this post was submitted on 22 Jun 2025
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Dude stop. Iran did/does have a nuclear program. It’s not secret and is something they’re quite proud of. There’s a difference from having a nuclear program, which they definitely did have and no one disagrees, and having a nuclear weapons program, which has been widely up for debate largely bc of how secretive Iran has been about it.
There wouldn't be. The infrastructure required for weapons grade uranium is exactly the same infrastructure used for less enriched uranium. Inspectors could check radiation levels inside the facilities, but Trump brought that to an end.
None of this is meant to support the justification that Iran was weeks away from getting a weapon. That was pure bullshit.
There have been inspectors checking radiation levels the entire time. There are inspectors in Iran right now, the only reason there's an interruption in inspections is the IAEA doesn't want to get bombed.
The IAEA has continued to report on Iran's nuclear program. That does not mean there have been inspections. The following excerpts are from their last quarterly report in May.
The Agency has lost continuity of knowledge in relation to the production and current inventory of centrifuges, rotors and bellows, heavy water and UOC, which it will not be able to restore as a result of not having been able to perform JCPOA-related verification and monitoring activities for more than four years.
Iran’s decision to remove all of the Agency’s equipment previously installed in Iran for JCPOA-related surveillance and monitoring activities has also had detrimental implications for the Agency’s ability to provide assurance of the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear programme.
"Our inspectors remain in Iran"
JCPOA was the extra deal that allowed the IAEA to inspect more than just nuclear facilities and put surveillance cameras on things that aren't nuclear enough to be covered by the NPT like dual use industrial equipment and raw uranium ore. Iran still follows the NPT and all the bombed facilities are declared nuclear sites that the IAEA has been inspecting.
I don't think that "centrifuges, rotors and bellows" qualify for "aren't nuclear enough". Combined with the raw uranium ore, there is no way to know how much refinement is being done.
Saying that inspections continued uninterrupted is a little bit disingenuous when it leaves out that the inspection capabilities have been rolled back so far as to make them nearly useless.
I still seriously doubt the "intelligence" used to justify these attacks. I also think that it's extremely unlikely that the bulk of Iran's enriched stockpiles were destroyed by the US attacks. I also think the US knew that would be the case, laying bare the truth that destroying them was never the real objective.