Iran halts cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog | Hacker News Reader

Iran halts cooperation with UN nuclear watchdog

politico.eu

44 pointsmmarian37 comments

Can somebody who has been following this story in detail let me know how credible their claims that the IAEA has been infiltrated by Israeli espionage are? If so, is there any way an independent party could set up a replacement for the IAEA?

Those claims are not verifiable (with open-source intelligence), they're possible, but not especially likely because the Israelis seem to have extensively infiltrated both assets and hardware into Iran (so they probably didn't need to infiltrate the IAEA). The claims are also somewhat suspect, as the Iranians were not fully cooperating with the IAEA even before the Israeli attacks. The most likely explanations are that the Iranians have been unable to uncover Israeli spies and are paranoid about IAEA, or that they just don't want to cooperate with the IAEA, and this is a good excuse.

All true but it's also worth adding that we've given Iran zero incentive to work with the IAEA. If they're going to get sanctioned and attacked anyways..

Agreed. Even as someone who thinks the strikes were justified this was an inevitable outcome. Iran was trying to get as far as they could with their enrichment without provoking a military response. Once there was a military response there was no reason to cooperate.

There might still be room for diplomacy and reentering IAEA. But since Iran leaving the IAEA strengthens their bargaining position this is a logical move for them.

It's a very difficult negotiation on either side, and I am not sure that a sustainable long-term deal is possible:

From the US/Israeli perspective, it's hard to trust Iran, which is positioning itself as a threshold nuclear state, and may attempt to secretly cross that threshold at any time (as North Korea did).

From the Iranian perspective, the government is fearful of infiltration and overthrow, as well as outright invasion, remembering that non-nuclear states have been undermined by the USA and allies (as happened in Libya).

> positioning itself as a threshold nuclear state, and may attempt to secretly cross that threshold at any time (as North Korea did).

As Israel did.

The US/Israel haven't earned trust themselves by their actions though.

There were ongoing negotiations which unsurprisingly have now ended.

There are no clear indications Iran was in breach and they levels of enrichment were allowed by the terms. Although that was part of the point of the negotiations which the US wanted to raise.

What do you mean about "no clear indications Iran was in breach"? Iran was in breach of its safeguards agreement with the IAEA, according to a resolution by the IAEA board [1].

> Finds that Iran’s many failures to uphold its obligations since 2019 [...] constitutes non-compliance with its obligations under its Safeguards Agreement with the Agency

[1] https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pd...

The USA had abandoned the prior deal some time ago, and was not party to any current agreement which authorized any Iranian nuclear activities. Thus Iran was neither in compliance or abeyance of any agreement with them.

Iran has not earned much trust with anyone either; they’ve been supporting the Russian aggression in Ukraine (where nuclear strikes have been repeatedly threatened), as well as sponsoring non-state actors which have attacked the USA and Israel.

Yes, true. You are right that the US exited the JCPOA under Trump in 2018 and hasn't rejoined a new deal. So not direct agreement between Iran and the US on enrichment limits.

But, Iran is still legally bound by the NPT and IAEA safeguards, which require transparency around nuclear technology with the other parties who remain.

Prior to Israels attacks there were also indications the US was about to re-enter negotiations. That went up in smoke and likely motivation of the attacks.

This is just theater. With or without cooperation, western countries will rely on espionage to assess what Iran is doing with its nuclear program.

Iran was probably never fully transparent with the IAEA, and despite declaring everywhere that their nuclear program is "peaceful", they enriched uranium to levels far beyond what is necessary for power - while developing systems and mechanisms required for a nuclear bomb such as a massive ICBM industry and warhead R&D.

It is so blatantly obvious that Iran was doing this while trying to dupe the IAEA, that it somewhat reminds me of the martians from Mars Attacks who keep playing the "we come in peace" message while running around shooting lasers.

Hopefully Iran's facilities suffered enough damage to create new opportunities.

It is well-known that Iran has enriched Uranium to 60%, much more than the 5% which is commonly required for nuclear reactors, and also more than the 20% required by some specialized reactor designs. Iran has clearly tried to position itself as a 'threshold nuclear power', as enriching to 90% (from 60%) is relatively quick and easy.

https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-c... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_program_of_Iran

Have you got sources for those claims?

IAEA inspections are not just theater — they are the formal mechanism for verification under the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). So not sure why you state that.

