US Still Believes Iran Has Not Decided to Build a Nuclear Weapon

This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's nuclear site in Isfahan, Iran, April 4, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's nuclear site in Isfahan, Iran, April 4, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
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US Still Believes Iran Has Not Decided to Build a Nuclear Weapon

This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's nuclear site in Isfahan, Iran, April 4, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
This satellite image from Planet Labs PBC shows Iran's nuclear site in Isfahan, Iran, April 4, 2024. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

The United States still believes that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon despite Tehran's recent strategic setbacks, including Israel's killing of Hezbollah leaders and two largely unsuccessful attempts to attack Israel, two US officials told Reuters.
The comments from a senior Biden administration official and a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) added to public remarks earlier this week by CIA Director William Burns, who said the United States had not seen any evidence Iran's leader had reversed his 2003 decision to suspend the weaponization program.
"We assess that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to resume the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003," said the ODNI spokesperson, referring to Iran's leader Ali Khamenei.
The intelligence assessment could help explain US opposition to any Israeli strike on Iran's nuclear program in retaliation for a ballistic missile attack that Tehran carried out last week.
President Joe Biden said after that attack he would not support an Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear sites, but did not explain why he had reached that conclusion. His remarks drew fierce criticism from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.
US officials have long acknowledged that an attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program might only delay the country's efforts to develop a nuclear bomb and could even strengthen Tehran's resolve to do so.
"We're all watching this space very carefully," the Biden administration official said.
Iran's mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately respond to a request for comment but Tehran has repeatedly denied ever having had a nuclear weapons program.
KEY IRAN ALLY WEAKENED
In the past weeks, Israel's military has inflicted heavy losses on Hezbollah, the most powerful member of the Iran-backed network known as the Axis of Resistance. The group's setbacks have included the killing of its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last month.
The weakening of a key Iranian ally has prompted some experts to speculate that Tehran may restart its efforts to acquire a nuclear bomb to protect itself.
Beth Sanner, a former US deputy director of national intelligence, said the risk of Khamenei reversing his 2003 religious dictum against nuclear weapons is "higher now than it has been" and that if Israel were to strike nuclear facilities Tehran would likely move ahead with building a nuclear weapon.
That would still take time, however.
"They can't get a weapon in a day. It will take months and months and months," said Sanner, now a fellow with the German Marshall Fund.
Iran is now enriching uranium to up to 60% fissile purity, close to the 90% of weapons grade, at two sites, and in theory it has enough material enriched to that level, if enriched further, for almost four bombs, according to a yardstick of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN watchdog.
The expansion in Iran's enrichment program has reduced the so-called breakout time it would need to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for a nuclear bomb to "a week or a little more," according to Burns, from more than a year under a 2015 accord that Trump pulled out of when president.
Actually making a bomb with that material would take longer. How long is less clear and the subject of debate.
POSSIBLE ISRAELI ATTACK
Israel has not yet disclosed what it will target in retaliation for Iran's attack last week with more than 180 ballistic missiles, which largely failed thanks to interceptions by Israeli air defenses as well as by the US military.
The United States has been privately urging Israel to calibrate its response to avoid triggering a broader war in the Middle East, officials say, with Biden publicly voicing his opposition to a nuclear attack and concerns about a strike on Iran's energy infrastructure.
Israel, however, views Iran's nuclear program as an existential threat.
The conflicts in the Middle East between Israel and Iran and Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Gaza and Yemen have become campaign issues ahead of the Nov. 5 presidential election, with Trump and his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, positioning themselves as pro-Israel.
Speaking at a campaign event last week, Trump mocked Biden for opposing an attack on Iran's nuclear sites, saying: "That's the thing you wanna hit, right?"
Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer and government official, said Iran still had space to compensate for setbacks dealt to its proxies and missile force without having to resort to developing a nuclear warhead.
"The Iranians have to recalculate what's next. I don't think at this point they will rush to either develop or boost the (nuclear) program toward military capacity," he said.
"They will look around to find what maneuvering space they can move around in."



Students Occupy Defense Firm Leonardo’s Turin Headquarters to Protest over Gaza

Palestinians carry the body of a man killed in an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on November 13, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Palestinians carry the body of a man killed in an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on November 13, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
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Students Occupy Defense Firm Leonardo’s Turin Headquarters to Protest over Gaza

Palestinians carry the body of a man killed in an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on November 13, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)
Palestinians carry the body of a man killed in an Israeli strike in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza Strip, on November 13, 2024, amid the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas. (AFP)

Around a hundred students occupied Leonardo's Turin headquarters to denounce what they say is the Italian defense group's complicity in Israel's bombardment of the Gaza Strip.

The students, who unfurled a flag of the Palestinian territories from the roof of Leonardo's offices, said the company was supporting Israel by providing remote technical assistance and spare parts to Israel's air force.

Leonardo declined to comment.

Images released by the students show them in Leonardo's offices waving Palestinian flags and carrying spray cans. Outside they hung banners on the buildings saying "no arms to Israel" and accusing the group of complicity in genocide.

They also clambered on top of a plane in the grounds of the company's headquarters.

Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto condemned the protest, saying on X that the students were "destroying and defacing" the offices where an "important meeting with the staff of the defense ministry" was taking place.

"These people must be treated for what they are, dangerous subversives. Criminals have no political color, they are just criminals," he said.

Crosetto said in March that Italy had continued to export arms to Israel, despite government assurances last year that it was blocking such sales following the Israeli army's campaign in Gaza triggered by the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks on Israel.

In March the minister said only previously signed orders were being honored after checks had been made to ensure the weaponry would not be used against Gazan civilians.

Through its US subsidiary, Leonardo provides Israel with aircraft and owns an Israeli radar company called RADA.

Under Italian law, arms exports are banned to countries that are waging war and those deemed to be violating international human rights.