What to do with the crown jewels of Iran’s nuclear program

Excerpt

Israel’s acquisition in early 2018 of a significant portion of Iran’s nuclear archive, which details an effort to build five nuclear weapons and prepare an underground nuclear test site in the early 2000s, has revealed an unpleasant truth: Iran has been in violation of the spirit, if not the letter, of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the 2015 nuclear deal, and other non-proliferation commitments. This finding is supported by the recent U.S. State Department’s arms compliance report that “Iran’s retention of the archives … raise[s] serious questions regarding whether Iran intended to preserve the option to resume elements of a nuclear weapons program in the future.”

David Albright is president and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security in Washington, D.C. Olli Heinonen is former deputy director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency and head of its Department of Safeguards. He is a senior advisor on science and nonproliferation at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington.