By Noureddine Omar | 2025-09-11

Europe's leading powers are stepping up pressure on Iran to confront its nuclear violations, with experts warning that Tehran's secrecy over enriched uranium and its ballistic missile projects poses escalating dangers for the Middle East and beyond.

International affairs researcher and lecturer Mai Abdul Rahman said France, Germany and the United Kingdom have reached an impasse with Tehran after repeated evidence showed enrichment far above peaceful needs.

The Iranian Regime continues to deny the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) access to verify the quantities of enriched uranium and the sites where they are stored, she told Al-Fassel.

She warned that the regime's nuclear and missile activities have become weapons programs that directly threaten regional countries and "can only be deterred through United Nations (UN) sanctions."

Under UN definitions, Iran's ballistic missiles are considered capable of delivering nuclear warheads.

On September 8, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi cautioned that time is running out for Tehran to allow full verification measures, Reuters reported.

"There is still time, but not much," he said in Vienna, stressing that a conclusion must be reached within days to resume the agency's "indispensable work."

Grossi reminded Iran that its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty remain binding despite any domestic laws enacted after the June strikes on Fordo, Natanz and other enrichment sites.

Sanctions squeeze

Existing sanctions are crippling Iran's ability to fund nuclear and missile ventures, military expert Jamil Abu Hamdan told Al-Fassel.

Iran's economy is already under severe strain, with the currency down more than 80%, oil revenues in free fall and banking restrictions cutting the country off from the global financial system.

Technology bans have also starved the programs of critical components.

Abu Hamdan said additional enforcement would amount to a blockade, leaving Iran unable to sustain the schemes it uses to project power abroad.

Such measures, he added, would deal an even heavier blow to the proxy network Tehran relies on to extend influence, as financing and logistics dry up.

The regime's allies, from Hizbullah to the Houthis, would face deeper funding cuts that undermine its regional strategy.

At the same time, ordinary Iranians bear the economic cost of their government's nuclear adventurism and defiance.

The convergence of economic decline, weakened proxies and sustained military pressure will eventually force Iran back to the negotiating table, the experts predicted.

Tehran must reopen its facilities to inspectors, account for its uranium stockpile and resume nuclear talks.

Without these steps, the experts concluded, the regime faces deeper economic collapse, harsher sanctions and further exposure as a government driven into isolation and weakness by its own reckless course.