{"id":18312,"date":"2025-06-24T15:58:32","date_gmt":"2025-06-24T15:58:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18312"},"modified":"2025-06-24T15:58:38","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T15:58:38","slug":"irans-nuclear-facilities-have-been-smashed-but-the-race-toward-a-bomb-may-be-gathering-pace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/?p=18312","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s nuclear facilities have been smashed, but the race toward a bomb may be gathering pace"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

“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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ominously, Iranian officials are already publicly hinting at pulling out of a key treaty \u2013 the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT \u2013 designed to monitor and prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“But if there is political will, nuclear enrichment facilities can eventually be repaired or rebuilt, while Iran\u2019s technical know-how survives, despite the targeting by Israel of multiple Iranian nuclear scientists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, officials at the United Nations\u2019 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iranian state media says the three nuclear sites struck by the United States \u2013 Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan \u2013 were \u201cevacuated\u201d beforehand, raising the possibility that some or all of that material is being stored elsewhere, possibly in a secret facility, unknown to nuclear inspectors.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/iran-nuclear-facilities-smashed-race-040103169.html<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Ominously, Iranian officials are already publicly hinting at pulling out of a key treaty \u2013 the\u00a0Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or NPT \u2013 designed to monitor and prevent the global spread of nuclear weapons.”<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

“But if there is political will, nuclear enrichment facilities can eventually be repaired or rebuilt, while Iran\u2019s technical know-how survives, despite the targeting by Israel of multiple Iranian nuclear scientists.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, officials at the United Nations\u2019 nuclear watchdog, the\u00a0IAEA, say they are uncertain of the whereabouts of the nuclear material Iran has already manufactured, including the large amounts of\u00a0uranium-235\u00a0enriched to 60%, which is very close to weapons-grade levels.<\/p>\n

Iranian state media says the three nuclear sites struck by the United States \u2013 Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan \u2013 were \u201cevacuated\u201d beforehand, raising the possibility that some or all of that material is being stored elsewhere, possibly in a secret facility, unknown to nuclear inspectors.”<\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.yahoo.com\/news\/iran-nuclear-facilities-smashed-race-040103169.html<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[1004,173,436,552,272,355,314,156,194,180,994,273,1282,191,619,158],"class_list":["post-18312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article-share","tag-aircraft","tag-bomb","tag-bombs","tag-conflict","tag-foreign-affairs","tag-foreign-policy","tag-international-relations","tag-iran","tag-israel","tag-nuclear","tag-nuclear-weapons","tag-nukes","tag-planes","tag-strike","tag-united-states","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18312","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=18312"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18312\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18314,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18312\/revisions\/18314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lonecandle.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}