STOP IRAN NOW
March 22, 2023
In one of the biggest lies ever the Obama/Biden Administration and many leaders in Europe told their constituencies that the 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal (a/k/a the JCPOA) would prevent the murderous regime in Tehran Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons when the precise opposite was true.
Not only did the JCPOA facilitate Iran's path to nuclear weapons, but it provided the brutal tyranny with tens of billions of dollars to finance its genocide in Syria, campaign of conquest and subjugation throughout the Middle East and terror around the world. In addition, it enabled Iran to further its development of intercontinental ballistic missiles and, after a set time period, eliminated the international the ban on sales of conventional weapons to and from Iran (emboldening the Iran-Russia military alliance in Ukraine).
Now Biden's Iran Envoy the controversial Rob Malley and Regime sympathizer EU Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell are trying to prolong the charade. It is being reported that they are working feverishly to "revive" JCPOA. The only problem is that the UN's nuclear watchdog has made it very clear that JCPOA is unreviveable .
Maybe Malley and Borrell didn't bother to read - or conveniently ignored - the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report for February 28, 2023 Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015) and the quarterly safeguards report for March 4, NPT Safeguards Agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran in which the UN's nuclear watchdog declared that it can no longer reestablish continuity of knowledge about Iran’s activities under a revived JCPOA, including the production of advanced centrifuges, and says it would need to establish a new baseline altogether, requiring access to extensive records. It reports, “Any future baseline for [JCPOA] verification and monitoring activities would take a considerable time to establish and would have a significant degree of uncertainty.”
In addition the IAEA confirmed that Iran's continued deception and intransigence declaring that Iran substantially violated its international commitments and has surreptitiously leaped to near breakout. According to the report, on January 21, 2023, during an unannounced inspection, IAEA inspectors found the IR-6 cascades operating in a way that was undeclared by Iran. The following day, the inspectors took environmental samples at the product sampling point and detected the presence of uranium enriched to near 84 percent purity, very close to weapons grade.
WHEN MALLEY, BORRELL, BIDEN OR ANYONE ELSE TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT THERE IS STILL A DIPLOMATIC OPTION UNDERSTAND THAT THEY ARE LIVING IN LALA LAND. THE FACT IS THERE NEVER WAS A DIPLOMATIC OPTION BECAUSE WE ARE DEALING WITH THE DEVIL- NOT WITH A GOOD FAITH ACTOR.
INTENSE ISOLATION, UBER-MAXIMUM ECONOMIC PRESSURE, UNEQUIVOCAL SUPPORT FOR THE IRANIAN PEOPLE, A CREDIBLE MILITARY THREAT AND THE RESOLVE TO USE IT ARE THE ONLY REAL SOLUTIONS IF WE ARE TO PREVENT THE LEADING SPONSOR OF TERRORISM IN THE WORLD FROM DEVELOPING THE ULTIMATE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. AND NO STORYTELLER BEN RHODES WE ARE NOT WAR MONGERS. WE ARE REALISTS WHO UNDERSTAND THE MEANING OF PEACE THROUGH STRENGTH.
AND WE WILL NOT BE FOOLED AGAIN.
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Set forth below is a summary of the recent IAEA reports provided by David Albright, Sarah Burkhard, and Spencer Faragasso of the Institute For Science and International Security. The complete summary can be found here.
Background
This report summarizes and assesses information in the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) quarterly report for February 28, 2023, Verification and monitoring in the Islamic Republic of Iran in light of United Nations Security Council resolution 2231 (2015) and the quarterly safeguards report for March 4, NPT Safeguards Agreement with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran continues to deploy advanced centrifuges at its three enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow in violation of the limitations outlined in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
In the event of a revival of the JCPOA, under rules embodied in the existing JCPOA, Iran would be permitted to mothball its advanced centrifuges, shortening Iran’s potential breakout timeline and increasing its ability to build up its capability should the deal collapse or once enrichment capacity restrictions phase out starting in 2025.
Since February 2021, Iran has not provided declarations about its production and inventory of centrifuge rotor tubes, bellows, and rotor assemblies or allowed IAEA verification, as specified in the JCPOA. While data and recordings were collected by IAEA surveillance equipment up until June 2022, the IAEA has not had access to those data and recordings, and since June 2022, when Iran removed the cameras, no such recordings exist. Consequently, the IAEA has had no ability to take inventory.
Iran has been producing near 60 percent highly enriched uranium (HEU) in advanced centrifuge cascades since April 2021.
Findings
Since the last quarterly report in November, based on data in the most recent quarterly report, Iran installed 1248 advanced centrifuges, all at the Natanz Fuel Enrichment Plant (FEP). Of these, 1044 are IR-2m centrifuges, organized in six cascades. The rest were IR-4 centrifuges, in one cascade.
Overall, Iran has 12,994 centrifuges installed at all three of its enrichment plants; 5763 advanced centrifuges of various types and 7231 IR-1 centrifuges.
Between February 2022 to February 2023, Iran nearly tripled its annual deployment of advanced centrifuges to over 3500 advanced centrifuges deployed during that time span, compared to the deployment of about 1200 advanced centrifuges observed between February 2022 and February 2021, which itself was double that from the year prior, February 2020 to February 2021, during which roughly 500 advanced centrifuges were deployed.
