In comments made to EU lawmakers this week, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi tried to raise the alarm about Iran’s civilian nuclear program, claiming that Iran could, if it so chose, fuel “several” nuclear weapons from its existing stockpile.
This accusation is a continuation of Grossi’s past suggestions, fueling immediate media frenzy about a proliferation threat, and showing a flagrant lack of understanding for the facts of a nuclear program, let alone the status of Iran’s stockpile.
Under the suspended JCPOA nuclear deal, Iran was to send excess uranium from its stockpile abroad to keep it from growing too large. With the US not in the deal, no one is taking that excess uranium, and the stockpile just keeps growing steadily, with some 70 kg of 60% purity uranium amassed at this point.
The important facts of the case, however, are more practical, and generally ignored in the press. The term “weapons-grade uranium” refers to uranium which could be used in an atomic weapon, and is of a minimum of 90% purity.
Iran’s highest level of enrichment, even years after JCPOA fell apart, is still only 60%, well short of weapons-grade. Iran has never even attempted to produce uranium more highly enriched than this, and its much-vaunted stockpile subsequently includes no weapons-grade uranium to fuel any weapons at all.
The IAEA is no doubt aware of all of this, but consistently presents the “highly enriched uranium” (HEU) of 60% as a problem. This both parrots US efforts to spin anything Iran does as a threat, and ignores the US role in the stockpile being so large in size in the first place. At the end of the day, 60% uranium is still no direct proliferation risk without substantial further processing, which Iran has neither attempted nor itself proven capable of.
These IAEA comments are always spun as warnings about Iran. It would be more reasonable to make this concern about the United States and the rest of the P5+1’s inability to get America back into compliance with the JCPOA. Iran has shown all the willingness in the world to get back into the deal if the other nations do, but the US has resisted, and that’s delaying the entire process, leaving the current status quo in place. 60% uranium keeps being produced but has nowhere to go other than the stockpile.
Rather than the US being induced to get the JCPOA back on track, the Biden Administration has responded with more sanctions to punish Iran, though ironically Iran isn’t in violation of any existing agreements since the US blew apart the only material deal on nuclear enrichment.
The IAEA comments risk further harming the environment for more sideline talks with Iran on monitoring, and giving the EU parliament the impression that this is an Iran problem, and not a problem with saving the JCPOA from the United States.
Someone is trying to build a war…
They are pretty close to get it.
Someone is trying to expand a world war.
It’s the USA vs. BRICS.
(IAEA) chief Rafael Grossi. Is he not the guy who could not tell where the shells hitting the NPP came from?
The Davos people control all international institutions, none of them can be trusted, that includes the UN and the IAEA including all the NGOs and the Think Tanks, they fund and control. Big money rules, just look at the list of the Davos guests and visitors list. They are the deep state, the people who pick whom we can vote for, making Trump and Biden possible.
Who can really say what Iran is doing in its numerous secret DUMBOS? Large country,large land mass and population,plenty of cash,ruthlessness.
Everybody but you…!
Actually, I studies physics for two years, and I also have no idea.Shove your sarcasm.Determined and evil people with money can often find a way.
So, when you can’t prove it or when the US itself claims they aren’t making a bomb just run with it’s a big country. And of course, “population” is an important factor when developing a nuke, right?
Population that has many educated engineers and physicists.
Iran can always claim that they have hidden number of textile factories named Shimon .
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/religion/9682850/BBC-apologises-after-Chief-Rabbi-blames-Iran-for-Gaza-conflict.html
Default position of certain nation is this – if we dont know whats going on,something terrible must be going on. When additional inconsistency is raised about that’something going on’ in its oen backyard for decades,the country throwsa big fit like attacking a neighbor.
On mike while his interview was coming to a close,Jonathan Sacks – -told BBC ( Evan Davis) without realizing he was live ,that Gaza attack was all about Iran.
Pet poodle BBC apologized to Lord Saks later . (The Telegraph Tim Ross 16 th Nov,2012 )
Apology for what ? For being caught off guard ?
Maybe Zombie Plague, LOL.
It’s not weapons grade but the claim is that enriching 60%, stored as a gas, to 90%+ is fairly easy. That sounds plausible but the larger point is that what else can Iran do to respond to our illegal sanctions?
If Iran complies to the original agreement then why would we ever drop sanctions since we would be getting something for free
The number of times that gas will have to be treated to reach 90% depends on the efficiency of every single centrifuge and the length of the cascade. I suspect that the IAEA and the CIA have those data.
It is fair of you to point out that we do not know how efficiently Iran can do this because they have never tried.
But given the same processing technique, going from 2% to 90+ requires doubling the concentration 6 times vs 1 or 2 when starting at 60%.
But I am not accusing Iran of trying to actually do that. We forced them into a box
At least they have plenty for their research and medical reactor(s) without having to purchase it. So, now the sanctions stay in place and Iran can stockpile as much as it needs under the NPT, but the sanctions are the true crime here.
The sanctions, how have they hindered Iran? They have only brought Iran closer to Russia and China.
People are too dim and ignorant to understand Uranium enrichment and too hate fogged to care about such details. We need to strike the root and understand that nobody, not even rich white people, should have nuclear weapons, or otherwise accept that all nations have an equal right to them. Indeed, should the Iranians have separate drinking fountains at the UN?
Hmmm, surely the most important fact of this case is that Iran is not, per numerous US intelligence analyses over the years, actually attempting to build nuclear weapons? I mean, the difference between 60% and 90%+ is simply a difference in cycles, not qualitative … Iran has the know how and that genie is not getting put back in the bottle. So the trick is to do our best to not motivate them to change their mind and go ahead and weaponize their program. Threats and sanctions do the opposite, as demonstrated best by N Korea.
There is another deal Iran signed onto. The NPT. Iran signed the NPT in 1968, ratified the same in 1970. Still in force. Iran has followed all of the rules of the NPT, and, can enrich uranium to commercial levels, and, has been open to inspection by the IAEA. I have thought for quite a while that the current administration of the IAEA was a prop for the U.S. of A., the only country to have utilized a nuke (2) against another country.
I’m hoping Iran gets there without being attacked. I’m a little disappointed that Russia hasn’t already sold Iran a few nukes and the means of delivery. About time they joined the club of nations the US has a hard time intimidating and crapping on.
“Cause Russia has shown some sense of responsibility,unlike some warmongers.
Right on BEAR!
For their sakes, they better have couple already, because wars-a-comen
so i left a comment here re multiple attacks on Iran
with a link to halturner, but it was removed.
i wonder why it was removed since i didn’t insult any ethnic or religious peoples.
Guidelines quote, emphasis mine:
“You’re entitled to your opinion. You’re not entitled to use Antiwar.com’s facilities to publish slurs or supremacist claims based on race, ethnicity, nationality, religion, disability, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity, or to link to sites promoting such material. We don’t want that stuff here.”
Merica just seems to be hell-bent on poking every sore-point on this planet, all at the same time. Seems the perfect time, because Mericans are more tranquilized than ever. The end-game escapes me. Maybe the plot is something like that movie ‘They Live’, with Rowdy Roddy Piper, LOL.