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PaperclipPerfector  4d ago (text post)   14393 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 9, 2026

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Do you have answers to my questions?

I did answer your question- Iran offered to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and maintain enough enrichment for its civilian nuclear facility. It's a rational offer, not one that should have been reacted to with war.

It seems pretty clear to me that Iran has been trying to develop nuclear weapon capability. I guess you dispute this?

You can read the article I linked, there is in fact no evidence of that and none of the experts cited agreed with that conclusion. Iran offered to hand over all of its enriched material.

The major "ignorance" if it can be called that is Trump seemed to be under the impression that the Iranians negotiating 20% enriched material for their civilian reactor was equivalent to an assertion to be a nuclear power. But the fuel for that civilian reactor was already part of the Obama-era deal and no experts cited believed that fuel for this reactor would have remotely constituted the Iranian demands characterized by Witkoff/Trump:

Just 36 hours before the United States opened its military assault, Iran’s nuclear negotiators, along with Oman’s foreign minister as mediator, presented the U.S. with a seven-page proposal for a potential nuclear deal, according to U.S. negotiator Steve Witkoff. But the American negotiators, Witkoff and Jared Kushner — who, according to a senior Middle East diplomat with knowledge of the talks, chose not to include nuclear technical experts in the negotiations — balked at Iran’s request to continue using 20%-enriched uranium at the reactor, a facility for civilian nuclear development that the U.S. first built and provided to Iran in 1967.

“The claim that they were using a research reactor to do good for the Iranian people was a complete and false pretense to hide the fact that they were stockpiling there,” a senior Trump administration official told reporters during a briefing on Tuesday, three days after the attacks began.

But the Trump administration has yet to provide evidence or intelligence — to the public or to Congress — demonstrating that Iran intended to use the uranium at the Tehran Research Reactor for weapon development or that the facility was being covertly used for stockpiling purposes. In two classified briefings provided to lawmakers since the attacks, administration officials made no assertion that the reactor was being used for stockpiling purposes for a potential weapon, according to two people familiar with their comments.

...The reactor requires 20%-enriched fuel and a relatively minimally enriched amount compared with the material required for the production of a nuclear weapon. Under the 2015 Iran nuclear agreement, known as the JCPOA, the reactor would have access to no more than 5 kilograms of 20%-enriched uranium at a time, supplied from outside the country and monitored by inspectors.

The reactor has not come under IAEA scrutiny for suspected nuclear development in more than 25 years, according to Katariina Simonen, a board member of Pugwash Conferences of Science and World Affairs and an adjunct professor at the Finnish National Defence University.

“TRR is not ideal for any other activity than what it is designed for — i.e., civilian use (isotopes, research, training),” Simonen told MS NOW. “It is a small, light-water reactor supplied by the U.S. under the Atoms for Peace program.”

Nobody has presented any evidence that Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon. None of the international agencies attest to that.

What is absolutely stunning is that 20% enriched material needed for Tehran Research Reactor was already resolved by the Obama-era deal that Trump ripped up. So Trump literally ended the deal that solved the exact controversy Witkoff cited as imminent threat and cause for war. It's really uneblievable.

I did answer your question-

Not really. Here's what I had asked:

How long after the recent bombing campaign started did this school incident take place? I honestly don't know.

I'm also interested in the substance and timing of these negotiations as well. What proposal was submitted and when? How did the US respond, if at all? How long afterwards did the hostilities begin?

If I understand you correctly, your position is that "Iran offered to turn over its stockpile of highly enriched uranium and maintain enough enrichment for its civilian nuclear facility" and that the US (unreasonably) refused this offer. Is that right?

And if so, in your view, what was the timing of these events in relation to the start of hostilities?

Nobody has presented any evidence that Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon.

Well do you agree that Iran has (or had) underground bunkers in which it produced (or attempted to produce) highly enriched Uranium?

Nobody has presented any evidence that Iran was trying to develop a nuclear weapon

What other reason would they have for 60% enrichment? As far as I know, there were zero indications they were pursuing naval propulsion, for instance.

Mostly bargaining chip, deterrence, and option to try to create a nuclear weapon in the future. That is not the same as "they are trying to develop a nuclear weapon now" which would constitute "imminent threat." The notion of "imminent threat" that could justifiably bring the world to the brink like it has now is important. There has been no evidence presented to anyone for "imminent threat", which is why the story is so inconsistent and has waffled between "they were going to attack the US" (no evidence) and "they are an imminent nuclear threat" (no evidence).

The Iranians also enriched that material after Trump reneged on the previous Iran deal. So is this responding to an imminent threat, or is this pretext for war on top of a planned controversy over this issue? Who was it again that lobbied most heavily for Trump to exit the Iranian nuclear deal in his first term?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday claimed to have evidence that Iran has lied about its nuclear program and urged President Donald Trump to “do the right thing” next month by pulling out of a 2015 deal designed to curb Iran’s atomic ambitions...

Netanyahu spoke less than two weeks before a May 12 deadline that Trump has cited as a decision point he may use to withdraw from the multinational agreement negotiated by the Obama administration...

One former Obama administration foreign policy official said that Netanyahu’s speech likely had “an audience of one": Donald Trump.

“That is just not an acceptable situation,” Trump said at the White House on Monday in response to a question about the Israeli leader’s remarks.

Trump also warned that Iran was not merely “sitting back idly,” but he declined to say whether he will terminate the agreement next month. “We’ll see what happens,” the president said. “I’m not telling you what I’m doing, but a lot of people think they know.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, fired back on Twitter on Monday, calling the Israeli leader’s speech “a rehash of old allegations already dealt with by the [International Atomic Energy Agency] to ‘nix’ the deal. How convenient. Coordinated timing of alleged intelligence revelations ... just days before May 12.”

Also skeptical was J Street, a Washington-based liberal Israel policy group critical of Netanyahu’s foreign policy.

“While Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Trump have long been determined to undermine this agreement, their own security establishments continue to confirm that the deal is working and that Iran is compliant with all of its commitments. Nothing we were shown today contradicts or disproves that expert assessment,” said Dylan Williams, the group‘s vice president of government affairs.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), the GOP chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee, seemed to agree, telling Bloomberg TV in an interview that Netanyahu’s speech brought “nothing new” to the contentious debate surrounding the agreement.

In his remarks, Netanyahu argued that the seized Iranian intelligence proves the nuclear deal was negotiated in poor faith.

“The Iran deal, the nuclear deal, is based on lies. It’s based on Iranian lies and Iranian deception,” he said. “This is a terrible deal. It should never have been concluded. And in a few days, President Trump will make his decision on what to do with the nuclear deal. I’m sure he will do the right thing.”

So Trump breaks the deal, Iran starts enriching again, and then Witkoff and Kushner declare "imminent threat" on the mere existence of enriched material that Iran has proposed to hand over to the US as part of an agreement.

The Iranian offer to handover the highly-enriched material threw a wrench into the works, most likely, hence why the 20% enrichment for the Tehran Research Reactor is the "best" Wiktoff/Kushner could come up with to convince Trump of some "imminent threat" to justify another war for Israel.

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