Lebanon ‘is a hostage to the veto power’ of Hezbollah, says Lebanese economist Nadim Shehadi

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Updated 20 February 2023
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Lebanon ‘is a hostage to the veto power’ of Hezbollah, says Lebanese economist Nadim Shehadi

  • Regards Lebanese crisis as part of a ‘broader regional problem, which needs to be treated as such’
  • Says shortcomings of the political class does not justify calls for the abolition of the entire system

DUBAI: Eighteen years ago this month, Rafik Hariri, a prominent politician and former prime minister of Lebanon, was assassinated by a suicide truck bomb in Beirut. Originally a philanthropist before his engagement in politics, Hariri, who had made his fortune in construction, donated millions of dollars to victims of war and conflict in Lebanon, and later played a major role in ending the civil war and rebuilding the capital city.

Hariri’s assassination marked the beginning of dramatic political change and movements calling for democracy in Lebanon. For years after his assassination, politicians and important figures opposed to the influence of both Syria and Hezbollah in the country were targeted.

Despite an international tribunal finding members of Hezbollah guilty of Hariri’s assassination after passionate calls for an investigation into his death, the Iran-backed militia group has only tightened its grip on Lebanon, keeping the country in a dire state.

“Hariri was killed 18 years ago and it took about 15 years to destroy the whole country after everything he tried to build,” Lebanese economist Nadim Shehadi said on “Frankly Speaking,” the Arab News current affairs talk show which engages with leading policymakers and business leaders.

“The Special Tribunal for Lebanon and the independent international investigation commission came to Lebanon, and it took them about 15 years to produce their result. And for the first time in the history of Lebanon, where we have had several assassinations, for the first time, we had a conviction,” Shehadi said.

But according to him, despite a conviction in Hariri’s case, Hezbollah’s influence over Lebanon means that the real perpetrators of the assassination will go unpunished, and the group will continue to hold the country hostage.

Lebanon’s various political and economic crises have only intensified in recent years, with inflation in the country rising to the highest in the world in 2021 and the value of the Lebanese lira plummeting drastically.

Last year witnessed a series of bank holdups by armed customers seeking to withdraw their frozen deposits. In a country whose capital was formerly referred to as the “Paris of the East,” two-thirds of the population now suffers from poverty, with regular electricity blackouts and shortages of basic necessities such as medicine and water increasingly commonplace.




A protester throws a brick at a bank after setting fire to tires during a demonstration in Beirut on February 16, 2023. (AFP)

The country’s chronic instability has deepened in recent years in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as the 2020 Beirut port explosion which killed hundreds, left hundreds of thousands homeless, and damaged over half of the city while inflicting massive economic losses.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, the two international organizations which campaign against injustice and inequality, have called the investigation into the blast a “farce.”

Shehadi asserts that despite Lebanon’s historically “very healthy and functioning judiciary,” Hezbollah has interfered with the investigation.

This series of disasters have pushed many Lebanese to call for the removal of the entire political class, something that Shehadi views as a “ridiculous demand.”




Lebanese wait to fill their gas cylinders in the southern city of Sidon amidst a deepening economic crisis, on August 10, 2021. (AFP)

In his opinion, Lebanon’s political system is not “sectarianism,” as some observers term it, but rather “a political system based on a social contract between communities and which has maintained the country … even before the state was created.”

“We have a banking system which was the banking center of the region. We have political parties. These are pillars that distinguish Lebanon … and the revolution is asking almost for the dismantlement of all these pillars,” he told Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking.”

While Shehadi acknowledges there are definitely issues with Lebanon’s political class, which he says was compromised by 15 years of occupation and political infiltration by the Syrian regime, “this doesn’t justify calling for the abolition of the whole system.”

Eight months after the country’s general elections, Lebanon still has not reached a consensus regarding its president or a functioning parliament.




Lebanese protesters gather to protest against tax increases and official corruption outside the Sidon branch of Lebanese Central Bank in southern city on November 30, 2019. (AFP)

Urgent political reforms are needed to unlock the $3 billion in emergency funds from the International Monetary Fund, but with Lebanon’s political system in tatters and its parliamentarians regularly staging walkouts, accessing these funds seems unlikely.

Shehadi said that while he is not opposed to a “fragmented” parliament with diverse political opinions, “what we have is not a fragmented parliament. What we have is a paralysis of all institutions that’s been building up for 15 years, 17 years almost.”

