Afrasianet - Almahfouz Fadili - Without explicit reference to his position as director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Argentine diplomat Rafael Grossi, in an interview with a British newspaper a year ago, did not hide his fear of the nature of his work and the gravity of the responsibility he bears, saying: "A mistake in some jobs would cause a war that could end the world." Grossi's prophecy was believed in mid-June as the United States and Israel tried to cancel or at least disrupt Iran's nuclear program, using air weapons with their caliber weapons. different.
In the midst of that war, which Israel began with a large-scale airstrike on Iranian targets on June 13, Grossi found himself at the forefront of events because the issue of nuclear weapons was the pretext with which Israel justified its military action, and what is more, the timing of the attack came a day after Grossi's statements on the same issue.
Unusually, Grossi said in undiplomatic language on June 12 that Iran's growing stockpile of highly enriched uranium and lingering questions about its program remain serious issues, and that the IAEA will not be in a position to assert that Iran's nuclear program is exclusively peaceful unless Iran helps it resolve outstanding safeguards issues.
This is how the highly visible diplomat and lover of Italian suits found himself in the middle of a political storm, like someone who involuntarily set a fire and had to do everything in his power to put out the flames.
Although Grossi has always emphasized the IAEA's neutrality, technical oversight role, and precision, this was not always the case for Iranian officials, who saw him as a partner in this war and hinted that he could be prosecuted.
Grossi's controversial comments came amid a vote by the IAEA Board of Governors on the same day on a resolution declaring for the first time in nearly 20 years Iran's non-compliance with its non-proliferation obligations.
If Grossi's prophecy about the missile confrontations between Israel and Iran came true, did his suggestion on the same occasion (an interview with a British newspaper) that any mistake by a senior official could cause a war that would end the world?
The answer to this question lies with the Iranian side, which has long considered the IAEA to be non-neutral. The Iranian Foreign Ministry described the decision of the IAEA Board of Governors as "political and reveals its nature," noting that "the policy of cooperation with the IAEA has backfired due to political dealing."
In the midst of the raging war between Israel and Iran, Grossi has mobilized his diplomatic and communication skills and knowledge of the Iranian nuclear file to play the agency's role as a "nuclear policeman," proving with his own strength that he was not the cause of its outbreak.
Grossi's first remarks focused on the vulnerability of Iran's nuclear facilities to Israeli airstrikes and warning of the risk of radiation leakage from those strikes.
Grossi seemed consistent with the IAEA's role, which was established in 1957 (4 years before his birth), to maintain the integrity of nuclear power plants and to prevent the smuggling of their fuel and waste into nuclear weapons.
He said that Iran had informed him in a June 13 letter that it would take special measures to protect nuclear equipment and materials, and that he had urged Tehran to notify the IAEA of any transfer of nuclear material from a safeguarded facility to another location.
Grossi's concern for the safety of nuclear facilities and his fear of nuclear leakage or radiation stems from his thorough knowledge of nuclear affairs, as evidenced by his employment record, and confirmed by his photos at the Zaporizhia plant in Ukraine dressed as a UN inspector inspecting the plant's facilities and inspecting with his hands some technical purposes.
Beginnings
At the age of 24, Grossi began his diplomatic career in 1985 as part of a department formed the same year at the Argentine Foreign Ministry to dismantle a secret uranium enrichment facility in central Patagonia set up by the former military regime as part of an arms race against Brazil.
Thus, the young diplomat, obsessed with history and a graduate of the Department of Political Science at the University of Buenos Aires, spent 6 months at that nuclear facility to familiarize himself with the practical aspects of nuclear industry and technology.
Grossi has visited many of Iran's nuclear facilities, saying in an interview with the Financial Times days before the outbreak of war with Israel, commenting on some aspects of Iran's nuclear program: "The most sensitive things are located half a mile underground. I've been there many times. To get there, you have to take a spiral tunnel and go down deep
In addition to the safety of nuclear facilities, Grossi sought in his remarks to prove that the IAEA had nothing to do with Israel's decision to launch its attack on Iran under the pretext of a "pre-emptive strike to prevent the Iranian nuclear threat."
Faced with the worsening crisis and the intensification of the war between Israel and Iran, Grossi has tried to soften statements he made on the eve of the military confrontation, saying on several occasions, including an interview with Al Jazeera English broadcast on June 19, that there is no evidence to suggest that Iran has made a systematic effort to develop a nuclear weapon.
That statement was not enough to extinguish the anger of Iranian officials, who did not keep blaming the UN official for what they call "external aggression" against their country, to the extent that Tehran accused the International Atomic Energy Agency of being a "partner" in that war.
Grossi's new remarks did not dampen the anger of officials in Iran, and its foreign ministry said his comments about Tehran not seeking a nuclear weapon were too late and reiterated that the IAEA report unveiled on June 12 was biased and used by Israel as a pretext for aggression against Iran.
Iran's former foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, went so far in the attack on Grossi, saying that "he should be prosecuted for complicity in the deaths of innocent people in Iran as a result of Israeli aggression using his reporting as a pretext," and asserting that the agency's irresponsible and misleading report caused irreparable damage.
Iranian officials have also grown increasingly dissatisfied with Grossi's "silence" in the face of Israeli attacks on nuclear facilities operating under IAEA safeguards.
Iran has accused the IAEA of leaking classified information to the United States and Israel about its nuclear program that was revealed in private conversations between Iranian officials and IAEA representatives. It also accused it of leaking information about Iranian nuclear scientists, facilitating their assassination in the recent Israeli attack.
