Who wouldn’t trust peeps that follow the musings of a 7th century murderous pedophile?
On Thursday evening, news broke that six world powers reached a framework agreement with Iran that is supposed to curtail its nuclear program. The Times of Israel reported that under the deal, the giant underground enrichment site at Fordo – which Israeli and American officials fear is impervious to bombing – will be partly converted to advanced nuclear research and the production of medical isotopes.
There are a few problems with this interpretation of the deal.
President Obama was saying as late as 2012: “We know they don’t need to have an underground, fortified facility like Fordo in order to have a peaceful program.”
The Iranians simply said no. So the Americans caved in and said that they could keep it open as a research facility–but they had to remove all the centrifuges for storage.
The compromise was the brainchild of Robert Einhorn from Brookings – a top State nonproliferation official stretching back to the Clinton era – and there was a lot of talk of Iranian flexibility when they accepted it. Then this week, it emerged that, in fact, the Iranians would be allowed to keep centrifuges spinning inside the mountain.
But instead of spinning uranium, the centrifuges would be spinning germanium or similar non-nuclear elements. That’s the administration’s talking point: that there will not be any “enrichment” going on at Fordow. The claim is – bluntly – false. Centrifuges spin isotopes into lighter and heavier elements, thereby “enriching” the material. That’s what they do. In fact, that’s all they do.
Read more: Western Journalism
