Blinken says there is still time to negotiate nuclear deal with Iran

“I don’t think that a nuclear weapon is inevitable,” the secretary of state told the Council on Foreign Relations.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday that there is still time to negotiate nuclear deal with Iran, despite the opinion of the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, Blinken said, “I don’t think that a nuclear weapon is inevitable,” and that “there is the prospect of negotiations” with the incoming Republican administration.

He did acknowledge circumstances had somewhat changed recently, saying that the Iranians have recently “lost different lines of defense” so “sure, you’re going to see more thinking” about racing to a bomb.

The Islamic Republic has just seen its most important client state, Syria, fall to Sunni Islamist rebels almost without a fight, and its chief terror proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, decimated by the IDF and agree to a ceasefire and withdrawal miles away from Israel.

In addition, in retaliation for Iran’s second unsuccessful attempt at striking Israel with a massive wave of missiles in October, the IDF destroyed vital components of the mullahs’ ballistic missile program as well all their advanced air defenses in an airstrike later that month.

Incoming president Donald Trump, who had pulled out of the old nuclear deal in 2018, calling it “terrible,” had “said he wanted, as he called it, a better, stronger deal. Fine,” Blinken said.

The secretary of state spoke just two days after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi told Italian news agency ANSA that “The philosophy of the original accord with Iran can be used, but that agreement is no longer useful.”

This is because the Islamic Republic had “developed much stronger capabilities,” he explained, noting that “It has uranium at 60% — 90% is military grade — and is thus practically at the same level as nuclear-armed states.”

According to the nuclear watchdog, as of October 26, Iran has 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of 60% enriched uranium, which has no civilian use whatsoever.

It is only a very short technical step between the two levels, and the IAEA reported earlier this month that Iran is “likely” to have enough enriched uranium to build four bombs.

At the same time, the Americans’ Office of National Intelligence officially estimated that the mullahs have “enough fissile material to make more than a dozen nuclear weapons,” although the decision to go for one has not yet been made.

It will be “a complex process” to “define a system that serves the new Iranian reality,” Rossi said.

In his speech, the secretary of state noted as a bottom line that no American administration would allow Iran to obtain a nuclear bomb.

Antony BlinkenDonald TrumpIran nuclear dealNuclear bomburanium enrichment