Iran Nuclear Program: Current Status & Remaining Capabilities

The air strikes of Israel and the United States on sites of the Iranian nuclear program have provided the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) with a difficult situation. On the one hand, because Iran now directed part of his anger against the UN-close agency in Vienna and does not want to let IAEA inspectors back into the country. But also because the experts would be in front of a pile of broken glass even if they would resume their work in Iran.

This is not only to be understood literally. The previous knowledge is also in rubble and ash. IAEA General Director Rafael Grossi himself expressed the weekend in the American broadcaster CBS: Certainly there have been deficits in Iran’s communication with the IAEA in recent years. “But our inspection work was constant.”

Especially on the sensitive question of how many gas centrifuges Iran operates for uranium enrichment and how much enriched uranium was present, you had a comprehensive and complete overview. “But of course, there is there at the moment – there is nothing.”

Table of Contents

• 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium
• Six impact holes in the mountain
• Tunnel inputs filled with earth
• The importance of the nuclear scientists killed
• The Ahmad plan
• Iran’s Parliament prohibits cooperation with IAEA
• 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium
• six impact holes in the mountain
• The Death of scientists with special expertise
• The Ahmad plan
• Iran’s Parliament prohibits cooperation with IAEA

For example, there is a supply of a good 400 kilograms of uranium, which had already been enriched to an almost weapon -capable degree of 60 percent. This amount was given in the last regular Iran report Grossis from the end of May. With further enrichment to 90 percent, which is technically only a small step, it would be enough for about nine atomic bombs.

This uranium could be stored or transported in a few canisters. At the time of the IAEA report, it is said to have been partly in the underground facility for Fordo, where the focus of the high enrichment was, but for the majority in Isfahan. There were a variety of factories, laboratories, research institutions and other systems of the Iranian nuclear program.

Where this highly enclosed uranium is now, the IAEA is obviously unclear. The nuclear facilities in Fordo and Isfahan have been bombed as well as those in Natans, twelve days by the Israeli forces and on June 20 by the American air strike with marching air bodies (especially on Isfahan) and with severe bunker-breaking mop bombs (especially on Fordo). Have the supplies been destroyed in whole or in part? Did you get aside in front of the airfalls, at least in front of the American, in whole or in part? At most, it can be speculated. That is what Grossi said with the succinct “nothing”.

The statements about the effect of the hits vary from Donald Trump’s assertion that they “destroyed” their goals, right down to more careful assessments, including the IAEA that serious damage was likely.

At the above -ground buildings, the images can also be understood outside of state intelligence services using the images of commercial satellites. In the underground facilities, there is more space for interpretation. There are six impact holes in the mountain on the Fordo satellite images, in which two of the bunkerbreaking bombs were apparently thrown in one.

The Washington thinking factory Isis writes that the hits were apparently placed in vulnerable bodies of the facility, such as ventilation shafts. Whether the bombs destroy the tunnels or at least damaged the highly sensitive centrifuges in it, could only be determined after a tour.

It is interesting to show what satellite images show that were taken shortly before the American air strike: Apparently the Iranians had already filled the tunnel inputs with soil – whether to protect the system or to protect the outside world, if the system is taken, is unclear. And beforehand, trucks lined up in front of the tunnels – whether for the removal of material or even to store material in the supposedly safe tunnel, as ISIS speculates, is just as uncertain.

The air strikes not only met the enrichment systems, but also made many facets of the Iranian nuclear program. For example, the conversion systems in Isfahan, a bottleneck in the enrichment program. They were needed to form the starting material that comes from the uranium mills (“Yellow Cake”) in gaseous uranium hexafluoride, which is fed into the centrifugs. And there could be uranium metal from the gas again, as you could have used to build a bomb core.

The destruction of centrifuge factories is also likely to mean a sensitive impairment. On the other hand, already built centrifuges that were not yet installed (and because of the restrictions on IAEA in recent years had not been under the control of the Viennese agency). In order to put them together to form new cascades, technicians and scientists need a not very large, outward inconspicuous factory hall.

But Israel not only destroyed facilities, but also killed at least 13 leading nuclear scientists – in addition to those who had already targeted it. The Israeli journalist Ronen Bergman once asked the former CIA director Michael Hayden years ago, which of the measures against the Iranian nuclear program was most effective in his view. His answer: “The most effective when someone started to kill scientists.” He said “someone” because Israel had never admitted on June 13th on June 13 that it was behind at least seven attacks on nuclear scientists.

