Lova Rinel is an associate researcher at the Foundation for Strategic Research think tank.
She specializes in nuclear deterrence.
On February 20, the American press agency Bloomberg announced that the IAEA had detected particles of 84% enriched uranium even though the threshold of 90% would be sufficient to produce an atomic weapon.
A period of 12 days is announced, however for the general public, these worrying data, certainly, however deserve to be enlightened to understand what is at stake in terms of international security.
This situation raises several questions, on Iran first but also on the security situation in the region, but also that of the nuclear taboo carried for more than 50 years by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Let's try to dissect with reason this situation which reveals good and bad news.
First, the press announced a delay of twelve days before reaching the threshold of 90% uranium enrichment for Iran.
What does this actually correspond to?
It is a time limit for estimating the enrichment in uranium to reach a threshold of fissile material to manufacture a nuclear weapon.
In other words, it is a question here of quality and not of quantity.
If it takes several tens of kilos to make an atomic bomb, that does not mean that a bomb will be "ready-to-use" for all that, on the one hand, and that Iran has enriched to more than 60% more than 55kg of uranium on August 20 on the other hand.
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Moreover, the establishment of a deterrent relies on credibility, which itself relies on logistical and factual elements beyond the concept of employment: military personnel assigned whether for employment capacity or safety, exorbitant and continuous financial costs, and vectors, in addition to a doctrine.
We can nevertheless consider that the announcement last November of a hypersonic missile with a range of more than 6000 kilometers can presage a credible air component.
Nevertheless, to be clear, credible nuclear capability will take a few more years for Iran, if its goal is to have a reliable and therefore ready-to-engage deterrent.
Several elements prove that the desire to obtain an atomic bomb on the part of Iran is quite weak, but that the objective is more to try to reverse a balance of power which is unfavorable to it.
Lova Rinel
However, how should we interpret this situation?
The quality of Iranian personnel cannot allow such enrichment to happen by accident.
There is a message to hear, that is what we are talking about today.
We must therefore understand this bad "nuclear" news as good diplomatic news.
Iran is calling on us to talk and it is using the threat of nuclear weapons production to do so.
It is very likely that the European Union's sanctions against Iran last October, because of its military support for Russia, have had serious effects such that this enrichment is a signal to initiate discussions, by reversing the balance of power.
We can consider that it is a partly successful mission because Raphaël Grossi went to Tehran on March 2 and announced that progress is to be welcomed.
Including the fact that Iran is reconnecting (delay not announced) the surveillance cameras stopped since 2021, as well as access to certain heavy water or centrifuge production sites.
In other words, several elements prove that the will to obtain an atomic bomb from Iran is quite weak, but that the objective is more to try to
On the sidelines of this subject, it is necessary to understand what an IAEA control would entail.
Within the framework of the additional protocol with the UN agency, inspections cover several aspects.
At the site level, the inspectors check the nuclear installations or the installations outside these installations, to ensure that the volume of declared nuclear materials is indeed allocated to a peaceful activity of the atom.
Let us remember one point, the international community has never prevented Iran (and ultimately anyone) from having nuclear energy.
On the contrary, the transfer of skills on what is roughly called peacefull
uses
) are part of the commitments of the NPT (Article IV).
Everyone has the right to nuclear energy even if the States have to ask for it, but several multilateral mechanisms, with the IAEA in particular, make it possible to support this desire for energy sovereignty.
The error of reasoning would be to believe that what Iran is doing would trigger an automation of proliferation.
Lova Rinel
In terms of control, this therefore induces an accounting by the inspectors on the ground (article III of the NPT).
Moreover, as the IAEA says in its inspection report,
"Nuclear material accounting is similar to the audit of a bank: the inspector compares the information contained in the material accounting registers, books and reports of a facility with what has been declared by the State to the IAEA and, above all, verifies that the material is actually present in the facility as declared.
In addition to international control, what must be understood is that any proliferation whatsoever is not a good signal to send at the regional level, and therefore for international security.
However, we must not forget that a weapon of this importance requires a substantial national effort which many countries are currently unable to provide, the Middle East is no exception.
The error of reasoning would be to believe that what Iran is doing would trigger an automation of proliferation.
But in fact, Iran is not in its first situation of announcing or threatening to reach the nuclear threshold, namely the fissile materials needed to develop a bomb.
In 2006, Tehran announced the resumption of Iranian nuclear research by unsealing several Iranian research centers causing the exasperation of the IAEA at the time under the direction of Mohammed El-Baradei.
This opened a crisis until 2010, during which a standoff between Iran and the West was set up.
Between the announcements of the desire for uranium enrichment and the cessation of
application of the additional protocol allowing a reinforced control, the need for a specific agreement with Iran was imposed.
The reflection on the JCPOA was born.
The NPT is maintained but often finds itself shaken by the strategic emergencies of a few countries.
Today there are two: Iran and North Korea.
Lova Rinel
And yet, despite this entire period, the nations of the region have not announced that they want to acquire nuclear weapons “in turn”.
Even though at that time relations were much more tense than those of today.
Iran does not pose a nuclear threat to anyone in the region.
One of the reasons is on the one hand the effectiveness of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the IAEA, but also the fact that Iran has, to a certain extent, adapted its balance of power around its capacity to set up its armament without really needing to go as far as its manufacture.
Which, in a certain sense, is a form of "low-cost deterrence" which can respond to this principle: "I dissuade the West from increasing the pressure that
it exerts on me, by threatening them to obtain an atomic bomb to attack Israel”.
To stick to a strategic rhetoric that we are more accustomed to now, the vital interests of Iran are today affected by the heaviness of the sanctions imposed on it.
To protect itself it would be able to go so far as to possess enough fissile material to manufacture a nuclear weapon, but no more.
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One can nevertheless wonder whether this game of cat and mouse, given the Ukrainian context and Iran's proximity to Russia, can hold.
Concretely and as surprising as it may seem, a nuclear capability imposing very heavy logistics is not currently in Iran's interest;
however, caution should lead us to consider that the Iranian capacity to produce a bomb is real and that taking this sequence as simple blackmail without consequence would be irresponsible.
Nevertheless, history shows that international law holds and that the taboo on the production of nuclear weapons, even in a fragile security context, remains in place and even in a context where the
one of the security interpretations that Russia seems to want to affirm is the weakness of the UN system and the West.
The NPT is maintained but often finds itself shaken by the strategic emergencies of a few countries.
Today there are two of them: Iran and North Korea and of the 193 Member States, if this is not enough, with objectivity we must recognize the strength of the international work for more than 50 years to protect the world from nuclear proliferation which would be dangerous for the planet.