He added that Lebanon and its institutions are “a hostage to the veto power” of Hezbollah, which has gained footholds in Lebanon by means of assassinations and building of political alliances.

Shehadi compares Hezbollah’s gradual infiltration of state institutions in Lebanon to the behavior of drug cartels in power in narco-states in Latin America.




Hezbollah supporters attend a televised speech by the group's leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut's southern suburbs on January 3, 2023. (AFP)

“They bribe politicians, the judiciary, the police, the army. Those who cannot be co-opted, if you like, are probably dead, and those who can be framed or blackmailed — that’s how criminal organizations gain power in a country,” he said.

The Lebanese parliament has held eleven electoral sessions to elect the president since Sept. 29 last year, with every session failing to elect a candidate.

In recent days, Joseph Aoun, commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces, has emerged as a potential contender. However, this would require a constitutional amendment, and consensus from the parliament, which is currently headed by Speaker Nabih Berri.

Though he calls Berri “a brilliant operator” who is familiar with the ins and outs of Lebanon’s tangled political web, Shehadi says Berri is “also a hostage himself.”

Berri is the leader of the Amal Movement, which engaged in a years-long war with Hezbollah in the 1980s which saw thousands killed.




In this photo taken on June 6, 2020, Lebanese troops block supporters of the Lebanese Shiite movements Hezbollah and Amal trying to crash through a rally in Beirut decrying the collapse of the economy. (AFP)

“It ended with an agreement between them, sponsored by Iran and Syria, whereby they basically formed one block in parliament and one list, which means they have the monopoly of Shiite representation. They do not have a monopoly of Shiite support, but they have the monopoly of Shiite representation because of the way they manipulate lists in their areas,” Shehadi said.

During multiple electoral sessions stretching from September 2022 to January this year, many MPs left their ballot papers blank, with some in early sessions even casting their votes for “For Lebanon,” “Righteous dictator,” and “Nobody.”

Shehadi explained that major decisions and appointments within the Lebanese administration must be made by consensus, and with the signature of the president, speaker of the parliament, and prime minister. In the midst of the current political power vacuum, this means that the government in Lebanon has all but ceased to function.

“We had that for 29 months, without a president, without a parliament, and without a functioning government … we had a caretaker government, until our politicians, if you like, compromised and accepted to elect the favorite candidate of Hezbollah. So, we are in the same position, and it’s a difficult position because the longer we resist, the more damage there is, and I think our economic collapse is mainly caused by paralysis,” Shehadi said.




A January 19, 2023, photo shows Lebanon's Parliament convening to elect a new president. Because of sectarian divisions, the election failed. (AFP file)

“The priority now is to have a president and a functioning parliament and a functioning government so that state institutions do not collapse further.”

Shehadi added that though there is no shortage of credible candidates, the parliament is “held hostage, and the whole system is held hostage because you need a certain majority to start the process of elections. You need a two-thirds plus one majority, which means that one-third of parliament can spoil the process.”

Even if this litany of political challenges were overcome and Lebanon managed to receive assistance from the IMF, Shehadi said that IMF funds would not be a solution to all of Lebanon’s financial problems. However, he stressed that “engagement with the IMF is crucial.”

“Following the IMF recommendations is very important, especially on fiscal and monetary policy. There’s a lot of opposition to some of the IMF reforms, which I understand,” he said, adding that many observers say that $3 billion in funds will do very little to alleviate the country’s $90 billion deficit.

“But I think, in my view, it’s more important to remain engaged. The country is being paralyzed and isolated from the West, from the Arab countries, and now will be isolated from international institutions too, like the IMF and the World Bank and the UN and all that. It’s very damaging to ignore the IMF route.”




Nadim Shehadi speaks to Frankly Speaking host Katie Jensen. (Supplied)

Shehadi concurs with the World Bank’s assessment of the meltdown in Lebanon as one of the worst modern crises in recent history. But asked if he thinks there is a way out of the quagmire, he replied: “Yes, but I don’t see it only for Lebanon. The whole region is suffering from the same problem. The Lebanese case is similar to what is happening in Palestine, in Syria, in Iraq, in Yemen, and this could spread to other countries in the region who could be vulnerable.”

He continued: “It should be treated as a regional phenomenon, which is, basically, the role of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The IRGC, as a paramilitary, non-state actor, has taken over the Iranian state and society in the same way as Hezbollah is acting in Lebanon, in the same way as Iranian-sponsored militias are behaving in Iraq, and definitely in the same way as Hamas has paralyzed the whole of the peace process in Palestine.”




