“Tehran has suspended cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian announced Wednesday, according to state media reports.
The move marks a significant stepback in Iran’s international cooperation after Washington’s dramatic June 21 strikes on its nuclear enrichment facilities.”
The Constitution clearly puts the power of deciding to go to war in the hands of the Congress. The attack on Iran was a clear act of war. It was not authorized by Congress. The attack on Iran was unconstitutional.
“Under the War Powers Act of 1973, the law that governs presidential authority to order military strikes, there are three lawful ways for a commander-in-chief to order the bombing of another country. None of them appears to cover the strikes carried out on Saturday.
Here is the relevant section of the law (emphasis added): “The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”
The first two options provided by the law are clearly not involved here, as Congress did not declare war against Iran and did not pass an authorization for the use of military force (as was done to allow the invasion of Iraq in 2002).
The third circumstance also does not apply to Trump’s attack on Iran, which was not carried out in response to an attack on American troops and did not respond to a crisis threatening American soil.”
…
“The War Powers Act should not be treated as a series of suggestions that can be discarded when they seem inconvenient. Indeed, limits on executive power are most essential at the moments when they are inconvenient—otherwise, they are meaningless. Trump’s attack on Iran was not just an assault on a suspected nuclear weapons program; it was yet another blow against the separation of powers and the fundamental structure of the American constitutional system.”
Seems like Trump announced a ceasefire before many Israeli and Iranian government officials knew about the talks or agreement. There was a period between the announcement of a ceasefire and the time it went into effect when Israel and Iran struck each other while they still could. The ceasefire appears to have been broken, but may be holding now.
Claims that the Iranian nuclear program was obliterated sound like silly propagandistic lies by the Trump administration. The nuclear program was greatly damaged, but not obliterated, and Iran can rebuild. Depending on how fast Iran can rebuild, this may have ultimately been a futile attack that only makes Iran more determined to get a nuclear weapon.
“For years, hard-line voices inside the Islamic Republic have been calling for a nuclear weapon as a deterrent against exactly this kind of overwhelming attack.
Even as Iran continues to insist its nuclear program is for strictly peaceful purposes, those calls will now inevitably have been bolstered and the nuclear hard-liners may finally get their way.
Ominously, Iranian officials are already publicly hinting at pulling out of a key treaty – the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT – designed to monitor and prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.”
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“But if there is political will, nuclear enrichment facilities can eventually be repaired or rebuilt, while Iran’s technical know-how survives, despite the targeting by Israel of multiple Iranian nuclear scientists.
Meanwhile, officials at the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, the IAEA, say they are uncertain of the whereabouts of the nuclear material Iran has already manufactured, including the large amounts of uranium-235 enriched to 60%, which is very close to weapons-grade levels.
Iranian state media says the three nuclear sites struck by the United States – Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan – were “evacuated” beforehand, raising the possibility that some or all of that material is being stored elsewhere, possibly in a secret facility, unknown to nuclear inspectors.”
Much highly enriched uranium was likely removed before U.S. bombs hit. If the U.S. was going to attack anyways, striking earlier may have prevented this.