While the absurd tragedies and pursuits of US President Donald Trump dominate the news, a series of events is taking place in Iran that deserve close attention. Iranian.
Electronic attacks targeted other sites in Iran, including one of the ports, and clashes with Iran occurred in other theaters, including the middle of the sea. Some analysts doubt that the United States and its ally Israel, which have carried out cyberattacks against Iran before, have played a role in these recent explosions, with evidence that neither country has publicly claimed responsibility for what happened, despite the New York Times report that indicates A Middle East intelligence official claimed that this month's explosion at Iran's Natanz nuclear complex was caused by an explosive device planted by Israel.
Whatever the official, these incidents are an important reminder that Iran's continued nuclear and military activities are very dangerous to American national security. Almost four years after his term, President Donald Trump has explicitly failed to reduce the threats posed by Iran, but rather exacerbated them instead of that.
Even if we assume that the recent explosion in Natanz was intended to impede the progress of Iran's nuclear program, Iran is still closer to nuclear weapons than it was when Trump took office.
After the president withdrew from the Iranian nuclear agreement (JCPOA) and imposed sanctions again on Iran in 2018, Iran embarked on restarting a group of nuclear activities that had contracted or slowed down when all parties were committed to the deal.
Iran has reportedly increased its stockpile of enriched uranium significantly, increasing the number of equipment used to enrich uranium, and analysis indicates that Iran has now reduced by half the time it needs to produce a nuclear weapon.
By withdrawing from the nuclear deal - despite the fact that Iran was fulfilling its obligations - made the administration itself an unreliable party, and if there was another deal on the table, Tehran would have good reason to question whether the administration would stick to it.
Second, the administration has adopted unrealistic demands for a new deal as US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo set onerous 12-step conditions that Iran must fulfill in order for the US administration to lift sanctions against it and establish full diplomatic and trade relations with it.
With this type of diplomacy considered a false dream rather than an achievable goal, economic pressure remained Trump's favorite weapon, and by contrast, former President Barack Obama - as well as several other foreign leaders - used sanctions to bring Iran to the negotiating table in the lead-up The joint comprehensive plan of action, however, Trump increased his pressure by applying strict sanctions on Iran, targeting key sectors, companies and system officials.
While using economic tools, Trump used U.S. military assets to pursue his agenda against Iran, including military power. Trump authorized an attack that killed the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Qassem Soleimani, in January, a move that an Iranian ambassador warned was tantamount to declaring war.
Secret business capabilities
The administration also used various covert business capabilities. In June 2019, information was received that Trump ordered a successful cyber attack against the IRGC database after he said that he had canceled imminent air strikes, and that the aim of the attack was said to be to prevent Iranian Revolutionary Guard attacks on oil tankers.
New allegations that the United States and Israel are using secret programs to sabotage Iran's nuclear and military installations appear to be an escalation on this front. Earlier this month, an explosion rocked a building used to assemble uranium enrichment machines at the Natanz industrial complex.
Natanz was reportedly the target of a previous secret US program of action dubbed the Olympic Games during the Obama administration, and, as the New York Times reported, the attack “temporarily drove out nearly 1,000 of the 5,000 centrifuges that Iran had I created it at the time to purify uranium. ”
In late June, an explosion occurred in an Iranian missile facility, but Iran claimed that it occurred in a different facility, and claimed that the explosion was caused by gas, and US and Israeli officials denied involvement in this incident, and another explosion struck the power plant, and shortly after that caused a chlorine gas leak in Several people were injured in southeastern Iran.
This is only inside Iran, as there have also been continuous strikes against Iranian sites outside the country, including against a senior Iranian official in Syria, and against Iranian-backed militias in Iraq.
There is no evidence that the explosions are related to each other, but this leads analysts to believe that they may have been sabotage aimed at slowing Iran's nuclear and military activities.
Israeli involvement
While Israel denies involvement in these recent bombings, it has admitted involvement in previous covert operations. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly recognized one of these operations that led to Israel obtaining an archive of information on Iranian nuclear activity.
The limited impact of the Natanz explosion on the Iranian nuclear program is not entirely clear, but there is a real danger in light of these alleged sabotage attacks. Iran may have to move its nuclear activities underground, to protect itself from more attacks in the future, and this will make it difficult to monitor Iran's activities, Or disable it if necessary.
So when it comes to Iran, the question everyone should ask President Trump is simply: What are you aiming at? Diplomatic tools should be used as a means to implement an informed strategy to resume negotiations and mitigate Iranian threats in general.
Instead, these recent events reveal that the president authorizes without thinking about carrying out operations without any targets on the horizon.
In 2018 Pompeo described the JCPOA as a "losing" bet for the Obama administration that did not pay off, and now after two years it is quite clear that Trump is the loser when it comes to restricting nuclear activity, whether it is in Iran, North Korea, Russia or China.
In the absence of any change in the American approach by the potential presidential concern in the event that presidential candidate Joe Biden wins the elections in November, the United States may be heading towards a disaster by continuing to pour more oil on the burning Middle East fire, and we should not be surprised when Fires start to rise.
Samantha Winograd, a national security analyst, at CNN.
While using economic tools, Trump used U.S. military assets to pursue his agenda against Iran, including military power.
The limited impact of the Natanz explosion on the Iranian nuclear program is not entirely clear, but there is a real danger in light of these alleged sabotage attacks. Iran may have to move its nuclear activities underground to protect itself from more attacks in the future. This would make it difficult to monitor Iran's activities or, if necessary, disrupt it.