Hezbollah supporters attend a memorial service in Beirut for Qasem Soleimani, the slain top commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps. (AFP file)

Under the circumstances, Shehadi said the multidimensional crisis in Lebanon is part of a “broader regional problem, which needs to be treated as such. Lebanon is the fault line or the weakest point. A lot of the region’s ills, or problems, surface in Lebanon first.”

Because of this, Shehadi added, international and regional engagement and cooperation are crucial components to solving Lebanon’s crisis, and that the international community must refrain from seeing Lebanon as a hopeless case.

“We are definitely hostages, but we still have a say in the country and we need international support to get out of the grip of (Hezbollah). And again, the grip is regional. So, our fate is similar to Iraq, similar to Palestine, similar to Syria, and similar to Yemen,” he said.

“I don’t think one can see it in a fragmented way. And it’s wrong to abandon a place just because it’s considered to be lost. Lebanon is not a lost case.”

 

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Israel opposition chief asks Trump not to ‘interfere’ in Netanyahu trial

Updated 3 sec ago
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Israel opposition chief asks Trump not to ‘interfere’ in Netanyahu trial

Trump said the Netanyahu trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero,“
Lapid said: “We are thankful to President Trump, but... the president should not interfere in a judicial trial in an independent country“

JERUSALEM: Israel’s opposition leader on Thursday criticized US President Donald Trump for saying Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s long-running corruption trial should be canceled, warning him against interfering in internal affairs.

Trump on Wednesday described the case against Netanyahu as a “witch hunt,” echoing the Israeli premier’s dismissal of the corruption charges which he has flatly rejected.

In a message on his Truth Social platform, Trump said the Netanyahu trial “should be CANCELLED, IMMEDIATELY, or a Pardon given to a Great Hero,” after the end of a 12-day war with Iran.

Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid said in an interview with news website Ynet: “We are thankful to President Trump, but... the president should not interfere in a judicial trial in an independent country.”

Lapid, of the center-right Yesh Atid party, backed a statement by one of Netanyahu’s coalition allies, Simcha Rothman of the far-right Religious Zionism party, who called for Trump to stay out of the court case.

“It is not the role of the president of the United States to interfere in legal proceedings in the State of Israel,” said Rothman, who chairs the Israeli parliament’s judicial affairs committee.

Rothman, a vocal critic of what he argues is judicial overreach, however said that “the management of Netanyahu’s cases is transforming the image of the State of Israel from a regional and global power into a banana republic.”

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, the leader of another far-right party in Netnayhua’s coalition, branded the trial as politically motivated.

Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said it was “distorted, unreasonable, contrary to the basic sense of justice” to continue Netanyahu’s trial at war, backing Trump’s call to drop the charges against the Israeli leader.

Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister. During his current term since late 2022, his government has proposed a series of far-reaching judicial reforms that critics say were designed to weaken the courts.

In the trial that has been delayed many times since it began in May 2020, Netanyahu has denied any wrongdoing.

In a first case, Netanyahu and his wife, Sara, are accused of accepting more than $260,000 worth of luxury goods such as cigars, jewelry and champagne from billionaires in exchange for political favors.

Two other cases allege that Netanyahu attempted to negotiate more favorable coverage in two Israeli media outlets.

Netanyahu has requested multiple postponements in the proceedings, most recently citing the ongoing war in Gaza since April 2023, later in Lebanon and earlier this month in Iran.

Iran’s supreme leader makes first public statement since ceasefire declared in Israel-Iran war

Updated 26 June 2025
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Iran’s supreme leader makes first public statement since ceasefire declared in Israel-Iran war

  • Khamenei hasn't been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war June 13

DUBAI: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed victory over Israel and said his country had “delivered a hand slap to America’s face” on Thursday, in his first public comments since a ceasefire was declared in the war between the two countries.

Khamenei spoke in a video broadcast on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19, looking and sounding more tired than he did only a week ago.

He told viewers that the US had only intervened in the war because “it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.”

But he said, however, that the US “achieved no gains from this war."

“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,” he said, in apparent reference to an Iranian missile attack on an American base in Qatar on Monday, which caused no casualties.

The 86-year-old Khamenei hasn't been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war June 13 when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and targeted top military commanders and scientists.

Following an American attack on June 22 that hit the nuclear sites with bunker-buster bombs, U.S. President Donald Trump was able to help negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect on Tuesday.

