…The deal is structured to ensure that the US and its allies concerns are prioritized, and that if the Islamic Republic of Iran meets its obligations, then economic benefits will flow to them and to the entire region. This deal has the potential to remake the region and lead to lasting peace.
I've noticed a couple of bizarre things in the reporting over the last few hours. First, people who (rightly) said Donald Trump was a historic president a month ago now criticizing a deal based on unconfirmed media reports. Second, people who say you can't trust a word said by the IRGC who apparently believe anonymously sourced social media posts.
The president is going to get us a good outcome, one way or the other.
US official: Iran control of Hormuz slipped, robbing it of leverage in negotiations
[IsraelTimes] During the question-and-answer portion of a briefing that a senior US official is conducting with reporters on the emerging Iran deal, the top Trump aide is asked what changed in recent weeks that allowed Washington to now feel good about the MOU on the table.
The senior US official says two things have moved substantially in recent weeks: Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz weakened, in that the US managed to quietly get a lot more oil out of the channel than it did earlier in the conflict. Accordingly, Iran’s leverage took a hit and the US negotiating position improved, the official says.
Accordingly, the US managed to secure stronger wording regarding the disposal of Iran’s highly enriched uranium, the official says, without getting specific. The MOU is not understood as requiring Iran to immediately hand over its material, rather to hold subsequent discussions on the matter.
“It’s something we were proposing a couple of weeks ago… [and] the Iranians have gotten consensus on their system over the last couple of days,” the senior US official says, regarding the MOU’s language on Iran’s nuclear material.
He claims that some hardliners in Iran oppose the deal but that internal dissent in Tehran to the MOU is “quite minimal.”
The senior US official clarifies that there is still a great deal of mistrust between the sides, but he says that the deal is structured in a way that doesn’t rely on trust, rather performance.
The US official confirms that the subsequent nuclear talks that will kick off after the MOU is signed will last for 60 days.
Asked whether Iran Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei supports the emerging deal, the senior US official says those in touch with him have attested that he is “comfortable with where we are in the negotiation.”
“In their system, they can’t do anything without the sign off of the supreme leader,” he adds.
Iran said to have mined entrance to bombed nuclear site to deter US raid to retrieve uranium stockpile
[IsraelTimes] nIran has, in recent weeks, deliberately collapsed tunnels and mined entrances to its bombed Isfahan nuclear complex in a bid to stop the US from launching a raid to retrieve the Islamic Republic’s store of highly enriched uranium that is believed to be buried at the site, CNN reports.
The report, citing five sources familiar with US intelligence, says that it is now far more difficult and dangerous for anyone, including the Iranians, to retrieve the uranium than it was at the start of the war, when US President Donald Trump mulled a ground operation to size the nuclear stockpile.
A former senior nuclear official tells CNN that this also raises the risk that Iran could claim it was unable to retrieve some of the material.
The fate of the enriched stockpile is one of the key issues in an emerging deal between Iran and the US to end the war.
If negotiators “require that Iran bring the entire stockpile to a central location for verification and ultimately to remove or downblend the material,” that would place the onus on Tehran to access and “provide the full inventory” of enriched uranium, Scott Roecker, who headed the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Office of Nuclear Material Removal from 2017 to 2021, tells CNN.
But, “in this scenario, I would worry that Iran would claim that some portion of the HEU was irretrievable,” Roecker says. “We wouldn’t have full confidence that Iran couldn’t retain access to it at some point in the future.”
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