Iran regime though actually violating the JCPOA poses as the true defender of it. But it is nothing but a deceiver that is deceiving the world, or, is it the world that wants to be deceived for short term economic benefits, though I really doubt what a broke regime can offer, unless, like its deals with China, Russia, and India, it puts on auction what is left of Iran.

Some decisive facts:

Lavizan-Shian in May 2003

Lavizan-Shian June 2004; when the regime exposed it to IAEA inspectors 13 months later. Iran gave IAEA access to the site when all the buildings were razed.

But even after the razing IAEA had found highly enriched Uranium. There were tensions between IAEA and Iran regime and the regime eventually stopped responding to IAEA in 2008.

But JCPOA swept everything under the rug.

Kala Electric site

Exposed in Feb 2003 by NCRI, in the same month, the IAEA demanded access. The access was granted in March 2003 with sampling allowed only in August 2003 and though IAEA noticed considerable modifications, still traces of highly enriched Uranium were found.

And Rouhani then the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council and a chief nuclear negotiator said in his book: “For a long time, they (IAEA) wanted to inspect Kala-Electric. From the time they placed the request to the time permission was granted several months passed. Kala-Electric was the first site where enrichment was carried out using centrifuges but had not been reported to IAEA…Apparently our specialists were technically unaware of the new IAEA instruments.” Confessing that they tried hard to cover their Uranium enrichment.

METFAZ site exposed in 2009 used for high explosive testing

From the experience, the regime had from its other sites it hurriedly moved some of the facility and its chores to other places such as Parchin.

Research Academy or Pazhoheshkadeh (top left) along with the high explosive chambers seen in the photo below Pazhoheshkadeh. A chamber that when the IAEA eventually was able to push to be granted access to in 2015, it wasn’t there anymore.

Other sites and their modifications

Parchin site

As of 2019 Iranian regime still razing buildings

Abadeh Nuclear Weapon Development Site where some of the activities of METFAZ was transferred to:

Late June 2019, IAEA requests to visit the site.

Looking at the pattern of cheating of the Iranian regime we can see that there has always been this trend of delay in granting access to its sites and tampering the evidence. Lying about the sites or not informing the IAEA of their existence until they are exposed. And cheating has continued even after the JCPOA.

The latest IAEA report findings suggest that there has been a massive expansion in Iran’s enriched Uranium stockpile, 10 times the legal limit set out in the JCPOA. There is also evidence that Iran has been installing new advanced centrifuges in Natanz facilities. Iran regime has also resumed its heavy water reactor activities and it is actively blocking access to IAEA inspectors. The experts now say that Iran is significantly closer to what can be a nuclear breakout* reaching a nuclear capability in a narrow window of 3.5 months.

So we can clearly see that Iran is not in compliance with the JCPOA provisions.

Now the question for the international community is: Should you tighten the tether on this regime of should you lift the Arms Embargo to give it a more free hand in obtaining whatever it needs to acquire an atomic weapon as well as other necessary arsenals for its terror activities.

*Breakout time is the time that a country will have enough enriched Uranium, weapons-grade, for one nuclear bomb.

Hassan Mahmoudi is a Europe-based social analyst, researcher, independent observer, and commentator of Middle Eastern and Iranian Politics. He tweets under @hassan_mahmou1. 

The United States on Monday will sanction more than two dozen people and entities involved in Iran’s nuclear, missile and conventional arms programs, a senior U.S. official said, putting teeth behind U.N. sanctions on Tehran that Washington argues have resumed despite the opposition of allies and adversaries.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said Iran could have enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of the year and that Tehran has resumed long-range missile cooperation with nuclear-armed North Korea. He did not provide detailed evidence regarding either assertion.

The new sanctions fit into U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to limit Iran’s regional influence and come a week after U.S.-brokered deals for the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain to normalize ties with Israel, pacts that may coalesce a wider coalition against Iran while appealing to pro-Israel U.S. voters ahead of the Nov. 3 election.

The new sanctions also put European allies, China and Russia on notice that while their inclination may be to ignore the U.S. drive to maintain the U.N. sanctions on Iran, companies based in their nations would feel the bite for violating them.

A major part of the new U.S. push is an executive order targeting those who buy or sell Iran conventional arms that was previously reported by Reuters and will also be unveiled by the Trump administration on Monday, the official said.

The Trump administration suspects Iran of seeking nuclear weapons – something Tehran denies – and Monday’s punitive steps are the latest in a series seeking to stymie Iran’s atomic program, which U.S. ally Israel views as an existential threat.

“Iran is clearly doing everything it can to keep in existence a virtual turnkey capability to get back into the weaponization business at a moment’s notice should it choose to do so,” the U.S. official told Reuters.

The official argued Iran wants a nuclear weapons capability and the means to deliver it despite the 2015 deal that sought to prevent this by restraining Iran’s atomic program in return for access to the world market.

