“We have little doubt that Iran’s leadership is still strategically committed to achieving deliverable nuclear weapons.”
So said national security adviser John Bolton in Israel last week.
The problem is, says Joe Cirincione, president of Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation, U.S. intelligence does not agree. In a piece for Defense One, he writes
Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats certainly does not agree with Bolton. He testified to the Senate last year that Iran “wants to preserve the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” which expressly forbids Iran from ever having nuclear weapons. He said that the accord “has also enhanced the transparency of Iran’s nuclear activities, mainly by fostering improved access to Iranian nuclear facilities.”
In November the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded, that Iran remains in compliance with the deal that shrank and then largely froze its nuclear infrastructure.
Trump has repudiated the deal, strengthening hard-liners in Iran. One top national security adviser in the Iranian government say
Source: Bolton’s Big Iran Con – Defense One
