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Documenting Iran's Unrelenting Intention to Preserve and Advance Its Nuclear Weapons Capabilities

(Wall Street Journal) John Bolton - David Albright is president of the Institute for Science and International Security. His new book, Iran's Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons, is the most comprehensive unclassified recounting of Iran's nuclear aspirations ever written, based on the nuclear archive collected by Israel's Mossad from Tehran in 2018. Albright and his team found that the nuclear archive fills many gaps in the West's knowledge and proves that Iran's nuclear-weapons program "can no longer be viewed as existing only in the past." Albright concedes that many years ago he was "skeptical of the seemingly exaggerated claims by Western governments" about Iran's program. He now says that "the Iranian revolutionary regime is fundamentally a criminal operation." For decades, "Iran has systematically violated its commitments under the [1970] Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty." Even nominal concessions from Tehran, including the JCPOA itself, occurred "under great pressure, with an underlying, unrelenting intention of preserving and advancing its nuclear weapons capabilities." The book eviscerates the idea, central both to negotiating the JCPOA and rejoining it, that the IAEA can be relied upon for verification and compliance, seeking to endow it with capabilities it has never had and never will. Serious verification must rest with U.S. intelligence, not UN agencies. The writer is a former U.S. ambassador to the UN and national security adviser.
2021-06-24 00:00:00
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