Volume 16, Issue 5  
Dec. 18, 2024

In the wake of the November 2024 U.S. elections, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian continues to express support for nuclear talks with the United States to address international concerns about Iran's advancing nuclear activities. However, his administration’s recent efforts to ramp up its uranium enrichment capacity, ostensibly to build leverage ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House, threatens to derail the prospects for reaching a diplomatic arrangement. Tehran’s recent acceleration of proliferation-sensitive activities increases the risk that the United States or Israel perceive its actions as a step toward weaponization, which could trigger military action or prompt Washington to ratchet up economic and political pressure on Iran even further.

If Pezeshkian and other Iranian leaders are serious about diplomacy, Iran should exercise restraint in the coming months and refrain from further nuclear advances or any reduction in International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access and monitoring. Similarly, the incoming Trump administration should recognize the importance of sending early, consistent signals to Iran that it is interested in quickly starting a negotiating process, with the goal of reaching a deal within the first six months of 2025, and condemn loose talk about preventive military action against Iran.

Iran’s Risky Nuclear Advances

According to a Dec. 6 IAEA report, Iran began feeding 20 percent enriched uranium into two cascades of interconnected IR-6 centrifuges to accelerate 60 percent enriched uranium at the Fordow Fuel Enrichment Plant. Iran had been producing 60 percent material with these machines, but it was using 5 percent enriched uranium as feed. The interconnected design, the use of the more advanced IR-6 centrifuges, and the beginning of the enrichment process with 20 percent material allow Iran to enrich uranium more efficiently. According to the IAEA’s assessment, the change in feed will result in Iran producing approximately 34 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent per month—about seven times the previous monthly production of 4.7 kilograms.

Increasing the stock of 60 percent material will decrease the time it will take for Iran to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for multiple bombs. As this timeframe, known as breakout, drops, proliferation risk increases. Being able to quickly produce enough weapons-grade material for multiple weapons could allow Iran to try to try to breakout by producing and then diverting the 90 percent enriched uranium to multiple covert sites for weaponization before the international community could effectively respond. If Iran were to breakout under this scenario, its ability to rapidly enrich to weapons-grade levels and disperse the material to several undeclared locations would also make it far more challenging for the United States and Israel to disrupt weaponization using military strikes.

In another potential scenario, Iran could divert 60 percent material to a covert facility to continue enrichment to weapons-grade levels. Although Western intelligence agencies have a strong track record of detecting undeclared Iranian nuclear sites, Iran’s experience developing more efficient centrifuges since Trump withdrew the United States from the nuclear deal in 2018 would allow Tehran to develop a covert site with a smaller footprint. The speed at which Iran could enrich from 60 to 90 percent also means that even a short delay in detecting the facility could give Tehran enough time to breakout.

There is also a risk that the rapid accumulation of highly enriched uranium at Fordow and the expanded enrichment capacity is judged to be a sufficient enough proliferation threat that it triggers a kinetic response by Israel or the United States, even if there is no clear evidence that Iran is breaking out or diverting material. The IAEA noted in its Dec. 6 report that Iran had already moved 145 kilograms of 20 percent enriched uranium to Fordow to use as feed for the new enrichment configuration. Moving more 20 percent material to Fordow or storing large quantities of 60 percent material raises legitimate concerns that Iran is accumulating highly-enriched uranium to better position itself for breakout, if the decision is made to do so.

In addition to the expanded stockpiles of highly-enriched uranium present at Fordow, the Dec. 6 IAEA report confirmed that Iran is now operating additional IR-6 centrifuges that were installed, but not previously being fed with uranium. According to the Dec. 6 report, Iran is now producing five percent enriched uranium in two additional cascades of IR-6 machines. An additional six cascades of IR-6s are installed but not yet enriching uranium. This additional, operating enrichment capacity further contributes to the proliferation threat posed by the site.

