Tehran breaches nuclear accord
Stockpile of enriched uranium exceeds limit set in 2015 pact, though not enough to make bomb
WASHINGTON » Iran has exceeded a key limitation on how much nuclear fuel it can possess under the 2015 international pact curbing its nuclear program, effectively declaring that it would no longer respect an agreement that President Donald Trump abandoned more than a year ago, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported Monday.
The breach of the limitation, which restricted Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium to about 660 pounds, does not by itself give the country the material to produce a nuclear weapon. But it is the strongest signal yet that Iran is moving to abandon the limits and restore the far larger stockpile that took the United States and five other nations years to persuade Tehran to send abroad.
The developments were first reported by the semiofficial Fars news agency, citing an “informed source.” Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister, was later quoted confirming the news, according to another semiofficial outlet, the Iranian Students News Agency, or ISNA.
The report from Fars said that representatives of the IAEA determined last week that Iran had passed the threshold, and a spokesman for the agency said Monday that it had confirmed that the stockpile had surpassed the limit laid out in
the deal.
It was unclear how much the action would escalate the tensions between Washington and Tehran after the downing of a U.S. surveillance drone in June nearly resulted in military strikes.
But it returns the focus to Iran’s two-decade pursuit of technology that could produce a nuclear weapon — exactly where it was before President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani struck their deal four years ago.
While the Trump administration had no immediate reaction to the announcement, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said in June that the United States would never allow Iran to get within one year of possessing
enough fuel to produce a nuclear weapon. His special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook, has often said that under a new deal, the United States would insist on “zero enrichment for Iran.”
Iran has so far rejected beginning any negotiation, saying the United States must first return to the 2015 agreement and comply with all of its terms.
“Now the inevitable escalation cycle seems well underway,” Philip Gordon, a Middle East expert at the Council on Foreign Relations and a former Obama administration national security official, wrote in an article this spring for Foreign Affairs magazine shortly after Rouhani telegraphed that he intended to walk away from the deal’s restrictions. Iran was on a “slippery slope” to fully pulling out of the agreement, Gordon added.
On June 28, after meeting in Vienna with European officials who had promised to set up a barter system with Iran to compensate for the effects of U.S. sanctions that Britain, France and Germany say are unwise, Iranian officials said the effort was insufficient. Hook has estimated the sanctions have cost Iran $50 billion in lost oil sales, far more than the system the Europeans are putting in place would generate.
As they left the meeting, Iranian officials hinted that the breaking of the limit would go forward, though it could just as easily be reversed in the future.
For now, however, Iran seems on a pathway to step-by-step dissolution of key parts of the accord. Rouhani has said Iran will begin raising the level of uranium enrichment this month.
“Deeply worried by Iran’s announcement that it has broken existing nuclear deal obligations. UK remains committed to making deal work & using all diplomatic tools to deescalate regional tensions,” British Foreign Minister Jeremy Hunt said on Twitter. He urged Iran to avoid any further steps away from the 2015 nuclear agreement and to “come back into compliance.”
Even before the announcement, the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies — led by the CIA and the National Security Agency — were beginning to review what steps to take if Trump determined that Iran was getting too close to producing a bomb.
A decade ago, the Obama administration conducted a highly classified cyberattack, code-named Olympic Games, at the Natanz enrichment site. The breach
neutralized Iran’s centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speeds to enrich uranium, and destroyed about 1,000 of the 5,000 machines then in operation. But after two years, Iran rebounded, and when the nuclear accord came into effect, it had more than 17,000 centrifuges, most of which were dismantled under the agreement.
If the United States targets Iran’s uranium enrichment operations, experts say, it is likely to take aim again at the Natanz site. But this time, the Iranians appear far better prepared. Other major nuclear sites, including the primary production facility for converting raw uranium to a gas form, and factories that produce next-generation centrifuges, also are likely targets, according to former officials.
In the weeks before the announcement, Saudi Arabia’s state news media called for “surgical strikes” against Iran, as did Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., who pressed for military action after the downing of the drone. Trump initially agreed, then pulled back.
But any operation against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, either with conventional arms or cyberweapons, would be highly risky. And some administration officials warn that acting now would be premature. Even if Iran possesses 800 or 900 kilograms of uranium, it would be insufficient for a single bomb. That threshold is not likely to be crossed until later this summer.
“If there is conflict, if there is war, if there is a kinetic activity, it will be because the Iranians made that choice,” Pompeo said last week during a visit to New Delhi. “I hope that they do not.”