Despite reports last week of Iran briefly halting its dismantlement of centrifuges over a political dispute with hardliners, the latest IAEA report shows Iran has already raced through nearly a quarter of the dismantlement in well under a month, putting them well ahead of schedule.
Iran started dismantling the centrifuges under the terms of the P5+1 deal at the beginning of the month, and at the time said they hoped to be done within two months, several months before the international community expected. They might be a bit behind that goal, but are still on pace to get done extremely early.
US officials have been complaining about Iran “complying too fast” with the deal, and say that Iran getting into compliance with the deal early won’t mean they will be easing sanctions any earlier. Iran’s Reformist government is hoping to have some sanctions relief in place by February’s elections.
That’s probably not going to happen with the US no matter what, but European nations are looking at massive business deals and investment opportunities once the deal goes into effect, and are probably going to be more eager to ease their own restrictions to try to be among the first in this new, lucrative market.