The IAEA did report that Iran notified the agency of the changes at Fordow. In response, the agency is modifying its safeguards approach in order to take into account the change in enrichment, which should provide additional assurance that any move to weapons-grade levels or large-scale diversion of nuclear materials will be quickly detected. Under Iran’s legally required comprehensive safeguards agreement, the IAEA can adjust its safeguards approach based on the scope of the nuclear materials and activities at a declared facility. Although Iran did not abide by the IAEA’s request that it refrain from ratcheting up enrichment at Fordow until the new safeguards approach was deployed, the IAEA did confirm in a Dec. 13 report that Tehran agreed to “increase the frequency and intensity” of safeguards measures. Iran’s acceptance of the additional safeguards measures is positive, but the increased IAEA presence is insufficient to quell concerns about Iran’s nuclear activities.

In addition to the near-term proliferation risks, Iran’s expansion of enrichment at Fordow could have long-term implications. The IAEA raised concerns in its Dec. 6 report about the manner in which Iran is transferring 20 percent enriched uranium to Fordow. According to the agency, Iran’s use of small cylinders to store the 20 percent enriched uranium “results in more measurement errors.” If the IAEA does encounter challenges in accounting for Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium, it could complicate future verification efforts under Iran’s safeguards agreement and any limits imposed by a future deal.

Deteriorating Regional Security

The risk posed by Iran’s rapid acceleration of enrichment to 60 percent is further complicated by the shifting regional security environment. After long denying any interest in nuclear weapons, high-level officials and miltary officers in Tehran have suggested over the past year that the country will rethink its position on nuclear weapons if necessary for the security of the country. Over the past several months, the weakening of Hezbollah, along with the fall of the Assad government in Syria, has setback Iran’s forward defense strategy, which relies on partnering with non-state actors to project influence and counter adversaries in the region. The overthrow of Assad could make it more difficult for Iran to provide military assistance to Hezbollah if the new government reduces or shuts down Iranian access.

Additionally, Iran expended a significant number of missiles in its two direct attacks on Israel in 2024. Although the strikes did not demonstrate the full range of Iran’s missile capabilities and the first, in April 2024, afforded Israel ample warning time to prepare its defenses, Israel was able to largely neutralize the impact of those attacks, with help from the United States and others. Israel’s missile defense and its demonstrated ability to retaliate against Iranian assets, including missile production facilities, may lead Tehran to reassess the value of its conventional ballistic missile force as a deterrent.

The shift in Iranian assessments about the security value of it regional partners and ballistic missiles, as well as repeated calls from some Israeli officials for direct attacks on nuclear sites, could push Tehran toward the assessment that nuclear weapons are necessary for the security of the country and to bridge a perceived security gap.

The Necessity of Swift Diplomatic Action

Despite the increased proliferation risk, a nuclear-armed Iran is not a foregone conclusion. The U.S. intelligence community emphasized in a recent report that the risk of proliferation is growing, but continues to assess that there is no evidence that Iran is undertaking key weaponization-related activities. Furthermore, top Iranian officials continue to reiterate their interest in reaching a nuclear deal with the United States that provides relief from sanctions.

The timeframe for negotiations, however, is short. After Trump takes office, his administration will likely have about 6-7 months to reach a deal and then implement it before October 2025. Absent an agreement by that date, it is highly likely that the United Kingdom or France will reimpose UN sanctions on Iran using the ‘snapback’ mechanism in Resolution 2231, which endorsed the JCPOA in 2015. Unlike passing a new resolution on Iran, the snapback mechanism cannot be vetoed.

In a Dec. 6 letter, the UK, France, and Germany reiterated their willingness to use snapback if necessary to pressure Iran to return to negotiations. Although taking this step would put additional pressure on Iran, it would also complicate the path forward for diplomacy. If Iran responds to the reimposition of sanctions by withdrawing from the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), which it has threatened to do, diplomatic energy will shift to keeping Iran in the NPT during the three-month withdrawal notification period. The risk of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities are even more likely during that time.

Preserving Space for Diplomacy

Despite the urgency of the proliferation threat, diplomatic options to avert a nuclear armed Iran, or a conflict to prevent it, are still available, but time is short and the obstacles to success are numerous. In his final weeks in office, President Joe Biden can and should continue to push back against irresponsible calls from Israeli and U.S. policymakers that now is the time to attack the country’s nuclear program. If Trump is serious about reaching a workable nuclear agreement with Iran, he too should condemn reckless calls for military action against Iran and continue to reiterate his openness to talks. Additionally, he could press his future appointees in his administration to refrain from irresponsible threats and pressure. He should also quickly name a nominee for special envoy to Iran and publicly call for that individual to prepare a realistic strategy for engaging Iran.

