IAEA cannot account for Iran’s near-weapons-grade uranium as Rubio rules out further strikes

A confidential IAEA report circulated to member states on Friday 13 November and seen by the Associated Press records that Iran told the agency this month that discussions on resuming inspections cannot proceed amid “a series of persistent, explicit, and public threats by the President of the United States of America … to commit further acts of armed aggression” against Iran. Per AP, Iran has not given inspectors access to nuclear sites hit by Israeli and US strikes, and the agency has been unable to verify the status of Iran’s stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium since the June bombing. The IAEA calls the absence of information on Iran’s atomic sites and nuclear material “a matter of proliferation concern” that “needs to be rectified with the utmost urgency”, and says it is “fully prepared to resume its safeguards activities in Iran at short notice”. Iran also complained to the agency about a recent US offer of a reward of up to $20 million for information on its nuclear programme.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Friday that further US military action against Iran is unnecessary given the economic pain being inflicted on a weakened Islamic Republic. He had made the same case at greater length on 10 November, after two days of G7 meetings in Paris: “there’s really no need for major combat operations any longer, because the blockade and the economic sanctions are doing devastation to their economy”, adding that “it’s not the status quo because the economic pain we’re imposing on Iran would get worse, not better” and that “Iran would love a deal”. President Donald Trump took a different route to the same destination on Thursday 12 November, telling reporters, per CBS News’s live file, “we don’t need a deal with Iran”. Hours later Tehran offered to shorten the proposed implementation period for a ceasefire from seven days to two, calling it a “sign of goodwill”. Al Jazeera reported on 9 November that Iran’s seven conditions include lifting the US blockade on its southern ports and lifting sanctions.

Assessment: Rubio and Trump are both arguing for doing nothing, and they mean opposite things by it. Rubio’s case is that strangulation is working and a deal eventually follows; Trump’s is that no deal is required. Which line the White House repeats next week is the more informative signal than either man’s Friday remarks. Meanwhile the verification clock runs: an indefinite economic campaign is cheap for Washington, but every month of it makes the IAEA’s unaccounted stockpile a harder problem, not a dormant one. Two tests. Whether anyone in Washington acknowledges Iran’s two-day offer at all. And the reported Israeli security cabinet meeting on Sunday — which reaches us only through an aggregator citing unnamed Israeli media, and which, if real, cuts directly against Rubio’s no-strikes-needed line.