IAN BREMMER: Playing the Iran wild card
Perhaps Iranian officials fear confrontation with the West, or perhaps they’re simply playing for time as they edge closer to nuclear capability
Late in February, as part of its monitoring of Iran’s nuclear programme, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported trace amounts of uranium at 84% enrichment. That’s important, because 90% enrichment is required to produce a nuclear weapon. On February 28, a senior US defence Department official warned that “Iran's nuclear progress since we left the JCPOA has been remarkable. Back in 2018, when the [Trump] administration decided to leave the JCPOA, it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb's worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days.”
Talks continue over whether Iran, the US, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and China will resume negotiations over a return to the Iran nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA. For now, however, Iran seems more interested in creating new “facts on the ground” that must be considered as part of any restoration of the nuclear deal. ..
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