A view of the reactor building at the Russian-built Bushehr nuclear power plant as the first fuel is loaded, on Aug. 21, 2010, in Bushehr, Iran.Iran International Photo Agency/Getty Images
A seminal report this week by the International Atomic Energy Agency on Iran's nuclear program has set the table for taking powerful action against Tehran.
Unusual for the normally understated organization, the report was explicit in pointing out where Iran had failed to convince the agency that it was not developing weapons, and implicit in allowing people to conclude that Iran is bent on developing a nuclear arsenal.
"This is the most damning report ever on the status of a country's nuclear program," said Ariel Levite, senior associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
"People have long believed this," said Dr. Levite, who, for several years, was deputy director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. "But having the IAEA's imprimatur will convince even the most objective person." Except, perhaps, Russia and China, which describe the report as unnecessarily provocative.
But, while the report is "a watershed" in damning Iran, Dr. Levite says, does the IAEA have the knowledge and credibility to conclude this? No one is quite sure.
In a briefing Friday to member states, the UN atomic agency produced satellite images, letters and diagrams as it sought to underpin its case that Iran seemingly has worked secretly on developing a nuclear arsenal.
Iran's chief envoy to the International Atomic Energy Agency rejected the presentation as based on material fabricated by the United States and its allies.
"There is no indication and proof that Iran's activities is toward military purposes," he told reporters, in comments that those inside the closed meeting showing the evidence said essentially matched his statement to that gathering.
Western diplomats, in contrast, said that the briefing was a convincing supplement to a report presented earlier this week.
Based on 1,000 pages of research and nearly a decade of probing Iran, the report included evidence that the agency says indicates the Islamic republic is working on the clandestine procurement of equipment and designs to make nuclear arms.
"While some of the activities identified in the annex have civilian as well as military applications, others are specific to nuclear weapons," the report said.
It certainly is an intriguing role reversal from 2003 when it was the United States, supported by Britain, that claimed Iraq was developing a nuclear-weapons program, and it was the IAEA that warned that the Bush administration's case was faulty and based on forged reports. Now, it is the normally cautious agency that is concluding that, despite Iran's denials, the country is engaged in an active program to design nuclear warheads, among other technologies.
The report describes how Iran had created computer models of nuclear explosions in 2008 and 2009 and conducted experiments on nuclear triggers. It also said Iran went beyond such theoretical studies to build a large containment vessel at its Parchin military base, starting in 2000, for testing the feasibility of such explosive compression. It called such tests "strong indicators of possible weapon development."
Specifically, it was the report's 13-page annex that made the document noteworthy for making it possible for people to draw tough conclusions about Iran, and for the techniques used to lead to those conclusions.
"The report makes it clear that Iran has the quantity and the technology to develop a nuclear arsenal," said Dr. Levite, "and the capacity to deliver the weapons."
But does the agency, not charged with conducting such technical work in weapons development, have the authority and expertise to draw these conclusions?
Engaging in such fields as weapons development is "definitely a change," Dr. Levite said. "But it's a change the international community wants to see."
"This is very different from past practices," says an IAEA official, who served under former director general Mohamed elBaradei. "But I think the culture of the organization, and its committee approach to drafting its reports, gives it the credibility to do this responsibly."
Is there value in doing this?
"I think drawing such powerful conclusions can serve as a possible deterrent for Iran," Dr. Levite said. "It realizes it can't hide behind the organization any more."
It also can serve as an encouragement for taking action against Iran, he said. On that matter, however, the world remains divided and a firm UN Security Council resolution remains elusive.
U.S. officials indicate that without the support of Russia and China, Washington must content itself with forming a "coalition of the willing," including Canada and European powers, to invoke tougher financial sanctions against Tehran.
Dr. Levite is not confident such an approach will amount to much. "The problem," he said, "is if there are no consequences to its actions, Iran will conclude it has nothing to fear. This would be horrible news for the prospects of non-proliferation."
The belief in the need to punish the Tehran regime leads some to imagine military action being taken, perhaps by Israel, one of the countries (along with Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt) that feels most threatened by Iran.
"I think Israel will give the situation no more than six months to gauge the sufficiency of the international response," Dr. Levite said. "After that, who knows what will happen."
Meir Dagan, the former head of Israel's Mossad intelligence service, has argued that attacking Iran would be "a stupid idea" for a number of reasons: It would lead to a regional war with uncontrollable consequences; it would not set back the Iranian atomic development significantly; and it would only increase Iran's determination to go nuclear.
The former IAEA official notes that, as tough as this report is, it still has no evidence of a breakthrough that would justify taking immediate military action. "There is no smoking gun," he said, "no evidence of anything dramatic in the past six months."
Olli Heinonen, the IAEA's former deputy director general, concurs. "The bottleneck is and remains in uranium enrichment," says Dr. Heinonen, now senior fellow at Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, adding that the report shows Iran is making only slow progress in enriching uranium.