Iran now has over 3700 IR-2m centrifuges installed, which exceeds not only the 1000 IR-2m centrifuges installed prior to the JCPOA, but also the 3000 IR-2m centrifuges planned prior to the JCPOA. The origin of the newly deployed IR-2m centrifuges could not be determined. They may have been produced since 2018 or produced prior to 2016. In the former case, Iran may have greatly expanded its advanced centrifuge production rate. In the latter case, Iran would have retrieved them from a secret storage location not declared under the admittedly loose rules of the JCPOA. The latter case would confirm a long-held suspicion that prior to the JCPOA, Iran had manufactured 3000 IR-2m centrifuges for installation at the FEP but only installed about 1000 of them, hiding the rest.
In November 2022, Iran announced its plan to install 14 IR-6 centrifuge cascades at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant Fordow (FFEP), where six IR-6 cascades would replace six currently operating IR-1 centrifuge cascades, and result in a total of 16 IR-6 cascades, or 2656 IR-6 centrifuges, at Fordow. The installation of these extra IR-6 centrifuges has yet to begin, but preparations are ongoing.
If Iran finished the installation of these planned IR-6 centrifuges, the potential of the FFEP to be used in a breakout to weapon-grade uranium would change drastically, posing a severe breakout risk in a deeply buried facility. With all 16 IR-6 centrifuge cascades working together to make 90 percent enriched uranium, Fordow could rapidly produce weapon-grade uranium from Iran’s existing stock of 20 percent enriched uranium, enough for one nuclear weapon in nine days, and enough for a total of three nuclear weapons in less than a month. The use of its stock of 60 percent enriched uranium in a breakout would add to these totals.
On November 22, Iran began to use the two cascades of IR-6 centrifuges at the FFEP “in an interconnected mode” to produce 60 percent enriched uranium from 5 percent feed.
In January, Iran may have purposely and temporarily increased the level of enrichment reached in the IR-6 cascades above 60 percent HEU, potentially gaining valuable experience in how to modify the two cascades to produce near-weapon-grade uranium.
On January 21, 2023, during an unannounced inspection, IAEA inspectors found the IR-6 cascades operating in a way that was undeclared by Iran. The following day, the inspectors took environmental samples at the product sampling point and detected the presence of near 84 percent enriched uranium.
With the new developments and plans at Fordow, the IR-6 appears to have emerged as Iran’s centrifuge of choice for HEU production . This choice is worrisome, since it is the type that requires the fewest for a secret enrichment plant among the IR-1, IR-2m and IR-4 centrifuges, has fewer design details available than the other production-scale centrifuges, and lacks credible information on the total number manufactured.
Iran has met its announced goal of installing 21 cascades of IR-2m centrifuges. However, it has not met its goals for other advanced centrifuges. In addition to the 14 IR-6 cascades discussed above, Iran has yet to begin the installation of the remaining eight cascades of a set of 12 long-announced IR-4 centrifuge cascades at the Natanz FEP. During the last reporting period, Iran completed one additional cascade, the fourth of the set.
On February 25, 2023, Iran announced to the IAEA a change in its design information for Fordow, allowing for either IR-1 or IR-6 centrifuge cascades. Thus, if Iran fails to make sufficient IR-6 centrifuges to outfit 14 cascades, it may install IR-1 cascades instead. Pending more concrete results, the Institute’s projection, in which it is assumed that all 14 cascades would be IR-6 centrifuges, is unchanged. However, this change in the design information does highlight the flexibility Iran is seeking and could perhaps indicate an inability to make the required number of IR-6 centrifuges.
Based on Iran’s plans reported by the IAEA, the Institute projects that Iran plans on deploying about 3700 additional advanced centrifuges, reaching a total of 9479 advanced centrifuges. Iran did not provide a schedule of deployments and the Institute considers this at least a one-year, perhaps a two-year deployment plan, based on current understandings of Iran’s ability to manufacture and assemble centrifuges.
Iran currently has a total installed nominal enrichment capacity of approximately 29,100 SWU per year, where advanced centrifuges account for almost 80 percent of the capacity, or 22,600 SWU per year, compared to the IR-1 centrifuges which account for about 6400 SWU per year. This exceeds any previously installed enrichment capacity, including before the JCPOA.
A centrifuge assembly facility continues to be constructed underneath a mountain near the Natanz FEP. Its date of completion is unknown, although it may not be operational this year, perhaps not operational until sometime in 2024.2
With Iran accelerating its advanced centrifuge deployments, uncertainties are growing in the estimated number of advanced centrifuges produced in excess of those deployed, increasing concern that Iran will again seek to build a clandestine enrichment plant, using advanced centrifuges manufactured in secret.
The IAEA newly reports that it can no longer reestablish continuity of knowledge about Iran’s activities under a revived JCPOA, including the production of advanced centrifuges, and says it would need to establish a new baseline altogether, requiring access to extensive records. It reports, “Any future baseline for [JCPOA] verification and monitoring activities would take a considerable time to establish and would have a significant degree of uncertainty.”
Over the weekend of March 4th, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi traveled to Tehran for high-level meetings and returned with an IAEA/Iran Joint Statement. The statement is vague on Iranian commitments; however, Grossi also received verbal commitments from Iran, which he detailed during two press conferences following the visit. One commitment was to reestablish monitoring at sites involved in making and assembling centrifuge rotors and bellows.
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