RSS
Iran Is Shockingly Close to Nuclear Breakout Potential; The World Must Act
Military personnel stand guard at a nuclear facility in the Zardanjan area of Isfahan, Iran, April 19, 2024. Photo: West Asia News Agency via REUTERS
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), will soon issue new reporting on Iran’s nuclear program from a summer of inspections at Tehran’s nuclear sites.
The new data — and their implications — may cause a shock.
In June, Tehran installed numerous new uranium-enrichment centrifuges at its Natanz enrichment plant and its underground Fordow site, more than tripling the latter’s capacity to produce uranium enriched to 60 percent purity.
Amassing 60 percent enriched material puts Iran days from enriching that uranium to 90 percent, the level needed for atomic weapons. As a result, the Islamic Republic’s so-called “breakout time” — specifically, the amount of time the regime needs to produce weapons-grade uranium for multiple nuclear devices — may have dropped significantly.
The IAEA’s 35-member Board of Governors will meet next during the week of September 9 in Vienna, where Washington and its European allies will consider Tehran’s nuclear advances, and assess Iran’s non-compliance with previous Board demands that the regime cooperate on a multi-year IAEA investigation into Tehran’s nuclear weapons-work.
To deter and penalize further Iranian advances, the West should pass an IAEA censure resolution against Tehran, and trigger the snapback of UN sanctions on the regime.
Iran’s breakout time began dropping precipitously after the election of US President Joe Biden in 2020, as Tehran exploited his desire to revive the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and remove sanctions. Notably, this expansion came after Iran’s relative restraint when President Donald Trump exited the nuclear accord in 2018 and implemented massive US sanctions that severely crippled the Iranian economy.
As of November 2020, according to the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Science and International Security, Iran needed 3.5 months to make weapons-grade uranium for one nuclear device, and around 5.5 months to produce enough material for two.
Biden later said he wouldn’t try to revive the joint nuclear deal, but stood by as Iranian breakout time dropped to terrifying levels.
IAEA data for May 2024 indicated the Islamic Republic could make enough fuel for one nuclear weapon in under 7 days, and enough for 13 weapons in four months. The regime would require an unknown number of additional months to build atomic devices and integrate the weapons-grade fuel, and the United States and Israel have reportedly observed Iranian scientists working on such efforts.
At Fordow last June, Iran installed advanced-generation machines known as the IR-6, which churn out uranium at a fast clip. There, Iran was already enriching uranium to 60 percent purity in two clusters of centrifuges — known as cascades — each containing 174 IR-6 machines, and informed the IAEA it was adding eight more cascades.
Institute for Science and International Security President David Albright crunched the numbers at Fordow, and found — using that facility alone — that Tehran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium for nine nuclear weapons in two months, adding to Iran’s overall breakout capability and rendering the plant an agile pathway for the Islamic Republic to quickly produce fuel for nuclear weapons.
Unless Iran has slowed centrifuge installation, Tehran could have nearly 1,400 IR-6 machines spinning at the highly fortified Fordow site, along with hundreds more new advanced machines at Natanz. A caveat: The United States may have offered the regime informal but lucrative sanctions relief to slow but not stop installation, meaning Iran could ramp back up any time.
These developments pair poorly with new US and Israeli intelligence that Iranian scientists at civilian research institutes were recently studying computer modeling and metallurgy related to nuclear weapons. As a result, the US intelligence community was unable to assert in a recent report to Congress that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons activities, prompting alarm from members of Congress who have seen the report’s classified version and received briefings.
Moreover, it is unclear whether the US and Israeli intelligence communities have adequate insight into Iran’s more covert nuclear weapons-work at military sites.
With the disarray of US election season and multiple world crises, Tehran’s temptation to sprint to nuclear weapons will only grow. Washington and its European allies must immediately counter and deter further Iranian advances.
As a follow-on to the IAEA board’s Iran censure last June — and in light of Tehran’s failure to comply with the board’s demands — the West must vote for a new censure at the IAEA’s upcoming meeting. Yet since Iran used the June board resolution as a pretext to expand its uranium-enrichment capacity immediately after, the West must do better at deterring further advances.
