Iran has given its answer on the single most important item in any peace deal. Tehran’s top security official says the regime’s enriched uranium is not leaving the country. Not to Russia, not to anyone, and not as the price of ending the war.
Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Lebanon’s Al Mayadeen TV that Iran will not allow even a single particle of enriched material to leave, Reuters reported. He added that Tehran had told Moscow the stockpile “will remain in Iran, and we will use it ourselves.”
That should settle a debate in Washington. If the regime will not give up the bomb fuel, there is no deal worth signing yet. The blockade stays, and America should be in no hurry.
What Rezaei Said About Iran’s Enriched Uranium
Rezaei offered a reason for keeping the material. “We need the enriched material to design ships and submarines that work on nuclear energy,” he said.
He also issued a threat. Any new U.S. attack, he said, would be met by strikes on American bases far from the region. That includes bases in Europe if they are used to launch strikes on Iran.
Rezaei is not a minor voice. He took over the council in August and serves as the representative of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei on it, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. He met Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Nov. 5. Russia has often been named as a possible home for the stockpile.
Moscow, for its part, has offered to take the uranium but has said the choice belongs to Tehran. Now Tehran has made it. Two senior Iranian sources told Reuters back in May that the supreme leader had already ordered that the near-weapons-grade material not be sent abroad. This week’s interview simply put that order on the record.
Rezaei also said there are no talks underway between Iran and the United States. He called reports of a recent meeting in Qatar “pure lies.”
The Numbers Behind the Enriched Uranium Stockpile
The scale of the problem is easy to lose in the headlines, so start with the inspectors’ own figures.
The International Atomic Energy Agency reports Iran’s uranium enriched up to 60% in kilograms of uranium. In February 2024, the IAEA counted 121.5 kilograms. By October 2024 it was 182.3 kilograms, the Associated Press reported.
Then Iran sped up. It reached 274.8 kilograms in February 2025 and 408.6 kilograms by May. On June 13, 2025, the day the first U.S. and Israeli strikes began, the IAEA put it at 440.9 kilograms, according to an analysis by the Institute for Science and International Security.
In other words, the stockpile more than tripled in about 16 months. For a country that says it only wants nuclear power, that is a strange shopping list.
Here is why 60% matters. It is a short technical step from the roughly 90% used in weapons. By the IAEA’s yardstick, about 42 kilograms of 60% material is enough, if enriched further, for one bomb. Divide 440.9 by 42 and you get about 10 weapons’ worth.
Nobody Can Say Where It Is
That last verified number is now 17 months old. The IAEA withdrew all of its inspectors from Iran by the end of June 2025, citing safety. Inspectors have not been able to confirm how much material survived the June strikes or where it is stored. New strikes then hit Iran’s facilities after the current war began on Feb. 28.
So when Rezaei says the uranium stays, he is also telling us something uncomfortable. Iran believes it still has a meaningful amount, and it intends to keep it out of anyone else’s hands.
The Submarine Excuse Doesn’t Hold Water
The submarine claim deserves a hard look, because it is not as random as it sounds.
Standard IAEA safeguards agreements include a clause that lets a country pull nuclear material out of inspection for non-explosive military uses, such as naval propulsion. Arms control experts have long called it a loophole. A regime that says its enriched uranium is for submarines is setting up a legal argument for keeping that material out of the inspectors’ sight.
There is also a practical problem. Iran has never built a nuclear-powered vessel. Some navies, including France’s, run their reactors on low-enriched fuel. Nothing about a future submarine program requires a country to sit on hundreds of kilograms of 60% uranium today.
A pretext is still a pretext, even when it comes with a legal footnote. Washington should treat it as one.
What Washington Says
The Trump administration has already chosen its approach. Secretary of State Marco Rubio laid it out to G7 foreign ministers in Paris on Tuesday.
“It’s not just return to war or sign a ridiculous peace deal,” Rubio said, according to three people in the room who spoke to Axios. Rubio said the U.S. would reject a bad deal. “The third option we have is to continue to do what we do now.”
