The US is lobbying other countries on the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors to back a draft resolution ordering Iran to inform the agency of the fate of its nuclear sites, which Israel and the US bombed in June 2025 and again in early 2026, specifically regarding the 60% highly enriched uranium that was stored there.
Top Israeli and US officials have told The Jerusalem Post that they have their eyes fixed directly on Isfahan, Fordow, and Natanz, where huge mounds of rubble have covered the uranium and left Iran unable to access it to date.
The text of the US draft resolution, circulated ahead of this week’s quarterly meeting of the 35-nation board, and seen by Reuters on Sunday, could either help pressure Iran into a new nuclear deal with the Trump administration or lead to the Islamic regime digging in its heels since it bristles at resolutions against it at the IAEA.
One trick that Iran cannot try this time, which it had done in the past after some past condemnations, would be to increase its uranium enrichment. Following the Israeli and American attacks, it currently has no functioning centrifuges with which to enrich uranium.
Last week, the UN nuclear watchdog’s director-general, Rafael Grossi, continued to echo a message he has been delivering for years, and more intensely since June 2025, that Iran must restore his inspectors’ access to the nuclear sites.
In fact, the immediate precursor to Jerusalem and Washington attacking Tehran in June 2025 was an extended period of several years of Iran ignoring its IAEA obligations and blinding the inspectors to its nuclear progress, leading to the IAEA Board issuing a public condemnation.
Also, in September 2025, the parties to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal declared the Islamic Republic of Iran to be in material violation of the deal, leading to the snapback of UN global sanctions against it.
Iran hoping for windfall from Strait of Hormuz closure
Despite all these events, Tehran has, to date, resisted making a new deal with the Trump administration, hoping it can emerge from its deadlocked talks with a financial windfall from its move to close the Strait of Hormuz during the recent war
Iran has even bizarrely criticized the IAEA for holding it to account for years of nuclear violations, accusing Grossi of being a political tool for the West, instead of admitting to the years when the regime ignored the director-general’s pleas to cut a new nuclear deal prior to the June 2025 attacks.
While Iran is correct in that it would be challenging for the IAEA to manage to physically reach the 60% enriched uranium, which has been covered in the rubble of its bombed nuclear facilities, both the agency and the US have the capacity to do so, given sufficient time.
Most nuclear analysts say that Iran has avoided IAEA inspectors to either blind the world to any new nuclear progress it might make or to withhold how badly its program has been hit, so it can continue to inspire nuclear fear worldwide as a bargaining chip to receive nuclear sanctions relief – or a combination of the two.
Iran unable to deny nuclear program after Mossad unveiling
Iran’s nuclear program violations were exposed in 2018, when the Mossad seized original copies of its secret nuclear archives, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unveiled them to the world in a televised address from Israel’s Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv.
This made it difficult for Iran to continue to deny the existence of its nuclear weapons program and essentially forced the IAEA to demand more complete access and answers from Iran regarding the nuclear program – which the regime has continued to refuse.
Reuters contributed to this story.