Attempts to correct
After the United States entered the frontline between Iran and Israel and bombed nuclear facilities in Isfahan, Natanz and Fordow, Grossi continued his role in ensuring the safety of nuclear facilities, saying that US air strikes using bunker-piercing bombs likely caused serious damage inside those facilities, and that Iran informed the IAEA that no increase in radiation levels had been recorded outside the three facilities.
As the war intensified, Grossi made a torrent of statements asserting that "there is no evidence of Iran's military nuclear program, and that the IAEA reports do not justify military action against Iran."
Political decision
He said in interviews with US media: Launching war on Tehran is a purely political decision and is not based on technical reports from the International Agency on Nuclear Affairs.
Grossi reiterated his comment on the report issued the day before the start of the Israeli attack on Iran, explaining that it "does not contain new information, nor does it indicate the existence of a systematic Iranian program to produce nuclear weapons," noting that some activities related to the production of nuclear weapons were recorded in the early 2000s, but no longer exist.
Sada Iraq
The synchronization between the IAEA report and the Israeli attack on Iran recalled the charged diplomatic and political momentum that preceded the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, against the background of the suspected possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The similarity between the two events lies in the fact that the foreground at the time was a former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, who in 2002 led the search team for Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
The Panel was not allowed to complete its inspection mission, and Blix later accused the United States and Britain after the invasion of Iraq of inflating pre-war intelligence to strengthen their position calling for the use of force against Saddam's regime, which was later found to be non-existent.
Like his Swedish predecessor, who was associated with a pivotal incident in the Middle East whose repercussions are still interacting today, Grossi, who was raised in an elite family and whose father was a journalist and writer, is currently in a sensitive position due to his daily and direct engagement with nuclear concerns in more than one place.
Over the years, Grossi has become one of the most active and visible leaders of the Vienna-based atomic agency since its inception, spending most of his time shuttling around the world, meeting with all the leaders involved except former North Korean leader Kim Jong Il, who closed the doors to the agency in 2009.
In his moves, Grossi is keen to increase access to as many nuclear sites as possible, to strengthen the agency, which has traditionally had limited power to compel states to comply with nonproliferation requirements.
Ask Israel!
In this context, the question arises about Israel and its relationship to non-proliferation efforts, and because it is the party that considers itself more concerned with the Iranian nuclear file than any other party.
The UN official finds more than one pretext to avoid talking about Israel's nuclear program and its threat to the security of the region, and always says that it "chose, like other countries, not to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons."
Grossi draws on his long diplomatic experience to deal with embarrassing questions about Israel and its nuclear program and the threat this poses to regional security.
In response to a specific question about which side of the nuclear program poses a real threat in the Middle East, Grossi did not hesitate to say that analysts and commentators are the ones answering this question, and it is not for the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency to judge.
When the journalist asked the question directly about Israel's possession of nuclear weapons, Grossi did not hesitate to return the ball to the journalist's box: "Ask Israel, why does it have nuclear weapons? Why are you asking me?".
Limited criticism
Grossi has not been spared from Israel's relatively limited fire, one of which dates back to March 2023 when he criticized any possible Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities, saying "any military attack on a nuclear facility is legally prohibited and goes outside the normative framework to which we are all committed."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticized the remarks, directly attacking Grossi, saying he was "a commendable person who made an inappropriate statement."
About three months later, Netanyahu accused the agency of succumbing to Iranian pressure and that it had become a political organization, but Grossi responded by asserting that the agency "will never politicize" its work in Iran, and that its work is "neutral, impartial, and technical."
Grossi continues his efforts to contain the crisis caused by the unprecedented military confrontation between Iran and Israel and its repercussions on nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic, which has decided to stop cooperating with the IAEA.
The decision poses a major challenge for Grossi and puts to the test his rich diplomatic history, during which he held several senior positions in his country's diplomatic corps, and represented it in several European capitals and international organizations.
Tehran's decision is also a difficult test for a diplomat who devoted most of his international efforts to dealing with incendiary nuclear files in more than one country, before assuming a senior position at the IAEA in 2013 and being elected in 2019 as its director, and being re-elected in 2023 for a second term ending in December 2027.
On a personal level, Grossi, who took over as assistant director of the agency in 2013, admits that his full involvement in diplomatic work was at the expense of his personal and family life, and caused him to divorce his first wife, with whom he had six daughters, before remarrying and having a son and a daughter.
The career of this Argentine diplomat, born in 1961 to parents of Italian descent, extends for about 4 decades, starting in his country's foreign ministry, and later leading him to European capitals and many international organizations, before becoming the first "nuclear policeman" in the world, under his command about 2,500 employees.
When talking about the circumstances and context of his election to head the IAEA following the sudden death of his Japanese predecessor Yukiya Amano, Grossi says it was "before anyone imagined that Europe's largest nuclear power plant (the Zaporizhia plant in Ukraine) would be on the front line of a war (between Russia and Ukraine)," or that Israel and Iran would exchange direct missile attacks for the first time since the 45-year-old Iranian revolution.
Grossi seems aspiring to take his diplomatic message to a higher level, as he makes no secret of his future ambitions, announcing in an interview with the Financial Times on 5 June 2025 that he is running for UN Secretary-General when the post becomes vacant next year.
"I'm not campaigning, my job is my campaign," Grossi said. He described the UN institution as "in a very bad situation now, the original idea is correct, but it has become huge, bureaucratic and absent from solving major international crises. You don't have to be."