00:00On CGTN, sorry, my question, what are the United Nations nuclear watchdog's main concerns on Iran's nuclear program and why isn't it meeting its obligations?
00:12Well, I mean, there's a variety of concerns about it. Obviously, Iran defends its right to a minimum level of enrichment, which is about 3.45 percent.
00:20But in reality, the Iranians have been enriching uranium significantly in advance of that.
00:25They've been enriching uranium up to 60 percent, which many people in the IAEA, as well as armed control experts believe, could actually lead to Iran being able to eventually create nine nuclear bombs.
00:36So Iran is basically doing what looks like much more enrichment than would be required for simply civilian nuclear energy or for a peaceful enrichment program.
00:45OK, so what happens now? How might Tehran respond?
00:49Well, Tehran basically has argued that its nuclear program is not for military purposes, it's not aimed at building a nuclear weapon, it's not aimed at being used as an aggressive tool against Israel or any of its rivals in the Arab world.
01:05But the international community, especially the Western international community, has not believed it.
01:10So Iran has been increasingly having a frayed relationship with international arms inspectors since the withdrawal from the GCPOA in 2018.
01:19And Iran has also been accused of stonewalling the inspectors on the nuclear arm proliferation treaty.
01:27This can go in one of two ways.
01:29Either the Iranians will allow the NPT declarations to be exposed and they'll engage and coordinate with them on their enrichment process,
01:36or they'll continue to enrich, fearing an Israeli attack.
01:40I'm fearing that the latter outcome is more plausible right now, that this crisis will get worse long before it gets better.
01:45So what about the speculation of an attack by Israel on Iran's nuclear sites?
01:51What could that mean?
01:54Well, Israel has carried out limited risk operations against nuclear programs in the Middle East before.
01:58Of course, 1981, Operation Osirak, 2007, in Syria.
02:03So Osirak was Iraq, Syria.
02:05And there have been rumors, really, ever since the Mahmoud Abedinijad tender as president in the early 2010s,
02:11that the Israelis would eventually take a strike on the Iranian nuclear program if Iranian enrichment was deemed to be out of control.
02:17So Israel has a history of doing this and has the inclination to do it.
02:22The big question is, what does the U.S. do?
02:24Does the U.S. tell Israel to wait and participate in the talks in Oman?
02:27There were some signs that the U.S. would do that when they fired Mike Waltz and Morgan Ortegas from their positions,
02:35and they were in favor of an Israeli attack.
02:38But now it looks as if Trump's patience with Iran is also running out.
02:42So I think that the Israelis feel like they may be able to do this without U.S. pushback,
02:47which may not have been the case three weeks ago or a month ago,
02:50when the U.S. probably would have said no to the Israelis doing this.
02:52Samuel, good to see you. Thank you for that.
02:54That's Samuel Romani, a teacher in politics and international relations at the University of Oxford.
03:01China's premier, Li Chang, has met the president of the European Central Bank.
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