Iran’s defense against an IAEA Board resolution and UNSC snapback

Maziar Motamedi of Al Jazeera reported on June 10 that Behrouz Kamalvandi, deputy head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, told Iranian state television late June 9 that the country will have a “proportionate” response to any action against it by Western countries, as well as the IAEA: “If we wanted to reduce our cooperation, the agency would not be able to carry out its duties. We have cooperated beyond our duties, and if the agency does not appreciate that, we will degrade cooperation to its normal levels,”.

The European signatories to JCPOA could activate a “snapback” mechanism that would reinstate all United Nations Security Council sanctions on Iran lifted as part of the agreement. A strongly worded resolution at this week’s IAEA Board meeting could pave the way for that to happen. Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi again warned this week that such a move would signal “another major strategic mistake” on the part of France, Germany and the UK.

Reduce to “normal levels” of cooperation? What are they thinking of doing? Now they are not cooperating at all on JCPOA measures. And now they are not cooperating fully under their NPT safeguards agreement. What we want from them is to increase their cooperation to the normal level under an NPT safeguards agreement, which today means cooperating fully under their CSA and their Additional Protocol, the NPT safeguards norm.

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‘New war with Israel at any moment’, ‘still digging through rubble’

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.

Assessing possible outcomes of the snapback mechanism

The initiation by the E3 of the 30-day snapback mechanism in the UN Security Council makes everything more difficult and there is great uncertainty about the outcome. Will it be peaceful with a new nuclear deal with Iran, negotiated by the U.S., endorsed by the UNSC and verified by IAEA, or will Iran withdraw from NPT with further military action by Israel and the U.S.? To perhaps shed a little light on what the outcome will be, here is my analysis of how the players - Iran, U.S. and E3 - may be assessing the acceptability of the range of outcomes. Four levels of acceptability were used: 1 Fully acceptable; 2 Less acceptable; 3 Just acceptable; and 4 Not acceptable. Four near term 30-day outcomes are listed, and two optimistic outcomes with an interim U.S.-Iran agreement reached within a 6-month extension. For the 30-day near term, the best outcome would b...

More on MOABs

MOAB is a 30,000-pound steel-alloy, precision-guided bomb designed to destroy subterranean targets. Its proper name is GBU-57, also known as “bunker buster” or Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP). MOP development dates to at least 2002. In 2007, the Air Force said it could penetrate up to 200 feet. The latest version, known as GBU-57E/B, has been in the operational inventory since 2016. In January 2018, the 4th upgrade was completed. Upgrades continue, especially improving the fuse. The number available for operational use is not public; the initial order to Boeing was for 20. In February 2018, more were ordered. Some have been used in tests. The small number of B-2 Spirit stealth bombers are the only aircraft that can deploy MOAB. There are no public reports of MOAB being used in combat. ( But it was reported that one was deployed in Afghanistan .) Much of the impetus for the MOP program was provided by Iran’s push to bury its nuclear enrichment infrastructure deep und...

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