Iran Nuclear Chief Says IAEA Is Nothing But Nuisance To Iran

In an interview on Thursday, Albright warned that a “convergence of factors” means “this is the time that “Iran may decide to make nuclear weapons.”

“You have a situation where the security incentives for Iran to build nuclear weapons have increased,” he pointed out. “The transparency of the nuclear program has decreased significantly.. Their nuclear weapons capabilities have grown over the last several years… And it's also a point in time where people's attention is elsewhere. The Iran nuclear issue barely makes the newspapers these days.”

David Albright is a world leading weapons expert and the founder of the Institute for Science and International Security. He was associated with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in the late 1990s and raised questions about the evidence that led to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Speaking with Iran International’s Fardad Farahzad, Albright called the current moment “a point of extreme danger”, where Iran can make a “crude” nuclear explosive in six months.

“By crude I mean, you can't put it on a ballistic missile and hope that it will survive,” he said. “But it would work underground as a test. And most importantly, it would just signify through, say, a week that Iran was a nuclear weapons power.”

In the past two decades, every US president has announced that a “nuclear Iran” will not be tolerated, often stressing that “all options are on the table” to prevent the regime in Tehran acquiring nuclear weapons. And in the meantime, Iran has advanced its nuclear capabilities in every respect.

The argument in some policy circles is that Iran would have to do tests to become ‘nuclear' and that would give the US government (or Israel) the time it needs to find a response. But Albright believes the evidence suggests otherwise.

“Iran does not need to do a nuclear test to build a nuclear weapon,” he said. “Their original weapons program that ended around 2003 was a program that was designed to avoid the need to conduct a ‘full scale’ test… they can test the components, the subcomponents, and then test the whole assembled device minus the weapons grade uranium, and have a way to know if that test was successful, which we call a cold test.”

There is no evidence at the moment to suggest Iran has had a ‘cold test.’ But it is something that can happen with relative ease and in a short time, according to Albright.

Which leads, inevitably, to the question: is there anything that can be done?

“President Biden, backed up by the Israeli government, should say that we are watching you, Iran, even though we have other priorities,” Albright said. “and if you move to make nuclear weapons, we're going to launch an overwhelmingly powerful military strike.

“And that's desperately needed is to empower the IAEA. They're the people on the ground that can look for suspicious activities. If Iran is going to make a nuclear weapon, it's going to have to divert at some point in the six month process the enriched uranium. And the IAEA can look for indications of diversion, insist on being at the sites, resist being excluded from the sites.”

But would any of these work?

“We know from past experience that Iran won't give in completely to this kind of pressure,” Albright said, “but it does get nervous. And that's part of the purpose is to throw the Iranian regime off balance and then in parallel, make sure that the Iranian regime understands that overwhelming military force could be applied.”

There is another side to this ‘threat’, though: it could convince the Iranian regime that it could survive only if it becomes a nuclear power –like North Korea, as some ultra hardliners in Iran would like to say.

But Albright believes a “balancing act” is possible if the US and Israel move swiftly to make the regime understand “it's not in its interest to build nuclear weapons” before it reaches a definite conclusion that it has to have “nuclear deterrent” against the US and Israel.

“We're worried that the US and Israeli intelligence agencies are distracted,” Albrighrt told Iran International, “and Israeli intelligence isn't foolproof, as this attack on October 7th proved in a very dramatic way. 

According to early estimates, work has started in the southern region with a five-thousand-megawatt total capacity in mind. With 4,000 employment prospects and an estimated $20 billion cost, the planned nine-year schedule raises questions under current economic circumstances.

The difficulties Iran has faced in building new power plants in the last ten years raise doubts about whether the 25,000 megawatts of new electricity that the previous national development plan sought to bring about can be achieved.

The Iranian government pledged to raise the percentage of renewable and clean energy power plants to a minimum of five percent in line with the sixth development plan (2017–2021). However, the share of nuclear power is currently one percent, which means that the program's goals have been significantly missed.

The Research Center of the Iranian Parliament emphasizes that over 80 percent of the nation's energy is thermally produced, heavily reliant on natural gas, necessitating a diversification of the energy generation portfolio.

The only nuclear power plant in the country is a 1,000 megawatt facility that started up in 2011 with help from Russia. A 300 megawatt plant is reportedly under construction in Khuzestan.

Building times for nuclear power plants vary greatly due to factors like supply chain maturity, design revisions, and project management efficiency, but Iran faces a severe electricity shortage now. Consumption peaked at over 72,000 megawatts in 2023, surpassing the actual production capacity of power plants, capped at 60,000 megawatts during the warm season.