On the first day of the twelve-day war, almost nine researchers were killed in their private rooms. Israel was apparently so important to this part of the offensive that it killed a last nuclear scientist a few hours before the start of the unofficial ceasefire. Mohammad Reza Seddighi Saber died in his parents’ house on the Caspian Sea. He had fled there after escaping an assassination on the first day that his son fell victim to.

Most of the killed stood on US sanction lists. Just like Saber, the head of the Shahid Karimi group of companies, which, according to State Department, was connected to “research and tests”, “which can be used for the development of nuclear explosives”.

At least two more worked for the Shadid Karimi Group, which is subject to the Ministry of Defense. Including an expert from the group for explosives and metals. Several of the killed teaches at the Shahid-Bebeichti University, which apparently plays a central role in the Iranian nuclear program.

Another connecting element is the so-called amad plan, a nuclear weapons program that was set in 2003. In 2018, Israel learned the details of the plan through the inspection of thousands of documents from the so -called atomic archive. The former head of the National Nuclear Authority Fereydun Abbasi-Dewani was said to have played a central role in the program at that time.

Israel had already tried to kill him in 2010. At that time he was only injured. Among the killed are also two researchers who had published a paper about gamma radiation together. The Israeli military stated that the men were “a central part of progress in the direction of nuclear weapons”.

To what extent does the death of these scientists make it difficult to rebuild the Iranian nuclear program? Can your expertise be replaced? And to what extent does your death start to take part in the nuclear program? At least you know that Iran has made some efforts to institutionalize the knowledge of its researchers, including in an archive. Foreign Minister Araghchi said: “Knowledge cannot be destroyed by bombs.”

What is the Iranian plan now? The media and political concentration on 400 kilograms should not be used to look at the fact that the same applies to the other supplies of enriched uranium. In total, according to the IAEA report, it was more than nine tons, partly to five, partly enriched to 20 percent. This would also be a elaborate first step for a new high enrichment.

According to the American air strike, the IAEA general director made a letter to Araghchis on June 13th. That was the first day of the Israeli bombing, since then no IAEA inspector has seen any system. Iran, Araghchi wrote, will “take special measures to protect our nuclear equipment and materials”. Grossi had immediately pointed out Iran that any transfer nuclear material from a site that is under the supervision of the IAEA had to be reported to a different place. The agreements with Iran provide for this in accordance with the non -distribution contract. At every opportunity, he was ready to work with Iran and travel there.

Politically, this becomes difficult at first. The Iranian Parliament has passed a law that the government literally “obliges to immediately suspend any cooperation with the IAEA”. According to the reading of parliamentarians, this includes a ban on entry of additional inspectors and the general director Rafael Grossi, whom some parliamentarians disparage as “spy chief”.

The newspaper Kayhan, a mouthpiece of the hardliners, even published a call for the execution of Grossis, albeit in a satirical column. The IAEA releases a useful scapegoat for Iran, because the accusation that it passed on information to Israel distracts from the failures of its own counter -espionage. The theatrically staged conflict also serves Iran as a pretext that IAEA initially does not give access to the nuclear facilities.

Grossi said in his CBS interview that Iran was undisputed (and he hoped that nobody asked the question) member of the non-distribution contract. This means that Tehran has to work with the IAEA. Domestic law cannot override an international contract. The Iranian law (it consists only of a paragraph) was carefully looked at. The Iranians say that security and protection are necessary that this is not incompatible with the necessary inspections. Grossi warned that a return of the inspectors with a view to negotiations, which would hopefully be resumed soon.

To build an atomic bomb, you need not only technology and knowledge, but also the political will. In March, the American secret service coordinator Tulsi Gabbard said that the services continued to believe that the top guide Khamenei had not approved another program for the construction of a nuclear weapon after a corresponding program was stopped in 2003.

Presumably feared Khamenei that such a plan of Israel was discovered and provoking an Israeli attack. Instead, Tehran had tried to use his status as a atomic threshold state as a negotiating mass for the cancellation of sanctions.

After the twelve-day war, Tehran’s calculation could have changed. The war has revealed that the Iranian rocket arsenal is not an effective deterrent against Israeli attacks. Khamei could come to the conclusion that only a nuclear armament could secure its regime from falling.

It remains to be seen whether this would remain undetected in view of the deep penetration of the security apparatus through the Mossad. For the time being, Tehran is covered. However, it has announced that it would “never” do without uranium enrichment. On satellite recordings you can see that at least the cleanup in Fordo has started.