“We are still a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.” [Just not at Fordow, Natanz or Isfahan.]
I almost admire the nerve. That’s Esmaeil Baghaei, the regime’s foreign ministry spokesman,on November 3.
Your nuclear sites were bombed in June 2025, the country was hit again this year, and the shooting hasn’t really stopped. You don’t hand the IAEA a fresh map of what’s left until its chief, Rafael Grossi, condemns the people doing the bombing. Meanwhile you haven’t suspended a single NPT commitment, and inspectors were at the Bushehr plant days before November 9. I’ll give him Bushehr. One open door doesn’t vouch for the locked ones, and a member that prices an inspection at an apology from the inspector has turned the treaty into a ransom note.
The agency hasn’t had access to those key sites since the June 2025 war hit them, and I’m an IT professional: nobody in my trade accepts “trust me, it’s patched” from a box they haven’t been allowed to log into for seventeen months, least of all when every attack (June 2025, February 28, 2026, whichever comes next) turns into one more reason to keep the door shut. It’s a gym membership. The card stays in your wallet, you never show up, and when the front desk calls you tell them you’ll come back once they apologize for the parking lot.
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons even has a door. Its Article X lets a member walk out on three months’ notice to the other parties and the Security Council when extraordinary events have jeopardized its supreme interests, and Mohsen Rezaei of the regime’s Supreme National Security Council said on state television that “it is unclear whether we will remain in the NPT after any future war.” So why not leave? I think the card is worth more to the occupying force than the inspections cost it: it buys a seat at every table and the word “peaceful” in every communique.
My ruling: FAIL, for a regime that wants the card without the inspections. When the Persian people write the next membership form, I’ll gladly lend them my pen; it’s been inspected.