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Trump was confident he could cut a deal with Iran that would stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
By NEVILLE TELLER FEBRUARY 3, 2025 04:46
IRAN’S VICE PRESIDENT for Strategic Affairs Javad Zarif speaks at the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month. ‘I’m not sure he’s involved any longer in decision-making in the Iranian leadership, even if he has a title,’ quipped President Isaac Herzog.
(photo credit: YVES HERMAN/REUTERS)
A significant topic of discussion at this year’s Davos meeting was Iran’s nuclear program.
The World Economic Forum, founded in 1971, is an international organization with its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Its annual meeting in Davos brings together world leaders from business, politics, academia, and other sectors to discuss pressing global issues. The 2025 meeting took place from January 20 to 24.
On January 22, Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Davos that Iran is “pressing the gas pedal” on its enrichment of uranium to near weapons grade. Previously, said Grossi, Iran was producing each month about 7 kg. of uranium enriched to 60%. “Now it’s above 30 kg., or more than that. So I think this is a clear indication of an acceleration.”
According to the IAEA, about 42 kg. of uranium enriched to 60%, if further enriched to 90%, is enough in principle for one nuclear bomb. Grossi said Iran currently had about 200 kg. of uranium enriched to up to 60%.
He said that although it would take time to install and bring online the extra uranium-enriching centrifuges necessary to produce weapons-grade material, nevertheless the acceleration was starting to happen.
Israel and Iran clashed during the conference. President Isaac Herzog was in Davos and, according to London-based Iran International, the independent Persian-language TV and news medium, he found himself early on in a slanging match with Javad Zarif, the Iran regime’s representative.
Iran International reported that on January 21, Herzog was asked by conference interviewer Fareed Zakaria what message he had to convey to Zarif. “I’m not sure he’s involved any longer in decision-making in the Iranian leadership,” said Herzog, “even if he has a title.”
Zarif, Iran’s vice president for strategic affairs, was outraged. The next day, participating in a roundtable discussion, he declared that Herzog is “a nobody in Israel.”
Herzog riposted with a public statement, which included: ”Mr. Zarif, I suggest you look in the mirror.”
Zarif came back suggesting that the proof of Herzog’s lack of status was that the International Criminal Court had not included him in the arrest warrants it issued against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity. There the personal tit-for-tat appears to have ended.
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However, during his main Davos speech, Herzog called Iran an “evil empire” that spends billions to finance its military allies.
“This is the strategic issue above everything,” he said. “Iran is repeatedly investing billions, at the expense of its citizens, to create a base for terrorism... They continue to rush towards the bomb, constantly planning terrorist attacks all over the world, including in our region – especially the Revolutionary Guards... There is a great danger as long as this regime in Iran remains in place and continues its efforts... We believe that there should be a clear message from world leaders to Iran: No more.”
The start of the Davos meeting coincided with Donald Trump’s inauguration as US president, and the implications of his return to power for the Iranian regime and its nuclear ambitions occupied many minds.
UN SECRETARY-GENERAL Antonio Guterres suggested Iran must take a first step towards improving relations with countries in the region and the US by making it clear it does not aim to develop nuclear weapons.
Since any such a statement emanating from the Iranian regime would be a downright falsehood, most of the new Trump administration was having none of it. The new Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quoted as saying, “I believe it is in our national security interest for the UN Security Council to snap back the sanctions that were suspended under the JCPOA [the nuclear deal master-minded by then-president Barack Obama in 2015 and rejected by Trump in his first term].”
Similarly, Trump’s choice for the new US ambassador to the UN, Elise Stefanik, said during her Senate confirmation hearing: “Pushing back on Iran is a top priority. It was a success during President Trump’s first term.”
The new US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, was sworn in after Davos had ended. In his letter of congratulations, Israel’s Defense Minister Israel Katz hinted at potential action against Iran in the “upcoming months.”
“Iran and its partners continue to threaten... regional and global stability,” wrote Katz. “I am confident that together we can succeed, creating long-term stability and a better future for the region.”
New information about Iran’s nuclear program was revealed on February 1 by the UK’s Daily Telegraph. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) had passed on details of how the IRGC has been expanding its weapons program.
It revealed that two sites, camouflaged as communication satellite launch facilities, have been used to rush the production of nuclear warheads. They are both under the control of the regime’s nuclear weapons arm, the SPND (Organization for Advanced Defense Research).
At the first site, known as the Shahrud missile site, about 35 km. from a city of the same name, SPND and IRGC Aerospace Force experts have been working on producing a nuclear warhead capable of being fitted to a Ghaem-100, solid-fueled rocket with a range of 3,000 km.
Missiles with that range would allow Iran to launch nuclear strikes deep into Europe from its territory – as far as Greece. There have been at least three successful launches of the rocket, which the NCRI says “enhances the regime’s capability to deploy nuclear weapons.”
A second site, situated around 70 km. southeast of the city of Semnan, is being used to develop Simorgh missiles, a weapon based on the North Korean UNHA-1, an 18-meter tall rocket.
Significant portions of the site are underground to conceal the work from intelligence satellites capturing images of the area. The regime has been steadily expanding the site since around 2005.
The possibility of a direct attack on Iran
The Jerusalem Post’s senior military correspondent, Yonah Jeremy Bob, recently reported that some Israeli and US officials have been indicating that a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities could be a viable possibility. Strategists believe that following Iran’s second missile onslaught on Israel, Israel’s counterattack on October 26 destroyed a significant proportion of Iran’s air defenses, leaving its nuclear sites more vulnerable than they have ever been.
Trump, however, in a recent interview with the New York Post, refused to indicate whether he would support preemptive strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities. What he was quite clear about was that the Islamic Republic “can’t have a nuclear weapon.” He was confident he could cut a deal with Iran that would stop it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Without exactly saying how, beyond specifying that “you have to verify times 10,” he said, “there are ways that you can make it absolutely certain.”
As ever, Trump will do it his way.
The writer is Middle East correspondent for Eurasia Review. His latest book is Trump and the Holy Land: 2016-2020. Follow him at:
www.a-mid-east-journal.blogspot.com
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