After it was reported this week that Iran had more than 18 times the amount of enriched uranium it was allowed to have under the Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the Biden administration claimed Iran would need less than two weeks in order to finalize enrichment to produce the material needed for a nuclear bomb.
Calling Iran's nuclear progress "remarkable," Defense Under Secretary for Policy Colin Kahl told the House Armed Services Committee on Tuesday that "it would take about twelve days" for Iran "to produce one bomb's worth of fissile material."
Iran may produce fissile material for a bomb 'in about 12 days' - says US senior official @ColinKahl pic.twitter.com/5FyEvSpoEf
— Amichai Stein (@AmichaiStein1) February 28, 2023
Recent evaluations by the International Atomic Energy Agency found that Iran has managed to enrich some of its uranium stockpiles to 84 percent, just shy of the 90 percent enrichment needed for fissile material in a nuclear bomb.
Kahl, as with everyone else in the Biden administration, sought to place blame for Iran's nuclear progress on the Trump administration's decision to withdraw from the JCPOA — blame the mainstream media quickly repeated — but the 2015 nuclear deal was flawed and mostly served as a massive payday for the murderous regime.
What's more, the Biden administration has wasted years trying to negotiate a new deal with Iran, while Biden's own State Department has admitted Iran played the United States by using lengthy and unserious negotiations to continue ramping up its nuclear efforts as it feigned good faith efforts.
While President Biden and his administration were apparently content to continue pursuing diplomacy despite Iran using negotiations for its latest kabuki theater production, Israel is taking the threat more seriously and calling for international deterrents to Iran's nuclear ambitions. To that end, Israel's "Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Council chief Tzachi Hanegbi are set to fly out early next week to Washington for talks on progress made in Iran's nuclear program," the Jerusalem Post reports.
The situation is even more concerning given the deepening ties between Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea, and the fact that the United States' reaction to all this is being decided by Joe Biden — who has bungled multiple international incidents and hasn't shown himself able to present the United States as a powerful deterrent to bad actors on the world stage.