Tuesday, 27 April 2021 (YJC)_ A US journal said that Israel’s clandestine activities inside Iran were not working.
Israel’s clandestine activities inside Iran have undoubtedly delayed the production of material Iran needs to make a bomb—and done so in spectacular fashion. Spies deployed months in advance to plant explosives inside an Iranian nuclear plant, a lethal cyberattack to corrupt computers that control centrifuges spinning uranium, and bullets showered on a leading nuclear scientist by remotely activating a machine gun—each of these incidents could be an episode in a gripping spy thriller.
Whether they were a success, however, is another question. These covert attacks, together with the debilitating sanctions imposed in recent years by Washington, have imposed setbacks on Iran but have not managed to convince the country to abandon its nuclear ambitions altogether. Instead, they have failed to change Iran’s approach to nuclear negotiations; if anything, they have strengthened its resolve to continue enriching uranium and thus achieve a “breakout” capacity for nuclear weapons. However impressive Israel’s attacks, they do not seem to be a sustainable strategy.
On April 11, an explosion caused a power blackout at the Natanz uranium enrichment site, one of Iran’s known nuclear facilities. Nuclear activities there were halted, said Iranian officials.
Many disagree and argue that repeated Israeli sabotages have failed to convince Iran to give up on bomb readiness or to persuade the Biden administration to drive a harder bargain in the recently renewed talks.
Neither Iran nor the United States walked out of the meetings being held in Vienna. Instead, Iran used the recent attack to up uranium enrichment from 20 percent to 60 percent, further shortening the breakout time needed to build a bomb. Ali Vaez, the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group, said Israel’s covert attacks have only delayed and not permanently curtailed Iran’s nuclear activities. If continued, Vaez said, they would strengthen Iranian hard-liners who are pushing for developing a nuclear weapon. “Sabotage and sanctions have only led to the exponential growth of Iran’s nuclear program,” Vaez said. “Only diplomacy has rolled it back.”
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