The news about Iran has taken an ominous tone in the last couple days. Here is some reporting and commentary.  Newsweek on August 18, 2025, reported that Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior military adviser to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, said ‘ We are not in a ceasefire; we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the U.S. or Israel. A new war with Israel could break out at any moment .’  Yonah Jeremy Bob commented in The Jerusalem Post on August 19, 2025, that ‘ Khamenei can either “drink from the poisoned chalice” of diplomatic concessions … or face more airstrikes, possibly next time some targeting him directly ’.   Bob also noted that ‘ right now Iran is still digging through rubbl e’. The U.S. attacked Fordow, Natanz and Esfahan on June 22. Two months of digging. No surprise that there has been no public news about that.

It is with some hesitation that I take issue with the latest publication of the renowned Henry Sokolski and Sharon Squassoni on August 15 in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, titled: “ Actually, the NPT doesn’t guarantee a right to make nuclear fuel .”  But someone should defend the IAEA and international safeguards! Here are points in question.            ‘ The [NPT] treaty was designed to prevent dangerous bombmaking activitie s.’  NPT is far more complex than that. It is common to state the three pillars of NPT: nuclear disarmament; nuclear nonproliferation; and peaceful uses of nuclear technology. Nonproliferation involves the commitment of non-nuclear states not to pursue nuclear weapons and to accept IAEA inspection to confirm that commitment is being followed. Perhaps Sokolsky intends to refer to INFCIRC/153, which lays out how IAEA and the state cooperate to carry out that confirmation. If so, INFCIRC/153 is not designed to ‘prevent’...

The E3 (Britan, France, Germany) upped their ante with a letter to the UN Security Council on August 12, 2025, that included: ‘ if Iran is not willing to reach a diplomatic solution before the end of August 2025, or does not seize the opportunity of an extension, E3 are prepared to trigger the snapback mechanism ’. (AP, Aug 13, 2025)  So far, we have an Iranian response from Parliament member Manouchehr Mottaki — who was Iran’s top diplomat for five years in the 2000s — saying the Iranian parliament has a “ finger on the trigger ” for quitting the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. “ We only need 24 hours to approve quitting the nuclear deal, ” if the E3 raises the issue at the U.N. Security Council, Mottaki said. (AP, Aug 13, 2025)  On ‘extension’, following July’s meeting in Istanbul [between E3 and Iran], an E3 diplomat said Iran could delay [snapback] by doing two things [1] renewing cooperation with the Vienna-based IAEA and [2] addressing concerns about its highly enriche...

Good news. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) reported on August 11 that the IAEA’s deputy director general and head of the Department of Safeguards Massimo Aparo held talks in Tehran that day with Iranian officials. Tehran Times reported that both sides agreed to advance technical discussions and continue the consultations.  Bad news . Tehran Times also reported that, during the meeting, the ‘ Iranian delegation strongly criticized the IAEA’s silence in response to recent attacks—carried out with U.S. support and involvement—against nuclear facilities in Fordo, Isfahan, and Natanz.’ Iran demanded ‘corrective measures for its "improper processes" regarding Iran’s nuclear activities ’.  Iran International’s report on August 12 notes ‘ Tehran continues to bar IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, accusing him of complicity in the recent attacks .’  What is going on here ? From the IAEA side, they wish to work with Iran to continue the implementation of its NPT safeguar...

Trump’s special envoy Witkoff has hit the capitals again; in Tel Aviv Netanyahu probably told him to tell Trump that he will take over all of Gaza; in Moscow Putin probably told him to tell Trump that Ukraine will be destroyed and forget the sanctions. Witkoff didn’t get to number 3 on his list, Iran. But Trump played another ‘ getting to a deal ’ with Iran card, adding sanctions he can later get credit for removing. And the Middle East commentators are worriedly reacting to the Iran situation. Here are some highlights.  From Newsweek:       The U.S. announced on July 30 the largest Iran-related sanctions since 2018 , targeting entities and vessels linked to the country's petroleum sector: 20 oil firms, 5 vessel management companies, 1 wholesaler, and over 115 individuals in 17 countries and regions, including the U.K., Italy, Switzerland, India, the UAE and Hong Kong.       U.S. State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said: "Today's Depar...

With the world’s spotlights focused on Israel-Gaza, it seems that “all’s quiet on the Iran front.” We imagine that Iran is digging out at Fordow and Isfahan and probably Natanz. We await news of the resumption of IAEA inspections in Iran, at the nuclear power plant Bushehr and other nuclear locations not bombarded by Israel. And we wonder what other nuclear activities Iran might be undertaking in this period of calm.  Here's what Foreign Minister Araghchi is reported to have said over the weekend (by The Jerusalem Post): Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said, in an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, that Iran could still strike Israel despite the blows the republic took in June. “ The aggression has stopped, and in turn our right to defend has stopped. That’s it. There is no ceasefire agreement; there is nothing else. They stopped the aggression without any conditions, and we stopped the defense. When there is no aggression, naturally, there is no reason to defend our...

IAEA has published on its website the public part of its Safeguards Implementation Report for 2024 . What IAEA says about its relationship with Iran is instructive. Here is a condensed version of the information about Iran in the Background to the Safeguards Statement and Summary ; it comes in two parts, first on NPT implementation and second on JCPOA implementation.  States with NPT CSAs in force but no APs in force -- Islamic Republic of Iran  In 2024, the IAEA Board of Governors adopted two resolutions, in which it reaffirmed that it was “essential and urgent in order to ensure verification of the non-diversion of nuclear material that Iran act to fulfil its legal obligations and, with a view to clarifying all outstanding safeguards issues”, take without delay the actions specified in these resolutions. [ In June 2025, a further Board resolution found Iran in noncompliance. ]  Nevertheless, outstanding issues on Iran’s NPT obligations remained unresolved, specifically,...

On July 25, the Times of Israel published a story titled Strikes on Iran thwarted fission and fusion nukes, and ‘electronic pulse’ bomb . It was based on a column published by David Ignatius in the Washington Post. Besides the writeup on the title story, there was also this:  The damage to Iran’s nuclear and missile programs was compounded by Israel’s assassination of [11 persons in] the first tier, second tier and most of the third tier of Iranian physicists and nuclear scientists. Israeli officials were cited as saying it was expected that younger Iranians would be deterred from pursuing careers in those fields as a result of the killings.  More insight into that last sentence was given in the July 15 report by David Albright’s Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS) titled Significance of the Targeted Nuclear Scientists in the 12-Day War . In Albright’s report we find the following:  In an apparent effort to pre-empt recovery and recruitments, Israel th...

There was a lot of reporting on July 25 about the Iran conundrum. Here are summaries on two topics with some comments.  E3 Snapback  E3 and Iran met on July 25 in Istanbul. The E3 had agreed to snapback United Nations sanctions on Iran on August 29 if there is no progress on a nuclear deal. However, E3 does have the ability to defer snapback beyond October 18 —the date the snapback provision expires, ten years after JCPOA was adopted. E3 offered Tehran a temporary delay in triggering the snapback mechanism, on condition that Tehran re-engage diplomatically, cooperate fully with the IAEA, and address concerns over its rapidly growing uranium stockpile. They want Iran to take concrete steps to convince them to extend the October 18 deadline by up to six months. E3 and Iran agreed to continue discussions.  This sideshow keeps bubbling along. Only the Iranian reports emphasize that sanctions removal was number one on Iran’s discussion list. Iran wants E3 to try to influence ...