Yesterday, the Associated Press confirmed that international inspectors have discovered 83.7-percent-enriched uranium near an Iranian nuclear reactor. The 2015 nuclear agreement allowed the Islamic Republic to enrich to a maximum of 3.67 percent; 90 percent is considered the minimum necessary for building atomic weapons. Richard Goldberg notes that the same UN resolution that ratified the 2015 deal also gives its signatories a way to respond—one that they have uniformly refused to implement in the wake of past violations, and show little interest in implementing now:
UN Security Council Resolution 2231 replaced all prior resolutions on Iran—removing the international demand that Iran halt all enrichment activities, striking the outright UN prohibition on Iranian ballistic-missile testing, and establishing a series of expirations dates on other key international restrictions. . . . But UNSCR 2231 came with one condition: if Iran ever violated its own commitments under the nuclear deal, any party to the agreement could notify the Security Council and restore all prior sanctions and restrictions in 30 days. This process is called “snapback,” and France—like the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany—has the individual power and prerogative to trigger it.
If the recent confirmation that Iran has enriched uranium to just-under the 90-percent weapons-grade threshold—a line many analysts long believed to be a trigger for military action—does not force Paris, Berlin, or London to complete the UN snapback process—a political action—Jerusalem should finally accept the reality that Israel will need to confront this threat on its own terms, in its own ways, and on its own timelines. There is no cavalry coming from Paris or any other Western capital.
Tehran knows the difference between deterrence and deference, between pressure and platitude. Today, it fears only one country: Israel. This tiny democracy of nine million people will soon be forced to act in a manner that preserves freedom and prosperity for every American and European threatened by the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran. The best Benjamin Netanyahu can hope for is a “thank you” when the job is done.
Read more on Algemeiner: https://www.algemeiner.com/2023/02/24/israel-must-prepare-to-save-the-world-from-a-nuclear-iran/