Despite recent challenges faced by Iran, including the killing of Hezbollah leaders by Israel and two largely unsuccessful attempts to strike Israel, the United States continues to believe that Iran has not yet made a decision to pursue the development of nuclear weapons, according to two U.S. officials speaking to Reuters.

The statements from a senior Biden administration official and a spokesperson from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) complement earlier comments from CIA Director William Burns, who stated this week that there is no evidence suggesting that Iran’s leadership has reversed its 2003 decision to halt its nuclear weaponization efforts.

“We assess that the Supreme Leader has not made a decision to resume the nuclear weapons program that Iran suspended in 2003,” said the ODNI spokesperson, referring to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This intelligence assessment could offer some insight into why the U.S. has opposed any Israeli military action aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, especially in response to a recent ballistic missile attack from Tehran.

After the missile strike, U.S. President Joe Biden clarified that he would not support an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, though he did not offer an explanation for his stance. His comments provoked sharp criticism from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump. U.S. officials have long acknowledged that an Israeli strike might only delay Iran’s nuclear ambitions and could potentially strengthen Tehran’s resolve to build a nuclear bomb. “We’re all watching this space very carefully,” said the Biden administration official.

Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York did not immediately comment on these developments, but Tehran has consistently denied having any intention of developing nuclear weapons.

Israel’s military actions in recent weeks have dealt severe blows to Hezbollah, a major member of the Iran-backed Axis of Resistance. One of the most significant setbacks was the death of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in an Israeli airstrike last month.

The weakening of Hezbollah, a critical ally of Iran, has prompted some analysts to suggest that Tehran might renew its pursuit of nuclear weapons as a way to safeguard its interests. Beth Sanner, a former U.S. deputy director of national intelligence, noted that the risk of Ayatollah Khamenei revising his 2003 religious edict against nuclear weapons is “higher now than it has been,” adding that if Israel were to target Iran’s nuclear facilities, Tehran would likely proceed with its nuclear weapons program.

However, Sanner emphasized that such a move would not be immediate. “They can’t get a weapon in a day. It will take months and months and months,” said Sanner, now a fellow at the German Marshall Fund.

Iran has been enriching uranium to a level of up to 60% fissile purity at two sites, a step that is close to the 90% needed for weapons-grade material. In theory, Iran now possesses enough uranium enriched to this level to produce almost four nuclear bombs, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

The increase in Iran’s uranium enrichment capabilities has shortened the time it would take to amass enough weapons-grade uranium to produce a nuclear bomb to “a week or a little more,” according to CIA Director Burns, compared to more than a year under the 2015 nuclear deal from which President Trump withdrew the U.S.

Israel has not yet made public its intended targets in response to the ballistic missile strike from Iran last week, which mostly failed due to Israeli air defense systems and U.S. military intercepts. The U.S. has privately advised Israel to carefully consider its retaliation in order to avoid escalating the conflict into a wider regional war, while Biden has expressed concerns about a potential strike on Iran’s energy infrastructure. However, Israel views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.

As the Middle East conflicts involving Israel, Iran, and Iran-backed groups in Lebanon, Gaza, and Yemen intensify, the issue has become a significant topic in the run-up to the U.S. presidential election on November 5. Both former President Trump and his Democratic challenger, Vice President Kamala Harris, have positioned themselves as staunch supporters of Israel.

At a campaign event last week, Trump ridiculed Biden for opposing a strike on Iran’s nuclear sites, saying, “That’s the thing you wanna hit, right?”

Avi Melamed, a former Israeli intelligence officer, commented that Iran still has options to recover from setbacks to its proxies and missile capabilities without necessarily accelerating its nuclear program. “The Iranians have to recalculate what’s next. I don’t think at this point they will rush to either develop or boost the (nuclear) program toward military capacity,” he said. “They will look around to find what maneuvering space they can move around in.”

{Matzav.com}