In the new IAEA resolution, Washington and its allies must refer Tehran’s proliferation case to the UN Security Council, where the United States, the United Kingdom, or France may — without Russia and China’s veto — reimpose within 30 days all Iranian sanctions that currently remain lifted by the defunct nuclear accord. Importantly, those sanctions prohibit Tehran’s uranium-enrichment activity and international (read: Russian and Chinese) missile and military trade with the regime. The West must also signal more sanctions pain is to come for additional Iranian advances.
Iran is rapidly approaching the capability to produce a medium-sized nuclear arsenal, and no nation but Israel is acting to stop it. Unless the Western powers plan to counter an expansionist, messianic Islamic Republic with nuclear weapons — one that is already acting on plans to destroy Israel by 2040 — they would do well to halt the regime’s advances while there is still time.
Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow her on Twitter @StrickerNonpro. FDD is a nonpartisan research institute focusing on national security and foreign policy.
The post Iran Is Shockingly Close to Nuclear Breakout Potential; The World Must Act first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Turkish Delegation Visits Syria After Deal Between Damascus and Kurdish Forces
Syrian army personnel travel in a military vehicle as they head towards Latakia to join the fight against the fighters linked to Syria’s ousted leader Bashar al-Assad, in Aleppo, Syria, March 7, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Hassano
A high-level Turkish delegation visited Syria after Damascus’ new government reached a deal with Kurdish forces, the Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
According to local media reports, Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, Defense Minister Yaşar Güler, and the head of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization, Ibrahim Kalın, are expected to meet with their Syrian counterparts as well as Damascus’ President Ahmed al-Sharaa.
During this meeting, they are expected to discuss the recent clashes between supporters of the ousted Assad regime and government forces, as well as the recent deal signed between Syria’s new Islamist-led government — backed by Turkey — and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group.
Under the new deal between the Kurdish-led, US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian government, the SDF will be integrated into Damascus’ institutions. In exchange, the agreement gives the Syrian government control over SDF-held civilian and military sites in the northeast region of the country, including border crossings, an airport, and oil and gas fields.
Turkey has long considered the SDF, which controls much of northeastern Syria, a terrorist group due to its alleged links with the PKK, which has been waging an insurgency war against the Turkish state for the past 40 years.
Since the fall of the Assad regime last year, Ankara has emerged as a key foreign ally of the new Syrian government, pledging to assist in rebuilding the country and training its armed forces. It has also repeatedly demanded that the YPG militia – which leads the SDF – disarm, disband, and expel its foreign fighters from Syria.
While Turkey welcomed the recent deal between the SDF and Damascus, it also said that it would need to see its implementation to ensure the YPG does not join Syrian state institutions or security forces as a bloc.
On Wednesday, a Turkish Defense Ministry official said that attacks on Kurdish militants in Syria were still ongoing, highlighting Turkey’s determination to fight against terrorism.
“There’s no change in our expectations for an end to terrorist activities in Syria, for terrorists to lay down their weapons, and for foreign terrorists to be removed from Syria,” a Turkish Defense Ministry source told the Turkish newspaper Daily Sabah.
“We’ll see how the agreement is implemented in the field,” the source is quoted as saying. “We will closely follow its positive or negative consequences.”
The United States also welcomed the recent ceasefire deal between the SDF and Damascus, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying that Washington supports a political transition in Syria that ensures a reliable and non-sectarian governance structure to prevent further conflict.
In late January, al-Sharaa became Damascus’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
According to an announcement by the military command that led the offensive against Assad, Sharaa was given the authority to form a temporary legislative council for the transitional period and to suspend the country’s constitution.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
This week, al-Sharaa signed Syria’s constitutional declaration that will be enforced throughout a five-year transitional period.
Since Assad’s fall, the new Syrian government has sought to strengthen ties with Arab and Western leaders. Damascus’s new diplomatic relationships reflect a distancing from its previous allies, Iran and Russia.
The new Syrian government appears focused on reassuring the West and working to get sanctions lifted, which date back to 1979 when the US labeled Syria a state sponsor of terrorism and were significantly increased following Assad’s violent response to the anti-government protests.
