Iran’s nuclear threat out in open

The disclosure by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Iran is on the cusp of being able to build an atomic bomb sounds an alarm the international community must not ignore. Given the persistent delinquency of the terrorist-supporting ayatollahs’ regime, it is a fair bet Tehran’s claims that traces of uranium enriched to 83.7 per cent found by IAEA inspectors during a recent inspection were the result of “unintended fluctuations” in the enrichment process are far from the truth.

Uranium at almost 84 per cent is within a whisker of being at the weapons-grade level of 90 per cent. So, while the IAEA report refers only to particles of uranium having been found at Iran’s notorious underground Fordow nuclear site on January 21, it is no surprise that European diplomats, quoted by The Wall Street Journal, have spoken of an “unprecedented and extremely grave development”. Ahead of the discovery, experts at the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington warned Iran’s “breakout time” – the time needed to produce enough weapons-grade uranium – was effectively zero. They said it would take only a few weeks to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for up to five such warheads.

Barack Obama’s deeply flawed 2015 nuclear deal with Iran limited it to a uranium enrichment level of 3.67 per cent for 15 years – enough to fuel a nuclear power plant – and a stockpile of 300kg. Since Donald Trump’s withdrawal of the US from the deal in 2018, Iran has moved to uranium enriched to 60 per cent purity – ominously, a level for which non-proliferation experts say Tehran has no plausible civilian use.

It is imperative that the international community heeds the clear warning inherent in the discovery of the nearly weapons-grade traces. It must not fall naively for the deceitful explanation offered by Tehran that the traces were not the sinister sign they appeared to be. Allowing the Iranian regime to cross the nuclear threshold would be bad enough on its own. Doing so would present a dire threat to the world. That threat would be made even worse by the strong ties the ayatollahs now have with Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s monstrous regime, China’s oppressive communist dictatorship and the madcap regime in North Korea, all of which have nuclear weapons. Against that backdrop, the IAEA’s disclosure shows just how urgent the need is for global action to thwart Iran’s unrestrained nuclear ambitions.