Quid pro quo

It wasn't just the $1.7 billion in cash on pallets.
In January 2017, Obama greenlighted the shipment of 130 tons of uranium to Iran.
If this all seems unbelievable, it’s because it is—and also because you’re probably still imagining that Obama’s goal was to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon. But once you understand the real purpose, these moves become much clearer. To wit: Why did Obama give the regime enough uranium to make 10 nuclear bombs? To pressure the incoming Trump administration to stick with the nuclear deal. If Trump chose to leave the JCPOA, he’d have to deal with the fact that with 130 tons of uranium already on hand Iran had an easier path to the bomb. In effect, the last president handed the Iranians a loaded gun to be pointed at his successor.

2 comments:

Grim said...

Maybe, but at least also, the Obama administration was promising Iran improved nuclear technology for civilian use in return for delaying military use. They promised to help build Iran some light water reactors capable of operating on low enriched uranium, and to upgrade and help defend their technology/IT in such plants.

These light water reactors can in fact be used to create weapons grade material, but it is cosmetically obvious to satellite monitoring because the plant has to be stopped.

Anyway, Iran wasn’t intended to abandon even the enrichment of uranium. They were just supposed to sell the highly enriched product to Russia as they accumulated it. That meant they’d need fresh natural or low-enriched stocks regularly.

So this part I get. There were lots of other part that were shady, like the whole IAEA allowing Iran to inspect itself; the regular violations of ongoing limits even as they were negotiating new limits; the basic untrustworthiness of nuclear reactors in the hands of the “death to America” regime; etc. Providing fresh LEU if Iran would agree to sell off HEU was one of the more sensible ideas.

ymarsakar said...

https://youtu.be/FSmdSw9eEIA The platonic solids bit was what reminded me of Grim's posts on the Greeks.