Implications of Strikes on Iran’s Nuclear Sites for IAEA Credibility

In response to Israeli and American attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities and other strategically important sites across the country, Iran reciprocated with strikes on Israeli territory and a US base in Qatar. As Tehran’s response to the attacks continues to unroll, an additional target has come squarely into its metaphorical crosshairs – the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Both the attacks on Iran’s facilities and the strong Iranian criticism of the international nuclear watchdog that has followed threaten to undermine the work and credibility of the IAEA. This has implications not just for the Iran nuclear file but for the effectiveness of non- and counter-proliferation efforts more broadly. Finding ways to counter these threats to the Agency’s credibility should be a priority for the US and Europe but also for Iran.

The IAEA in Iran’s Crosshairs

On Wednesday, Iranian President Massoud Pezeshkian signed into law a suspension of all cooperation between Iran and the IAEA. According to the legislation, cooperation would be reinstated should certain conditions be met, following confirmation by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran and approval by the Supreme National Security Council. The conditions include assurances that Iran’s national sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the security of Iranian nuclear facilities and scientists, would be respected. The legislation also expects full recognition of Iran’s rights under Article 4 of the NPT, including a right to enrichment. Whether the Treaty actually provides for such a right is a matter of some debate. It is unclear who is meant to provide Iran with the assurances it seeks to restart cooperation with the IAEA.

Besides the new legislation, Iranian leadership has been highly vitriolic in its public criticism of the IAEA. Tehran claims that a recent IAEA report on the state of the Iranian nuclear programme was politically motivated and provided an impetus for the Israeli and US attacks. The report reiterated long-standing questions over past Iranian activities, some persistent discrepancies in material accounting and repeated failures by Iran to provide the Agency with credible explanations on these matters. It led to the adoption, the day before the first Israeli strikes, of a finding by the IAEA Board of Governors of Iranian non-compliance with its Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement (CSA) obligations relating to cooperation with the Agency.

Tehran has also criticised IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi for failing to ‘undertake appropriate preventive and deterrent measures’ in light of the attacks. It is unclear what ‘preventive and deterrent’ measures Tehran had in mind. Foreign Affairs Minister Abbas Araghchi called the IAEA and Grossi ‘fully responsible for this sordid state of affairs’ and accused Grossi’s offer to visit the attacked sites of being ‘meaningless and possibly even malign in intent’. In a conversation with Emmanuel Macron, Pezeshkian defended the legislative decision to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, accused the Agency of ‘presenting false reports on the [Iran] nuclear dossier’ and called its behaviour ‘unjustified, unconstructive, and destructive’.

The Limits of a Technical Agency

This Iranian backlash against the IAEA threatens to harm the credibility and ability of the Agency to carry out its work – not just in the context of the current and any future developments on the Iran nuclear file but also more broadly.

Apparent Iranian expectations of the IAEA – and Grossi in particular – grossly overestimate, or intentionally misrepresent, the mandate and capabilities of the Agency and its Secretariat. The IAEA has the technical expertise and authority to support the development of peaceful uses of nuclear energy, to articulate standards and guidance for its safe and peaceful use, and to administer safeguards for ensuring the peaceful nature of states’ nuclear activities and materials. While the IAEA supports the implementation of the NPT – which, inter alia, enshrines parties’ rights to peaceful uses of nuclear energy – and has the authority to issue technical assessments of non-compliance by a state with its CSA, it has no mandate or capacity to guarantee or physically enforce compliance with a CSA. Furthermore, while the Agency issues guidance on nuclear safety and security, it has no authority to impose or guarantee their adoption by individual states.

As a technical, members-led agency of the UN, the IAEA Secretariat is limited in its ability to take actions which its member states have not tasked it with. It certainly does not have the mandate or the capability to intervene in or impose any kind of restraint in hostilities. This reality has been made very apparent over the course of the war in Ukraine. To Ukraine’s great exasperation, Grossi in his updates on nuclear safety and security in Ukraine has refused to directly call out and place blame for Russian violations of basic nuclear safety principles and harassment of staff at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, remaining apolitical in his assessments.

