U.S. and Europeans Move to Censure Iran for Nuclear Secrecy

Three key European nations and the United States have moved to censure Iran over its secretive nuclear program, hoping to shore up the credibility of the world’s nuclear watchdog before Donald J. Trump’s return to the White House.

The United States and the three European nations involved — Britain, France and Germany — put forward a resolution on Tuesday condemning Iran for its consistent refusal to answer questions from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.’s nuclear monitoring organization, about its nuclear enrichment program.

The resolution to censure may be voted on at the agency’s regular meeting of its board of governors in Vienna as soon as Wednesday or Thursday. If the measure passes, it could ultimately lead to retaliatory measures against Iran by the West.

The censure resolution followed the circulation of a report at the agency earlier this week detailing Iran’s expansion of its stockpile of enriched uranium that is close to weapons grade and its consistent efforts to block the IAEA from monitoring its progress.

The countries pushing for the censure are concerned that Iran’s continued recalcitrance presents a significant threat to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and undermines the credibility of the IAEA itself.

Analysts said that the European countries are also trying to signal that they want to be tough on Iran, wary that the American president-elect may be tempted to cut a separate deal with Iran that also undermines the role of the IAEA.

In a change from past Biden Administration policy, the United States has decided to support the resolution as well.

“We remain tightly coordinated with our E3 partners (France, Germany and Britain) in advance of the IAEA Board of Governors meeting, and we strongly support efforts to hold Iran accountable,” a U.S. State Department spokesman, Matthew Miller, told reporters on Tuesday in Washington.

Less than 1 percent of the uranium found in nature is the more radioactive form, known as U-235. Uranium enrichment raises that fraction, to 3 to 5 percent for nuclear power plants, and up to 20 percent for some kinds of research. An atomic bomb requires enrichment to 85 percent U-235 or more.

Iran has tried to avoid the condemnation by proposing to cap its production of 60 percent enriched uranium — close to weapons-grade and having no known civilian use — for the foreseeable future and expressing willingness to accept four new agency inspectors to replace the ones Iran banned from entering in September 2023. Experts say uranium at 60 percent can be raised to bomb-grade in a relatively short time.

But these are seen as more symbolic gestures aimed at avoiding censure and signaling a willingness to negotiate further with a new American administration on limits to Iran’s nuclear program, in return for the lifting of economic sanctions. If censured, however, Iran warns that it will retaliate and would be unlikely to comply with any proposal to cap enrichment.

Everyone is waiting to see what kind of Iran policy Mr. Trump will support once he is back in office, diplomats and analysts say.

“The Europeans want to show Trump that they are happy to work with him on a tough new joint policy on Iran, rather than Trump excluding them and doing his own deal,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, an expert on Iran with the European Council on Foreign Relations.

There is an assumption that as president again, Mr. Trump will try to increase economic pressure on Iran to try to reach a stricter deal than the 2015 agreement that was meant to restrain Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Trump criticized that deal as weak and pulled out of it in 2018, reimposing American sanctions on Iran. His policy of “maximum pressure” did not bring Iran to the table then, and neither he nor President Biden has been able to replace the 2015 agreement with a new one.

Instead Iran has steadily increased its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, enough for several bombs, and is closer to being able to build a nuclear weapon and deliver one on more sophisticated missiles. Iran insists its nuclear program is civilian and that it has no intention to build a nuclear weapon.

But diplomats and analysts say that Iran is now perceived to have been weakened by internal unrest, a bad economy, and Israel’s campaign against Iran and its allies since Hamas invaded Israel Oct. 7 of last year. There is a significant internal debate in Iran about whether to try to do a deal again or move more openly toward building a nuclear weapon, they say.

The diplomats and analysts believe that there is a good chance Iran would be open to direct negotiations on a new nuclear deal with Washington, along with the Europeans. But Iran would want such a deal to provide clear economic benefits and restrain the United States and Israel from attacking its nuclear and energy facilities.

European and Iranian officials met in September at the United Nations, after the death of Iran’s hard-line president and the election of a more moderate successor, to discuss de-escalation and re-engagement, with little obvious success.

But the Europeans were struck by the quiet meeting between Elon Musk and Iran’s U.N. ambassador on Nov. 11, first reported in The New York Times, as indicative of tentative early efforts to defuse tensions.

There is an extensive and relatively open debate inside Iran about the future of its nuclear program, said Ms. Geranmayeh and Cornelius Adebahr, who studies Iran for Carnegie Europe.

As they describe the debate, some voices say that Iran has a better chance negotiating with a Republican president who wants to avoid a war and controls Congress and that this may be a last chance to do so. The hope is that it would yield economic benefits and also help to calm dissent at home.

Others, many of them part of the powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, argue that the West cannot be trusted and that the United States is a declining power. Israel, they also argue, has hit its regional allies so hard that Iran should move more openly to confront Israel and develop a nuclear deterrent.

“Superficially Iran looks weaker, with a prevalent internal atmosphere of unrest and the regime trying to find its footing, and the openness of the debate speaks to the uncertainty among policymakers in Iran,” Mr. Adebahr said. “But the Iranians don’t consider themselves weak and don’t appear to be in a great rush.”

Whatever happens to nuclear negotiations, the issue of compliance with the IAEA’s inspectors is a different matter. The Europeans and Washington consider that Iran’s consistent flouting of its obligations goes to the heart of preserving the nonproliferation treaty and preventing other countries in the Middle East and elsewhere from developing their own nuclear weapons.

The agency’s reports made clear that Iran has failed to resolve questions about the origins of undeclared nuclear material found earlier in Iran and had not restored monitoring equipment, including cameras, it removed in June 2022.

The resolution censoring Iran, if passed, would call for a comprehensive report on all the open questions about its nuclear program. It could also open the way for a return to all the international sanctions suspended under the 2015 deal, though the deadline for that is October 2025.