Saudi Arabia has brought Qatar back into the fold, as Iran stirs things up in the Gulf

US Press Agency: Iran bares its teeth, while its rivals mend fences

The third day of January marked a year since America assassinated Qassem Suleimani, a talismanic Iranian general who marshalled militias across the Middle East. The mood was febrile. American officials feared commemorative reprisals. Muhammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign minister, tweeted that “intelligence from Iraq” indicated an American “plot to fabricate pretext for war”. The uss Nimitz, an American aircraft-carrier, having been ordered home from the Persian Gulf days earlier as a conciliatory gesture to Iran, was told to stay put. In the end, January 3rd passed without incident. Yet the day that followed was anything but uneventful.

On January 4th Iran said it had resumed enriching uranium to 20% purity, a level that is nine-tenths of the way to weapons-grade, at its underground Fordow facility. Under the terms of a nuclear deal signed by Iran and six world powers in 2015, but abrogated by America in 2018, Iran is forbidden to enrich anything at all at Fordow, let alone to such levels.

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World News: Iran bares its teeth, while its rivals mend fences | Apadana Media

World News: Iran bares its teeth, while its rivals mend fences | Apadana Media

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TENEX supplies 20 percent of the nuclear fuel used by the U.S. reactor fleet, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute, a nuclear power trade association. If the company gets sanctioned for continuing to work in Iran, American utilities would have to turn to one of the other two global enriched uranium suppliers, and prices could skyrocket for fuel.

Of course, it cuts both ways. NEI also says the United States buys about 10 percent of TENEX’s capacity, which would be a hard hit for the company. But it may not come to that. Even if the U.S. allows waivers to expire, TENEX could choose to abandon its work in Iran. And if it doesn’t, sanctions have to go through a potentially months-long legal process before they are imposed. “If utilities have enough advanced notification [that] they won’t be able to receive the Russian fuel, nearly all will be able to mitigate that with inventories or alternate suppliers,” said Nima Ashkeboussi, director of Fuel Cycle Programs at NEI. “But there could be some utilities that are challenged with finding alternate sources of supply.”

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