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Addressing Iran's Weaponization Work
(National Interest) Jay Solomon - The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is seeking answers from Tehran on three sites in the country where undeclared nuclear weapons research is suspected to have occurred in recent decades. IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Monday in Vienna that, "After 18 months, Iran has not provided the necessary, full and technically credible explanation for the presence of these [man-made uranium] particles." The Biden administration shouldn't pressure Grossi to paper over Iran's deceit, which goes to the heart of whether the regime can be trusted with advanced nuclear capabilities. Instead, Washington should demand answers in order to build a stronger foundation for a new JCPOA that it can sell to a skeptical Mideast region. The uncertainty about the state of Iran's weapons capabilities makes the ability of the U.S. to accurately certify Tehran's "breakout" time nearly impossible. The issue of Iran's past weaponization work was supposed to be resolved in 2015 as part of the completion of the JCPOA negotiations. But the shortcomings of the IAEA's investigation became clear in 2018 after Israel raided an Iranian government warehouse near Tehran. The operation unearthed 300 tons of secret documents that showed Iran's weapons program was far larger and more advanced than U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies understood six years ago. The nuclear archive documents a crash Iranian program to build five atomic bombs and place some of them on long-range missiles, and the IAEA has found uranium traces at some of the sites pinpointed in the captured documents. At its core, the IAEA's mission is to account for all nuclear materials and equipment possessed by member states. Allowing Iran to dissemble and whitewash its nuclear sites would set a terrible precedent for other nations who might be tempted to pursue a covert nuclear weapons program. Also, the failure to reckon with the truth about Iran's weaponization history will cripple efforts to improve the JCPOA. Not knowing the true state of Iran's capabilities, and the location of all its nuclear fuel and equipment, would lead many in the Mideast to assume Tehran is just a turn-of-the-screw away from having an atomic bomb. The writer, an adjunct fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, is the author of The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East.