Almost a month after the Israeli attack on Iran called “Operation Days of Repentance”, it emerges that the Jerusalem air force destroyed an active nuclear weapons and research center in Parchin on the night of October 25, 2024. Axios reports this by quoting three US officials: a current Israeli official and a former Israeli official. The site had previously been reported as down, Axios added. However, it is now clear that “the attack significantly damaged Iran’s efforts to resume nuclear weapons research.” Iran has always denied it wants to build a nuclear weapon and its mission to the United Nations has refused to comment on the matter.
A former Israeli official briefed on the attack said that Israel “destroyed the sophisticated equipment used to design the plastic explosives that surround the uranium in a nuclear device and are needed to detonate it.” According to the Institute for Science and International Security, the Parchin facility was part of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and was used to test explosives until Iran allegedly ended its military nuclear program in 2003 According to US and Israeli officials, the «Taleghan 2» building was used for nuclear research that could also be considered important for civilian purposes. However, because the building was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program, Israel was able to strike it without violating the US diktat not to strike the regime’s nuclear or military facilities. High-resolution satellite images show that the site’s Taleghan 2 building was completely destroyed. A US official explained: “They have conducted scientific work that could lay the foundation for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was top secret. A small part of the Iranian government knew about it, but the majority of the Iranian government did not.” A US official told Axios that in the months preceding the Israeli attack “there was general concern about the operations at Taleghan 2”.
Donald Trump is preparing a new crackdown on the Tehran regime
Still on the subject of the Tehran regime, the election of Donald Trump has triggered panic in the mullahs’ palaces of power over the prospect of a much harsher US policy towards the Islamic Republic. The Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi he warned on November 12 that if the Trump administration pursued “Maximum Pressure 2.0 the only outcome for the United States would be Maximum Defeat 2.0,” but these are threats useful only for internal propaganda. President-elect Donald Trump plans to increase sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran as part of a return to his previous administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign, former Trump administration officials told the Wall Street Journal. “I think you’re going to see sanctions come back,” one official said, adding that “you’re going to see a lot more of that, both diplomatically and financially.” As he recalled Janatan Sayehresearch analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), the previous Trump administration reduced Iran’s oil exports from 2.9 million barrels per day in 2018 to 775,000 when he left office. Trump’s policies have also led to a decline in non-oil exports, which fell 17.3 percent in 2019 and 12.8 percent in 2020. Veterans of the first Trump administration have predicted a return to his harsh policies. Brian Hook, who led Iran policy for Trump and is leading the transition at the State Department, spoke of Trump’s commitment to “isolate Iran diplomatically and weaken it economically so that it cannot finance all the violence perpetrated by Hamas , Hezbollah and other proxies.”
Iran’s oil exports have surged under the Biden administration, largely due to lenient enforcement of U.S. sanctions. In particular, shipments to China have increased significantly. As a result, Iran’s oil revenue rose from $16 billion in 2020 to $53 billion in 2023, according to a US government report. As of August 2023, Iran’s exports to China reached an estimated peak of 1.5 million barrels per day. With Donald Trump all this will not happen.
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