Despite Talk of a ‘Nuclear Leap,’ Little About Iran’s Enrichment Program Has Changed

This week, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) offered it’s latest secret assessment to member states about the status of Iran’s civilian nuclear program, including its enrichment of uranium. As usual, aspects of this assessment were quickly leaked, and panic about Iran’s intentions reemerged.

Iran has been improving its centrifuges, and has been very public about replacing old versions with newer, more efficient centrifuges. Indeed, the increase in rate of enrichment that was a main take of the “secret” assessment was already coming when Iran announced the new centrifuges it intended to install weeks before.

That didn’t stop the predictable parties from freaking out about the already-announced change. Indeed, the media has been spinning the latest report as detailing a “nuclear leap” by Iran. Newsweek even declared “Iran was increasing its enrichment of uranium to 60 percent.”

In reality, Iran has been enriching to 60 percent since April of 2021. Their amount of 60% uranium has grown since then, of course, since the US breaking of the JCPOA, the Iran nuclear deal, has prevented them from shipping the enriched uranium overseas for further processing into civilian fuel. Without JCPOA, the stockpile keeps growing, and hawks present that growth as vindication of dishonoring JCPOA and calls to do yet more to antagonize Iran.

Iran has very recently promised that it will not enrich uranium beyond the 60 percent level. Today, it was also reported that Iran had agreed to allow the IAEA to conduct increased monitoring at the Fordow uranium enrichment site.

Either way, 60% enriched uranium is not weapons grade, which is over 90%. The media reports suggest Iran is “getting closer” to weapons grade, but 60% is no closer to 90% today than it was in 2021. Either way, Iran has not been attempting to produce a nuclear weapon at any time in that period, and there is no evidence that has changed.

Israeli officials are suggesting Iran might conceivably try to produce nuclear weapons after the regime change in Syria. Some are following this train of thought to calls to attack Iran over what they might do.

The accusations against Iran, though, aren’t materially different from what the Israeli right has been saying for decades. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been pushing the narrative of an Iranian nuclear threat since his first term in office in the 1990s. Tying it to the Syrian regime change is a new twist, but at its core the claims are still speculation about what Iran might do in the future, and aren’t corroborated by the nuclear activities reported in the IAEA assessment.

It is just a continuation of the multi-decade Israeli ambitions to start a war against Iran, by hook or by crook. It’s not just Israel either, as US hawks have talked up the idea repeatedly during that time. Even now, President-elect Trump’s transition team is discussing the possibility of attacking Iranian nuclear facilities when he takes office next month.

There have been countless threats to attack Iran, of course, so it doesn’t necessarily mean an attack is imminent. But Netanyahu has been saying for months that a regime change against Iran will happen a lot sooner than people think, so he seems to believe this might the opportunity to finally get the war on Iran he has sought for so long.