Nuclear proliferation: Is Iran misleading the world?

Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, recently said Tehran is fully prepared to mass-produce various types of centrifuges. More importantly, some state-owned newspapers have reported that Iran has already begun doing so. This should be taken seriously, as it means Tehran is trying to significantly decrease its nuclear breakout time — the length of time it needs to produce a nuclear weapon.

When the nuclear deal was reached, the breakout time was an estimated two to three months. The agreement was supposed to increase the breakout time to a year, but given the boasts about mass-producing centrifuges, Tehran is likely trying to reduce the breakout time to less than two months.

There are serious doubts about the ability of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to detect such violations of the nuclear deal. Indeed, most of Iran’s nuclear violations in the last two decades were initially detected by independent organizations, not by the IAEA.

Iran has been caught several times trying to breach the nuclear deal. The first violation was reported by Germany’s domestic intelligence agency, which said Tehran was pursuing a “clandestine” path to obtain illicit nuclear technology and equipment from German companies “at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level.” The next two violations, verified by the IAEA, entailed Iran exceeding its threshold for heavy water, used to produce nuclear weapons.

Tehran’s public boasts about mass-producing centrifuges highlights serious loopholes in the nuclear deal. Evidently, the IAEA does not have full access to Iran’s nuclear sites, centrifuge equipment or all the locations where they are being manufactured.

One of the critical sites to which the IAEA does not have full access is the highly protected Parchin military site. There, a recently detected research academy, hidden from IAEA inspectors, is reportedly being used to continue the nuclear weapons project.

These issues need to be adequately addressed by the IAEA and the six world powers that brokered the nuclear deal. As a recent intelligence report by the Institute for Science and International Security points out: “Iran could have already stockpiled many advanced centrifuge components, associated raw materials, and the equipment necessary to operate a large number of advanced centrifuges… A key question is whether Iran is secretly making centrifuge rotor tubes and bellows at unknown locations, in violation of the JCPOA (nuclear deal), and if it takes place, what the probability is that it goes without detection.”

The IAEA ought to investigate Iran’s centrifuge activities more thoroughly. With existing intelligence reports, the US can pressure the IAEA and the other brokers of the nuclear deal to ensure Iran’s compliance with it, and to address existing loopholes.