The IAEA just released its latest report on suspected nuclear activity in Iran this week. To the surprise of virtually nobody who has been paying attention, the director of the agency “regrets that there has been no progress” in monitoring the country’s nuclear programs. Iran previously removed or disabled all of the IAEA monitoring cameras at its nuclear facilities and after a small bit of initial progress in the first quarter, no more have been restored to operation. The agency was able to confirm that Iran is now enriching uranium up to at least 60% purity and they are very close to the levels required to build nuclear weapons. Other analysts believe they’ve already breached that threshold but they simply haven’t admitted it yet. So if nothing is done, there may be a new member of the nuclear club in the very near future and this is making Israel very nervous. (Reuters)

The U.N. nuclear watchdog on Monday reported no progress in talks with Iran on sensitive issues such as reinstalling surveillance cameras and explaining uranium traces at undeclared sites, according to two quarterly reports seen by Reuters.

At the same time, Iran’s stock of uranium enriched to up to 60% purity, close to the roughly 90% of weapons grade, continued to grow albeit at a slower pace, despite some of it having been diluted, one of the confidential International Atomic Energy Agency reports to member states showed.

“The (IAEA) Director General (Rafael Grossi) regrets that there has been no progress in resolving the outstanding safeguards issues in this reporting period,” one report said, referring to Iran’s failure to credibly explain the origin of uranium particles found at two undeclared sites.

IAEA inspectors last year detected uranium particles at two previously undeclared sites in Iran and requested more information. Iran has provided “no credible explanation” as to why all of this uranium is unexpectedly showing up. According to their latest estimates, if Iran’s existing stockpile of HEU (highly enriched uranium) is purified even further, they already have enough to build at least three nuclear weapons.

Of course, they may already be in the process of doing that and could theoretically already have a bomb. We have no way of knowing for sure because they are no longer cooperating with the IAEA inspectors. Some members of the agency do not believe that Iran yet possesses a complete plan to build a functional bomb. Others disagree, including Israeli officials.

Israel may well turn out to be the fly in the ointment that settles this situation. Iran continues to insist that they only want fuel for nuclear power, despite sitting on an ocean of oil that would last them for the next century at least. Back in May, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant warned that if Iran’s program isn’t shut down it could “ignite the region.” (Both literally and figuratively.) Israel has never been shy about launching covert attacks if they believe that their interests are being threatened, and Iran’s Mullahs have repeatedly led chants of “Death to Israel” and called for the Israelis to be “driven into the sea.”

Concerns over Israel don’t appear to have slowed down the Iranians, however. Last month in Dubai, one Iranian official claimed that they already have everything they need to produce a bomb and would be able to do so at will. He also said that their weapon would be able to “turn New York into a heap of rubble from hell.” As the AP noted at the time, that may simply have been “bluster” or an attempt to gain some leverage in their broken-down negotiations with the Biden administration. But then again, it might not have been. All I’m saying is that you probably shouldn’t be too surprised if Iran’s main nuclear facility located outside of Bushehr suddenly has an “accident” in the not-too-distant future, whether Israel takes credit for it or not.