As Talks Stall, Iran Moves Closer to Building Atomic Bombs

March 11 2022

Last week, as negotiators in Vienna came close to concluding a new version of the 2015 nuclear deal with the Islamic Republic, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) issued two reports on the state of the country’s nuclear program. The IAEA currently monitors Iran’s atomic research, and would be charged with verifying its adherence to any new agreement. David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, and Andrea Stricker examine these two reports, which show that Iranian scientists have been violating the terms of the nonproliferation treaty, signed in 1970:

In an important conclusion, the IAEA reports that Iran violated its safeguards agreement by possessing and processing uranium metal at Lavizan-Shian. . . . The lack of additional IAEA follow-up likely reflects the difficulty of dealing with Iranian non-cooperation and dissembling actions about its past—and possibly ongoing—nuclear-weapons program. More than likely, this issue or an equivalent one will come up again.

In any nuclear deal, sanctions should not be reduced unless Iran cooperates with the IAEA and fully addresses its concerns. In other words, if Iran continues its deception during the implementation period of a new nuclear deal, a practice it followed during the implementation period of the JCPOA, sanctions should not be reduced.

Moreover, the Islamic Republic is closer than ever to accumulating enough nuclear fuel to produce a bomb:

Due to the growth of Iran’s 20- and 60-percent-enriched uranium stocks, breakout timelines have become dangerously short, far shorter than just a few months ago. Iran now has enough 20- and 60-percent-enriched uranium to use as feed for production of enough weapon-grade uranium for two nuclear weapons.

In total, Iran has enough 60-, 20-, and 4.5-percent-enriched uranium to make sufficient weapons-grade uranium for four nuclear weapons. . . . Alternatively, 40 kg of 60 percent enriched uranium is more than enough to fashion a nuclear explosive directly, without any further enrichment. . . . Iran’s current production rate of 60-percent-enriched uranium is 4.5 kg per month, meaning that it could accumulate its first amount of 40 kg in less than two months from now.

Read more at Institute for Science and International Security

More about: Iran nuclear deal, Nuclear proliferation

Egypt Is Trapped by the Gaza Dilemma It Helped to Create

Feb. 14 2025

Recent satellite imagery has shown a buildup of Egyptian tanks near the Israeli border, in violation of Egypt-Israel agreements going back to the 1970s. It’s possible Cairo wants to prevent Palestinians from entering the Sinai from Gaza, or perhaps it wants to send a message to the U.S. that it will take all measures necessary to keep that from happening. But there is also a chance, however small, that it could be preparing for something more dangerous. David Wurmser examines President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s predicament:

Egypt’s abysmal behavior in allowing its common border with Gaza to be used for the dangerous smuggling of weapons, money, and materiel to Hamas built the problem that exploded on October 7. Hamas could arm only to the level that Egypt enabled it. Once exposed, rather than help Israel fix the problem it enabled, Egypt manufactured tensions with Israel to divert attention from its own culpability.

Now that the Trump administration is threatening to remove the population of Gaza, President Sisi is reaping the consequences of a problem he and his predecessors helped to sow. That, writes Wurmser, leaves him with a dilemma:

On one hand, Egypt fears for its regime’s survival if it accepts Trump’s plan. It would position Cairo as a participant in a second disaster, or nakba. It knows from its own history; King Farouk was overthrown in 1952 in part for his failure to prevent the first nakba in 1948. Any leader who fails to stop a second nakba, let alone participates in it, risks losing legitimacy and being seen as weak. The perception of buckling on the Palestine issue also resulted in the Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s assassination in 1981. President Sisi risks being seen by his own population as too weak to stand up to Israel or the United States, as not upholding his manliness.

In a worst-case scenario, Wurmser argues, Sisi might decide that he’d rather fight a disastrous war with Israel and blow up his relationship with Washington than display that kind of weakness.

Read more at The Editors

More about: Egypt, Gaza War 2023