SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Trump has announced that the United States will strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain "very heavily" and "pretty soon." Under the IAEA's own legal framework, this raises a serious issue.

https://x.com/RezaNasri1/status/2079647036916601039

Trump has announced that the United States will strike Iran's Pickaxe Mountain "very heavily" and "pretty soon." Under the IAEA's own legal framework, this raises a serious issue. The prohibition is not limited to an actual attack on a nuclear installation; a threat of armed attack against a nuclear facility is itself treated as unlawful.

For four decades, the IAEA General Conference has affirmed by consensus that attacks on peaceful nuclear facilities — and threats to carry them out — violate the UN Charter, international law, and the IAEA Statute. The principle was established after Israel's 1981 attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor, when the Security Council, through Resolution 487, condemned the strike as a clear violation of the UN Charter and affirmed the applicable prohibition.

The General Conference then went further. In 1985 it declared that any armed attack on, or threat against, nuclear facilities constituted a violation of the Charter, international law, and the Statute. In 1990 it stated that a threat of armed attack against a safeguarded nuclear facility created a situation requiring immediate action by the Security Council, a position reaffirmed in 2009.

This is not a fringe interpretation or an argument resting on political rhetoric. It reflects a position adopted repeatedly by the IAEA across decades. The legal issue arises not only when the first bomb falls, but the moment a credible threat is made. 

Two questions therefore demand an answer.

First, why has the Security Council not convened? In 1981, faced with an accomplished attack on a reactor, it acted through Resolution 487. Today, faced with an openly declared threat against a safeguarded facility — precisely the situation the General Conference in 1990 said required immediate Council action — it remains silent. If the Osirak precedent carries any weight, the threat alone is enough to place the matter before it.

Second, why is the Director General, @rafaelmgrossi
, not addressing this urgently? The Agency's emergency mechanisms are already monitoring developments in Iran, and he has a clear duty to act. If the IAEA's established principles are to mean anything, the Director General cannot remain silent while a direct, public threat is made against a nuclear installation.