Israel estimates: Tehran will exploit global chaos to rapidly enrich uranium to reach nuclear bomb by late 2021 • Nuclear facilities remain unsupervised

Concern in Israel about the possibility that Iran will take advantage of the fact that global attention is now entirely devoted to the Corona epidemic, and will secretly move forward in its nuclear project.

Defense Minister Bennett refers to Iran's establishment in Syria // Photo: Tal Oz / Ministry of Defense

Iran is one of the most affected countries in all of Corona. As of yesterday, 3,036 dead and 48,000 patients had been officially reported there, but estimates in the West speak of much higher truth figures.

Intelligence officials in Israel believe the numbers are four or five times higher than those reported, but it is unclear whether the discrepancy is due to deliberate concealment by the authorities, or the clash that prevails in the country and the fact that many sick and government officials and officials are dead.

Secret work group

The Corona epidemic is further exacerbating the crisis in which the government in Tehran is suffering. Even so, the situation in the country is very difficult due to the sanctions imposed by the United States and the heavy economic price they levy on Iranian citizens. Against this background, the current crisis is seen as yet more proof of the authorities' failure to respond to the epidemic and now difficult to control.

Intelligence officials have expressed concern that the plight of the government in Tehran - which may have been the worst since the 1979 Khomeini Revolution - may lead him to seek a way to consolidate his status, within the Republic and across the world. One of the paths he may choose is the nuclear project, taking advantage of the fact that the world is currently busy with the Corona crisis.

Iran has already announced recently that it no longer considers itself committed to the nuclear agreement after the US withdrew from it and imposed widespread economic sanctions on it. As part of that, Iran has returned to enrich uranium, and has even gained hundreds of pounds of low-grade enriched material, though Slowly so as not to be perceived as breaking the tools.

At the Intelligence Division at the beginning of the year, it was estimated that if you continue at this rate, Tehran will accumulate enough enriched uranium within a few months to produce a first nuclear bomb, and that if it is not arrested it will be able to complete the bomb production process by the end of 2021.

The concern now is that Iran will accelerate these processes. Against the backdrop of the Corona crisis, members of the International Atomic Energy Commission are avoiding almost all nuclear control activities in Iran, and may even decide to leave the country soon. This will leave Iran's facilities unsupervised, and open a possible path for Iran to bomb.

Another move that Iran may take is the establishment of a clandestine working group that will advance its nuclear project away from the watchful eye of the inspectors and intelligence agencies around the world.

In the past, Iran has already operated such working groups (mainly until 2003), and now fears that it will act covertly to exploit global chaos and end when it is much closer to nuclear capability.

The possibility that Iran will now lean toward the bombing has led Israel to increase its intelligence surveillance of Iran's nuclear activity. It can be estimated that Israel also participates in intelligence activities in the West in order to preserve global coordination on the issue.