Link: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/1/14/iran-works-on-uranium-metal-for-reactor-fuel
Iran recently began working on a uranium metal-based fuel for a research reactor. This is the most recent breach of the the nuclear deal Iran has made with the UN, Iran’s representative confirms that this new fuel is being worked on and claims everything has been reported to the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency). This has raised concern because the amount of breaches of the nuclear deal by Iran has increased in the past two months. These breaches seem to be in part with the country of Tehran in response to president Trump’s withdrawal from the deal in 2018 and reimposition of US sanctions that the deal lifted.
This could be frightening for countries in the Middle East because it is the second step Iran has made towards the development of nuclear weapons, the first being the enrichment of uranium that I talked about in an earlier post. This also shows that Iran isn’t taking the nuclear deal made with the UN very seriously. I truly believe this is just another attempt by Iran to reach hegemonic status in the Middle East, having access to nuclear weapons in this region is like striking a gold mine. This could also be worrisome for the international community, as a country like Iran having nuclear weapons could lead to serious conflict between countries Iran isn’t so friendly, even possibly restarting the past conflict with Iraq.
Any country in the Middle East having access to nuclear weapons should be taken seriously by the international community, because this extremely fragile shatterbelt region has so many divisions between nations it is just waiting to blow up into conflict. The corruption inside many of these Middle Eastern nations are the reason for it being a shatterbelt. With the terrorist organization ISIS having much territory throughout Iraq, nuclear weapons could cause serious conflict since Iran and Iraq share a border. I believe the request to remove US sanctions is just an effort to make this race for hegemonic status fall more into Iran’s favor.