In May 2018, Trump abandoned that agreement to the dismay of the other parties – Britain, China, France, Germany and Russia – and restored U.S. sanctions that have crippled Iran’s economy.

Iran, in turn, has gradually breached the central limits in that deal, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), including on the size of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium as well as the level of purity to which it was allowed to enrich uranium.

“Because of Iran’s provocative nuclear escalation, it could have sufficient fissile material for a nuclear weapon by the end of this year,” the official said without elaborating except to say this was based on “the totality” of information available to the United States, including from the IAEA.

The Vienna-based agency has said Iran only began significantly breaching the 2015 deal’s limits after the U.S. withdrawal and it is still enriching uranium only up to 4.5%, well below the 20% it had achieved before that agreement, let alone the roughly 90% purity that is considered weapons-grade, suitable for an atomic bomb.

“Iran and North Korea have resumed cooperation on a long-range missile project, including the transfer of critical parts,” he added, declining to say when such joint work first began, stopped, and then started again.

Asked to comment on the impending new U.S. sanctions and the U.S. official’s other statements, a spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations dismissed them as propaganda and said they would further isolate the United States.

“The U.S.’ ‘maximum pressure’ show, which includes new propaganda measures almost every week, has clearly failed miserably, and announcing new measures will not change this fact,” the mission’s spokesman, Alireza Miryousefi, told Reuters in an email.

“The entire world understands that these are a part of (the) next U.S. election campaign, and they are ignoring the U.S.’ preposterous claims at the U.N. today. It will only make (the) U.S. more isolated in world affairs,” he said.

The White House declined comment in advance of Monday’s announcements.

‘Snap Back’ of U.N. sanctions?

The U.S. official confirmed Trump will issue an executive order that would allow the United States to punish those who buy or sell conventional arms to Iran with secondary sanctions, depriving them of access to the U.S. market.

The proximate cause for this U.S. action is the impending expiration of a U.N. arms embargo on Iran and to warn foreign actors – U.S. entities are already barred from such trade – that if they buy or sell arms to Iran they will face U.S. sanctions.

Under the 2015 nuclear deal the U.N. conventional arms embargo is set to expire on Oct. 18.

The United States says it has triggered a “snap back,” or resumption, of virtually all U.N. sanctions on Iran, including the arms embargo, to come into effect at 8 p.m. on Saturday/0000 GMT on Sunday.

Other parties to the nuclear deal and most U.N. Security Council members have said they do not believe the United States has the right to reimpose the U.N. sanctions and that the U.S. move has no legal effect.

On Friday, Britain, France and Germany told the Security Council that U.N. sanctions relief for Iran – agreed under the 2015 nuclear deal – would continue beyond Sunday, despite Washington’s assertion.

In letters to the Security Council on Saturday, China’s U.N. Ambassador Zhang Jun and Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia both described the U.S. move as “illegitimate” and said the U.N. sanctions relief for Iran would continue.

Also on Saturday, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council he cannot act on the U.S. declaration that U.N. sanctions had been reimposed because it was not clear whether they had snapped back.

“It is not for the Secretary-General to proceed as if no such uncertainty exists,” he said.

Targets include Iran’s nuclear, missile, arms groups

The new executive order will define conventional weapons broadly as any item with a potential military use, meaning it could cover such things as speed boats that Iran retrofits to harass vessels in international waters, the U.S. official told Reuters.

It would also apply to conventional circuit boards that can be used in ballistic missile guidance systems, he added.

The more than two dozen targets to be hit with sanctions on Monday include those involved in Iran’s conventional arms, nuclear and missile programs, the official said, saying some of the targets are already sanctioned under other U.S. programs.

That could prompt criticism that the U.S. move is redundant and designed for public relations purposes to look tough on Iran, a charge critics have made about past U.S. sanctions actions.

Peter Harrell, a sanctions expert at the State Department under Democratic former President Barack Obama, called the U.S. steps “a diplomatic and signaling exercise” to show Trump cared about the issue but unlikely to deter potential arms deals.

“I don’t think it’s likely to change any behavior,” he said, adding most players were likely to hold off until the Nov. 3 election to see if there is a change in U.S. administration.

The U.S. official said among Monday’s targets will be Iran’s “most nefarious arms organizations,” about a dozen senior officials, scientists and experts from Iran’s nuclear complex, members of a procurement network that supplies military-grade dual-use goods for Iran’s missile program, and several senior officials involved in Iran’s ballistic missile program.

The official declined to name the targets, saying this would be made public on Monday, and stressed that the United States wants to deter foreign companies from dealing with them even if their governments believe this is legally permitted.

“You might have a split in some countries where a foreign government may claim that the U.N. sanctions don’t snap back but their banks and companies will abide by U.S. sanctions because they want to make sure they are not a future target,” he said.