Iran achieves near weapons-grade uranium, ostensibly by accident

The International Atomic Energy Agency has discovered that Iran has managed to produce uranium enriched to 84% - far above the purity needed for heat reactor (the type used in a power plant) and a mere 6% short of weapons grade, i.e., of the purity one would need to produce a nuclear weapon. Officially, an investigation is underway to see how that came about - though, clearly, if one thinks of the process involved, of the arduous multi-stage process necessary to produce uranium enriched to a higher grade, one would have a rather hard time imagining how this result could have possibly been achieved by accident.

As it stands, Iran is under a severe sanctions regime and is not allowed to even try to obtain materials needed for the production of nuclear weapons. This is clearly a severe violation of that regime and severe sanctions are called for. But the current political climate: fear of pushing Iran closer to Russia, major powers' involvement with other matters, etc. - make it more convenient to pretend there is no problem, just a minor "misunderstanding", just something that happened by accident. Thus we are likely seen a myth being created to substitute this unpleasant reality.

File this under "too absurd for fiction, fit for reality."

References

Iran’s Uranium Enrichment Hits a New High, Testing Diplomacy
Jonathan Tirone, Bloomberg, 20 February 2023

Uranium enrichment
Energy Education

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