What the U.S. does now is squeeze. The naval blockade of Iranian ports stays in place, along with sanctions. President Trump said Monday that new strikes were “quite unlikely.” He also announced an operation called “Iron Gate” to cut off land routes Iran uses to move weapons and technology.
Rubio told reporters that Iran’s conditions are “absurd” and “not even serious right now.” But he left the door open. “Eventually you have to eat,” he said, predicting that economic reality will wear down even hard-liners over time.
Tehran’s list of demands is long. RFE/RL reported that Iran won’t reopen the Strait of Hormuz without sanctions relief, access to frozen funds, the end of the blockade and an end to fighting across the region, especially in Lebanon. Washington, meanwhile, has said nuclear issues must be part of any first round of talks.
The Conservative Case: Keep the Squeeze
Conservatives should back the blockade strategy, and Tehran’s refusal to give up its enriched uranium is the best argument for it.
First, the price of a bad deal is too high. Any agreement that leaves 60% uranium inside Iran, uninspected, hands the regime the one thing this war was supposed to deny it. Paying for that outcome with sanctions relief or frozen funds would reward the very program that started the crisis.
Second, pressure costs far less than combat. A blockade is not free, and keeping warships on station for months is a real burden on the Navy. Still, it costs a fraction of a renewed air campaign, in money and in American lives. Fiscal conservatives should welcome a strategy that gets results without writing a new blank check. As we argued in our look at the Hegseth impeachment fight, Congress owns the war’s cost and should hold the administration to a clear plan.
Third, time is on America’s side if the pressure holds. Rubio told the G7 that the costs on Iran’s economy have no end date and that the president “is not under false time pressure.” A regime that can’t sell its oil can’t pay its fighters forever. That is leverage, and leverage compounds.
The conservative case is not reckless. It does not call for bombing on a timetable. It calls for patience backed by force, with the terms set in Washington, not Tehran.
The Honest Risks
Confidence is not the same as certainty, and readers deserve both sides.
The blockade buys time, but Iran gets the same time. A regime under siege can still repair factories, rebuild launchers and dig deeper. Rezaei’s threat against bases in Europe is a reminder that Tehran is planning for the next round, not the peace.
The bigger risk is the one on the chart. Every month without inspectors is a month in which nobody outside Iran knows what is happening to that material. Pressure without verification can drift into a stalemate that quietly favors the side hiding the uranium.
That is why the goal has to stay specific. Not “a deal.” The goal is the material out of Iran, or under full inspection, before any relief flows. We made a similar point when Iran floated its two-day Hormuz plan: read the fine print before you celebrate.
What to Watch on Iran’s Enriched Uranium
Watch Russia. Moscow is already the busiest diplomatic address in the world this week, with Ukraine talks on the table, as covered in our post on Trump’s meeting with Putin’s envoy. If Russia keeps offering to take Iran’s uranium while Tehran refuses, that tells you who really controls the stockpile.
Watch the IAEA. Any agreement that lets inspectors back in is worth more than any statement from Tehran or Washington. A deal that skips them is not worth signing.
Watch the oil flows. If Iran’s income keeps drying up, as Rubio predicts, the regime’s tone may change. If Rezaei is still saying “not a single particle” in the spring, the squeeze needs more pressure, not less.
And watch the talk about submarines. If that argument starts showing up in Iran’s formal proposals, Tehran is building a legal case for keeping its uranium for good.
Iran has made its position plain. America should make its position just as plain: no relief until the uranium is gone or under watch.
Sources
- Al-Monitor (Reuters): Iran will not allow enriched nuclear material to leave the country, security chief says (Nov. 11, 2026)
- Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: Iranian Security Chief Insists Enriched Uranium Won’t Leave Country (Nov. 11, 2026)
- Axios: Trump swung between war and diplomacy, then chose a third way (Nov. 10, 2026)
- Institute for Science and International Security: Analysis of IAEA Iran Verification and Monitoring and NPT Safeguards Reports (September 2025)
- Associated Press: Iran defies international pressure, increasing its stockpile of near weapons-grade uranium, UN says (Nov. 2024)
