Attack on Isfahan: What is the status of Iran’s nuclear program?

War in the Middle East
Attack on Isfahan: What is the status of the Iranian nuclear program?

Since the USA withdrew from the nuclear agreement with Iran, hardly anyone has any insight into the nuclear program. A mistake, according to Iran expert Azadeh Zamirirad star. Because the country is now a “nuclear emerging state”.

Is Iran now officially doing what many experts believe it has been planning for a long time: building a nuclear bomb? The Commander for Nuclear Security was somewhat cryptic – but clear enough Iran’s Ahmad Hagh Taleb now said: A “review of the Islamic Republic’s nuclear doctrine” is “possible and conceivable,” he told the Tasnim news agency – in the event that Israel attacks Iranian nuclear facilities or threatens to do so.

Did Israel attack Isfahan?

That may be exactly what happened on Friday night. According to Iranian state media, there were three explosions in the Isfahan region but no major damage. US broadcasters report that it was the announced Israeli retaliatory action for the massive attack by Iran. Abdolrahim Mousavi, the country’s army chief, said the incidents were being investigated. One thing is certain: the northern Iranian city of Isfahan is home to the country’s most important nuclear research center – where, according to many observers, the country is working on the atomic bomb.

Although those in power in Tehran emphasize that their nuclear program is solely for civilian use, it was only around a year ago that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) came across uranium enriched to 60 percent, and even small amounts of fissile material enriched to up to 84 percent been. Uranium of this concentration is not needed for nuclear power plants, but for nuclear weapons.

“Nuclear program is beyond our control”

Exactly how advanced Iran’s nuclear program is “cannot be assessed with absolute certainty because it is no longer subject to extensive international control,” says Iran expert Azadeh Zamirirad from the Politics and Science Foundation dem star. “But one thing is certain: Iran is already an emerging nuclear state.” But it is precisely this status, the country on the verge of becoming a nuclear power, that has been tried to prevent for years. Not only, but especially Israel, the declared archenemy of the mullahs’ regime, fears the nuclear threat.

In 2015, the USA, France, Great Britain, Germany, Russia and China concluded an agreement with Iran that was intended to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons. However, critics of the paper, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, complained that the researchers would continue to work on the bomb despite all the controls by the IAEA and that the equally dangerous missile program was not even part of the contracts. In 2018, then US President Donald Trump unilaterally terminated the agreement. Since then, hardly anyone from the outside has had any insight into the nuclear program.

Leaving the nuclear deal was a “fundamental mistake”

Azadeh Zamirirad says the Americans’ withdrawal from the nuclear deal was “a fundamental political and strategic mistake.” “We now have an Iran whose nuclear program is neither technically limited nor under international control – two things that the nuclear agreement had ensured back then.” Last summer, however, there were again delicate attempts at diplomatic initiation. But the attack on Israel by the Iranian-backed Palestinian Hamas and the subsequent war of retaliation in the Gaza Strip put an end to the rapprochement.

At the end of the year, when Israeli soldiers attacked the Iranian ally’s fighters in grueling street combat, worried voices could be heard from the Vienna offices of the nuclear controllers: Iran’s nuclear progress would increase significantly, the development was delicate and time was running out, said the chief of the authority, Rafael Grossi. Two things worry him: the Tehran regime’s lack of willingness to cooperate, and the West’s lack of awareness of what is going on in the centrifuges and reactors in Isfahan.

It may still take a while until the bomb arrives

Even though Iran has proven to have enriched material, experts are puzzled about how quickly the military will be able to use it to build a real weapon. “It takes a while from fissile material to bomb,” says Zamirirad, “estimates range from six to 18 months.” The Iran expert is not only concerned about the fact that the country now has technical knowledge that can no longer be taken away from it.

The entangled overall situation in the Middle East could also become problematic: “With further escalation in the region, Iran’s deterrence potential and that of its allies could decrease significantly. This increases the risk that Tehran will try to compensate for this lost deterrence potential with its own nuclear bombs,” said Azadeh Zamirirad.

Sources: DPA, AFP, Reuters