In his appearance on Thursday, he sat in front of plain brown curtains to give his address, similar to his June 19 message.


Spain PM says Gaza in ‘catastrophic situation of genocide’

Updated 26 June 2025
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Spain PM says Gaza in ‘catastrophic situation of genocide’

  • Sanchez mentioned a recent human rights report by the EU’s diplomatic service
  • The report found “indications” that Israel was breaching its human rights obligations

BRUSSELS: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Thursday said Gaza was in a “catastrophic situation of genocide” and urged the European Union to immediately suspend its cooperation deal with Israel.

The comments represent the strongest condemnation to date by the leader, an outspoken critic of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

Speaking to reporters before an EU summit in Brussels, Sanchez mentioned a recent human rights report by the bloc’s diplomatic service which, he said, addressed “the catastrophic situation of genocide unfolding in Gaza.”

The report published last week found “indications” that Israel was breaching its human rights obligations under the deal, which forms the basis for trade ties.

The text cited Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory, the high number of civilian casualties, attacks on journalists and the massive displacement and destruction caused by the war.

Sanchez said it was “more than obvious” that Israel was violating its obligations and that the bloc should suspend the cooperation deal “immediately.”

“It makes no sense” that the bloc has imposed 18 rounds of sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine but, “in a double standard, is not even capable of suspending an association deal,” he added.

Suspending the EU-Israel accord outright would require unanimity among member states, something diplomats see as virtually impossible due to divisions within the bloc.

The Gaza war began after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Palestinian militants also seized 251 hostages, with 49 still held in Gaza, including 27 the Israeli military says are dead.

Israel’s retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,156 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The United Nations considers its figures reliable.


Pope Leo laments ‘diabolical intensity’ of Middle East conflicts

Updated 26 June 2025
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Pope Leo laments ‘diabolical intensity’ of Middle East conflicts

  • Leo appealed last month for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza

VATICAN CITY: Pope Leo said on Thursday that conflicts in the Middle East were raging with an unprecedented “diabolical intensity” and appealed for greater respect for international law, in comments to Catholic bishops and aid agencies operating in the region.

At a meeting in the Vatican, the pontiff said countries in the region were being “devastated by wars, plundered by special interests, and covered by a cloud of hatred that renders the air unbreathable and toxic.”

“Today, violent conflict seems to be raging... with a diabolical intensity previously unknown,” he said, adding that the humanitarian situation in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza was “tragic and inhumane.”

Leo, elected on May 8 to replace the late Pope Francis, appealed last month for Israel to allow more humanitarian aid to enter Gaza. He did not name Israel in his remarks on Thursday.

The US-born pope also did not directly address the recent 12-day war between Israel and Iran that also saw the United States bomb suspected Iranian nuclear facilities but he called for countries to show better respect for international law.

“It is truly distressing to see the principle of ‘might makes right’ prevailing in so many situations today, all for the sake of legitimising the pursuit of self-interest,” he said.

“It is troubling to see that the force of international law and humanitarian law seems no longer to be binding, replaced by the alleged right to coerce others,” Leo added.


Can US-Iran nuclear diplomacy still work after strikes?

Updated 26 June 2025
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Can US-Iran nuclear diplomacy still work after strikes?

  • Trump tells NATO summit US strikes ‘obliterated’ nuclear sites, says ‘we’re going to talk’ with Iran next week, may sign an agreement
  • Analysts say inconclusive strikes may push parties back to the negotiating table — only this time including regional powers

LONDON: Speaking at the NATO summit in The Hague on Wednesday, US President Donald Trump indicated that the door is open to diplomacy with Iran, just days after he ordered B-2 bombers to attack Iranian nuclear facilities.

Trump once more hailed what he calls the “massive, precision strike” on three of Iran’s nuclear sites, Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, on June 22, adding that “no other military on Earth could have done it.”

His comments followed claims in a leaked assessment by the US Defense Intelligence Agency suggesting the US strikes had failed to destroy Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium or its centrifuges — succeeding only in setting back the program mere months.

In response to the leaked report, Trump doubled down on earlier statements that Tehran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated.” He went on to say “we’re going to talk” with Iran next week, adding they may sign an agreement.

A map showing the Strait of Hormuz and Iran is seen behind a 3D printed miniature of US President Donald Trump in this illustration taken June 22, 2025. (REUTERS)

Asked if Washington is planning to lift sanctions on Iran, Trump said the Iranians “just had a war” and they “fought it bravely,” adding that China can buy oil from Iran if it wants, as the country will “need money to get back into shape.”

