JERUSALEM – Following 12 days of conflict, President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced a triumph over Iran’s nuclear program.
Trump stated that three nuclear facilities were destroyed, while Netanyahu mentioned that Israel had eliminated a critical dual threat: in both the nuclear field and ballistic missiles. These accomplishments, he noted, were something that the U.N.’s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had not achieved in nearly two decades of overseeing Iran’s nuclear endeavors.
Dr. Or Rabinowitz, an expert in nuclear proliferation from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a visiting professor at Stanford University, conveyed to Fox News Digital that the IAEA alone cannot prevent a nation from channeling nuclear materials and technology from its civilian sector to its military sector.
Despite the U.S. and Israel’s successful use of force, the IAEA has held back from commending their actions.
At an emergency session of the agency’s board members on Monday, Rafael Grossi, the IAEA’s Director General, was still urging diplomacy and warning that fighting risked “collapsing the global nuclear Non Proliferation regime.”
“There is still a path for diplomacy, we must take it, otherwise violence and destruction could reach unimaginable levels, and the global Non-Proliferation regime that has underpinned international security for more than half a century could crumble and fall,” he said, without a word about Iran’s lack of transparency and its clear violation of international agreements over more than two decades.
A Ghadr-H missile, center, a Sejjil missile and a portrait of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei are on display for the annual Defense Week, marking the 37th anniversary of the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, at Baharestan Sq. in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Sept. 24, 2017 (AP)
But on Tuesday, two days after the U.S. military carried out massive precision strikes on three key nuclear sites in Iran, Grossi told Fox News’ Martha MacCallum that his agency did not know where nearly 900 pounds of potentially enriched uranium is now located, after Iranian officials said it had been removed for protective measures ahead of the US strikes on nuclear facilities in Iran.
“Like all the international bodies who have been condemning US and Israeli action, these organizations exist for the purpose solely of diplomacy,” Mendoza said, adding, “The agency doesn’t have any military function. It has no recourse to it. It can’t call for it, so, if you think about it, all they’re doing is merely protecting their position within the international system.”
Requests for a response from the IAEA were not immediately answered on Wednesday.
