Iran 'one to two weeks away' from weapons-grade nuclear material as US continues sanctions relief

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned on Friday that Iran could produce fissile nuclear material in "one or two weeks" as the State Department renews a sanctions waiver for Iraq to buy Iranian energy.

Critics were quick to blame the Biden administration for enabling Iran to pursue nuclear weapons by allowing the rogue nation to sell its oil. Biden reversed many of former President Trump's tough sanctions against Tehran.

"What's breathtaking is the complete lack of self-awareness that it was his own maximum deference policy that brought us to this moment, and worse, that his solution is to double down on the failed appeasement strategy," Rich Goldberg, senior advisor at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and former Trump administration NSC official, told Fox News Digital.

"Rather than snapping back the U.N. sanctions and testing maximum pressure, the administration just extended a sanctions waiver and is conducting indirect negotiations via Oman," Goldberg lamented. 

Blinken spoke this week at the annual Aspen Security Forum in Colorado, addressing Iran's march toward a nuclear weapon and admitting that "instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, (Iran) is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that." 

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Blinken blamed the collapse of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) – commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal – for Iran’s accelerated development. He stressed that the U.S. has not seen any evidence to suggest Iran already has a nuclear weapon, Barrons reported. 

Iran’s acting Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri claimed that his country remained committed to the JCPOA, insisting that "America has not yet been able to return" to the deal and that Iran seeks a return to the 2015 deal.

"We are not looking for a new agreement," Bagheri told CNN earlier this week. "Neither I nor anyone else in Iran has not talked and will not talk about a new agreement. We have an agreement (signed) in 2015."

Iran continues to receive sanctions relief through waivers that the U.S. has issued since the Trump administration in 2018, allowing Iraq to import energy from Iran for 120 days at a stretch. The latest renewal occurred on July 11 as Iraq suffered widespread power outages due to the unbearable heat overloading power grids across the country, MEHR News Agency reported. 

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‘’We have renewed this waiver for the 22nd time, and it is about the department permitting Iraq to purchase Iranian electricity while Iraq continues to develop its domestic generation capacity,’’ US State Department Deputy Spokesperson Vedant Patel said at a press briefing.

‘’It is a waiver authority that allows the purchase of electricity over a certain period of time, in this case, 120 days, so it's permission for an activity over a period of time,’’ Patel told Iraqi news outlet Rudaw. 

‘’We have, over the past decade, seen some measurable steps of Iraq weaning off Iranian electricity,’’ Patel added. "Currently, we anticipate that they are relying on Iran for about 25% of their electricity. A number of years ago, that number was 40%."

Blinken reiterated this point, saying that Iraq has doubled its domestic output, but many American politicians remain concerned that Iran benefits from these waivers and have used the funds to help continue developing their nuclear weapons program. 

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The Biden administration insists that the funds remain out of reach for the Iranian government, instead funneling through third-party "restricted accounts" that can only purchase food, medicine, medical devices, agricultural product and other non-sanctionable transactions.

Critics, however, argue that it displaces funding requirements for Iran and frees up the country’s spending so that money it would have otherwise put towards those purchase now goes toward funding its proxy groups and developing nuclear weapons. 

"Let's be honest with the American people and understand that Hamas knows, and Iran knows they're moving money around as we speak, because they know $6 billion is going to be released. That's the reality," Nikki Haley said last year when news broke that the State Department had agreed to release funds in exchange for U.S. prisoners in September. 

Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies with a focus on Iranian security and political issues, told Fox News Digital that the Biden administration has remained on "auto-pilot" and pursued "short-sighted" policies when it comes to Iran, at their own peril. 

"With stories about Iran-backed plots to kill the former president and reports of weaponization related work in Tehran, the last thing Washington should be green-lighting is yet another waiver extension that permits the Islamic Republic to free up revenues to continue to underwrite more global terror and domestic nuclear expansion," Taleblu said. "It’s one thing to see the need to help wean Baghdad off of Tehran and Iranian electricity and energy, but it’s another to continue to use this as a crutch for a better policy towards both Iraq and Iran."