Report: Iran accelerating uranium production

According to a report from an independent watchdog group, Iran has apparently followed through on a threat to accelerate its production of enriched uranium.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has long cast Iran as the most prevalent and dangerous threat to the Jewish state and has lauded American efforts to place sanctions on the Islamic nation. The U.S. pulled out of a nuclear deal with Iran last year, tightened sanctions in May and even dispatched troops to the region recently.

President Obama had a policy of distancing himself from natural US allies like Israel, and befriending fanatics like the Ayatollahs in Iran and the outlawed Muslim brotherhood in Egypt. I had never bought into the idea that he was a secret Muslim, but in retrospect, when I remember him referring in an interview to his “Muslim faith,” I have to ask, how many people accidently refer to their faith by the wrong name? I have never come close to saying, my Buddhist or Hindu faith. And, based on his actions, he certainly favored the Islamic world over Israel and even America.

Now, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Yukiya Amano, whose agency is responsible for monitoring Iranian compliance with the nuclear deal, said Iran was now producing more enriched uranium than before.

“Yes, [the] production rate is increasing,” he said, but declined to say how much it had increased by.

Iran said last month it was still abiding by the deal but threatened to quadruple its production of enriched uranium if European nations failed to shield it from U.S. sanctions. Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif blamed the United States for the escalation but expects Europe to intervene.

“Reducing tension is only possible through stopping the economic war by America,” he said. “Those who wage such wars cannot expect to remain safe.”

In truth the economic war that the US is waging is preventing Iran from funding Hezbollah, Hamas and the rebels in Yemen. This is precisely way Iran is acting out. That want weak Europe to panic and appeal to the US to ease sanctions. That would be absurd, considering sanctions are strangling Iran’s economy and could result in regime change and an end to their state-sponsored terror.

He also accused Israel of pursuing nuclear options.

“Netanyahu stands next to the Dimona [reactor], a nuclear weapons site, and says Iran should be destroyed…Of course, no one can act against our people without receiving a decisive response,” Zarif said.

Netanyahu immediately called out Zarif on his outrageous statements.

“Zarif is once again lying,” Netanyahu said in a statement. “Iran is the one openly threatening destruction. The regime’s officials threaten the destruction of Israel on a daily basis.”

A high-ranking German minister visited Tehran in an effort to quell tension.

“The situation in the region here is highly explosive and extremely serious,” the German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said during his visit. “A dangerous escalation of existing tensions can also lead to a military escalation.”

Israel, which has always been ambiguous about its nuclear capability, is concerned not just with Iranian weapon development, but also with the country’s presence on the Syrian border and its support of Hezbollah, Israel’s arch enemy based in southern Lebanon.