nominees who are hawks when it comes to dealing with U.S. adversaries, signaling that he will take a hardline approach against the Islamic regime.
The news comes after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed this week that Israel hit part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program in its retaliatory strike last month in response to Iran firing 180 ballistic missiles into the country.
“It’s not a secret. It was published,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament. “There is a specific component in their nuclear program that was hit.”
Multiple U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios that the strike against the facility in the Parchin military complex “significantly damaged Iran’s effort over the past year to resume nuclear weapons research,” the report said.
The strike destroyed advanced equipment that is needed to design sophisticated explosive materials that are required to detonate a nuclear device.
Satellite imagery shows that the facility, which was a previously-declared nuclear weapons facility decades ago, was completely destroyed in the strike.
U.S. and Israeli officials said that Iran was trying to conceal its nuclear weapons research at the facility by presenting it as research for civilian purposes.
The report said only a small number of officials in Iran’s Islamic government knew about what was going on at the facility.
A U.S. official told Axios that the strike was “a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government.”