One recourse which is available to the IAEA is the ability – and, indeed, the responsibility – of the Agency’s Board of Governors (made up of representatives of member states) to refer cases of states’ non-compliance with their CSA to the UNSC. Iran was previously referred to the UNSC in 2006, following a Board finding of non-compliance with its safeguards obligations. The possibility of a UNSC referral remains on the table following the adoption of the latest Board resolution on Iranian failures to cooperate with the IAEA.

The IAEA General Conference – also made up of representatives of member states – can also pass non-binding resolutions highlighting concerns over relevant matters. For instance, the IAEA General Conference has issued a number of resolutions expressing concerns over military strikes on nuclear facilities in the past, including a resolution in September 2023 which called out Russian military activity at Ukraine’s nuclear facilities.

It is worth highlighting here the distinction between the work of the IAEA Secretariat – and the Director General, as its head – and the processes that take place at the Board of Governors and General Conference. The distinction is a meaningful one and is relevant to the broader matter at hand. The first is carried out by technical experts in nuclear safeguards, safety and security and consists of technical monitoring, analysis and assessments. The latter are fundamentally political processes, informed by the IAEA’s technical assessments but carried out by representatives of IAEA member states.

Iranian claims of politicisation at the Board of Governors – including the adoption of a finding of non-compliance – may technically hold some water. The resolution was introduced at the Board by the United States and the E3 (UK, France and Germany) and was adopted by a non-unanimous vote. The report had equally been solicited by an earlier Board resolution.

However, any such accusations should be distinguished from questions over the credibility of the contents of the IAEA report itself and the broader work of the Secretariat. The report’s findings, which underpinned the non-compliance resolution, drew from the strictly technical analysis put forward by IAEA Secretariat experts. It reiterated outstanding concerns and persistent Iranian failures of cooperation, which have been documented in numerous previous IAEA reports. The report it did not go so far as to find Iran in non-compliance with its obligations under the CSA; however, it did find certain Iranian behaviour to be ‘contrary to its obligations’ under its CSA.

Grossi – as head of the IAEA Secretariat – has also repeatedly condemned military attacks on nuclear installations – both in the case of the recent attacks on Iran and in the context of the war in Ukraine – and has called for restraint following Israeli and US attacks. He has also offered to travel to Iran – and to send nuclear safety and security experts to the country – ‘to help ensure the protection of nuclear facilities and the continued peaceful use of nuclear technology’.

The war in Ukraine and the recent strikes on Iranian nuclear sites highlight the limits of the Agency’s ability to ensure and enforce nuclear safety and security precisely when these are at greatest risk. They also highlight the uneasy tension and difficulties in distinguishing between the technical role of the Agency and its influence – even if unintentional – on highly politically-charged matters. Even technical assessments can – and often do – carry political implications. Furthermore, even the IAEA Secretariat is funded by and made up of nationals from member states with certain vested interests. This has previously led to questions – including by this author – over the risks of political influence by certain member states on the technical work of the Secretariat.

A commitment to maintaining a technical – rather than political – focus in its work, is fundamental to the Agency’s credibility and its ability to maintain access and continue its work in politically challenging contexts. The IAEA has a responsibility to maintain that technical focus and to actively avoid the politicisation of its work. Grossi has previously been accused – including by this author – of being too forward leaning on certain questions, placing the Agency at risk of having its work leveraged for political purposes. However, concerns over the Iranian nuclear programme are long-standing, spanning multiple Directors General and detailed in iterative technical reports by the Agency’s Secretariat. Accusations of politically-driven conclusions are therefore unconvincing in this context. Active politicisation of the Agency’s work – or criticism of the limits the IAEA’s unique position imposes on the Agency’s work – is therefore unconstructive and needs to be called out.

Safeguards and Counterproliferation Strikes

The strikes on Iran’s nuclear sites also risk convincing other states that cooperation with the IAEA and maintaining transparency of their programmes not only will not prevent attacks on their installations but may actually exacerbate the risks by helping adversaries identify potential targets or justify attacks. Iranian claims that the IAEA report facilitated attacks on Iranian facilities will help further such a narrative.

