https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/04\/19\/iran-nuclear-talks-trump-00299466<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"“sanctions have never made the clerical regime abandon its nuclear ambitions. During Trump\u2019s first term, his \u201cmaximum pressure\u201d sanctions campaign did real damage to Iran\u2019s economy. Iran didn\u2019t, however, concede its atomic assets.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
” Obama\u2019s more friendly outreach only made progress after Washington made a key concession \u2014 Iran\u2019s \u201cright\u201d to enrich uranium. The Americans also made a second key concession: allowing Iran to retain a substantial nuclear infrastructure, which could ramp back up at any time. Ali Salehi, the MIT-educated nuclear engineer who was probably the mastermind behind Iran\u2019s dual-use import network, loved the Obama agreement because it would guarantee the Islamic Republic a more advanced, better-financed atomic program that it could grow in the open. It was Obama\u2019s permissive terms much more than the promised financial relief that induced the theocracy to sign the 2015 accord.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
” Along the way, the clerical regime might agree to dilute its stock of 60 percent-enriched uranium, which is near weapons-grade, or even cap enrichment at a lower level. It would be a flashy concession that won\u2019t fundamentally affect the complexion or the trajectory of Tehran\u2019s nuclear program. The mullahs know that what matters most are protecting its new generation of centrifuges. With much greater efficiency and speed, these machines can enrich uranium to bomb-grade and can be housed in small facilities that are harder to detect.”<\/p>\n
…<\/p>\n
“Even a stringent inspection regime, unless supported by a well-placed human-intelligence network, would find locating these centrifuges an excruciatingly difficult task.”<\/p>\n
https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/magazine\/2025\/04\/19\/iran-nuclear-talks-trump-00299466<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[390,221,272,355,314,156,180,994,273,1001,170,619],"class_list":["post-17477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-diplomacy","tag-donald-trump","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-nukes","tag-sanctions","tag-trump","tag-united-states"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17477"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17478,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17477\/revisions\/17478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}