Iran could have nuclear weapons within weeks, raising threat of terrifying conflict with Israel – Struan Stevenson

The democratic world must support the Iranian people in their desire for democracy, peace and freedom from the tyrannical mullahs

After decades of threats to wipe Israel off the map, the shadow war finally exploded into open conflict when the Iranian regime launched an unprecedented barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles at their arch enemy. Despite bombastic claims by the mullahs and fake videos of raging fires on state-run TV networks, the air strike was a spectacular failure.

Around 99 per cent of the missiles either blew up shortly after launch or were destroyed by the Israeli Iron Dome defence system, with air support from the US, UK, France and Jordan. Nevertheless, this calamitous attack triggered Israel’s retaliatory response days later, with airstrikes on military targets in Iran, and attacks on Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) compounds in Iraq and Syria.

This tit-for-tat exchange has concentrated minds on how much worse things could become if the mullahs develop a nuclear weapon. Although they claim their Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa against the acquisition, development or use of nuclear weapons in the 1990s, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), stockpiles of Iran’s enriched uranium now stand at 21 times the amount permitted under UN resolutions.

Lying and cheating

The IAEA reported it had detected uranium particles enriched to 83.7 per cent at Fordow, an underground uranium enrichment facility. IAEA inspectors say that there has been “frenzied activity” at Fordow recently as the mullahs’ race to install new equipment to accelerate the enrichment programme, which is a hair’s breadth away from weapons grade, posing a grave threat to the Middle East and wider world. An even bigger underground nuclear site has been constructed at Natanz in the Zagros mountains, buried so deep that it is beyond the reach of weapons designed to destroy such facilities.

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The remains of a missile that landed on the shore of the Dead Sea during attacks on Israel by Iran (Picture: Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)

The Iranian regime achieved this advanced state of uranium enrichment by deceiving the West into believing they are obeying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal, introduced by President Barack Obama in 2015. The mullahs are past masters at lying and cheating. They enthusiastically grasped Obama’s deeply flawed deal, agreeing to all of its restrictive clauses, while secretly accelerating their clandestine work on the production of a nuclear weapon. President Trump unilaterally withdrew America from the deal in 2018, imposing a tough new “maximum pressure” sanctions regime and blacklisting the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.

President Joe Biden and his Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, have wasted valuable time and effort ever since, attempting to raise the JCPOA from the dead. It is well documented the mullahs have used the JCPOA as a convenient cover for their clandestine nuclear programme, hiding their activities from IAEA inspectors. The regime is also developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

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American attempts to appease the mullahs have been faithfully followed by the EU and UK. The EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security, Spanish socialist Josep Borrell, continues to appease Tehran, ignoring IRGC terror attacks and assassinations in Europe and brutal oppression inside Iran.

‘Seven nuclear weapons in one month’

The IRGC’s raison d'être is exclusively summed up in domestic suppression, interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and exporting terrorism and fundamentalism – long-term strategic pillars for Tehran’s survival. However, although senior figures attached to the IRGC have been sanctioned by the EU and UK, there has been ongoing resistance to blacklisting the entire organisation, emboldening the mullahs to engage in further warmongering and now make a full-frontal attack on Israel.

In a report published in March, the IAEA stated: “Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium and its centrifuge capacity combined are sufficient to make enough weapon grade uranium… for seven nuclear weapons in one month, nine in two months, eleven in three months, 12-13 in four months, and 13 in five months.” The growing threat is palpable.

The mullahs are on the verge of building a nuclear warhead and a ballistic missile system capable of delivering it, with Israel as their clear target. We could soon face a scenario where Iran’s proxies in Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Lebanon launch a barrage of drones and missiles at Israel, while Tehran dares the Israelis to retaliate, their finger hovering over the nuclear button. The path towards a terrifying nuclear conflict is an ominous one.

A recent US State Department report on Iran’s nuclear threat ended by saying: “We remain committed to a diplomatic solution and reaffirm our determination that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon.” It is this sort of pathetic, weak-kneed failure to abandon the policy of appeasement that has created the threat we now face.

It is time the US, UN, EU and UK recognised that severing the head of the snake in Tehran is the only way to end the nuclear threat. Western nations must support the Iranian people and their courageous resistance units who want regime change. Beleaguered Iranians have taken to the streets again and again in nationwide uprisings, only to be ruthlessly crushed by the IRGC. In the 2022 uprising, over 750 were killed and 30,000 arrested, many of whom have been tortured, raped, and executed.

Iranians hate the mullahs. They long for justice, freedom, democracy, human rights, women’s rights and a nuclear-free Iran. They don’t want Western military intervention. They just ask for moral support and an end to appeasement. The first step would be for the EU and UK to blacklist the IRGC and for the International Criminal Court to indict Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, President Ebrahim Raisi and all Iranian officials and institutions that have violated human rights and committed crimes against humanity. This will send the strongest possible message of moral support to the Iranian people, in whose hands the task of severing the head of the snake remains.

Struan Stevenson, a former member of the European Parliament, is the coordinator of the Campaign for Iran Change and chair of the In Search of Justice committee on the protection of political freedoms in Iran. His latest book is entitled Dictatorship and Revolution. Iran – A Contemporary History.