Iran is facing several obstacles in its efforts to build further nuclear power reactors, including financial and technological constraints, geopolitical and political instability, and international sanctions. The interplay of political and economic dynamics, together with worries about public opinion, safety, and international compliance, complicate Iran's nuclear energy development scenario. Moreover, Mohammad Eslami, the head of Iran’s nuclear energy said last week that Tehran is planning to build the new reactors relying on domestic financing and knowhow.

One interesting finding is that Iran seems to value nuclear energy security more than its overall needs for energy production. The strategic emphasis on deterrent and national security capabilities highlights a departure from the traditional objective of increasing nuclear power generation for energy purposes. Iran's attitude to international engagement, technical collaborations, and safety considerations in the nuclear realm may be greatly impacted by this strategic direction.

With its protracted delays and non-operational issues, Iran's first nuclear power plant—built with Russian assistance—remains insufficient to the country's energy security.

Iran's nuclear efforts are made more difficult by the geopolitical environment, namely by its confrontational foreign policy and various sanctions.

The question of whether these initiatives are feasible arises from the effect of sanctions on international collaboration and technical development. Iran must perform a sophisticated diplomatic dance to strike a balance between its desire for energy security and international relations as well as sanctions.

Examining Iran's foreign policy, one can see that the country is committed to scientific progress even in the face of external challenges, as seen by its tenacity in pursuing its nuclear program despite sanctions. Careful navigation is necessary to resolve the delicate dance between energy demands, geopolitical concerns, and the difficulties presented by international sanctions. Iran's prospects for the energy sector both at home and abroad will depend on how well it can surmount these challenges.

Speaking to Bloomberg on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Rafael Grossi reiterated his concerns that no technical obstacle remains between Iran and a nuclear bomb, implying that the regime can make them now if it wanted to.

This comes amid Iran’s unprecedented belligerence in launching airstrikes against three of its neighbors in a matter of 24 hours: Syria, Iraq, and nuclear power Pakistan –which was the only one of the three countries to retaliate almost immediately.

Both countries were quick to stress that they respect the other’s sovereignty and that their attacks have been meant to hit “terrorist hideouts” only. But the mutual reassurances do little to allay concerns of others in the region who fear that even a slight miscalculation could put the two Islamic Republics on a collision course. 

Pakistan is the only nuclear power in West Asia, but Iran, according to IAEA director general Grossi, is very close to becoming one, and in terms of capability, is “already there.”

This may very well explain the regime’s increasingly aggressive rhetoric and behavior. For many years, a group of ultra-hardliners in Iran have been pushing for a ‘North Korean model’, believing that a nuclear power (or one perceived to be one) would be impervious to foreign pressure.

And some analysts believe those ultra-hardliners have been proven right by the Biden administration’s cautious, almost deferential, approach to Iran.

“Iran sprinting for nuclear weapons this year would be the capstone of the Biden-Sullivan foreign policy doctrine,” Andrea Stricker of the Foundation for Defending Democracies posted on X, “letting our adversaries run the globe and pushing back only when it’s too late or the situation becomes untenable.”

President Biden admitted Thursday that the recent wave of airstrikes against Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen has not been effective in stopping the attacks on vessels in the Red Sea.

“Are they stopping the Houthis, no. Are they going to continue, yes,” Biden told reporters, raising questions about his administration’s current strategy, but also what may come next.

“The Biden Admin is so wedded to their appeasement and de-escalation strategy that they’re actually inviting escalation from the Houthis and Iran,” Congressman Mike Waltz said in an interview with Fox News Thursday. “Deterrence has completely fallen apart… and we see every one of our adversaries on the march because of it and my fear between now and November is that they’re only going to accelerate because they see it as a moment of opportunity.”

The 2024 US Presidential elections will be held in November and the crisis in the Middle East, especially the role of Iran, which is behind most attacks on American interests in the region, is almost certain to feature heavily in the campaign.

Iran has an election of its own on March 1st, simultaneously choosing representatives for the parliament and the Assembly of Experts –on paper, responsible for selecting the next Supreme Leader.

There are many signs that this March’s election in Iran would set a record for the lowest turnout in the history of the Islamic Republic, with anger and political apathy now pervading the society.

The regime is once more doing all it can to lighten the people’s mood and lure them to the polling station –amid general rejection of the political system and clerical rule. The belligerence towards the outside world can be seen in the same light: as an attempt to raise a specter of war that would rally people around the flag. It is a risky bet, though, especially when so many of those people have come to hate the very flag.

