Quote:
Originally Posted by activeStick
Seeing clips now from March of this year where US Intelligence confirmed that Iran in fact is not building a nuclear weapon and their Supreme Leader has not has not authorized the suspended nuclear program from 2003 to restart.
|
The full report reads differently:
The IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. We continue to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program. In the past year, we've seen an erosion of a decades long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public likely emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran's decision-making apparatus. Iran's
enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest levels and is unprecedented for a state without nuclear weapons. Iran will likely continue efforts to counter Israel and press for U.S. military withdrawal from the region by aiding, arming, and helping to reconstitute its loose consortium of like-minded terrorists, actors, which it refers to as its “Axis of Resistance.” Although weakened, this collection of actors still presents a wide range of threats including to Israel's population, U.S. forces deployed in Iraq and Syria, as well as U.S. and international military and commercial shipping and transit.
https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsro...t-as-delivered
Later, as a result of aforementioned "continues monitoring":
Last week, the IAEA said in its latest quarterly report that Iran had amassed enough uranium enriched up to 60% purity - a short, technical step away from weapons grade, or 90% - to potentially make nine nuclear bombs. That was "a matter of serious concern", given the proliferation risks, it added.
The agency also said it could not provide assurance that the Iranian nuclear programme was exclusively peaceful because Iran was not complying with its investigation into man-made uranium particles discovered by inspectors at three undeclared nuclear sites
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn840275p5yo
The statement that Ayatollah "didn't authorize building a weapon", when taken out of whole report, is misleading. In order to authorize building a weapon, you need to have 90%-enriched uranium at the first place. So you have something to build a weapon from. Until then it was pointless to authorize building a weapon, so he never did it. And Iran was well on its way to getting uranium enriched enough to make bomb. It was way beyond levels required for peaceful program. They were a short technical step from it
Also, Ayatollah did "authorize" the destruction of Israel, whether via nukes or otherwise, long before Gaza war. For example, this is from 2020:
“The Zionist regime is a deadly, cancerous growth and a detriment to this region,” Khamenei said. “It will undoubtedly be uprooted and destroyed.
https://apnews.com/article/a03304230...83a95222d51b83