TEHRAN – President Masoud Pezeshkian’s pen may have traced the contours of Iran’s break with an institution increasingly seen not as a guardian, but as a geopolitical saboteur—one with the blood of hundreds of Iranians on its hands.

On Wednesday, the Iranian President formally enacted the "Law Mandating the Government to Suspend Cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," a legislative thunderclap echoing through the halls of nuclear diplomacy.

This isn't merely a bureaucratic pause; it is Tehran's declaration that the IAEA, under Director General Rafael Grossi, has shed its impartial mantle to become a combination of an intelligence-gathering and political-pressure instrument wielded by the U.S. and the Israeli regime against Iran.

What the law demands

The law mandates the immediate “suspension of all cooperation” with the IAEA conducted under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and its associated safeguards agreements.

This step is a direct response to the "violation of national sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran by the Zionist regime and the United States of America" through their attacks on Iran's peaceful nuclear facilities, actions that have endangered Iran's “supreme national interests.”

Crucially, the suspension may not amount to a permanent disengagement. Cooperation will remain frozen until two non-negotiable conditions are met, as detailed by Ebrahim Azizi, Chairman of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee:

I. Guaranteed security: Iran's Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) must verify the restoration of absolute security for the nation's nuclear facilities and the scientists who operate them – a shield against further aggression.

II. IAEA's fundamental reformation: The Agency must undergo a demonstrable transformation, end its discriminatory practices, and unequivocally recognize Iran's inalienable rights under international law, particularly Article IV of the IAEA Statute, which explicitly guarantees all member states the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology.

Azizi underscored the gravity in a Tuesday interview, stating plainly: "How can we cooperate with an organization that prepares biased and political reports and ignores Iran’s inherent rights? The Agency must behave without discrimination and within the framework of international law towards Iran. Until this behavior change is realized, the suspension law will remain in force."

The law further stipulates that "any action or omission leading to a violation of this law is considered a crime and punishable."

A nation's fury codified

The law's journey reflects a nation reeling from betrayal and an imposed war.

Following the unprovoked U.S. bombing of Iran's civilian nuclear sites at Natanz, Fordow, and Isfahan on June 22– itself a brazen escalation after the Israeli regime launched its war on Iran on June 13, targeting commanders, scientists, and civilians – Iran's Parliament (Majlis) moved with volcanic urgency.

The bill, introduced with “double emergency status,” was a direct response to the attacks and the role of the IAEA in enabling them.

On June 25, the bill was put to a vote in the Iranian Parliament. Reflecting the national consensus and fury, it passed with overwhelming, likely unanimous, support.

The legislative process progressed swiftly, and Iran’s constitutional watchdog, the Guardian Council, reviewed and approved the law the very next day.

This rapid ratification underscored the profound breach of trust Tehran perceives. President Pezeshkian's enactment on July 2nd was the final, decisive seal on this legislative bulwark.

The IAEA's descent

Tehran's damning indictment paints a picture of an agency that has catastrophically abandoned its mandate. The core assertion is stark: the IAEA, particularly under Director General Rafael Grossi, has morphed into a dual-purpose instrument of espionage and political coercion, serving the agendas of Washington, Tel Aviv, London, Paris, and Berlin. This transformation is evident in a chain of destructive actions:

I. Politicized reporting as pretext

Grossi's May report on Iran, while later conceding in a CNN interview that the IAEA possessed "no evidence or indication that Iran's nuclear program was moving toward weaponization," was laced with ambiguity and unverified assertions.

Iranian officials, including Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, contend this was deliberate: "Through this malign action, [Grossi] directly facilitated the adoption of a politically-motivated resolution against Iran by the IAEA Board of Governors (BoG) as well as the unlawful Israeli and U.S. bombings of Iranian nuclear sites. In an astounding betrayal of his duties, he has additionally failed to explicitly condemn such blatant violations of IAEA safeguards and its Statute."

This June 12 BoG resolution, pushed by the E3 (UK, France, Germany) and the US, became the diplomatic fig leaf for aggression.

II. Enabling war through omission and action

Tehran sees a direct line from Grossi's flawed report and the subsequent BoG resolution to the military attacks.

The June 13 Israeli strikes and the June 22 U.S. bombardment were not just violations of international law and the UN Charter, but, in Iran's view, the physical manifestation of a process the IAEA enabled.

Critically, Grossi’s refusal to condemn these brazen attacks on safeguarded facilities—a flagrant breach of the Agency’s safeguards agreements and Statute—amounts to tacit endorsement and renders him complicit in the offenses.

Foreign Ministry Spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei articulated the depth of the betrayal: "We had a modest expectation from the IAEA, the Director General, and the BoG to unequivocally condemn the Israeli and American attacks on our peaceful nuclear facilities. This condemnation did not occur, and we still expect them to do so. It is their responsibility to respond to such injustices."

This follows Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) head Mohammad Eslami’s formal correspondence condemning Grossi.

III. Post-attack access: Espionage masquerading as safeguards?

Iran views Grossi's immediate demands for access to the bombed sites with profound suspicion and alarm.

Framed as necessary for safeguards verification, Tehran decodes these requests as thinly-veiled intelligence-gathering missions for the very aggressors who carried out the strikes.

Based on Grossi’s abysmal past performance, the objectives appear chillingly clear:

- Damage assessment for the aggressors: Providing the U.S. and Israel with detailed, on-the-ground evaluations of the effectiveness of their strikes – critical intelligence they currently lack.

Despite boasts from figures like U.S. President Donald Trump claiming the sites were "obliterated," U.S. and Israeli intelligence face a black hole regarding the actual damage inflicted, as evident by Washington’s Defense Intelligence Agency’s leaks to their stenographers masquerading as journalists in CNN and the New York Times. The IAEA's access would help them assess the extent of the damage to report back to the aggressors.

- The uranium hunt: Discovering the current location of Iran's highly enriched uranium (HEU), which the AEOI explicitly stated was moved before the attacks. Pinpointing this material is a top priority for Western and Israeli intelligence, determined to stop Iran’s civilian nuclear program.

- Targeting intel for future strikes: Gathering granular intelligence on Iran's reconstituted civilian nuclear program – its vulnerabilities, new locations, defensive measures – to facilitate planning for potential future military action.

Thus, from Iran’s point of view, granting access to the same organization that actively facilitated the recent, unprovoked bombardments now amounts to inviting the very spies who orchestrated the attack back in to blueprint future assaults on your vital civilian infrastructure.