I am not 100% familiar with this particular resolution, but could the Russians and the Chinese not veto it?
Chapter VII of the UN charter discusses taking action against countries that the UNSC deems them as threatening the world peace. It talks about non-compliance with the UNSC resolutions. The UNSC can declare a no-fly zone over such a country, impose a complete blockade on the country, and form an international coalition to attack the country. Any UN member that does not comply with the coalition or the UNSC decisions can be sanctioned herself.
Can we count on the Russians or the Chinese? I think no. They previously failed to veto UNSC resolutions against us, not only once, but 4 times. They didn't do anything to help Iraq fight the US invasion. Why would they help us?
You are correct in your thinking, my assessment is based on the assumption that Iran has the necessary deterrence in play to prevent such a thing from occurring. From my point of view, there will be no attack on Iran pre-emptively regardless of Iran does internally.
I think we have a good deterrence against a US unilateral strike with her regional allies. I don't think we can have any sort of deterrence against a UN coalition, unless we have nukes.
If you mean what excuse Iran can use then it has already put in play its card, i.e need for nuclear propulsion systems. I recall during last nuclear day, they talked about revealing their nuclear reactor for propulsion system but due to Covid the whole thing was not openly showed. You are correct in that 20% enrichment has already achieved most of the job, but here we are talking about moves to increase pressure on the other side. Even the recent uranium metal which Iran produced in theory has much more military uses (used for weapons core) than civilian but they went down that road. I see enrichmentincrease to also be part of the upcoming escalation ladder if the Americans do not play ball.
Honestly, I think the uranium metal production, when it's done in large industrial scale, will be much more useful to us. We can vaporize the uranium metal for laser isotope separation which can be done covertly without the fear of being detected easily by satellite imagery. You don't need huge enrichment facilities with thousands of centrifuges for that. Laser enrichment seems like the best choice for a clandestine program in my opinion.
That aside, we can always find excuses for increasing our enrichment level. But first we should ask ourselves this question: How much does this increase shorten our breakout time? If it's not a significant number, then it's not worth it. I think moving from 20% to 60% is not worth all the drama it will cause unless there's a well-thought strategy behind it.
We need to wait and see what happens to the new facility they started to build after that incident. It will certainly delay the production of newer generation centrifuges, but Iran is no hurry right now to start the mass production. Bare in mind, Iran had stated it has the capability to produce 60 centrifuged per day, so if it focuses on expanding this capability, then once the new balancing machines are ready, it could produce 100's per day to make up for any lost time. That attack was important in the sense it will once again force Iran to self produce any bottle neck components. The attack certainly reduced the number of cards Iran has to play at this point, but it is nothing that Iran cannot make up for.
Those balancing machines and clean rooms will take some time to rebuild. The figure that Iran can produce 60 centrifuges per day was based on reports before the explosion at the ICAC. It's certainly a setback, but at this point Iran has several options for uranium enrichment and developing nukes and we don't rely only on centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment.
Unfortunately, the JCPOA limits Iran's research on laser isotope separation. We did experiment with it in 1990s. I don't see why we shouldn't experiment with it again. If Iran wants to exert more pressure on the Europeans and the Americans, laser isotope separation is a very good choice in my opinion.
My personal belief is that Iran is already covertly nuclear. Iran has its own calculation in terms of when it will openly declare to go nuclear. We are getting a hint of that due to the recent comment by the intelligent minister.
Yes. Now after the recent reports on Iran's nuclear program in 1990s to 2003, it seems that Iran had already made huge progress in the military aspect of its nuclear program. We have mastered the nuclear fuel cycle, plutonium reprocessing, laser isotope separation, bridge wire detonators, neutron initiators, nanosecond imaging, hydrodynamic testing, implosions, etc.