The Assad regime’s brutal crackdown on opposition protests in 2011 sparked the Syrian civil war, during which Syria was suspended from the Arab League for more than a decade.
The post Turkish Delegation Visits Syria After Deal Between Damascus and Kurdish Forces first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Oscar-Winning Jewish Director-Actor Jesse Eisenberg Gets Polish Citizenship After Filming ‘A Real Pain’ in Poland
Jesse Eisenberg holding his Polish citizenship certificate presented to him by President Andrzej Duda during a ceremony at the Polish Mission to the United Nations in New York on March 4, 2025. Photo: Marek Borawski/KPRP/Cover Images via Reuters Connect
Actor and director Jesse Eisenberg recently received Polish citizenship after filming in the Eastern European country the Oscar-winning drama “A Real Pain,” which is about two cousins who go on a Jewish heritage tour through Poland to learn about their family history.
Polish President Andrzej Duda presented Eisenberg with the citizenship certificate during a ceremony at the Polish Mission to the United Nations in New York on March 4. “I want to express my happiness, and the happiness of my compatriots, that we have a new citizen,” said Duda. “I am pleased that people from around the world remember their origins, that their ancestors came from Poland, and want to connect with our country.” Eisenberg, whose has family ties to Poland and the Holocaust, said receiving Polish citizenship is “an honor of a lifetime” and something he had been interested in pursuing for two decades.
“While we were filming ‘A Real Pain’ in Poland, and I was walking the streets and starting to get a little more comfortable in the country, it occurred to me that my family lived in this place for far longer than we lived in New York,” he said at the ceremony. “And of course of the history ended so tragically, but in addition to that, is the tragedy that my family didn’t feel any connection anymore to Poland. And that saddened me and confirmed to me that I really wanted to try to reconnect as much as possible. I really hope this amazing honor is the first step in me on behalf of my family reconnecting to this beautiful country.”
Eisenberg revealed last year that he had applied for Polish citizenship. The Oscar winner told the Polish broadcaster TVN at the time that he feels a deep connection to Poland and wants to help improve Polish-Jewish relations. His wife and the mother of his son, Anna Strout, also has family roots in Poland. The “Social Network” star first visited Poland in 2007. He said last year that much of “A Real Pain” is based on his family’s personal history. His ancestors hailed from the town of Krasnystaw in southeast Poland and many of his family members died in the Holocaust. Last year, the town council of Krasnystaw awarded him honorary local citizenship. His great-aunt Doris fled Poland for the United States in 1938. She died in 2019 at the age of 106.
“I became obsessed with my family’s history during the war when I was 19 years old,” Eisenberg said in 2020. “I would see my aunt every week — she died last year at 106 … She was born in Poland and then when she was about nine she came to America … I became really fascinated and it was interesting for me as an American teenager to have some connection to something that was so much more historically relevant than my own life.”
“A Real Pain” tells the fictional story of two American-Jewish cousins – played by Eisenberg and Kieran Culkin – who reconnect to participate in a Jewish heritage tour in Poland to learn more about their Jewish roots and the Holocaust following the death of their grandmother, who was a Holocaust survivor. The movie was filmed in Poland and included scenes at the former Nazi concentration camp of Majdanek, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising memorial. “A Real Pain” features a scene that was even filmed in the small apartment that Eisenberg’s family fled from during World War II.
Eisenberg wrote, directed, produced and starred in “A Real Pain.” He has won a number of awards for the film, including a BAFTA and Independent Spirit Award, both for best original screenplay, and the Culkin has taken home several honors this season for best supporting actor, including an Academy Award, Golden Globe, Critics Choice Award, BAFTA and Screen Actors Guild Award.
Eisenberg has starred in and wrote other projects that have ties to Poland or the Holocaust, including the 2020 war drama “Resistance” and his 2013 play “The Revisionist.”
