More War Drums?

by Jay Baker

 President Donald Trump kept one of his campaign promises and announced he was pulling out of the deal with Iran brokered by his predecessor.

“I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal,” Trump said in a White House press conference. He has long been critical of the deal because it contains a “sunset clause, a provision that allows key limitations on Iran’s use and development of new technologies for enrichment of uranium to end beginning in 2025, and because he believed it was insufficient to check Iran’s weapons development program.

But Iran has not had a nuclear weapons program for at least 15 years. As the Los Angeles Times reported in 2012:

U.S. intelligence agencies don’t believe Iran is actively trying to build an atomic bomb.
A highly classified U.S. intelligence assessment circulated to policymakers early last year largely affirms that view, originally made in 2007. Both reports, known as national intelligence estimates, conclude that Tehran halted efforts to develop and build a nuclear warhead in 2003.
The most recent report, which represents the consensus of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, indicates that Iran is pursuing research that could put it in a position to build a weapon, but that it has not sought to do so.

What’s more, Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That gives it a right to develop nuclear energy. But it also puts inspectors from the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency on the ground in Iran to keep tabs on the country’s nuclear activities.

As Pat Buchanan notes, Iran is making no demands on the U.S., its patrol boats have ceased harassing U.S. warships patrolling the Persian Gulf (as if they could cause a lot of damage with their navy), and their forces in Iraq and Syria (countries into which they were invited) do not interfere with U.S. operations against ISIS.
Buchanan writes:

Iran has never tested a nuclear device and never enriched uranium to weapons grade. Under the deal, Iran has surrendered 95 percent of its uranium, shut down most of its centrifuges and allowed cameras and inspectors into all of its nuclear facilities.
Why Iran is abiding by the deal is obvious. For Iran it is a great deal.

Having decided in 2003 not to build a bomb, Iran terminated its program. Then Tehran decided to negotiate with the U.S. for return of $100 billion in frozen assets from the Shah’s era — by proving they were not doing what every U.S. intelligence agency said they were not doing.

Should Iran rashly decide to go for a nuclear weapon, it would have to fire up centrifuges to enrich uranium to a level that they have never done, and then test a nuclear device, and then weaponize it.

A crash bomb program would be detected almost instantly and bring a U.S. ultimatum which, if defied, could bring airstrikes. Why would Trump risk losing the means to monitor Iran’s compliance with the deal?

Trump’s decision to pull from the deal is a bad one for Americans. It gives the U.S. less access to Iran’s nuclear intentions. It increases tensions in the area. And it sets the stage for a more expansive war in the region.

But Trump’s war cabinet must be rubbing their hands together with glee. They, and their neocon/globalist enablers, have been itching for war for almost 30 years, as Bob Livingston has told you before.

Posted by ΛΕΟΝΙΔΑΣ