The treaty, the report notes, offers no protection against conventional attack, and that gap between promised peaceful-use benefits and actual vulnerability sits at the heart of the hardliners' case for withdrawal.
Iran says it has not suspended its commitments under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, even as hardliners in Tehran openly discuss abandoning the treaty and building a bomb. According to Al Jazeera, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei told reporters in Tehran on Monday that the Islamic Republic remains committed to the NPT despite restricting cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog.
Baghaei attributed the restrictions to attacks by the United States and Israel on Iranian nuclear facilities, which he said had caused problems for the implementation of safeguards commitments. "As long as this situation continues, we cannot act like normal circumstances in our cooperation with the agency," he said, while renewing Tehran's criticism of IAEA director Rafael Grossi. The spokesman did confirm that new inspections had been conducted days earlier at the Bushehr nuclear power plant, built with Russian cooperation and the only facility still accessible to the agency because it was not directly bombed during the war. US warplanes did attack the plant's perimeter, prompting a partial evacuation of Russian personnel who have yet to return fully.
The picture beyond Bushehr is bleaker. Grossi told the UN Security Council in late October that the agency was unable to verify Iran's nuclear material because Tehran had not provided the requested information and access. Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group described the Bushehr inspections as a low-cost gesture designed to keep diplomacy alive and hardliners at bay, while preserving leverage over the underground sites that matter most, including Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan.
Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator now at Princeton, argued that Tehran draws a distinction between honouring its NPT commitments and permitting inspections of facilities that have been bombed. He noted that the IAEA has no established protocol for facilities damaged by military attack, and that Iranian officials fear access to sensitive sites would lead to information being shared with the US and Israel and used in future strikes. The treaty, the report notes, offers no protection against conventional attack, and that gap between promised peaceful-use benefits and actual vulnerability sits at the heart of the hardliners' case for withdrawal.
That case is no longer confined to a fringe. Iran's security chief Mohsen Rezaei has publicly deliberated leaving the treaty on several occasions, and the Revolutionary Guard Corps has said it will make the necessary preparations if the doctrine changes. Under the assassinated Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, nuclear weapons were officially forbidden. Qatar and Pakistan continue to relay messages between Tehran and Washington, though analysts quoted by Al Jazeera warn that escalation is likely in the coming months.
Tehran says it will not let its highly enriched uranium leave the country but is open to downblending it under international supervision inside Iran, and will not abandon enrichment altogether though it could accept limits. Vaez suggested a preliminary deal might unlock limited, phased inspections under the 2025 Cairo agreement, which was never enforced. What remains unconfirmed is whether any such bargain is under active negotiation, and how far the Guard's preparations have actually gone.