Whether Trump’s comments are a sign that the US intends to draft a new nuclear deal with Iran remains to be seen. What such a deal might look like in the wake of the past fortnight’s events is also anyone’s guess. One thing that is clear is that diplomacy seems the only viable option.

It was almost 10 years ago, on July 14, 2015, that representatives of the US, China, France, Germany, Russia, the UK, EU and Iran gathered in Vienna to finalize the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known simply as the Iran nuclear deal.

In exchange for sanctions relief, among other things, Iran agreed to limit enrichment of a reduced stockpile of 300 kg of uranium to 3.7 percent — insufficient to produce a bomb but aligned with its claims that its nuclear program was designed solely for generating electricity.

The architect of the deal, which was several years in the making, was US President Barack Obama, who said “principled diplomacy and … America’s willingness to engage directly with Iran opened the door to talks.”

This photo taken on January 17, 2016, shows US President Barack Obama speaking about US-Iranian relations at the White House after the lifting of international sanctions against Iran as part of a nuclear deal capped by a US-Iranian prisoner exchange. (AFP)

Within three years, the deal was in ruins, undone by Obama’s successor, Donald Trump.

According to inspectors from the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency, the IAEA, Iran had been sticking to its side of the bargain. But on May 8, 2018, during his first term as president, Trump unilaterally terminated America’s participation in the JCPOA and reimposed sanctions.

Iran, he said, had “negotiated the JCPOA in bad faith, and the deal gave the Iranian regime too much in exchange for too little.”

This week, in the wake of Israel’s surprise attack targeting the heart of Iran’s nuclear program — and Trump’s equally surprise decision to join in — the prospect of reviving any kind of deal with Tehran might seem distant, at best.

But some analysts believe that a new nuclear rapprochement between the US and Iran could be closer than ever — and not only despite the clashes of the past two weeks, but perhaps because of them.

Ibrahim Al-Marashi, associate professor in the Department of History at California State University San Marcos, said there was no doubt that “among the Iranian public, previously ambivalent about the nuclear issue, the optics of being bombed for programs still under IAEA inspection may rally new domestic support for pursuing a deterrent.”

Combination of satellite images showing the Isfahan nuclear site in Iran before (top) and after it was bombed by US warplanes on June 2, 2025. (Maxar Technologies via AP)

Furthermore, the attacks by Israel and the US have also “degraded the credibility of international institutions such as the IAEA.

“When countries that comply with inspections and international law are attacked anyway, it undermines the incentive structure that sustains the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons regime, NPT, which Iran ratified in 1970, and the Islamic Republic of Iran endorsed in 1996.

“Why sign treaties or allow inspectors in if they do not shield you from military coercion? This is a dangerous message.”

But, he added, “diplomatic alternatives were, and still are, available” and, for all its flaws, the JCPOA model is not a bad one to consider.

“The 2015 deal, although imperfect, successfully rolled back large portions of Iran’s nuclear program and subjected it to the most intrusive inspection regime in the world,” he said.

“Its collapse was not inevitable; it was a political choice, dismantled by unilateral US withdrawal. Efforts to revive the deal have sputtered, and with the bombs falling the path back to diplomacy looked more distant than ever.

“But it is the only path that has worked before — and the only one likely to work again.”

But only with key adjustments.

 

As Saudi Arabia and other members of the GCC argued at the time, the JCPOA — put together in great secrecy and without consulting the Gulf states — was insufficiently tough and always doomed to fail.

Now experts argue that a return to diplomacy is not only vital for the stability of the region but that any new nuclear deal must be framed with the direct input of those states most exposed to the consequences of diplomatic failure: the Arab Gulf states.

“All that is true,” said Sir John Jenkins, former UK ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Syria.

“The core point is that the JCPOA bought us between 10 and 15 years, depending on the issue and the associated sunset clause. That was designed to provide time for a new regime to be put in place to contain and deter Iran after the JCPOA expired — which would now only be five years away.

“But the Obama administration, followed by the E3 (the security coalition of the UK, Germany and France), seemed to think that once it had been signed it was such a wonderful achievement that they could turn to other things entirely. That was a mistake.

“This time it needs to be different. And there is an opportunity to start constructing a new security order in the region which involves regional states from the moment of creation rather than as some afterthought.”

This infographic released by the White House under President Barack Obama in 2015 explained how the nuclear deal with Iran was supposed to work. 

