Israeli Reports on Weaponization Activities in Iran: the Missing Link
The IAEA periodic reports on the expansion and acceleration of uranium enrichment in Iran, including high level enrichment of 60%, at the fortified underground Fordow site, have led to increasing concern around the globe. Iran has established its status as a threshold nuclear weapons state. Rafael Grossi, the IAEA Director General, summarized the situation by saying that there is no country in the world that is a non nuclear weapons state and is enriching uranium to such a high level that it approaches 90% military enrichment.
Also, in Israel, after an uncharacteristically silent spell, the Iranian nuclear issue has returned to the headlines, but with a special twist and an alarmist step up. Newspapers and news sites reported that according to Israeli sources, not only has Iran enriched uranium to 60%, but that it also sees the war in Gaza as an opportunity to renew and advance its military program of weaponization activities to build a nuclear bomb.
Here is the outline of the Israeli reports on the advancement of the weaponization activities for the construction of nuclear weapons in Iran. Gili Cohen, the political correspondent of the public television channel Kan 11 (26 June) reported that the Israeli intelligence community had recently detected developments in weaponization activities relating to the assemblage of a device for a nuclear explosion, and that time is running out. The diplomatic correspondent Barak Ravid reported (26 June Walla site) on the renewal of the Mossad team that deals with weaponization activities following new information which reached the Israeli intelligence community that raised suspicions regarding “Iranian activities relating to the building of nuclear weapons”. The article hinted at the existence of “computerized models” for experiments relating to the use of a nuclear explosive device. No clear information about the models was given.
A remark by former IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot at the Herzliya Conference (24 June) relating to weaponization activities in Iran received a great deal of attention. But in contrast to the impression that was created, Eisenkot did not expose or confirm the reports on signs of the renewal of weaponization activities. Eisenkot responded in a general manner to a question from political commentator Ben Caspit on weaponization, and repeated what had already been said in the media - that the Iranians had reached an advanced stage of uranium enrichment “including advancing weaponization activities”. He did not go any further.
If the latest reports from Israel on the renewal of weaponization activities and the military program for the production of nuclear weapons in Iran are correct, this is a very dramatic and worrying development, and a serious threat for Israel and global order: the Iranian abandonment of its two decades long policy and a return to the route of nuclear weapons. A blatant violation of the NPT on the ban on nuclear weapons proliferation and a violation of Iran’s promise to the US and the superpowers in the introduction to the 2015 JCPOA not to develop or build nuclear weapons. This would be a new and threatening strategic situation.
Before trying, from as authoritative as possible open intelligence sources, to point to the problematic nature of the reports from Israel regarding weaponization activities, we should pay attention to the following: first of all, the uniformity of the reports that are based on anonymous sources from unidentified officials from the “Israeli intelligence community” apparently the Mossad or the Israel Atomic Energy Commission. Secondly, these are reports from political correspondents, not correspondents or researchers covering national security issues. Israeli political correspondents rely mainly on material that they receive from the Office of Prime Minister Netanyahu whose position on nuclear Iran and the JCPOA are well known. Thirdly, there is no tradition in Israel of publishing annual professional unclassified intelligence reports for the general public on the Iranian nuclear threat such as the DNI in the US.
And now to the counter evidence which is absent from the Israeli discourse and not in line with the Israeli reports on the renewal of weaponization activities in Iran. Let’s start with the DNI Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community (March 2024). This annual intelligence report, which for some reason Israeli commentators do not like to quote or refer to, states in its opening lines that “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device”. This is an almost identical formulation to those that can be found in all the DNI reports of recent years. These reports bind the US President. Since 2007, the annual DNI report has assessed with high probability that Iran ceased its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and has not renewed it. There are no nuclear weapons in Iran, and there is no nuclear weaponization activity. A senior US official recently repeated and confirmed this in answer to a Washington Post reporter (June 19) “We do not see indications that Iran is currently undertaking the key activities that would be necessary to produce a testable nuclear device. And we don’t believe that the Supreme Leader has yet made a decision to resume the weaponization program ”. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi made similar remarks in his interview to the Financial Times in May 2024 “there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has moved or is moving, or is planning to move, to a nuclear weapons programme”.
Another detailed statement that contradicts the Israeli reports can be found in the Senate Committee Hearings of CENTCOM Commander General Michael Kurilla (March 2024). 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”. Based on the military intelligence in his hands, the CENTOM Commander estimated that Iran’s goal was to maintain its status as a threshold state. In CENTCOM’s view, Iran could create enough 90% military level enriched uranium for three weapons systems within weeks.
The latest developments regarding the stockpiling of high-level enriched uranium caused concern in Israel and the world. Israel, who was used to having the nuclear monopoly in the Middle East, for the first time in its history was faced with a new situation: confronting a regional nuclear weapons threshold state not far from its borders. A nuclear threshold state as a permanent situation, and not necessarily a temporary stop or springboard for weaponization activities for the creation of nuclear weapons. This is a complex strategic, as well as intellectual, challenge which requires careful attention to the military-technical details and diplomatic nuances. Regular military thinking on preventive war is not sufficient in the context of a nuclear crisis with Iran that has been continuing for two decades. The Iranian issue is not fully resolved and includes a number of weighty questions about motives and intentions regarding the Iranian nuclear program and the threshold state status that it has established for itself: are these motivations defensive for the purpose of deterrence and the survival of the Islamic Republic regime? For offensive purposes and backing up of conventional military capability? As a bargaining chip with the US in order to reach a new nuclear agreement?
In order to prevent the dangerous scenario of a new nuclear weapons state in the Middle East and the development of a regional nuclear arms race, the US will have to return to intensive nuclear diplomacy with Iran. To renew negotiations for a new nuclear agreement along the lines and parameters of the JCPOA. It is possible that this is what the US is doing via backchannels (through the Swiss Embassy in Teheran and recent secret meetings in Oman) in parallel to its efforts to deescalate the war in the Middle East.
It seems that Iran also inclines towards the diplomatic route. An uncharacteristic comment in the DNI Assessment has been overlooked. It stated that Iran has said that it is ready to restore the limitations on uranium enrichment in the JCPOA format. Iran’s condition is for the IAEA to close the “open files” investigation on the issue of traces of uranium at the two undeclared sites. As I analysed in my previous article, this is apparently the main obstacle that prevented the sides from reaching a renewed nuclear agreement in August 2022. The US will have to find a creative solution to the ghostly voices from the past regarding undeclared sites from the old nuclear weapons program that was, it seems, closed 20 years ago.
Shemuel Meir is an independent Israeli strategic analyst. Graduate of the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) and a former IDF and Tel Aviv University researcher.