A seven-page proposal was on the table. Then Trump learned a tantalising fact

Washington: At the third round of talks between U.S. and Iranian officials in Geneva last week, mediated by Oman, the Iranians presented a seven-page proposal outlining the country’s future uranium enrichment needs. Americans were not impressed.

“We joked that the offer looked like Swiss cheese, even though we were in Switzerland,” a senior Trump administration official said.

Negotiators have informed President Donald Trump that a deal with Iran is technically possible but unlikely, especially the kind of deal Trump wants.

Trump requested time for nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime.Stephen Kyprillis

“We said, ‘Look, if you want us to do an Obama-type deal, maybe an Obama-plus deal, we can probably do that,'” the official said, referring to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action negotiated under Barack Obama. “It would take months… They’re playing games with us everywhere.”

Trump hates Obama’s deal and canceled it in his first term. He regularly describes it as the worst deal ever made. The idea of signing something like this was never going to fly.

especially – according to A report published by US news site Axios On Tuesday (US time) – Trump was told a hopeful truth. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had called him on Monday, February 23, giving him a hint that Iran’s supreme leader and his senior advisors would meet at the same place on Saturday morning.

They could all be eliminated in one fell swoop.

U.S. officials have since spoken of a limited window of opportunity to defeat the Iranian regime. House Speaker Mike Johnson, one of the Gang of Eight congressional leaders briefed on February 24 and just before the attack, said there was “a narrow and unique opportunity to act, and if that window had been passed, it would have been much harder for us to accomplish the task.”

Regardless, Trump was receiving increasingly pessimistic reports from his top negotiators in Geneva: all-purpose special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The Iranians openly boasted that they had a stockpile of 460 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium that could be enriched to 90 percent weapons grade in about seven to 10 days, Witkoff told Trump and later on Fox News. He said this would be enough for 11 nuclear bombs. They also had 1,000 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium; it could only take weeks for this to reach military level.

These claims roughly align with an International Atomic Energy Agency report last year that said Iran had 440.9 kilograms of highly enriched uranium on June 13, before Israel and the United States launched an attack on the country’s nuclear infrastructure. Investigators have not been able to access Iranian facilities since that attack.

If Witkoff’s account of the talks is to be believed, this would suggest that Operation Midnight Hammer, which Trump said “completely and utterly destroyed” the country’s nuclear facilities, did not destroy those stockpiles.

The state of Iran’s nuclear program and allegations that it is close to having a nuclear weapon have been circulating for decades, with Netanyahu being a leading fearmonger. So is this claim true today?

“No,” IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said when he appeared on CNN on Tuesday. Grossi said there was no evidence that Iran was pursuing a systemic and structured program to build nuclear weapons.

But he said there were “serious concerns” about Iran unjustly stockpiling large amounts of uranium close to military use and a lack of transparency in inspections. Grossi said Israel and the United States could conclude there was only one reason Iran did these things, but the IAEA would not speculate on intentions.

There is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a structured program to produce nuclear weapons, International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi said on Tuesday.access point

Two senior Trump administration officials said in a background briefing call with reporters that Grossi’s comments to CNN contradicted what he told Witkoff the day before. Grossi tried to clarify his position on X.

“I have been very clear and consistent in my reporting on Iran’s nuclear program: While there is no evidence that Iran has produced a nuclear bomb, its large stockpile of near-weapons-grade enriched uranium and the refusal to grant my inspectors full access raise serious concerns,” he wrote.

“For these reasons, my previous reporting indicates that unless and until Iran assists the IAEA in resolving outstanding safeguards issues, the agency cannot provide assurance that Iran’s nuclear program is fully peaceful.”

In other words, it is difficult to doubt that Iran is enriching uranium in this way.

Two US officials said they did not know exactly where the highly enriched uranium was located. There were many people in Isfahan, the nuclear facility that was destroyed in the June attacks but this time has been spared so far. An official said some may be at the Natanz facility, specifically in an underground area called tunnel 216; “We know that Iranian officials tried to get in, even though the front door was largely closed.”

There was another factor that worried Witkoff and Kushner in their dealings with the Iranians: a civilian facility called the Tehran Research Reactor, which ostensibly produces medical and industrial radioisotopes.

According to two senior Trump administration officials, Iran wanted to increase uranium enrichment at TRR in its 10-year plan. However, it was stated that the IAEA is aware that there is currently enough nuclear fuel in the facility to meet Iran’s needs for seven to eight years.

An official said they had made some “quick calculations” that suggested TRR did not produce any radioisotopes and that the fuel supply was being stockpiled along with all other stockpiling at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow, Iran’s other major nuclear facility.

“The claim that they were using a research reactor to do a favor to the Iranian people was a complete excuse to hide the fact that they were stockpiling there,” the official said.

In 2021, Iran announced plans to enrich uranium to 60 percent and put 1,000 centrifuge machines into operation at Natanz, ostensibly to make radiopharmaceuticals. Centrifuges are critical to the enrichment process.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi denied that Iran wants nuclear weapons. He recently said in speeches on US television networks that such a weapon would be against Islam. But he refused to sacrifice the country’s enrichment programme, saying it was a matter of national pride and dignity.

“As a sovereign country, we have the right to decide for ourselves,” he told CBS News last week. “We will not give up on this. There is no legal justification for doing this when everything is peaceful.”

Iran also has the right to a civilian nuclear program as a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; however, he was found to be in breach of his obligations under this agreement.

Spencer Faragasso, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Science and International Security, a think tank that advocates against nuclear proliferation, said Iran’s possession of any amount of highly enriched uranium poses a danger to the world. “No country in the world produces 60 percent uranium except countries with nuclear weapons,” he said.

Faragasso said the June attacks severely damaged or disabled three of Iran’s enrichment facilities, but it was unknown what happened to uranium stockpiles and it was clear that the Iranians wanted to rebuild their enrichment capabilities.

There are other facilities the think tank is monitoring: Kazma Mountain, a heavily fortified area just south of Natanz. Construction began in 2020, and Faragasso says it could be a future beneficiation site: “We’re hoping this will be hit or hit.”

In his view, it was the right time to overthrow the regime, regardless of whether Iran posed an imminent threat.

“It’s a regime that massacres its people. It’s a regime that finances terrorism. It’s also a regime that is very weak right now,” he says. “The general picture is that if you want to hit the regime, it’s not going to get any easier. It’s just an uphill battle.”

This argument ultimately prevailed in the White House; even though there were many reasons for the attack, including Israeli encouragement, as has been clear since the first attack.

“It was very clear [the Iranians] “They were trying to buy time,” a senior Trump administration official said. “They basically offered us a lot of political gains and concessions, but they were unwilling to give up the building blocks that they needed to protect to get a bomb. The obvious conclusion was that there was no agreement that would create a different long-term paradigm.”