Yet, the greater fuel to this narrative have been the strikes themselves – carried out against facilities under IAEA safeguards of a Non-Nuclear Weapons State party to the NPT (Iran), by a Nuclear Weapons State (US) and a nuclear weapons possessor outside of the NPT (Israel). In this context, the question Pezeshkian posed to Macron on their Sunday call appears to be an entirely reasonable one: ‘What guarantee is there that our facilities won’t be attacked again, even if we cooperate?’

Allowing the IAEA to monitor and report on the state of Iran’s nuclear programme appears to have done little to mitigate risks of military action against Iran’s facilities. Of course, it is worth noting that Iran’s decision to limit IAEA access to its sites over the last few years and its refusal to address outstanding Agency questions has resulted in the IAEA’s inability to provide assurances of the peaceful nature of Iran’s programme. Though that does not appear to have been the trigger for the attacks, as Israel cited its own intelligence as the driver for the decision to strike.

It is also far from clear that full transparency of the programme would have precluded an Israeli or US decision to attack. This criticism of attacks on safeguarded facilities and discussion of the limits of IAEA safeguards to preclude the use of military force for counter-proliferation purposes is not new. In many ways, it is a reprisal of the debates that took place following Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak facility in 1981 and the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Iraqi nuclear facilities had been subject to IAEA safeguards on both occasions – which did not preclude the use of military force for counterproliferation ends in those instances.

The 2003 invasion of Iraq – justified as an effort to rid the country of weapons of mass destruction – is particularly instructive to the current context. In March 2003, then IAEA DG Mohamed ElBaradei confirmed that the Agency found no evidence of a revived Iraqi nuclear weapons programme. Despite this, the failure of the IAEA to identify the full extent of the Iraqi nuclear programme – including weaponisation efforts in the 1980s and challenges faced by inspectors in the 1990s – degraded the Agency’s credibility in Washington. This, combined with political interests favouring an invasion and serious concerns over Iraq’s chemical weapons threat facilitated – in part – the political instrumentalisation of US intelligence and the justification of what eventually turned into a catastrophic military quagmire.

Safeguarding IAEA Credibility

There are a number of lessons to take away from the Iraqi experience. For the US, the Iraq experience should be a cautionary tale against the dismissal of not only IAEA but also domestic intelligence assessments and the politicisation of intelligence. The UK, European states and other players that draw value from the safeguards regime – including Iran’s neighbours in the Middle East – must reinforce, through public pronouncements, the technical credibility and continued importance of the IAEA’s work.

At the same time, the benefits of remaining in good standing within the NPT and in compliance with one’s safeguards commitments need to be made clear. A move to extend special protections in international law to nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards could help further reinforce the benefits for countries – especially those that pose a perceived proliferation threat – of remaining in good standing with its safeguards obligations. However, such a prohibition would limit the option for the use of military force in the case of an imminent proliferation threat.

In the meantime, reinforcing and restating commitments on the prohibition in international law of the use of pre-emptive military force – in the absence of a clear imminent threat – can serve to further reiterate the value of compliance with IAEA safeguards as a technically credible and apolitical assessment of the state of a nuclear programme and whether or not it meets a reasonable threshold to be considered an imminent threat.

For Iran, Iraq’s experience should be a warning of the limits and risks inherent to a policy of ambiguity and opacity vis-à-vis its nuclear programme. Such an approach – particularly if coupled by inflammatory rhetoric and threats of withdrawal from the NPT – are more likely to convince the US, Israel and others of a genuine intent to weaponise or at least a credible threat of weaponisation. Equally, Tehran should reassess whether it is truly in its interests to undermine the technical credibility of the IAEA and to refuse to cooperate with the Agency – which had, after all, concluded in its latest report that it had ‘no credible indication of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear programme’ in Iran. The alternative is to risk the coopting and leveraging of intelligence by political forces – to potentially disastrous ends.

© RUSI, 2025.

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