Jim Walsh, senior researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Security Studies Program, is adamant that when Trump pulled the plug in 2018, “the JCPOA was already working.

“Every intelligence agency said that Iran was in compliance with the agreement and I defy you to find one serious entity that was charging that Iran was in violation of the JCPOA in the three years from 2015 to 2018.

“They even hung on to their end of the bargain after Trump pulled out, for a solid year, until it was politically untenable.”

The IAEA had large teams of inspectors on the ground, Iran had agreed to requirements that no country had ever agreed to before, “and this was consistent with what people in my trade would call a capability or latency decision.”

This meant “you have the option so that you can move in that direction if you need to, but you do not cross the line because the costs of crossing it are higher than the benefits.”

And, he says, despite all that has happened since, especially in the past fortnight, Iran is fundamentally in the same place today — ready to deal.

On January, 20, 2014, IAEA inspectors and Iranian technicians cut the connections between the twin cascades for 20 percent uranium production at the nuclear research center of Natanz as Iran halted production of 20 percent enriched uranium, marking the coming into force of an interim deal with world powers on its disputed nuclear program. (AFP/IRNA)

“What is Iran’s leverage here in negotiations with the IAEA or with the Europeans or with the Americans? It’s that they can turn the dial up on enrichment and turn it down, and they can install advanced centrifuges and then take them apart.

“This is part of a political game, because they don’t have a lot of ways to put leverage on their opponents.”

He believes that if Iran really wanted an actual bomb, rather than the threat of one as a bargaining chip, it would have had one by now.

“Producing highly enriched uranium is the technically hardest part of the project, and moving to weaponization is more of an engineering problem.” The fact that Iran has not done so is the real clue to the way ahead.

“I’ve worked for 20 years to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon, but it would be hard to argue that they don’t have some justification. Let’s be super clear: the country that’s attacking them, Israel, is a nuclear state.

“But if they wanted to build a bomb, they’ve had 18 years to do so, so someone has to explain to me why that hasn’t happened.

“As far back as 2007 the director of US national intelligence said Iran had the technical wherewithal to build a weapon, and the only remaining obstacle was the political will to do so.”

And, despite Trump’s claim that the US attacks had “obliterated” the Iranian nuclear program, political will may still be all that is preventing Iran becoming a nuclear state.

Dan Sagir, an Israeli researcher and lecturer on the topic of Israel’s own nuclear deterrence and its impact on the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East, says that if the US and Iran do return to the talks that were already underway when Israel launched “Operation Rising Lion” on June 12, “any deal that emerges is not going to be as solid as the previous one.”

“So Trump bombed Fordow,” said Sagir. “But where is the 400 kg of highly enriched uranium? The Iranians, who are very talented in this field, will say, ‘You bombed it. You buried it.’ But do we know that’s correct? We’ll never know.

“If they still have it, they can get the bomb within a year. If they don’t have it, it’s two-and-a-half years. In any case, the game is not over.”

In fact, said Walsh of MIT, there is “every indication” that the uranium, which the IAEA says has been enriched to a near-weapons-grade 60 percent — a claim dismissed by Iran as based on “forged documents provided by the Zionist regime” — is not buried within the Fordow complex.

In this Sept. 27, 2012 file photo, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu shows an illustration as he describes his concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions during his address to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly.  (AP Photo/File)

“In May, Iran’s foreign minister warned the IAEA that they would take precautions. On June 13, the head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization also said they were going to take action, and on that day, according to satellite imagery, a convoy of trucks was outside Fordow, and the next day they were gone.

“So I would guess that they still have a lot of nuclear material somewhere that they could very quickly upgrade to weapons-grade material (which requires 90 percent enrichment).”

Whether or not the current fragile ceasefire between Israel and Iran lasts, details emerging of America’s attack on Fordow and the other Iranian nuclear facilities appear only to reinforce the conclusion that a new nuclear deal with Iran is the only way forward.

“You cannot bomb the knowledge of how to build a centrifuge out of the heads of the Iranians,” said Walsh. “You can’t bomb away 18 years of experience.

“This is a big, mature program and dropping a few bombs isn’t going to change that. You can blow up equipment, and kill scientists, but we’re not talking about Robert Oppenheimer (the US physicist who led the team that made the first atomic bomb) in 1945.

“They’ve been at this for 18 years and now we’re at the management phase, not at the invention stage. They’re going to be able to reconstitute that program if they want to. There is no military solution to this problem.”