The heated debate between US President Donald Trump and Iran’s negotiating team around the IAEA’s inspections on the regime’s nuclear sites is missing a critical point.
Some are demanding that the IAEA inspectors regain their “full” access from 2021 (before Iran started to limit it), or that they receive better access than they had during the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. These demands ignore that what will be investigated in the current day is not the same as it was in 2015.
From 2015 to June 2025, Iran had three major nuclear enrichment facilities at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow. There were dozens of other, smaller nuclear sites, some of which the IAEA also had access to, but around 20,000 of Iran’s centrifuges (particularly its more advanced ones) were located at the three major sites.
The IAEA’s main mission was to monitor the sites’ enrichment levels and installations of new centrifuges.
Inspection would revolve mainly around future capabilities
Why would their current-day mission be any different? Because all of these sites have been bombed.
There are either zero or near-zero centrifuges to monitor.
This means that most of the monitoring is not about an existing nuclear program, but about listing what pieces of that program still function and ensuring that they are not rejuvenated.
Possibly the IAEA’s most pivotal mission will be retrieving and either removing or monitoring the dilution of over 400 kilograms of Iran’s 60% enriched uranium, which has been buried deep under rubble since the three main nuclear sites were struck in June 2025. It will also be critical for the IAEA inspectors to ensure disposal or dilution of the regime’s 20% enriched uranium.
Iran’s giving up or diluting its 60% enriched uranium is the central concession it has made to make the current deal possible. It will likely take weeks, if not months, of using special machines and protective suits to retrieve and dispose of the uranium.
The IAEA has a complex task to handle. It must deal with both the 60% enriched uranium as well as the 20% variant, and it is unclear how long it will take to locate and dispose of the latter.
Thus, within months of Iran allowing access to its uranium, many of the IAEA inspectors may be able to leave Iran because they have little to do.
IAEA inspectors could utilize intel from agencies such as Mossad, CIA in the future
It may be important for a handful of IAEA inspectors to regularly examine the old sites. Notably, however, there is significant evidence that the Islamic regime may have decided to abandon these sites due to the extensive damage they sustained. For Iran, building new sites makes more sense.
Because of this, IAEA inspectors will need to focus on the new, unknown facilities once they have dealt with the older sites’ stores of uranium. The IAEA must also prevent Iran from building more facilities, which it has often done in the past.
It is unclear if the IAEA is properly equipped for these tasks.
The IAEA will need to have teams stationed in Iran in case a new situation arises, or when the Mossad, CIA, or other Western intelligence services provide them with surveillance of suspicious areas.
The deal’s lifeline is the core role that IAEA inspections will play. To that end, it must have immediate access to suspicious facilities.
This assumes that the deal prevents Iran from enriching uranium for 15-20 years. To use the terms of the 2015 deal for a moment, this would presume that, after the roughly 20-year period, Iran would only enrich uranium to the 3.67% level.
If and when the new deal allows Iran to enrich at a low level, then the IAEA inspection team would go back to its 2015 monitoring role of the centrifuges.
Regarding the new nuclear sites, the most important one for the IAEA inspectors to gain access to is Pickaxe Mountain. Iran has been building this facility since 2021, but, to date, has not viewed it as operational.
The US and Israel have not attacked Pickaxe Mountain yet. This is likely because the facility is entrenched deep into the mountain, even deeper than Fordow’s underground facility.
However, it will be critical for the IAEA inspectors to establish that the site is not operational and is not being used for nuclear-related activities.
The IAEA inspectors must be given access to any site that has 60% or 20% enriched uranium to ensure that all of the uranium is properly disposed of.
Conversely, the inspectors may only need temporary access to sites that do not have enriched uranium or fully built centrifuges or weapons. Their temporary access will ensure that nothing dangerous is concealed at these sites.
These conditions could allow both sides to declare victory.
The US gets extensive access to the sites that truly matter, and can perform snap inspections as required. Meanwhile, Iran could say it merely gave access to sites that are less important or were destroyed.
Regardless of how the two sides negotiate this issue, it is critical to understand that the inspection game is now completely different from what it was before. Most of the components key to Iran’s nuclear program have been destroyed. Now, the aim of the game isn’t to monitor a living program – it’s to ensure that the plug is pulled on what’s left of it.