Albright, the founder and president of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, DC, wrote “The unfortunate reality is that Iran already knows how to build nuclear weapons, although there are some unfinished tasks related to the actual construction of them.”

He asked “If the regime’s leadership decided to build them, how would it proceed? How long would it take?”

According to Albright, “The long pole in the tent of building nuclear weapons is essentially complete. Iran can quickly make enough weapon-grade uranium for many nuclear weapons, something it could not do in 2003. Today, it would need only about a week to produce enough for its first nuclear weapon. It could have enough weapon-grade uranium for six weapons in one month, and after five months of producing weapon-grade uranium, it could have enough for twelve.”

Albright, who worked as a weapons inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, titled his article: How quickly could Iran make nuclear weapons today?

An Iranian American expert on the Islamic Republic, Lisa Daftari, told Iran International, “It’s no surprise that Iran’s regime is closer than ever to a nuclear weapon, given that we have known their desire to work constantly in its pursuit, particularly over the last three years. As the Biden administration has made major concessions in tone and policy, Tehran understood there would be minimal to no consequences to its actions. To that end, the mullahs continued spinning the centrifuges and working on possessing vital components of their weapons program. “

Daftari, who is the editor-in-chief of the Foreign Desk, added “They also continued with other bad behaviors including the funding of regional terror proxies and carrying out wholesale-style executions at home. At this point, it is impossible for the West to reign in or deliver any message of deterrence, whether by targeted responses to the Houthi provocations or in pursuing a meaningless nuclear deal meant to curb further progress on their weapons program. “

The clerical regime’s fast moving nuclear weapons program coincides with its increased adventurism in the region, including arming the Houthis to attack vessels in the key Red Sea commercial passageway. Iran’s regime launched missile and drone strikes into Pakistan, Iraq and Syria on January 15 and 16.

Rich Goldberg, who served on President Donald Trump’s National Security Council, told Iran International “This administration has allowed Iran to run the ball all the way down the nuclear field to a point where our options have narrowed. We need to restore a strategy of pressure and deterrence to counter Iran’s wide-ranging threats while preparing military contingencies to deal specifically with the nuclear threat.”

In December, at the UN Security Council, the UK, France and Germany said they “remain determined that Iran must never develop a nuclear weapon and must reverse its nuclear escalation.”

The UN’s atomic weapons watchdog agency IAEA raised alarm bells about Iran’s illicit enrichment of uranium in December. The IAEA said Tehran Iran rolled back a months-long slowdown in the rate at which it is enriching uranium to up to 60-percent purity, close to the roughly 90-percent weapons grade uranium.

In late December, France’s ambassador to the United Nations, Nicolas de Rivière, told Iran International “The level of threat has increased a lot so it's time for Iran to get back to compliance and the IAEA reported on that on December 26, again, and documented the violations. So of course, we are extremely concerned.”

Alireza Nader, an expert on Iran, urged the Biden administration to help breathe life and fire into the protest movement against the existence of the clerical regime. He told Iran International, “The best thing the US can do is to support the struggle for democracy in Iran through maximum pressure on the regime and maximum support for the Iranian people.”

Grossi emphasized the imperative for Tehran to adhere to the nuclear proliferation treaty, telling The National newspaper, “Iran is the only non-nuclear weapon state which is enriching uranium at this very, very high level".

Trying to calm fears, he added, “I'm not saying they have a nuclear weapon, I'm saying this is sensitive. And when you're doing that … you abide by the rules".

The latest IAEA report disclosed that Iran has escalated its production of near weapons-grade uranium, reversing a slowdown initiated in mid-2023. Grossi linked Iran's intensified pursuit of high-grade uranium to escalating tensions in the Middle East, fueled by the Gaza conflict and the Iran-backed Houthi militia's attacks in Yemen, creating a shipping and security crisis in the Red Sea.

He said, “A snapshot shows a program which is galloping ahead, moving ahead with ambitious goals. We have nothing against that. But we say the visibility of the international inspectorate, the IAEA, must be commensurate with those activities.”

Western powers allege that Tehran's objective is to acquire nuclear weapons for threatening its adversaries, but the Islamic Republic claims its program is for civilian use.

Grossi argued that whether Iran's nuclear program is intended for civilian use or not, it is failing to fulfill its obligations under the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.

France, Germany, and Britain, signatories to the JCPOA, have also expressed concern, issuing a statement in December about Iran revoking authorization for inspectors critical of its nuclear dossier. Iran confirmed the activities of 127 inspectors but barred "three or four biased European inspectors" from continuing their activities at Iranian sites, as announced by the head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran on October 4.