Why Iran conflict has raised new questions about IAEA’s credibility

Israel launched an unprecedented onslaught connected Iran’s subject and atomic sites connected June 13, a time aft the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) committee passed a solution saying Tehran was not complying with its committedness to atomic safeguards.

Though Israel did not usage the United Nations atomic watchdog’s solution to warrant the Iran attack, its Ministry of Foreign Affairs welcomed the IAEA resolution, calling it “a indispensable and overdue step” that confirmed Iran’s “systematic clandestine atomic weapons programme”.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Atomic Energy Organization successful a associated connection condemned the resolution, calling it “politically motivated”. The resolution, the associated connection said, “seriously undermines the credibility and integrity of the IAEA”.

Tehran insists its atomic programme is for civilian purposes and that its facilities are monitored by the UN atomic watchdog.

Here’s what the IAEA said astir the Iranian atomic programme earlier this month, wherefore that has sparked disapproval from Tehran — and past occasions erstwhile the UN watchdog’s actions travel nether scrutiny.

Did the IAEA deliberation that Iran was gathering atomic weapons?

The IAEA cannot afloat measure Iran’s atomic vigor programmes, arsenic Tehran halted its implementation of the Additional Protocol successful February 2021, which permitted the IAEA enhanced inspection rights – including drawback inspections and continuous surveillance.

Iran continued to comply with IAEA’s Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement aft 2021, which permitted entree to Iran’s declared atomic sites (Natanz, Fordow, Bushehr) and besides allowed for regular monitoring and verification of declared atomic material.

At a property lawsuit successful Vienna connected June 9, however, IAEA Director-General Rafael Grossi said Iran’s caller nonaccomplishment to comply with reporting obligations had “led to a important simplification successful the agency’s quality to verify whether Iran’s atomic programme is wholly peaceful”.

During the IAEA’s Board of Governors gathering (which took spot from June 9-13), Grossi said Iran had “repeatedly either not answered… the agency’s questions” regarding the beingness of man-made uranium particles astatine 3 locations – Varamin, Marivan and Turquzabad.

Grossi besides described Iran’s “rapid accumulation of highly-enriched uranium” arsenic a “serious concern”, referring to the 60 percent axenic uranium enrichment facilities astatine Fordow and Natanz.

In 2023, the IAEA had discovered 83.7 percent axenic uranium particles astatine Fordow – adjacent to the 90 percent purity required to marque an atomic bomb.

On June 12, 1 time earlier Israel’s attacks connected Iran’s atomic facilities, the IAEA committee passed a resolution declaring that Tehran was breaching its non-proliferation obligations.

Al Jazeera’s Hashem Ahelbarra, reporting from Vienna connected June 12, noted it was the archetypal clip successful astir 20 years that the IAEA, which monitors Iran’s atomic programme, had accused Tehran of breaching its non-proliferation obligations.

Last week, however, Grossi emphasised that the IAEA had recovered nary grounds of Iranian atomic weapons production.

In an interview with Al Jazeera connected June 19, Grossi was emphatic that Iran’s alleged violations of its assurances had not led his bureau to reason that Tehran was gathering bombs.

“We person not seen elements to let us, arsenic inspectors, to affirm that determination was a atomic limb that was being manufactured oregon produced determination successful Iran,” helium said.

United States Vice President JD Vance invoked the IAEA solution to marque a lawsuit for the subject enactment against Iran.

“They’ve been recovered successful usurpation of their non-proliferation obligations by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is hardly a rightwing organization,” helium posted connected X connected June 17.

The US president ordered his subject to weaponry 3 Iranian sites connected June 22 – a determination welcomed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has been making claims for decades that Iran was connected the cusp of making atomic weapons.

Trump has claimed that the atomic sites person been “obliterated” and Iran’s atomic programme has been acceptable backmost by decades.

How has Iran responded?

On June 23, the nationalist information committee of Iran’s parliament approved the outline of a measure designed to suspend Tehran’s practice with the UN atomic watchdog, committee spokesperson Ebrahim Rezaei told the Tasnim quality agency.

Rezaei said that, according to the bill, installing surveillance cameras, allowing inspections, and submitting reports to the IAEA would beryllium suspended arsenic agelong arsenic the information of atomic facilities is not guaranteed. Iran joined the IAEA successful 1959. On June 25, the Iranian parliament passed this bill.

In particular, Rezaei said Iran asserts its right, arsenic a 1968 signatory to the UN’s atomic Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to make atomic exertion for peaceful purposes, including uranium enrichment.

Parliament inactive has to o.k. the NPT withdrawal measure successful a plenary.

Tehran has agelong complained that the pact fails to support it from onslaught by a state with a atomic arsenal, the US, and different wide believed to person one, Israel.

What’s more, Iranian authorities person claimed Grossi is looking to go the adjacent secretary-general of the UN, and is truthful sacrificing the atomic watchdog’s integrity by adopting pro-Western rhetoric to summation idiosyncratic favour.

On June 1, the caput of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, Mohammad Eslami, told authorities TV: “Rafael Grossi [is] driven by his ambitions and a beardown tendency to go the UN secretary-general, is seeking to summation the support of a fewer circumstantial countries and align himself with their goals.”

Did the IAEA skirt contention implicit the Fukushima disaster?

In June 2023, the Japanese authorities started releasing treated, but inactive radioactive, h2o from the ruined Fukushima Daiichi atomic powerfulness presumption into the Pacific Ocean.

The IAEA gave the arguable program the greenish airy pursuing a two-year review.

At the time, Grossi said the agency’s information reappraisal had concluded the program was “consistent with applicable planetary information standards… [and] the controlled, gradual discharges of the treated h2o to the oversea would person a negligible radiological interaction connected radical and the environment”.

More than 1.3 cardinal tonnes of h2o had built up astatine the Fukushima works since a March 2011 tsunami destroyed the powerfulness station’s energy and cooling systems and triggered the world’s worst atomic catastrophe since Chornobyl.

The merchandise of the water, which began successful August 2023, encountered fierce absorption from Japan’s neighbours and Pacific land nations as good arsenic sportfishing and agricultural communities successful and astir Fukushima, which fearfulness for their livelihoods.

Beijing, successful particular, was a fierce professional of the h2o discharge plan. In a connection pursuing the IAEA’s July 2023 report, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs chastised its “hasty release”, claiming it “failed to afloat bespeak views from experts”.

Are determination echoes of Iraq successful the existent statement astir Iran?

To respective observers, determination are.

In the lead-up to the 2003 US penetration of Iraq, the US and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDs), including chemic weapons, successful summation to pursuing a atomic weapons programme.

These claims were cardinal successful justifying subject enactment nether the statement that Iraq posed an imminent menace to determination and planetary security.

Towards the extremity of 2002, the IAEA carried retired respective inspections of Iraqi weapons programmes.

In aboriginal 2003, they established the beingness of high-tolerance aluminium tubes successful Iraq. In theory, these tin beryllium utilized to enrich uranium for usage successful a atomic warhead.

The aluminium tubes became a cornerstone successful the Bush administration’s Iraq mandate. As the lone carnal grounds the US could brandish, they gave credibility to the apocalyptic imagery invoked by President George W Bush and his advisers.

The tubes were “only truly suited for atomic weapons programmes”, Condoleezza Rice, the US nationalist information adviser, explained connected CNN connected September 8, 2002. “We don’t privation the smoking weapon to beryllium a mushroom cloud.”

For its part, the IAEA refuted the mentation that the tubes were destined for usage successful a atomic programme. And aft the invasion, extended searches recovered nary progressive WMD programmes successful Iraq.