It is, the sum of all fears — an Iranian nuclear weapon..According to US Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Mark Milley, Iran is within just two weeks to produce enough fissile material for such a weapon..They would still need several additional months to assemble the weapon for use, Milley added..According to The Times of Israel, Milley gave the updated US assessment in testimony before the House Appropriations Committee in a Thursday hearing on the Defense Department’s annual budget request..“But the United States remains committed, as a matter of policy, that Iran will not have a fielded nuclear weapon,” he added, noting the US military has “developed multiple options for our national leadership to consider if or when Iran ever decides to develop an actual nuclear weapon.”.While the administration of President Joe Biden largely refrained from publicly discussing the so-called military option, the president stated it remains on the table if diplomatic efforts to prevent Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapons fail..Milley’s remarks built on testimony given last month by US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Colin Kahl, who also said Iran could produce enough fissile material for one nuclear bomb in under two weeks, the report said..Kahl said at a House of Representatives hearing that Iran’s nuclear program significantly progressed since the Trump administration withdrew from the Iranian nuclear deal in 2018..He was asked why the Biden administration attempted to revive the agreement formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of action (JCPOA), the report said..“Because Iran’s nuclear progress since we left the JCPOA has been remarkable. Back in 2018, when the previous administration decided to leave the JCPOA, it would have taken Iran about 12 months to produce one bomb’s worth of fissile material. Now it would take about 12 days,” Kahl said..“So I think there's still the view if you could resolve this issue diplomatically and put constraints back on their nuclear program, it's better than the other options. But right now, the JCPOA is on ice,” Kahl said..Inspectors from the United Nations nuclear watchdog — the International Atomic Energy Agency, or IAEA — found uranium particles enriched up to 83.7 percent in Iran’s underground Fordo nuclear site, the Vienna-based agency revealed earlier this month..Uranium at nearly 84% is almost at weapons-grade levels of 90% — meaning any stockpile of that material could be quickly enriched for the purposes of building an atomic bomb if Iran chooses..The US intelligence community continues to maintain its assessment Iran isn’t pursuing an atomic bomb, the report said..“To the best of our knowledge, we don’t believe the supreme leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program that we judge they suspended or stopped at the end of 2003,” CIA Director Williams Burns told CBS’s Face the Nation program..“But the other two legs of the stool, meaning enrichment programs, they’ve obviously advanced very far.”.Fordo, which sits under a mountain near the holy Shiite city of Qom, some 90-km southwest of Tehran, remains a special concern.. Benjamin NetanyahuBenjamin Netanyahu .It is about the size of a football field, large enough to house 3,000 centrifuges, but small and hardened enough to lead US officials to suspect it had a military purpose when they exposed the site publicly in 2009..Any explanation from Iran, however, likely won’t be enough to satisfy Israel..Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened military actions against Tehran, and Israel and Iran have been engaged in a high-stakes shadow war across the wider Middle East since the nuclear deal’s collapse..A “horrible nuclear war” will break out if the world does not stop Tehran from obtaining atomic weapons, Netanyahu said in his first ever address to the Iranian people earlier this month..“If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, this will be a problem all of us will face. It will change the world,” he said in an English-language interview with Washington-based Iran International that was also dubbed into Persian and broadcast in Iran, The Jerusalem Post reported..A nuclear Iran will cause “the criss-crossing of the Middle East with nuclear trip wires,” as other regimes that understand the danger of a nuclear Iran will rush to arm themselves,” Netanyahu said, using the platform to urge global action in response to Iran’s enrichment of uranium..The Israeli premier is scheduled to meet with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Home Secretary Suella Braverman Friday..According to a statement, his meetings in London will focus on the need to formulate a “united international front” against Iran in order to stop its nuclear program..Netanyahu’s trip comes on the heels of his visit last week to Berlin, where he met with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, and other senior German officials..As he stood with Scholz at the Holocaust memorial Platform 17 in Berlin, Netanyahu appeared to compare Iran with the Nazis..Seemingly alluding to the Islamic Republic rhetoric which calls for the end of the ‘Zionist regime’, he said: “The calls to destroy the Jewish people have not ended. The main lesson we learned is when we are faced with such evil, we must stop the evil plans early to prevent a disaster."
