The Iran nuclear conundrum is in a pause, or maybe a stalemate. That is good for Iran, giving them time to build back and build up their missile systems in preparation for the potential next Israeli strikes. Israel, busy with Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and maybe Yemen, doesn’t mind the pause with Iran. The Trump administration, over occupied with domestic matters and with Gaza-Israel, Ukraine-Russia, Taiwan-China, etc., has put Iran on the back burner.
What about IAEA? Unfortunately, there has been more mixing of the political with the technical both at the UN Security Council in September-October and at the IAEA Board of Governors in November. In this face-off, Iran, Russia and China are on one side; and the U.S. and E3 (France Germany and UK) are on the other.
Commentators postulate that the E3 has taken the actions against Iran to demonstrate that it is totally with the U.S., their objective being to keep Trump on their side in the Russia-Ukraine war. Trita Parsi has written that Iran is just a pawn in the bigger European conflict.
In the Security Council, the U.S./E3 got the upper hand after E3 initiated the ‘snapback’ mechanism. The Security Council failed to permanently terminate the UNSC sanctions from 2015, so they ‘snapped back’. Or did they? Russia took the lead in declaring the E3 action ‘illegal’ and insisting that the October 18 Termination Day of UNSC resolution 2231 ended JCPOA and UNSC’s Iran consideration without any ‘snapback’ sanctions. The U.S. and E3 disagree and are working to get States around the world to apply the ‘snapback’ sanctions. Some commentators have suggested that this split signals the end of UN Security Council coordinated action.
Then in November, the IAEA Board passed a new Iran resolution presented by E3 and the U.S. This added to its June 2025 finding of Iran’s noncompliance. The new IAEA resolution puts the blame on Iran for not letting IAEA inspectors into the bombed enrichment facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan and not letting the world know the status of their enriched uranium stockpiles and centrifuge cascades. I believe that if blame is to be placed for this situation, the blame should be on Israel and the United States, not on Iran. Here is why.
Up to June 13, 2025, IAEA knew and had verified the quantities and enrichments of the enriched uranium in the material balance areas in every nuclear facility in Iran. Because of the bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel and the United States, IAEA has not been able to do that since then. IAEA has lost continuity of knowledge on Iran’s enriched uranium. Who is to blame for that? If Israel and the U.S. had not bombed, IAEA inspector access and continuity of knowledge would have been maintained.
Making the situation in Iran worse, there are continued threats of further military attacks by the perpetrators of the June 12-day war. Mohammad Eslami, Head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, stated on Nov 16 that ‘Tehran had been threatened over potentially accessing the bombed enrichment sites. Our security situation hasn’t yet changed. If you watch the news, you see that every day we are being threatened with another attack. Every day we are told if you touch anything, you’ll be attacked’.
The result of Israel’s and the U.S.’s threats is that Iran is not opening up the bombed facilities at Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan for IAEA inspection. As Iran Foreign Minister Araghchi said on November 26, ‘If you do not include the realities on the ground, then you are committing an error’. He is right.
How can this situation be resolved? Israel and the United States should provide Iran solid, reliable assurances that there will not be further military attack. If Israel and the U.S, do not give such assurances - and who believes they will - the current situation will persist, and the blame again should go on Israel and the United States.
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