The Institute for Science and International Security warned that Iran’s nuclear program has reached an “extreme danger” level due to the volatile situation in the region.
In a report published this week, the Institute said that since May 2023, the date of the last edition of the Iran Threat Geiger Counter, the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program has increased dramatically.
The threat, it added, has been in part fueled by the Hamas attacks on Israel on October 7, 2023, Israel’s subsequent invasion of Gaza, and subsequent attacks carried out by Iranian-backed proxy groups.
Experts from the Institute also said the volatile situation in the region is providing Iran with a unique opportunity and amplified internal justification for building nuclear weapons while the United States and Israel’s resources to detect and deter Iran from succeeding are stretched thin.
The report noted that the ongoing conflicts are leading to the neglect of the Iranian nuclear threat at a time when Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities have never been greater.
It said that in addition to the decreased transparency over its nuclear program, for the first time in years, “we are facing the real possibility that Iran may choose to weaponize its nuclear capabilities and build nuclear weapons.”
Accordingly, the Institute raised the total Iranian nuclear threat score to 151 out of 180, up from 140 in May 2023. It is the first time the Threat Geiger Counter, which analyzes Iran’s activities in six categories, has reached this level.
Lack of Transparency
The Institute said Iran continues to deceive the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and violate its safeguards agreement and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) monitoring agreements of 2015.
With regards to Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA, Director General Rafael Grossi stated at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 18, 2024: “It’s a very frustrating situation. We continue our activities there, but at a minimum.” He added, “They are restricting cooperation in a very unprecedented way.”
Since February 2021 or weeks after Joe Biden took office, Iran stopped provisionally applying its Additional Protocol agreed under the JCPOA.
In April 2021, the Biden administration began indirect negotiations with Iran in Vienna to revive the nuclear deal. But talks collapsed in September 2022.
And since withdrawing from the Additional Protocol, Iran has refused to hand over the cameras that monitor various aspects of its nuclear activities.
The Institute’s report noted that on September 16, 2023, Iran withdrew the designations of several senior IAEA inspectors that conduct verification and monitoring activities.
It said this de-designation removed a handful of inspectors from Iran considered to have the most experience with enrichment technology.
It explained that Iran took this action after several dozen states signed a joint statement at the September IAEA board meeting demanding Iran’s cooperation with the IAEA’s five-year investigation into undeclared nuclear weapons work.
The report also noted that Iran has consistently violated its obligations under its comprehensive safeguards agreement (CSA), a key part of the verification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
Iran has also refused to cooperate with the IAEA and fully account for its past and present nuclear activities, and obstructed IAEA inspections by razing and sanitizing related nuclear sites.
Shortened Timeline to Breakout and Produce Enough Weapon-grade Uranium for Six Nuclear Weapons
The report said that Iran’s advanced centrifuges make up almost 80 percent of Iran’s enrichment capacity and deserve special attention because they pose a grave risk to international security, allowing Iran to produce weapon-grade uranium for a nuclear weapon more quickly, either at declared nuclear sites or at clandestine ones.
The presence of advanced centrifuges at the Fordow underground enrichment plant enhances Iran’s ability to break out using a declared but highly fortified facility, it said.
The report also noted that as of November 2023, not only can Iran produce weapon-grade uranium for its first nuclear weapon in a matter of days, it can produce enough weapon-grade uranium for six weapons in one month, and after five months of producing weapon-grade uranium, it could have enough for 12.
Therefore, if Iran wanted to further enrich its 60 percent enriched uranium up to 90 percent weapon-grade uranium (WGU), used in Iran’s known nuclear weapons designs from the Amad Plan, it could do so quickly, the Institute warned.
It said Iran can break out and produce enough weapon-grade enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon in a week, using only a fraction of its 60 percent enriched uranium and that this breakout could be difficult for inspectors to detect promptly, if Iran took steps to delay inspectors’ access.
Using its remaining stock of 60 percent enriched uranium and its stock of near 20 percent enriched uranium, the Institute said Iran could have in total enough weapon-grade uranium for six weapons in one month, and after five months of producing weapon-grade uranium, it could have enough for 12.
Sensitive Nuclear Capabilities
Iran has a capability to produce large amounts of enriched uranium and achieve enrichment levels up to 90 percent, or weapon-grade uranium, a capability implied in April 2023 by Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI).
According to the report, Iran continued to increase the quantity and quality of its enriched uranium stock and bolster its ability to enrich uranium. Uranium enrichment remains the most sensitive activity in Iran’s nuclear program. Iran may also develop an ability to produce and separate weapon-grade plutonium, although that effort is largely dormant today.
The report noted that over the summer and fall 2023, Iran decreased the rate at which it produced 60 percent highly enriched uranium, producing only roughly 3 kg (Uranium mass) per month between June 2023 and November 2023.
However, in late November 2023, Iran resumed increased production of 60 percent highly enriched uranium, producing about 9 kg per month, similar to what it was producing prior to its slowdown.
Last week, The New York Times quoted UN inspectors as saying that Tehran is lifting its foot on the acceleration of its nuclear program.
It quoted Rafael Mariano Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, as saying that the surge in production that began just after the Israeli military action in Gaza in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, appears to have abated.
Iran Has Installed a Capability to Produce Highly Enriched Uranium Metal
The Institute further noted that in the last few years, Iran has developed capabilities at the Esfahan site to produce enriched uranium metal, a necessary step in building nuclear weapons. It has developed a capability to convert enriched uranium hexafluoride, the output of its centrifuge plants, into enriched uranium metal.
On a small scale it has converted 20 percent enriched uranium hexafluoride into metal. This accomplishment means that Iran could do the same with weapon-grade uranium hexafluoride, the report added.
Beyond Breakout: Building Nuclear Weapons
So far, Iran has not turned its enriched uranium into nuclear weapons, the Institute for Science and International Security said.
However, over the last few years, the ability of Iran to do so has increased as well as the speed of it to accomplish this task, it noted.
Thus, Iran’s nuclear weapons capabilities are more dangerous than they have ever been, while its relations with the West are at a low point.
The report suggested that Iran’s nuclear weapons program started slowly, building to a crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s, called the Amad Plan, to create five nuclear weapons in an industrial complex capable of producing many more.
It concluded that Iran could rapidly produce enough weapon-grade uranium for a small nuclear arsenal. In addition, Iran has multiple ways to deliver nuclear weapons, including on ballistic missiles. The missing piece is nuclear weaponization.
According to the Institute’s experts, an Iranian accelerated program would not aim to produce warheads for ballistic missiles, but a warhead that could be tested or delivered by crude means (ship, or truck), and could be accomplished in about six months.
