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Posted on 03/20/2026 2:50:16 PM PDT by MeanWestTexan
A meeting of senior Iranian officials that was hit by an Israeli airstrike on February 28 may have been linked to the Islamic Republic’s final deliberations over building a nuclear weapon.
On the last day of February, as reports emerged that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed in an Israeli bombardment, it was also announced that a meeting of the Defense Council had been struck.
Several senior figures were killed in the strike, the Israeli military confirmed on March 16.
Among those killed were Ali Shamkhani, a senior adviser to Khamenei and secretary of the Defense Council; Abdolrahim Mousavi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces; and Aziz Nasirzadeh, the defense minister.
Also killed were two figures associated with Iran’s Organization of Defensive Innovation and Research, known by its Persian acronym SPND, the direct successor organization to Iran’s pre-2004 nuclear weapons program.
The two figures were former SPND chief Brigadier General Reza Mozaffarinia and the organization’s new head Brigadier General Hossein Jabal Ameli.
Washington has sanctioned more than 30 SPND scientists and multiple affiliated entities, accusing the organization of overseeing “dual-use research and development activities applicable to nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons delivery systems.”
While Tehran denies pursuing a nuclear weapon, the UN nuclear watchdog and Western powers including the US and its European allies maintain that Iran's high-level uranium enrichment (up to 60%) has no credible civilian justification.
Iran currently possesses some 400 kg of near-bomb-grade enriched uranium. The US and Israel have in recent days discussed sending special forces into Iran to secure the stockpile at a later stage of the war, according to a report by Axios.
US War Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday that President Trump saw Iran advancing ever closer to nuclear capability and viewed it as unacceptable, prompting his decision to launch the war against Tehran.
Why A-bomb was focus of Defense Council meeting
There are four reasons suggesting the meeting of the Defense Council was likely related to the final stage of decision-making on constructing a nuclear weapon.
First, the composition of the gathering is a key indicator. The simultaneous presence of two former and current SPND chiefs alongside the defense minister — their superior — suggests the meeting concerned nuclear matters rather than battlefield operations. If the session had been focused on the war itself, senior operational or battlefield commanders would have been expected to attend instead of officials tied to the nuclear weapons industry.
Second, Ali Shamkhani had publicly spoken about nuclear weapons months earlier. Four months before his reported death, he said in an interview that if he could go back in time during his tenure as defense minister, he would build an atomic bomb.
Third, Shamkhani’s roles placed him at the center of coordination between multiple institutions. As Khamenei’s senior adviser and secretary of the Defense Council, as well as a former defense minister, he maintained extensive ties with officials within the ministry, including the department responsible for special weapons development, SPND.
He was also described as a senior commander overseeing Revolutionary Guard officers involved in nuclear weapons development and as the link between these networks and Khamenei himself.
Fourth, in one of his final public remarks, Shamkhani told Lebanon’s Al-Mayadeen television that a war with the United States and Israel was inevitable and that the Islamic Republic needed to prepare for it.
Taken together, these elements may indicate that the meeting struck in the bombardment may have been connected to the final stage of decision-making regarding nuclear weapons development.
It is unknown whether Israel was aware that the gathering concerned possible deliberations over building a nuclear weapon, or whether it targeted the meeting simply because senior Iranian officials were known to be present.
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That would be like the Nazis taking out FDR, Henry Stinson, General George Marshall, Admiral Henry King, General Leslie Groves and Dr. Robert Oppenheimer all at once. Maybe throw in Einstein, but he only got the ball rolling.
Iran is still bombing and hasn’t surrendered...so take everything else with a grain of salt.
Pretty much.
And to think the Democrats and Euroweenies want to squander this opportunity.
They’d have us surrender to the Japanese after we nuked Hiroshima.
There is no way to reason with
Iranian Islamic Shia Twelver Mullahs
who believe that a 5-year-old DEAD child
who has been DEAD 1,150+ YEARS is ALIVE
and reading their prayer requests from
deep inside a well behind the
Jamkaran Mosque in Qom, Iran
The so-called Shia Islam Twelfth Imam (D-Qom, Iran)
President Donald Trump
needs to know about this
“Iran is still bombing and hasn’t surrendered...so take everything else with a grain of salt.”
That’s fair. But they are launching handfuls of missiles at what they perceive as lightly-defended or particularly vulnerable sites.
Their efforts are uncoordinated and not strategic. It’s all they can do.
We’re in the phase of droning individual checkpoints used to keep Tehran’s population in checked - using call in information from Iranians for targeting.
IRGC units are fleeing to Afghanistan.
Basij and IRGC units are shooting at each other and among themselves.
Lots of desertions.
All while the Iranian regular army (Artesh)— and all its generals — and the moderat(ish) civilian/non-mullah president — are all untouched. (While the dude in the Members Only jacket was killed day 1 or 2.)
The end game is coming clear.
Or;
“All the Rotten Eggs in one Basket!”
Inglorious Basterds
.
I’d hoped to Be at the
Big Sandy Machinegun Shoot today,
But they’ve got lousy Cell service.
I Like the Way you Think...
Keeping my eye on You.
If Iran really had 60% enriched uranium, depending on what facilities they had and how efficient they were, they would literally be days or maybe a week away from getting above 90% needed to make a nuclear device.
So if we take what has been stated at face value and they did have 300kg of 60% enrichment, that’s pretty darn close to an imminent threat - at least to those who believed the theocracy was willing to use them. Some apologists, I’m sure, would argue that even if they had a bomb they wouldn’t use it. I am not so sure and in any case if they did have nuclear tipped warheads then there would probably be no more chances to end this via conventional means.
So perhaps when people like Rubio say “we knew Israel was going to strike” this story is the reason why. Not to mention Witkoff claiming that the Iranian negotiators flat told him they were ready to nuke up.
Random civilian targets with cluster munitions. Not really a strategy at all just lashing out.
God bless you 😇🙏🙏🙏🛐🛐🛐🙏✝️✝️✝️
I’m a bit concerned about a Doomsday dirty bomb scenario as the regime collapses. No real danger from the radioactivity; big danger from public panic.
U235 is not particularly radioactive
Wouldn’t matter much to an ignorant public. Who’s going to explain safe dose levels - the MSM? They can’t do long division; vast majority never took anything past General Science in 9th Grade.
Preach It Sam!
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