Contrary to the prevalent Israeli discourse, Iran does not seem to be racing to a nuclear bomb
On the front page of Israel’s most widely read newspaper (Yediot Aharonot 8 March 2024), Nadav Eyal wrote “Iran forging ahead toward a nuclear bomb, officials warn”. The article emphasizes that Iran is taking advantage of the Gaza war and will not stop at the current phase of high level uranium enrichment (60% according to IAEA reports), but has recently begun to take active steps to develop a military program for the weaponisation needed to create a nuclear bomb.
If Eyal’s report is correct, then we are talking about a dramatic and worrying development. But, it is not clear that this is the case. In fact, it would appear that Iran is not racing towards a nuclear bomb. There is no evidence in Eyal’s article, which is based on unidentified Israeli sources, that supports the claim of a renewal of the military track for the development of an Iranian nuclear weapon. In my analyses in my Ha’aretz Strategic Discourse blog and my Strategic Reflections newsletter, I have presented a different view: Iran’s military nuclear development program stopped and was closed down in 2003 and has not been renewed since. My analysis over the years has been based on reliable and as factual as possible open sources from identified sources such as lectures by CIA director Bill Burns, the annual US National Intelligence Reports (DNI), and the quarterly IAEA monitoring reports. These factual intelligence based materials have not been reflected in the Israeli discourse. In this article, I will try to outline an updated view of the Iranian nuclear programme based on these open intelligence sources.
We begin with the latest DNI report which was presented this week to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence with the participation of the heads of all the US intelligence agencies (and was immediately made available to the public). Already in the opening sentences of the section on Iran and Weapons and Mass Destruction, the report declared that “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activity necessary to produce a testable nuclear device”. This is exactly the same formulation as appeared in last year’s and previous years’ intelligence assessments. And all the intelligence assessments submitted to the White House and to the US Congress, which bind the US President, beginning with the National Intelligence Assessment of 2007 which assessed with high confidence that Iran stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and has not renewed it. This is the main reason that the US has imposed a veto and has not given a green light to Israel scenarios of a preventive strike on nuclear sites on Iranian soil.
The US National Intelligence Report notes that Iran continues to develop and produce advanced centrifuges. Iran has the infrastructure and the experience to quickly produce weapon-grade uranium if it decided to. The US intelligence assessment is that Iran is liable to consider enriching uranium to a military level of 90% in reaction to the imposition of further sanctions or an attack on its nuclear program sites. In addition, in an exceptional and little noticed sentence in the report, US intelligence estimates that Iran is ready to restore the JCPOA limits (on uranium enrichment and centrifuges). This would be on condition that the IAEA would close its investigations on the “open files” on the two undeclared sites, apparently from the old closed program, in which traces of uranium were found. This has been a central obstacle that impeded the renewal of the JCPOA and led to the fading out of efforts to achieve this in September 2022.
Over the past year, the IAEA monitoring reports have warned of the expansion and acceleration of Iran’s uranium enrichment. According to the latest report, within its stock of 5525 kg of enriched uranium, Iran has 121 kg of 60% uranium enriched which is the closest it comes to military 90% enriched. This is a sufficient quantity of enriched uranium to build a number of nuclear warheads. But what particularly worries IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi are the obstacles that Iran places to monitoring (for example, refusing to grant visas to monitors from western countries and the removal of cameras from the centrifuge sites), and the inability to carry out surprise monitoring visits because of the suspension of the Additional Protocol as a result of the collapse of the JCPOA. In its quarterly reports, the IAEA emphasizes its fear of losing continuity of its knowledge of the nuclear program particularly regarding the production and inventory of centrifuges. At the recent IAEA Board session at the beginning of March 2024, another worry became apparent: the former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Commission Ali Akbar Sa
lehi declared that his country had succeeded in crossing “all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology”, and possesses the elements required to assemble nuclear weapons. Grossi took Salehi’s word seriously and demanded that Iran report to the IAEA on this matter.
The nuclear picture is more complex than the common view expressed in the Israeli media each time an IAEA report is published that “Iran is racing towards a nuclear bomb”. A window for a better understanding of the complexities of the nuclear situation can be found in Grossi’s informal meetings outside the Vienna IAEA headquarters as we have shown in his discussions at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The IAEA Director General emphasized that in spite of the worrying stockpile of high level enriched uranium “I am not saying that they have nuclear weapons” . With surprising openness, he said that the agency that he heads does not have anything against Iran’s nuclear program (including high enrichment) as long as Iran abides by its NPT obligations under IAEA supervision.
Furthermore, Grossi emphasized the need for dialogue and diplomacy with Iran, especially against the background of the Israel-Hamas war and the danger of descending into a wider war on the Iran-Lebanon front. Also in light of the shaky relationship between Iran and the US that are liable to complicate international efforts to stop the negative developments of the nuclear program. In his emphasis on the diplomatic message, was Grossi trying to signal to the superpowers that they should hurry up, break the dangerous deadlock, and renew the efforts for a new nuclear agreement? The diplomatic fog of war has always been an inseparable part of the Iranian nuclear saga.
An additional angle for a complex view of the Iranian nuclear picture can be found in an unexpected place in the US military: in a hearing last week of Centcom Commander General Michael Kurilla at the Senate Armed Services Committee. In his statement, General Kurilla made a clear distinction between stockpiling enriched uranium including at a high level, and “they do not have a nuclear weapon right now”. In his assessment, Iran’s goal is to remain with the status of a nuclear threshold country (a formulation that is necessary given the nuclear situation, but not one which we have heard so far from any other senior official). On the basis of his intelligence material, Kurilla does not believe that the Iranians have made the decision to develop nuclear weapons. The CENTCOM assessment is that Iran could produce sufficient military level 90% enriched uranium for three nuclear systems within a number of weeks. General Kurilla concludes his words to the senators in saying that “a nuclear armed Iran would change the Middle East overnight and forever” and would definitely lead to the nuclearization of other neighbouring states.
Finally, we should remember that Netanyahu together with Trump played a central role in the collapse of the JCPOA. This was a colossal strategic mistake. The JCPOA was a unique disarmament agreement in nuclear history which blocked nuclear weapons, both on the uranium and plutonium routes. The dismantlement of the JCPOA and the dangerous new situation that this created of Iran as a nuclear threshold state returned the international system and the Middle East to the nuclear crisis period similar to the decade that preceded the signing of the JCPOA in 2015. As I wrote in my article Requiem for the Iran Nuclear Deal – this is a situation of strategic uncertainty which is likely to descend into a nuclear arms race and to more states seeking to develop nuclear weapons. For example, Saudi Arabia. This is sufficient reason for the US to act with greater urgency to establish a new outline to prevent possible routes to an Iranian military nuclear program.
Shemuel Meir is an independent Israeli strategic analyst