Absent a Nuclear Deal, Iran’s Stockpile Continues to Grow

None of Iran's stockpile of uranium is weapons-grade

The IAEA has a lot of statements on Iran’s nuclear program which provoke panic about the nation, and the most regular ones are stockpile levels, which are now 18 times the deal limit from 2015.

These official reports are always absent an explanation, necessary because they’re not so scary sounding when one understands. The 2015 deal is not intact, despite ongoing negotiations, and subsequently the mechanism for reprocessing excess stockpiles into fuel to keep them below the limit isn’t working either.

The result of this is that Iran is continuing enrichment as it always was intended, but the rest of the world’s management of reprocessing isn’t happening, so the stockpile just keeps growing, with Iran trying to make their own fuel.

The bottom line figures show the stockpile growing at a more or less steady rate, and none of the stockpile is weapons grade despite alarmists trying to predict imminent breakout risks.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.