Israel Accuses Iran of Testing Nuclear Detonation Technology

In what is destined to be a highly discussed development, especially as the United Nations convenes this week, Israel has accused Iran of testing technology that could only be used for nuclear detonations. From the Jerusalem Post:

A statement from Intelligence Minister Yuval Steinitz, issued a day before Iranian President Hassan Rouhani — the architect of Tehran's diplomacy with the big powers — was to address the UN General Assembly, said internal neutron sources such as uranium were used in nuclear implosion tests at Parchin.

Israel, his statement said, based its information on "highly reliable information," without elaborating.

The tests allegedly took place in Parchin, just southeast of Tehran, at a facility that Iran has long kept U.N. inspectors from investigating.

During last year's General Assembly of the United Nations, one of the issues that dominated the agenda was Iran's burgeoning nuclear program. At that assembly, newly minted Iranian President Hassan Rouhani continued his so-called charm offensive, which ended with a historic phone call between Rouhani and President Obama, the first conversation between an American and an Iranian head of state in over three decades.

That phone call eventually turned into negotiations, which yielded a temporary nuclear deal: For six months, Iran stopped working on its eyebrow-raising nuclear program in exchange for various forms of relief from the broad sanctions that the United States had convinced the international community to impose.

Unfortunately, negotiations between Iran and six world powers have yet to produce a long-term solution. And with the world's focus on ISIS, Syria, the Ebola virus, and (perhaps) the climate, Iran's nuclear ambitions have receded from the global stage.

This development could easily change that.