Rafael Grossi is particularly worried about the Iranian bomb in the basement option
It is surprising that at a time of acceleration and expansion of uranium enrichment by Iran, we have heard nothing about it from Prime Minister Netanyahu. This is the man who turned “the Iranians are racing to the bomb” into the central motif of all his cabinet meetings and appearances in the past decade. But there is one person who has expressed great concern about the most recent developments in the Iranian nuclear arena: IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi.
At an international conference last week in Dubai and afterwards in a discussion with a Reuters reporter in Brussels Grossi warned of the rising graph of the stockpile of uranium enriched to a high level of 60% (in spite of the random fluctuations upwards and downwards in the rate of enrichment). We are talking about uranium enrichment which is the closest to military enrichment (90%). Iran is the only country in the world which is not a nuclear weapon state that is enriching uranium at such a high level. And as Grossi said to the Bloomberg reporter at the Davos Forum last January, Iran already has the amount of enriched uranium necessary to build a number of nuclear warheads.
As if this wasn’t enough, in his words last week at the Dubai conference, we can discern an increase in the level of his concern. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi warned of the dangerous rhetoric used by a senior Iranian official in a television interview in Iran (albeit indirect metaphorical language) that his country had succeeded in crossing “all the thresholds of nuclear science and technology” and possesses all the elements needed to construct nuclear weapons. Grossi did not indicate the name of the senior official, but he was referring to Ali Akbar Saleh, the former head of the Iranian Atomic Energy Commission and a key figure in the Iranian nuclear program. Grossi demanded that Iran provide the IAEA with an answer: does Iran have a nuclear weapons program which just requires the assembly of its components? The IAEA’s main mission is to examine, check and warn with all the means at its disposal – with the goal of preventing the diversion of nuclear materials and components from a civil nuclear program for peace under the agency’s supervision to one of military development.
In his discussions at the Davos Forum, Grossi had said with surprising openness that the agency that he leads does not have anything against the Iranian nuclear program (and by implication including uranium enrichment) as long as it exists under the transparent supervision of IAEA monitors. As long as Iran abides by all its NPT obligations for the prevention of nuclear weapons proliferation. But Saleh’s declaration that hints at the existence of nuclear weapons whose elements just need to be assembled is grave and adds to the bundle of worries facing the IAEA Director General: obstacles to the provision of visas for experienced IAEA monitors from western countries, the disconnecting of the monitoring cameras, and the cancelling of the Additional Protocol for surprise monitoring visits which was part of the JCPOA nuclear agreement that had expired. In addition, there is the foot dragging concerning temporary agreements from last year for the return of some of the cameras and an increase in the number of monitors at the centrifuge sites.
In his less formal appearances outside the Vienna IAEA headquarters, Grossi allowed himself to speak on subjects that are not under the agency’s direct mandate, if carefully and using somewhat enigmatic language. For example, at the conference in Dubai when he broadened the scope of his discussion and noted that regarding the Iranian nuclear issue one should pay attention to the nuclear dimensions that include “an accumulation of complexities” in the current conflict in the Middle East. Grossi did not give any details, but I believe that he was not referring to the Israel-Hamas war as many commentators assumed, but to a wider war that is liable to develop in the Israel-Hezbollah arena beyond the daily exchange of blows along the Lebanon border.
The reference is to a multi-arena war that is liable to develop between Israel and Iran whether intentionally by one side or through deterioration and miscalculation. The tens of thousands of missiles and rockets that Iran transferred to Hezbollah were intended, in Iran’s view, as forward defence and as deterrence against a scenario of a massive attack by Israel against Iranian nuclear sites. The Iranian fear of an Israeli first strike against Iranian nuclear sites following the dramatic escalation in the Lebanon war – and not necessarily as an “exploitation of opportunities” on Iran’s part – is what is liable to serve as an incentive for Iran to cross the threshold and “bring the bomb from the basement”. At the first stage, possibly with an official declaration and not necessarily with a nuclear test. These also are part of the “accumulation of complexities” in the situation of nuclear uncertainty in the Middle East hinted at by Grossi. This uncertainty has only deepened with the current military conflict in our region.
This is where the US enters the picture. In the first days after the Hamas deadly surprise attack, the US reacted by sending a naval armada headed by the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier to the Israeli coast. The naval-aerial task force was intended to fulfil two purposes: to defend Israel and to deter Hezbollah and Iran from joining the multi-arena war against her. To remove from their minds the possibility of attacking Israel. Iran got the message and understood that there was no point in initiating a war in the Lebanon arena. In parallel, there was another development that passed under the radar of many commentators and observers. In the first days of the war, in order for the messages to prevent miscalculation were passed on clearly, the US and Iran opened a relay station for the transfer of messages and declarations of intent via the Swiss embassy in Teheran. During his visit to Lebanon last week, the Iranian foreign minister confirmed the existence of an American-Iranian mechanism that functions to this day for the transfer of messages between the sides.
In this exchange of messages, the Biden administration has a double goal: that Iran will use its influence on Hezbollah to prevent an expansion of the war. The second goal, which is not overt but is no less important, is to prevent a deterioration into the dangerous nuclear scenarios hinted at by the IAEA Director General that I have discussed here. The goal is to preserve as far as is possible the fragile nuclear balance in the Middle East between Israel and Iran. In order to achieve these central goals, the US took exceptional steps to lower the level of Iranian suspicions. It has done this through the transmission of military signals in the field, the non-verbal language of transferring messages. For example, at the end of the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier’s mission and its return to its home port in the US at the beginning of January 2024. No additional aircraft carrier was sent to replace it. Another example is the concentration of US reprisals against Iranian militias only on Syrian or Iraqi soil, and not on Iranian territory. The swift action of the Biden administration at the beginning of the war to stop a massive Israeli preventive strike against Hezbollah moments before it was to take place was part of the transmission of non-verbal messages to decrease the tension with Iran.
To conclude. The vigorous American actions led by CIA director William Burns in bringing about a quick agreement for a ceasefire in the Gaza war is in effect multi-arena in reverse. To use the original military concept of multi-arena for the good of the diplomatic field. There is a close linkage between the attempt to end the war in Gaza and the attempts to prevent a deterioration into a new war in the Lebanon arena. Below the surface, there is a thin and fragile thread of reciprocity between the conventional and the nuclear.
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Shemuel Meir is an independent Israeli strategic analyst
The current growing danger of the outbreak of "unwanted" full-blown war between Israel and Hezbollah must be putting immense pressure on Iranian decision makers with regard to turning the final screws towards assembly of nuclear weapons. The Hezbollah deterrent toward Israel that may have stayed the latter's hand from attacking Iran's nuclear facilities works as long as full-scale warfare does not break out between the two. Once that appears imminent the Iranians may enter a "use it or lose it" frame of mind and could feel that they need to race toward production of nuclear weapons before Israel attempts a preemptive strike, which in Tehran's view might be supported by the US. The outbreak of total war between Israel and Hezbollah, apart from the utter devastation it will bring to both sides may push Israel into openly threatening Iran with nuclear retaliation if it joins in and in parallel may tip Iran into a decision to protect itself with its own nuclear weapons.