Iran’s uranium enrichment to 60 percent is not only the latest in a series of escalating violations of the 2015 nuclear deal, but also the closest the Islamic Republic has ever come to the production of weapons-grade tear material.
For countries opposed to a nuclear Iran, it is a worrying development that brings Tehran one step closer to a bomb. But it is also just one step, and not the last, to the goal.
In February, the Israeli military estimated that it would take about two years to produce a nuclear bomb once it decided. Most of the time it would be necessary not to produce the 90 percent enriched uranium needed for a weapon, but the other components of such a device, especially the detonator, which according to the Israeli army would take about 21 months to design and construct.
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Although Iran has made some progress towards this front, they have embarked on research that clearly violated the 2015 nuclear power agreement earlier this year on the production of uranium metal – a process to take highly enriched uranium in gaseous form and solid metal necessary to produce the nucleus of a nuclear bomb – the IDF’s general time frame has not changed significantly.
It is important in Israel and the United States that the general assessment is that Iran is not – at this stage – interested in ‘breaking out’ and taking an oblique direction after the production of a nuclear bomb. The regime’s economy has grown strong in recent years as a result of the crushing US sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic, which have made the prospect of a diplomatic agreement with the West, with sanctions easing and international investment, more attractive than a nuclear weapon – at least for now.
Exterior view of the ‘Grand Hotel Wien’ in Vienna, Austria, 9 April 2021 where key talks with Iran will take place behind closed doors. (AP Photo / Florian Schroetter)
The 60% enrichment is an extremely challenging action, which according to Iranian officials has been said in public that it is a response to the alleged Israeli attack on the Natanz nuclear site earlier this month. But it is also likely to aim to increase tensions over ongoing negotiations between Iran and the United States, through intermediaries, over a reciprocal return to the 2015 agreement, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action .
The move to a higher level of enrichment probably also has no clear civilian application, apparently flying in the face of the long-standing claim that its core program is for non-violent purposes.
Former US President Donald Trump withdrew the agreement in 2018 and imposed heavy sanctions on the Islamic Republic and its officials. This prompted Iran to increasingly violate the terms of the agreement, enrich more uranium and to a greater extent than the JCPOA allows, and conduct other prohibited nuclear research.
US President Joe Biden is determined to return to the 2015 agreement, during this campaign to explicitly set the goal and actively pursue it since taking office, and hopes that the agreement will be a starting point for further negotiations with Iran will serve.
He demanded that Iran comply with the agreement again before the US lifted sanctions, while Tehran demanded the exact opposite. But despite this apparent dead end, the Israeli military believes that the US and Iran will eventually compromise and return to the JCPOA. Both sides expressed their satisfaction with the progress made during the talks in Vienna.
Enrichment
In order to manufacture a nuclear bomb, Iran would need uranium for weapons, enriched to 90%. In its natural form, uranium usually consists of three main isotopes, uranium-238, uranium-235 and uranium-234, distinguished by the number of neutrons in their nucleus (146, 143 and 142, respectively).
In this file from February 3, 2007, a technician works at the Uranium conversion facility just outside the city of Isfahan, Iran. (AP Photo / Vahid Salemi, file)
Uranium-238 is by far the most common isotope, making up more than 99% of every piece of uranium. It’s radioactive, but it’s not tearable, which means it can not trigger the explosive chain reaction required for a nuclear weapon. On the other hand, uranium-235, which makes up less than three-quarters of a percent of a piece of uranium, is fissile and is the core component needed for an atomic bomb. (Uranium-234 is even less common and is not tearable.)
To extract uranium-235, powerful centrifuges are used to rapidly spin uranium hexafluoride gas until the isotopes begin to separate by their atomic weight, while the heavier uranium-238 remains to the walls of the centrifuge and the lighter uranium-235 to the center.
It is a slow process that requires several rounds of spinning to collect more and more highly enriched uranium – that is, uranium that contains more and more uranium-235 isotopes.
Enriched to three to five percent, uranium can be used to power most nuclear reactors. More than 20% consider uranium to be highly enriched and have far fewer civilian applications. With about 90% enrichment, uranium is considered a weapon grade and can be used for a nuclear bomb.
But uranium on weapon grade is not in itself a nuclear weapon. According to Olli Heinonen, a former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran could theoretically create uranium uranium within a week, although it is not necessarily enough for a nuclear bomb.
One of the reasons why Iran apparently chose to enrich uranium to higher levels and store larger quantities of it as the primary form of violation of the JCPOA is that it is an easily reversible step. As occurred when Iran entered into the agreement, highly enriched uranium could simply be extracted and sold from Iran, probably to Russia, which would repair the clock. It is a challenging step for Iran to tackle the nuclear front to fuel tensions with its adversaries, but it is understood that it is not as essential as other aspects of the creation of a nuclear weapon.
“While agreements may prevent the collection of fragile materials, some research and development projects are irreversible,” an Israeli military official said earlier this year.
