Zoe Levornik, on the Alma Research and Education Center website, writes: “The attack on Iran followed yet another round of attempts to reach a diplomatic solution. In the months preceding the attack, the United States and Iran conducted negotiations to reach a new nuclear deal. In response to the US administration’s contradictory statements regarding the terms of the agreement, the Iranian leadership expressed a firm position that it would not agree to dismantle its nuclear program or halt uranium enrichment.”
Iran has consistently argued at these negotiations that “negotiating” cannot mean asking a country to give up its nuclear program and that this approach has nothing to do with diplomacy.
In the article, Levornik continues: “Efforts to halt Iran’s nuclear program through diplomacy have been ongoing for over two decades. Even before the 2015 nuclear deal (JCPOA), satellite imagery and intelligence reports indicated that Iran was violating its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). For example, construction of the Fordow enrichment facility is estimated to have begun between 2002 and 2004, but Iran did not report its existence to the IAEA until 2009, when it was revealed by US intelligence.”
“[…] Since 2018, Iran has accelerated efforts to advance its nuclear program, including the use of advanced centrifuge designs (such as the IR-2m, IR-4, and IR-6), which significantly reduce the time needed to enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels.” Over the past two years, several assessments have indicated that Iran was within weeks or months of achieving military nuclear capability and was approaching threshold nuclear state status. Iran was able to enrich enough uranium for five nuclear bombs in about a week and enough for eight bombs in less than two weeks. The prevailing assumption was that the only missing components were some of the technological elements required for a nuclear warhead (specifically, the weapon configuration design and the explosive trigger system). In the weeks preceding the attack, intelligence reports revealed that Iran was pursuing a secret program to develop these components (called a “weapons group”) and was just one decision away from producing a nuclear weapon.
The fact is that no one has produced evidence to this effect, beyond the satellite images showing the sites, the photos posted by the Iranians themselves, and the only intelligence reports on the matter that have been partially made public. These come from Israel, which were then forwarded to the United States, which used them, along with the IAEA report, to bomb the Iranian sites at Fordow. Fortunately, the bombed sites did not contain or had not placed radioactive material very deeply, otherwise we would be counting the death toll even now.
The Iranians have never hidden their desire for next-generation civilian nuclear power and even next-generation weapons, even though they have always claimed they do not have the technology to produce nuclear bombs. This claim, too, cannot be objectively proven. What Israel is declaring for the first time with Benjamin Netanuyau is that there is no place in the Middle East and Central Asia region for a country like today’s Iran.
Israel and the United States have failed to explain why, during attacks on strategic military targets against Iranian nuclear sites, 11 scientists returned to their homes with their families. This is not the first time Israel has killed Iranian scientists, although it has not always immediately claimed responsibility for their killings, with the stated aim of slowing the implementation of the Iranian nuclear plan.
As Zoe Levornik states: “The Iranian nuclear program in a regional and global perspective. The Iranian nuclear program must be understood in the context of the Iranian leadership’s regional and global ambitions. It is a component of Iran’s broader strategy for regional and global influence and control, along with other elements such as the establishment of proxy forces in the Middle East and beyond and the development of a ballistic missile program. For over two decades, the Iranian leadership has consistently maintained that its nuclear program is intended exclusively for civilian use and that Iran has no intention of developing nuclear weapons.” But enrichment beyond 10%, the permissible limit for civilian nuclear power needs, is, to be sure, a sign of other intentions.
And also The Alma Center document adds: “Among other arguments, he has claimed that nuclear weapons contradict the principles of Islam. At the same time, Iran has always insisted on its irrefutable right to develop nuclear technology for civilian purposes and for energy production, and has declared that it will not relinquish that right, despite international sanctions and pressure. The nuclear program has always been closely linked to three dominant narratives that shape Iran’s national identity: independence, justice, and resistance to the West, and vulnerability and distrust of foreign powers within Iran. The nuclear project is perceived in Iran as a means to restore the country’s independence, status, and power on the global stage and to preserve its freedom of action on the international stage.”
Added to all this is the option floated by Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, during her visit to Italy, of the possibility that Tehran could have civilian nuclear power without the possibility of enriching uranium, but rather by purchasing it on the market, as other nations do.
The strategic issue, therefore, is not Iran’s nuclear program but the management of power in an increasingly uncertain arena where new emerging players are demanding a role/share of power with their allies. And so the conflict between Israel and Iran is only at the beginning of its escalation.
Antonio Albanese e Graziella Giangiulio
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