Why is there so much concern over Iran’s nuclear program? And where could it go from here?

Conflict between Israel and Iran is intensifying, after Israeli airstrikes on key nuclear sites and targeted assassinations last week were followed by counter-strikes by Iran on Israel.

These attacks have come at a moment of growing concern over Iran’s nuclear program, and have prompted larger questions over what this means for the global non-proliferation regime.

The short answer: it’s not good.

Where was uranium being enriched in Iran?

There are two main enrichment sites: one at Natanz and one at Fordow. There’s also a facility at Isfahan, which, among other things, is focused on producing important materials for the enrichment process.

Natanz has a hall of centrifuges, which are cylindrical devices that spin incredibly quickly to enrich uranium^[1] for creating either the fuel for a nuclear power program or the key ingredient for a nuclear weapon.

Much the same is happening at Fordow, as far as we know. It is a smaller facility than Natanz but much of it is buried deep under a mountain.

To make it weapons grade, uranium ought to be close to 90% purity. It is possible to create a bomb with uranium enriched to a lower level, but it is a much less efficient method. So around 90% is the target.

The Obama-era Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action^[3] Iran signed in 2015 (in exchange for the US lifting sanctions) limited Iran’s enrichment capacities and its stockpile of enriched uranium. But Trump ripped up that deal in 2018.

Iran remained in compliance for a while, even while the US resumed its economic sanctions, but in recent years, has started to enrich to higher levels – up to about 60%. We know Iran still hasn’t got weapons-grade enriched uranium, but it’s a lot closer than it was to being able to build a bomb.

And worse, much of their stockpile of enriched uranium will now be effectively unaccounted for because of the strikes by Israel. There are no inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) happening there now and probably won’t be for some time.

Iran could also say some of its stockpile was destroyed in the strikes – and we’ve got no way of knowing if that’s true or not.

Both Natanz and Fordow have extensive, hardened, underground facilties. The above-ground facility at Natanz, at least, appears to have been badly damaged, based on satellite photos.

Rafael Grossi, the head of the IAEA, said^[4] the centrifuges at Natanz were likely to have been “severely damaged if not destroyed altogether”. This was likely caused by power cuts, despite the fact the underground facility was not directly hit.

Grossi said there was no visible damage^[5] to the underground facilities at Fordow, which is hidden some 80–90 metres beneath a mountain.

Unlike the United States, Israel doesn’t have the very deep penetrating ordinance that can totally destroy such deeply buried structures.

So a key question is: has Israel done enough damage to the centrifuges inside? Or have Iran’s efforts at fortifying these facilities been successful? We may not know for some time.

Was Iran trying to hide its activities?

In the past, Iran had a clandestine nuclear weapons program laying out the foundation of how it would build a bomb.

We know that because, as part of the diplomatic process associated with the previous nuclear deal that Trump killed off, the IAEA had issued an assessment confirming that Iran previously had this plan in breach of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)^[6].

Iran hadn’t actually built weapons or done a test, but it had a plan. And that plan, Project AMAD^[7], was shelved in 2003. We also know that thanks to Israel. In 2018, Israeli special forces undertook a raid in downtown Tehran and stole secret documents revealing this.

When the Obama administration managed to negotiate the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, part of the deal was Iran had to accept greater oversight of its nuclear facilities. It had to accept restrictions, limit the number of centrifuges and couldn’t maintain large stockpiles of enriched uranium. This was in exchange for the US lifting sanctions.

These restrictions didn’t make it impossible for Iran to build a weapon. But it made it extremely difficult, particularly without being detected.

What did the IAEA announce last week and why was it concerning?

Last week, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution saying that Iran was in breach of its obligations under the NPT.

This related to Iran being unable to answer questions from inspectors about nuclear activities being undertaken at undeclared sites.

That’s the first time in 20 years the IAEA has come to this finding. This is not why Israel attacked Iran. But it helps explain the exact timing. It gives Israel a degree of cover, perhaps even legitimacy. That legitimacy is surely limited however, given that Israel itself is not a signatory of the NPT and has maintained its own nuclear arsenal^[8] for more than half a century.

In response to the IAEA announcement last week, Iran announced it would plan to build a third enrichment site in addition to Fordow and Natanz.

Can a militarised approach to counter-proliferation backfire?

Yes.

When Israel hit the Osirak nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981, it put Iraq’s nuclear program back by a few years. But the Iraqis redoubled their efforts. By the end of that decade, Iraq was very close to a fully-fledged nuclear weapons program.

Presumably, Israel’s thinking is it will have to redo these strikes – “mowing the grass^[9]”, as they say – in an effort to hinder Iran’s attempts to reconstitute the program.

Overnight, Iranian lawmakers also drafted a bill urging Iran to withdraw from the NPT. That is entirely legal under the treaty. Article X of the treaty allows that if “extraordinary events” jeopardise a state party’s “supreme interests” then there’s a legal process for withdrawal.

Only one state has done that since the NPT was opened for signature in 1968: North Korea. Now, North Korea is a nuclear-armed state.

Iran seems likely to withdraw from the treaty under this article. It has experienced a full-scale attack from another country, including strikes on key infrastructure and targeted assassinations of its top leaders and nuclear scientists. If that doesn’t count as a risk to your supreme interests, then I don’t know what does.

Iran’s withdrawal would pose a significant challenge to the wider non-proliferation regime. It may even trigger more withdrawals from other countries.

If Iran withdraws from the NPT, the next big questions are how much damage has Israel done to the centrifuge facilities? How quickly can Iran enrich its uranium stockpile up to weapons grade?

And, ultimately, how much damage has been done to the ever-fragile nuclear non-proliferation regime based around the NPT?

References

1. ^{^} enrich uranium (theconversation.com)
2. ^{^} CC BY-NC (creativecommons.org)
3. ^{^} Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (2009-2017.state.gov)
4. ^{^} said (www.bbc.com)
5. ^{^} no visible damage (www.theguardian.com)
6. ^{^} Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) (disarmament.unoda.org)
7. ^{^} Project AMAD (en.wikipedia.org)
8. ^{^} its own nuclear arsenal (thebulletin.org)
9. ^{^} mowing the grass (en.wikipedia.org)