Iran’s Nuclear File Returns to the Forefront

Iran’s nuclear file has returned to the forefront, with the approaching regular meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency’s governors, next month, in Vienna.

Neither Iran nor the agency deviated from the pre-written scenario, which is being implemented and consists of several stages.

The first is for the agency’s director, Rafael Grossi, to take the initiative, several weeks before the meeting, to attract attention to the aforementioned file through heated statements, saying that Iran is not cooperating satisfactorily with his inspectors.

This stage paves the way for Grossi’s visit to Tehran and lengthy meetings with senior officials, usually followed by two press conferences: the first in Iran, alongside Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian, or Mohammad Eslami, head of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, and the second upon his landing at Vienna Airport.

What is often striking is that Grossi’s tone varies depending on the place. His rhetoric is diplomatic in Tehran, and direct, even sharp, in Vienna.

However, the last scenario takes place amidst very important transformations, the first of which is the entry of Israel directly into the line after the bombing of the Iranian consulate headquarters in Damascus and the killing of senior leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and the subsequent Iranian response inside Israel and the Israeli response inside Iran.

If a group of countries, led by the United States, intervened, directly or through mediation, to prevent sliding into open war in the Middle East region, this factor has a direct impact on the future of the Iranian nuclear program. Tehran has in fact always kept its nuclear program out of its general policy and within its “technical” limits.

But today, the situation has changed. After a senior Revolutionary Guard threatened that Iran can abandon its nuclear doctrine, which was determined by the Supreme Leader in a famous fatwa, here is his advisor, Kamal Kharazi, coming out to wave the nuclear card.

The Iranian Students News Agency quoted Kharazi as saying: “We have not yet taken a decision to make a nuclear bomb, but if Iran’s existence becomes threatened, there will be no choice but to change our military doctrine.”
It is clear today that Tehran has begun to view its nuclear program, and even present it as a “weapon of deterrence.”

Western capitals, led by Washington, were keen, in recent meetings, to avoid taking any measures against Tehran, in order to encourage it to calm tensions in the Middle East, as it has the ability to influence and stop supplying Russia with drones.