Iran had a good record of compliance until the US started moving goalposts around about 2018. Even since then it's been less transparent but partly that can be attributed to others shifting position. It's not one sided.

Enrichment has been above normal civilian use but also it's been a fair way off weapons grade. So that's not correct.

Warhead R&D in this area is commonly held to have stopped around about 2003. So again I don't believe your claims are correct.

The current situation with Iran appears highly manufactured. There is a fair amount of rhetoric in your claims which doesn't help either.

Not the parent, but the IAEA did find Iran to be non-compliant just before the Israeli strike: https://www.euronews.com/2025/06/12/un-nuclear-watchdog-find...

Sure, that's true and reasonably serious. However, the non-compliance was the first time in 20 years and based on not providing timely co-operation. So largely procedural and not close to being an indication that a verified weapons programme was being undertaken.

Certainly it did not merit the Israeli strikes at all as that more than anything sets back the oversight of Iran.

I am not sure what would 'merit' military action; that's a difficult political question, especially when one party suspects that their counter-party is lying.

Pre-emptive strikes are illegal under international law except for in very narrow circumstances.

The circumstances in this case where nowhere close to that. So I wouldn't agree it's a difficult political question.

Israel and the US are parties to those laws and clearly broke them.

It's unclear why, it does appear politically motivated rather than actually about any actual threat or particular intelligence.

In your view, would the USA, Japan, or South Korea have been justified in striking North Korea’s nuclear program at any point before or after their development of nuclear weapons? If so, when?

Note that North Korea has repeatedly threatened to re-unify the country by force.

I'm not really aware of the circumstances of that so hard to say. I'm more aware of Iran because of recent events. I'd doubt it would have been legal and if that was the case I would not see it as justified.

I'm not aware of any illegal wars this century that I do see as justified.

I personally don't believe any country should have nuclear weapons.

I think it makes sense to be against military action in general, though it’s a much more persuasive position in a safe western country than Israel, South Korea, or Ukraine.

I also think you’d be well-served to learn a bit more about the history of nuclear proliferation if you wish to argue your points effectively.

When it comes to nuclear weapons I'm located within 50 miles of a nuclear military base so it is something I am keenly aware of.

I don't see Israel making itself or others safer by pursuing illegal wars. The reverse is Ukraine which is the recipient of an illegal war.

There are very few actions that make the world less safe than this sort of reckless and unjustified action. It just reinforces to me why they are illegal.

More knowledge and context always help of course, but I do see a lot of rhetoric being put forward on this subject. My replies may be imperfect but I do think they help with balance. Is there a particular point you believe I should be considering?

about "israel not making itself safer". for context

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-was-facing-destruction-...

That is internal propaganda. There is no honest context in that article I am afraid.

easy to dismiss everything that you don't agree as internal propaganda. isn't ?

iaea report about iran having undeclared locations/programs/materials/etc going back 15 years and more

https://www.iaea.org/sites/default/files/25/06/gov2025-38.pd...

Those are dated in the 1990s to early 2000s do they not? There aren't similar current findings I don't believe.

they not. spelled out in the document

The world has shown that the only way for a country to have sovereignty is by having nukes - see what happened when Libya or Ukraine gave them up. Having just been attacked by US/Israel and talks from them of fomenting regime change, it is obviously in Iran's self-preservation to pursue nukes.

There was a deal in place to prevent this, and the US broke it.

Not just that, being a threshold state abiding by international agreements with both US intelligence and the IAEA stating that you’re not building nukes doesn’t save you from attacks aimed at preventing you from building them. Thus, why the heck would you not build them?

Well, IAEA did find Iran to be in breach of their safeguards agreement, mainly given the state of their uranium enrichment and their unconvincing claims about civilian uses. "Not building nukes" can mean "not at the final device assembly stage yet".

At this point it seems possible that the one thing keeping Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons could be religious reasons. Somewhat ironic.

There are plenty of countries that have maintained their sovereignty without nukes.

…by relying on the power projected by the ones with them.

By relying on the conventional power of countries that happen to be nuclearized. We wouldn't have nuked Iraq in defense of Kuwait.

Then there's, say, Argentina or Sweden who are neither nuclearized nor occupied on your counterfactual timeline.

Ukraine never had them. They were Russian and could only be launched with codes held in Russia.

I think there are two uses for nukes...

- to maintain sovereignty

- to attack

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