Stakes rise as Iran capable of ‘several’ atom bombs
‘One thing is true: They have amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons’
Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build “several” nuclear weapons if it chooses, the United Nations’ top nuclear official is now warning. But diplomatic efforts aimed at again limiting its atomic program seem more unlikely than ever before as Tehran arms Russia in its war on Ukraine and as unrest shakes the Islamic Republic.
The warning from Rafael Mariano Grossi of the International Atomic Energy Agency, in response to questions from European lawmakers this week, shows just how high the stakes have become over Iran’s nuclear programme. Even at the height of previous tensions between the West and Iran under hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad before the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran never enriched uranium as high as it does now.
For months, non-proliferation experts have suggested Iran had enough uranium enriched up to 60 per cent to build at least one nuclear weapon — though Tehran long has insisted its programme is for peaceful purposes. While offering a caveat on Tuesday that “we need to be extremely careful” in describing Iran’s programme, Grossi bluntly acknowledged just how large Tehran’s highenriched uranium stockpile had grown. “One thing is true: They have amassed enough nuclear material for several nuclear weapons, not one at this point,” Grossi said.
Danger remains
The Argentine diplomat then referred to Benjamin Netanyahu’s famous 2012 speech to the United Nations, in which the Israeli prime minister held up a placard of a cartoon-style bomb with a burning wick and drew a red line on it to urge the world to not allow Tehran’s programme to highly enrich uranium. While the 2015 nuclear deal drastically reduced Iran’s uranium stockpile and capped its enrichment to 3.67 per cent, Netanyahu successfully lobbied then-President Donald Trump to withdraw from the accord and set up the current tensions.
“You remember there was to be this issue of the breakthrough and Mr. Netanyahu drawing things at the UN and putting lines — well, that is long past. They have 70 kilograms (155 pounds) of uranium enriched at 60 per cent . ... The amount is there,” Grossi said. “That doesn’t mean they have a nuclear weapon. So they haven’t proliferated yet.”
But the danger remains. Analysts point to what happened with North Korea, which had reached a 1994 deal with the US to abandon its nuclear weapons programme. The deal fell apart in 2002. By 2005 and wary of US intentions after its invasion of Iraq, Pyongyang announced it had built nuclear weapons.