Iran's nuclear ambitions

Mark Toth and Jonathan Sweet:

Some things never change: The Biden administration continues to dangerously miscalculate in the Middle East — as the White House stumbles further into the armageddon trap that Tehran is laying in Gaza and Lebanon.

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is hell-bent on achieving nuclear breakout, and is doing so by playing President Biden.

Tehran “is moving toward completion of a brand-new nuclear facility 100 meters below ground, where it could enrich uranium to weapons-grade with immunity from US airstrikes,” Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies reported last week.

The new uranium-enrichment facility, located near Iran’s existing Natanz nuclear complex, is believed to be “impervious to even the largest US bunker-buster bombs, which can reach depths of at least 60 meters,” Stricker wrote.

Khamenei knows he is holding a losing hand strategically.

Israel proved that on April 18, when the IDF pulled off an undetected strike on an Iranian air defense battery guarding the Natanz nuclear plants.

Tehran got the message: Iran’s military cannot conventionally go head-to-head with Israel.

Instead, the Revolutionary Guard has re-energized their proxies to expand their kinetic attacks on Israel and on US interests.

Hamas and Hezbollah are Khamenei’s means of distraction: The mullahs are using their proxies to buy time for Iran’s nuclear weapons program — and ultimately to wage a wider war against the West.

Playing Biden for time and ransom has become an art form for Iran.

Khamenei knows Biden fears regional escalation above all, and so he intentionally escalates, overtly or via proxies, thereby forcing Washington into reactive mode.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken is finding this out the hard way.

When Blinken this month secured a 14-0 UN Security Council vote demanding Hamas accept a ceasefire with Israel, Yahya Sinwar, Hamas’ military commander in the Gaza Strip, rejected it and issued a series of new deal-breaking demands.

“It’s time for the haggling to stop and a cease-fire to start,” a frustrated Blinken said. “It’s as simple as that.”

No, it is not.

Hamas is playing an entirely different game, yet the White House refuses to see it.

The game is far bigger than just Gaza and Lebanon, with goals that extend beyond the disruption of Saudi-Israeli normalization talks — it’s also a nuclear game whose rules are being dictated by Khamenei.

Oct. 7 was Tehran’s initial opening gambit.

It was designed to create an IDF over-reaction, demonize the Israelis, and foment a global anti-Israel response.
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My response is more likely to be anti-Iran government than anti-Israeli.  Iran is currently in the grasp is Islamic religious bigots who want to destroy Israel for rejecting Islam.  The current leaders of Iran see nuclear weapons as a way to destroy those who reject their brand of Islam.