Iran has explicitly accused their long-standing rival, Israel, of sabotaging its key nuclear site when it experienced a power outage in a crucial area of the plant. The alleged attack appears to be the a part of the covert war between the two foes, with Iran citing the incident as “nuclear terrorism”. The outage also comes amidst diplomatic efforts from Iran and the US to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, which was fiercely opposed by Israel. Israel has not formally commented on the outage, and the United States has no speculation as to who could be behind it. Additionally, the incident occured only a day after Iran launched new centrifuge machines after insisting they only want nuclear energy, not bombs.
Regarding the 2015 nuclear deal, US President Biden has committed to rejoining the deal under the provision that the Islamic Republic complies with all international restrictions on nuclear fuel production. Iran has requested for US sanctions to be lifted in order to restore its oil-based economy. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu has come out to state that Iranian weapons enrichment is a menace to Israeli existence, and that Iran would not give up the development of nuclear weapons. Critics of the deal say that reviving Iran’s nuclear weapons program would only exacerbate existing tensions in the Middle East, not only between Iran and Israel, but also Iran and Saudi Arabia, the other major opposition player in the region. The nuclear deal has greatly benefitted Iranian economy, with the sanctions on the energy sector lifted, as well as gaining new trading partners. The fate of the deal largely rests on the United States rejoining and Iran complying with the Biden administrations terms for revival.