Tag Archives: nuclear weapons program

Gordon Chang points out China is behind Iran’s brazen nuclear ambition

Important Takeaways:

  • Iran, in short, has a nuclear weapons program because of China. For a long time, the international community looked the other way as the “atomic ayatollahs,” in violation of their treaty obligations, worked on building these fearsome devices. President Donald Trump, to his credit, is taking the issue head on.
  • Tehran almost certainly has [a nuclear bomb] by now. The Iranians themselves have made that clear. There is only a “one-week gap from the issuance of the order to the first test” of a nuclear bomb, according to an April 2024 public statement of a senior Iran lawmaker.
  • Diplomats from Russia, Iran, and China met in Beijing this month to support Iran’s nuclear weapons program. Tehran, bolstered by Beijing and Moscow, publicly said it had no desire to talk to Trump.
  • There are in fact conversations behind the scenes, but Iran nonetheless would not be as brazen if Beijing were not fully supporting it.
  • If Waltz is as good as his word — that Iran cannot be allowed to have a nuclear weapon — then China, by arming the ayatollahs with nukes, has made sure that the world’s next confrontation will be historic.

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Netanyahu says Trump knew in advance of Israel’s Iran archive mission

FILE PHOTO: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attends the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, June 30, 2019. Oded Balilty/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Tuesday that he informed U.S. President Donald Trump in advance of what Israel has described as a spy mission in Tehran last year to capture a secret Iranian nuclear archive.

Netanyahu said in April 2018 that Mossad operatives had spirited thousands of hidden documents out of Tehran that proved Iran had previously pursued a nuclear weapons program. Trump cited the Israeli findings in his decision, a month later, to quit a 2015 deal that had scaled down Iran’s nuclear project.

Iran denies ever seeking nuclear weapons and has accused Israel of faking the Tehran mission and documents trove.

Awarding an Israeli national security prize on Tuesday to the Mossad team credited with the so-called “Atomic Archive” capture, Netanyahu said he had discussed the planned operation with Trump when they met at the Davos forum in January 2018.

“He asked me if it was dangerous. I told him that there was a danger to it that was not negligible, but that the outcome justified the risk,” Netanyahu said at the closed-door ceremony, according to a transcript issued by his office.

Netanyahu said that, when he later presented main findings from an Israeli analysis of the documents to Trump at the White House, the president “voiced his appreciation for the boldness”.

“I have no doubt that this helped to validate his decision to withdraw from this dangerous (Iran nuclear) deal,” he said.

With the United States having reimposed sanctions on Iran, tensions have been soaring in the Gulf in recent weeks.

Mossad officials have said the Tehran mission took place in February 2018, but have not given details on how the documents were brought out to Israel.

Six Mossad officers – four men and two women – received Tuesday’s prize for leading the mission, which also involved “hundreds” of others, the intelligence agency’s director, Joseph (Yossi) Cohen, told an international security forum this week.

(Writing by Dan Williams; Editing by Mark Heinrich)