Can Iran’s march to nuclear statehood be halted?

Financial Times -June 20th,2023

Andrew England in London, Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran and Felicia Schwartz in Washington

When two UN atomic watchdog inspectors set off for Iran’s Fordow nuclear plant in January, they gave their Iranian counterparts virtually no notice of the impending visit. It was what the International Atomic Energy Agency terms a routine unscheduled inspection, designed to give staff at one of the Islamic republic’s most secretive facilities as little time as possible to make any alterations to equipment. On this occasion, they would make an alarming discovery. After the inspectors donned laboratory coats and descended into Fordow, built deep beneath a mountain to protect against US or Israeli bombs, they were immediately given cause for concern.  Two “cascades” of advanced centrifuges enriching uranium were configured in a way that “substantially” differed from what Iran’s nuclear authorities had declared to the IAEA, the agency reported. The discovery prompted a brief back and forth between the inspectors and the Iranian scientists, who insisted nothing had changed. The IAEA experts returned the next day, put on gloves, grabbed swabs and plastic bags, and took samples of dust from the area, which were flown back to the watchdog’s Vienna headquarters. After its scientists examined the particles, the IAEA made a finding that would shock the outside world. The uranium in the dust was enriched to a purity of up to 83.7 per cent, by far the highest level detected in Iran. The finding suggested Tehran was closer than ever to having the capacity to produce nuclear weapons.
It was the latest evidence of just how far Iran’s nuclear programme has advanced since the US under President Donald Trump unilaterally pulled out of the accord Tehran signed with world powers, known as the JCPOA, in 2018.

In the five years since, the Islamic republic has been locked in a dangerous game of brinkmanship with Washington — and today Iran is on the threshold of becoming a nuclear state. General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, told a Senate hearing in March that Iran “could produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon in approximately 10-15 days and it would only take several months to produce an actual nuclear weapon”. It is a crisis that has left western diplomats struggling to come up with viable options to reverse or at least stem the advances, amid fears that the current path is unsustainable and risks triggering the Middle East’s next conflict. A temporary fix In recent months, officials in Europe and the US have quietly resumed discussions on how they can address the crisis.

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https://www.ft.com/content/63e3c340-0876-4146-abe5-be8599b4553c