Both the Pezeshkian administration and the incoming Trump team should also be using the lead-up to the Jan. 20 inauguration to consider the objectives and agenda for talks. If both sides, for instance, approach negotiations with the mindset of achieving a limited deal that increases monitoring of Iran’s program and blocks the most proliferation-sensitive activities in exchange for sanctions relief, it could help jumpstart negotiations. Considering the relationship between a nuclear deal and the regional security situation would also be advantageous, as Iran is unlikely to agree to a deal that limits its ability to leverage its threshold status for security purposes if a risk of attack on its territory remains.—KELSEY DAVENPORT, director for nonproliferation policy

December 19, 2024 1:00 PM–2:30 PM EST   
at CEIP in Washington, DC and Live Online 

As the United States approaches the expiration of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) in February 2026, there are critical questions about the future of nuclear arms control, strategic stability, and global nonproliferation efforts. 

Join the Arms Control Association and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) for remarks from U.S. Principal Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer on the Biden administration’s efforts to reduce nuclear dangers and adapt U.S. nuclear weapons and nonproliferation policy to an uncertain world, as evidenced by the rapid changes occurring in Syria. Finer will take questions from the Arms Control Association’s Executive Director Daryl Kimball. 

Following Finer's address, a distinguished panel will examine the implications of the looming expiration of New START. Madelyn Creedon, chair of the 2023 Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, Adam Mount, senior fellow and director of the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, and James Acton, co-director of Carnegie’s Nuclear Policy program, will explore key considerations surrounding U.S. nuclear forces and requirements, arms control, and nonproliferation policy.

Jon Finer is the Principal Deputy National Security Advisor for the Biden Administration. Finer was Chief of Staff and Director of Policy Planning for former Secretary John Kerry at the U.S. Department of State. 

Daryl G. Kimball has been Executive Director of the Arms Control Association (ACA) and publisher and contributor for the organization’s monthly journal, Arms Control Today, since September 2001. 

The Honorable Madelyn Creedon served as Principal Deputy Administrator of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) within the Department of Energy from 2014 to 2017. She also served in the Pentagon as Assistant Secretary of Defense for Global Strategic Affairs from 2011 to 2014, overseeing policy development in the areas of missile defense, nuclear security, combatting WMD, cybersecurity, and space. 

Adam Mount, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Defense Posture Project at the Federation of American Scientists, where his work covers U.S. nuclear strategy and force structure, conventional deterrence, and progressive foreign policy. Previously, he was a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress and a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. 

James M. Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Registration Link

For Immediate Release: December 13, 2024      

Media Contact: Daryl Kimball, executive director (202-463-8270 x107)       

(Washington, D.C.)—Since 2007, the independent, nongovernmental Arms Control Association has nominated individuals and institutions that have, in the previous 12 months, advanced effective arms control, nonproliferation, and disarmament solutions and raised awareness of the threats and the human impacts posed by mass casualty weapons. 

"In a field that is often focused on grave threats and negative developments, our Arms Control Person(s) of the Year contest aims to highlight several positive initiatives—some at the grassroots level, some on the international scale—designed to advance disarmament, nuclear security, and international peace, security, the protection of civilians in war, and/or the rule of law," noted Daryl G. Kimball, executive director. 

"These nominees and their outstanding efforts during the past year illustrate how many different people can, in a variety of creative and sometimes courageous ways, contribute to a safer world for the generations of today and tomorrow," he added. 

This year's nominees are listed below and a link to the online ballot is available at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY. 

Voting will take place between Dec. 13, 2024, and Jan. 13, 2025. Follow the discussion on social media using the hashtag #ACPOY2024. 

A full list of previous winners is available at ArmsControl.org/ACPOY/previous. 