The post Oscar-Winning Jewish Director-Actor Jesse Eisenberg Gets Polish Citizenship After Filming ‘A Real Pain’ in Poland first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
RSS
Israel Slams UN Report Charging IDF with Sexual Violence in Gaza
Delegates react to the results during the United Nations General Assembly vote on a draft resolution that would recognize the Palestinians as qualified to become a full UN member, in New York City, US, May 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Eduardo Munoz
Israel has been accused of committing “genocidal acts” and employing sexual violence as a weapon of war in a new report published Thursday by a United Nations commission. The report drew sharp criticism from Israel, which dismissed it as an antisemitic blood libel, while Hamas welcomed its findings.
“Israeli authorities have destroyed in part the reproductive capacity of the Palestinians in Gaza as a group, including by imposing measures intended to prevent births, one of the categories of genocidal acts in the Rome Statute and the Genocide Convention,” the report by the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry stated.
It also accused Israeli security forces of using forced public stripping and sexual assault as a punitive measure in Gaza.
The report, citing testimonies from Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, alleges that civilians were stripped of their clothing in public, sometimes without gender separation. Israel’s permanent mission to the UN in Geneva has rejected the allegations, calling them unfounded and based on uncorroborated sources.
“In a shameless attempt to incriminate the IDF and manufacture the illusion of ‘systematic’ use of [sexual and gender-based violence], the [Commission of Inquiry] deliberately adopts a lower level of corroboration in its report, which allowed it to include information from second-hand single uncorroborated sources,” the mission said in a statement.
Israeli officials say the Commission of Inquiry has applied different standards in evaluating evidence against Israel compared to its assessment of Hamas’ actions on October 7, when it only included corroborated information.
The COI last year released another report last year saying it had “not been able to independently verify” allegations of rape citing “a lack of access to victims, witnesses and crime sites and the obstruction of its investigations by the Israeli authorities.”
It’s three members are Navi Pillay, who orchestrated both the discredited Goldstone Report and the Durban II Zionism is Racism conference and who routinely denounces “apartheid” Israel; UN Special Rapporteur Miloon Kothari who questioned the influence of the “Jewish lobby” and Israel’s right to be a UN member state; and Chris Sidoti, who said accusations of antisemitism are “thrown around like rice at a wedding”.
“All of the people on that commission have expressed hostile views and prejudicial views to Israel, even prior to serving on the commission,”Anne Herzberg, Legal Advisor and UN Representative for NGO Monitor, told The Algemeiner.
“The staffing is completely secret. There’s no way to even know who is writing the reports, how they’re gathering the evidence. So this COI has no credibility.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slammed the report and the UN Human Rights Council, calling it “an antisemitic, rotten, terrorist-supporting, and irrelevant body.”
“Instead of focusing on the crimes against humanity and war crimes committed by the Hamas terrorist organization in the worst massacre committed against the Jewish people since the Holocaust, the UN is once again choosing to attack Israel with false accusations, including unfounded accusations of sexual violence,” Netanyahu said.
Cochav Elkayam-Levy, who heads the Civil Commission on October 7th Crimes by Hamas against Women and Children, said the report followed many other instances drawing “a false comparison between Israel and Hamas, especially in the context of sexual violence.”
“Sadly, this pattern has repeated itself across various UN bodies since October 7th. This moral comparison is painful and wrong because its purpose is to establish false historical narratives and inflicts irreparable harm both on the victims and on justice,” she said.
Herzberg said the COI was “a main vector of atrocity denial and inversion.”
“Since October 7, the COI has outrageously accused Israel of committing crimes against humanity in Gaza while refusing to say the same about Hamas. It also downplayed the mass sexual violence committed on October 7 against Israeli women and girls, while now issuing an entire report dedicated to defaming the IDF with the false claim of perpetrating systematic gender-based violence against Palestinians,” Herzberg said.
The report will likely be exploited by the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and provide fuel for campaigns by the BDS movement against Israel, Herzberg said. She expressed her hope that the Trump administration would defund the UNHRC in the near future. “It should never have been established in the first place,” she said.
The Hamas terror group welcomed the report, saying it confirmed Israel’s “genocidal” campaign against Palestinians. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qassem told AFP, “The UN’s investigation report on Israel’s genocidal acts against the Palestinian people confirms what has happened on the ground: genocide and violations of all humanitarian and legal standards.
The post Israel Slams UN Report Charging IDF with Sexual Violence in Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.