Blinken says there is still time to negotiate nuclear deal with Iran

“I don’t think that a nuclear weapon is inevitable,” the secretary of state told the Council on Foreign Relations.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

Outgoing Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there is still time to negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran, despite the opinion of the head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

Speaking to the Council on Foreign Relations in New York on Wednesday, Blinken said, “I don’t think that a nuclear weapon is inevitable” and that “there is the prospect of negotiations” with the incoming Republican administration.

He acknowledged that circumstances had somewhat changed recently, saying that the Iranians have “lost different lines of defense” and “sure, you’re going to see more thinking” about racing to a bomb.

The Islamic Republic’s most important client state, Syria, fell to Sunni Islamist rebels almost without a fight, and its chief terror proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, decimated by the IDF, agreed to a ceasefire and withdrawal miles away from the border with Israel.

In addition, in retaliation for Iran’s second unsuccessful attempt at striking Israel with a massive wave of missiles in October, the IDF destroyed vital components of the mullahs’ ballistic missile program as well as all their advanced air defenses in an airstrike later that month.

US President-elect Donald Trump, who had pulled out of the old nuclear agreement in 2018 during his first presidency, calling it a “terrible nuclear deal,” said he wanted “a better, stronger deal.”

The secretary of state spoke just two days after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi told Italian news agency ANSA that “the philosophy of the original accord with Iran can be used, but that agreement is no longer useful.”

This is because the Islamic Republic had “developed much stronger capabilities,” he explained, noting that “it has uranium at 60% — 90% is military grade — and is thus practically at the same level as nuclear-armed states.”

According to the nuclear watchdog, as of October 26, Iran has 182.3 kilograms (401.9 pounds) of 60% enriched uranium, which has no civilian use whatsoever.

It is only a mere technical step between the two levels, and the IAEA reported earlier this month that Iran is “likely” to have enough enriched uranium to build four bombs.

At the same time, the U.S. Office of National Intelligence officially estimated that the mullahs have “enough fissile material to make more than a dozen nuclear weapons,” although the decision to go for one has not yet been made.

It will be “a complex process” to “define a system that serves the new Iranian reality,” Rossi said.

The secretary of state made it clear in his speech that no American administration would permit Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon.