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A U.S. President, beset by the Epstein story that refuses to lie down and die, and under pressure from domestic hawks because of a visibly collapsing Ukraine, has been letting off a blunderbuss of geo-political threats across the board: Firstly, and principally, at Russia; but secondly at Iran:
"Iran is so nasty, they're so nasty in their statements. They got hit. We cannot allow them to have nuclear weapons. They are still talking about uranium enrichment. Who talks like that? It's so stupid. We will not allow it."
Escalation with Russia is clearly on the cards (in one form or another), but Trump has also threatened to attack Iran's nuclear sites - again. Were he to do so, it would be 'gesture politics' entirely removed from the reality of Iran's present circumstance.
A further strike would be presented as setting back - or finally halting - Iran's capacity to assemble a nuclear weapon.
And that would be a lie.
Theodore Postol, Professor Emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at MIT, regarded as the U.S.' leading expert on nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, however makes some counter-intuitive technical points which, when translated politically (the aim of this piece),
plainly indicate that a further attack on the three nuclear sites struck by the U.S. on 22 June would be pointless.It would be pointless in terms of Trump's ostensible objective -
yet a strike may happen anyway albeit as a piece of theatre designed to facilitate other different objectives such an attempt at "regime change" and
furthering Israel's hegemonic ambitions in the region.
Simply put, Professor Postol's compelling
argument is that Iran does not need to rebuild its previous nuclear program in order to build a bomb. That era is over. Both the U.S. and Israel believe, with good reason, Postol says, that most of Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium (HEU) survived the attack and is accessible:
"The tunnels at Esfahan are deep - so deep that the United States did not even try to collapse them with the bunker busters. Assuming the material wasn't moved, it is now sitting unsquashed in intact tunnels. Iran unblocked the entrance to one tunnel at Esfahan within a week of the strike".
In short, the U.S. strike
did not set back the Iranian programme by years. It is highly likely that most of Iran's HEU survived the strikes, Postol estimates.
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