Resuscitating Iran’s Nuclear Deal Is Fool’s Errand – Senior US Senator

A senior US Republican senator says the insistence by the European Union and President Joe Biden on rejoining Iran’s nuclear deal – or the JCPOA – is a fool’s errand. 

Senate Foreign Relations Committee Ranking Member Jim Risch (R-Idaho) made the remarks in a tweet on Monday, criticizing the proponents of restoring the nuclear agreement despite everything the Islamic Republic is doing. 

“From assassination plots of former US officials, attacks on Americans, to disabling IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) monitors and continued support for regional terrorism... it’s time to walk away from a bad deal with Iran,” he said. 

Recently, media with links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have suggested that Iran may build nuclear warheads “in the shortest possible time” if attacked by the US or Israel. Iran has now enriched enough uranium to 60 percent that if further enriched to 90 percent, the fissile material will be sufficient for a nuclear bomb within a few weeks.

Some Iranian officials have suggested that Iran is a nuclear threshold state but does not want or need a nuclear weapon and is only enriching uranium for energy and other civilian uses. They often add that Iran's Supreme Leader has declared that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are all forbidden under Islam (haram), in a fatwa, or religious edict, first revealed in a statement from Iran to the IAEA in Vienna in August 2005.

On Tuesday, Iranian lawmaker Mohammad-Reza Sabbaghian Bafghi said, "We will ask the Supreme Leader to change his fatwa and strategy on the prohibition of producing nuclear weapons if the enemies of the Islamic Republic continue their threats.”