United States President Donald Trump is reportedly considering dispatching US special forces to Iran to seize the country’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium in what experts say would be a complicated and risky military operation.Ensuring that Iran has no nuclear weapons, nor the capacity to produce any using enriched uranium, has been one of the US’s main stated demands during talks with Iranian officials over the past year. It was also the central justification Washington used when it bombed Iranian nuclear facilities during Iran’s 12-day war with Israel last year and for starting the ongoing conflict in February, despite being in active talks with Iran at the time.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listIran maintains that its nuclear programme is for civilian energy purposes only, despite having enriched uranium far beyond the threshold required for that. Iranian officials have stated they are open to discussing reducing the level of enrichment in past negotiations, but have refused to dismantle Iran’s nuclear programme entirely, a matter of national sovereignty, they say.In 2015, the former Obama administration negotiated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with Iran and other nations. Under that, Iran agreed not to enrich uranium to high levels and to be subjected to frequent inspections. However, Trump withdrew the US from this agreement during his first term as president.Here is what we know about …