The 2024 nominees are:

• The UN Delegations of Ireland and New Zealand and 48 co-sponsoring states for successfully advancing United Nations First Committee resolution, L.39, which mandates an updated, independent scientific study on nuclear war effects. The resolution, "Nuclear War Effects and Scientific Research," was adopted by the UN General Assembly on 24 December by a vote of 136-3-29. It will establish an independent panel of scientific experts tasked with reviewing and commissioning relevant studies and publishing a comprehensive report that includes future research needs relating to the impacts of nuclear war.
• The Opinion Editors at The New York Times for their ground-breaking “At the Brink” series, which has helped to raise greater public awareness about the devastating impacts, massive costs, and growing dangers posed by nuclear weapons. The special series of interactive essays, which was launched in March 2024, are reported and written by William J. Hennigan and overseen by opinion page editor Kathleen Kingsbury.
• Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) and members of the bicameral Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group for their leadership to challenge the rationale for and the exploding cost of the Sentinel ICBM program. In his role on the House Armed Services Committee and as co-chair of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, Garamendi took the Secretary of Defense to task for Sentinel cost overruns and called for more effective congressional oversight of the increasingly costly program. In August remarks at the U.S. Strategic Command Deterrence Symposium, he urged a fundamental reexamination of the program.
• Filmmakers of new nuclear-age documentaries that highlight the devastating and long term human and environmental health effects of U.S. and Soviet Cold War-era nuclear weapons testing: First We Bombed New Mexico, Silent Fallout, and I Want to Live On: the Untold Stories of the Polygon. For more information on the impact of these and other new films, see this essay published in Arms Control Today. 
• Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg for convening the Vienna Conference on Autonomous Weapons Systems and for the Austrian Foreign Ministry’s leadership to advance a United Nations General Assembly resolution on lethal autonomous weapons systems that highlights the urgent need to open negotiations on a new treaty to ban them. The resolution which (79/L.77) won the support of 166 countries, creates a new UN forum to discuss the serious challenges and concerns raised by weapons systems that select and apply force to targets based on sensor processing rather than human input.
• The governments of the United States, Argentina, and Japan for taking action through the UN to reinforce global support for the 1967 Outer Space Treaty via resolution 79/L.7, “Weapons of mass destruction in outer space.” The resolution that won the support of 167 states follows reports that Russia is pursuing a nuclear-armed space object. It reaffirms the obligations of the Outer Space Treaty (OST), which prohibits the placement of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in outer space.
• The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Technical Secretariat for its activities in the context of the Technical Assistance Visit(s) to Ukraine that investigated allegations that riot control agents have been used in Ukraine “as a weapon of warfare” against soldiers on the battlefield. The use of chemical agents in this manner is strictly prohibited under Article I of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC).
• Savannah River Site Watch, Tri-Valley Communities Against a Radioactive Environment, the Gullah/Geechee Sea Island Coalition, Nuclear Watch New Mexico, and The South Carolina Environmental Law Project for filing a National Environmental Policy Act lawsuit challenging the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) plan to produce 80 plutonium cores for nuclear weapons per year. A U.S. district court ruled that NNSA violated the law by not properly considering alternatives.
• Fumio Kishida, former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa of Japan, for their leadership in nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation, including hosting a rare UNSC session focused on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament issues in March, which produced a Friends of the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty (FMCT) initiative, and for sending 50 young people to Hiroshima as part of their Youth Leader Fund for a World Without Nuclear Weapons program in August.
• Senators Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Peter Welch (D-Vt.), and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and others for pressing the Biden administration to comply with longstanding U.S. laws and its own policies, which require suspension or limitation of U.S. arms transfers to states, including Israel, that fail to allow humanitarian assistance to civilians in conflict or that engage in acts that violate international humanitarian law. Sanders and other lawmakers argued that Israel’s conduct in its war in Gaza clearly violates these standards, which require a suspension of offensive military assistance. They advanced resolutions of disapproval to block continued U.S. arms transfers to Israel, which were defeated by the Senate on Nov. 20. Under pressure from Sen. Van Hollen and others, the administration issued a new national security memorandum (NSM-20) requiring regular reporting from states receiving U.S. military assistance to ensure they meet these legal standards. However, in December, Biden signaled he will not restrict U.S. arms transfers to Israel despite Israel’s failure to permit increased deliveries of humanitarian aid to Gaza as top U.S. officials had demanded.

Last update: January 8, 2025