While the rest of the world is busy with wars in Gaza and Ukraine, Iran is closer than ever to having the ability to produce several nuclear weapons. In recent weeks, Iran has installed 1,400 next-generation centrifuges at a deeply buried facility that is virtually impervious to bunker-buster bombs.
Along with the dramatic technological upgrade came another worrisome change: For the first time, some in Iran’s ruling elite have abandoned the country’s decades-long insistence that its nuclear program is entirely for peaceful purposes. Instead, they have begun to openly embrace the logic of having a nuclear bomb, arguing that recent missile exchanges with Israel underscore Iran’s need for a stronger deterrent.
In interviews with more than a dozen U.S., European, Iranian and Israeli officials and outside experts, the cumulative effect of the move was clear: Iran has solidified its status as a “threshold” nuclear state, walking right up to the line of building a nuclear weapon without crossing it.
U.S. officials are divided over whether Iran is ready to take that final step, or whether it will decide it is safer and more effective to remain on the brink of possessing a nuclear weapons capability without publicly abandoning its last commitment as a party to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Most of the officials spoke on condition of anonymity because much about Iran’s nuclear program, from assessments of its current status to covert operations to infiltrate and hinder its development, is highly classified.
They warned that while Iran could now produce fuel for three or more bombs in a matter of days or weeks, it would still take considerable time — perhaps 18 months — to turn that fuel into a warhead that could be delivered by a missile like the one it fired at Israel in April.
But Iran’s nuclear expansion comes at the most delicate moment.
Iranians are acutely aware of the U.S. determination to avoid a wider conflict in the Middle East, and private messaging between Washington and Tehran has highlighted the danger. A senior administration official said the Iranians themselves know they have much to lose if the war expands.
However, as one European diplomat involved in discussions with Tehran said, if Iran had begun enriching uranium at current levels several years ago, when the region was not so dangerous, Israel would almost certainly have considered a military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has come close to ordering such action several times in the past, but he has said little about Iran’s recent military buildup as he focuses on the war with Hamas in Gaza and the risk of an open conflict with Hezbollah that could spill over to the Lebanese border. Now, however, Israeli officials say they are refocusing on Iran’s recent advances.
They are also concerned about changes in the way Iran talks about its long-term nuclear program, which Israel — sometimes with active U.S. involvement — has sought to undermine in recent years.
As Iranians prepare to vote Friday to elect a successor to President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash last month along with his foreign minister, top Iranian officials have abandoned their routine assurances that Iran’s nuclear program is for peaceful purposes only. An official close to Iran’s supreme leader recently declared that Iran would “rethink its nuclear strategy” if it faced an existential threat.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Galant raised the issue of Iran’s nuclear expansion in meetings this week with Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III and CIA Director William J. Burns, according to people familiar with the matter.
In April, Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, most of which were intercepted by Israel. But the attack, in retaliation for an Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Syria that killed several Iranian armed forces commanders, was a serious escalation. U.S. officials and outside experts concluded that the Iranians likely concluded from the experience that the country needs a stronger deterrent.
“Iran is sending a clear signal that if the pressure of sanctions continues, if the assassination of its commanders continues, if Washington or Israel decides to tighten the noose, then it will break all the chains,” said Hossein Alizadeh, a former Iranian diplomat who defected in 2010 and now lives in Britain.
Based on production statistics from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which still does not have full access to Iran’s nuclear facilities, independent agencies estimate that Iran has now enriched uranium to 60% purity, enough to make at least three nuclear weapons and convert it into bomb-grade fuel within days or weeks.
Nuclear expert David Albright said in an interview that Iran should be able to double that stockpile within weeks or months once it finishes installing new centrifuges at its underground Fordow facility.
Although it would still be more than a year before a weapon could actually be produced, the question is whether U.S. or Israeli spy agencies would be able to detect and prevent such a move.
The United States, Germany, Britain and France highlighted the dangers in a statement issued on Monday.
“Iran is increasing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium to levels unprecedented for a country without a nuclear weapons program,” the countries said, adding that “there is no credible civilian justification for such activities.”
Facility retained, deal abandoned
The last time Washington felt it faced a true nuclear crisis with Iran was in 2013, when President Barack Obama sent Mr. Burns, then a senior State Department official, and Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., to explore the possibility of a deal with the newly elected Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani.
Burns and Sullivan have very different roles today, but they remain key figures in deciding how to respond to Iran’s expanding nuclear capabilities. They reached a six-month deal to limit Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in sanctions relief. Then came intense, on-and-off negotiations to reach a permanent agreement, culminating in a deal in mid-2015.
Under the terms of the deal, 97% of Iran’s nuclear fuel was to be shipped to Russia, which was working with the United States, the European Union, Britain, France, Germany and China to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.
But negotiators at the time acknowledged that the deal had weaknesses.
Iran insisted that its main uranium enrichment facilities must remain, rejecting U.S. and European demands that they be dismantled. As a result, the underground facility at Fordow remained, producing non-nuclear material – a concession that the chief U.S. negotiator called “bitter fruit” at the time.
The same is true for the main uranium enrichment facility at Natanz, which is closer to the surface and easier to destroy. (Iran is currently building a deep underground facility at Natanz, but U.S. intelligence officials estimate that it will take several years to be completed.)
Although the U.S. and Israeli air forces frequently practice bombing Fordow and even built a mock-up of the site in the Nevada desert, military officials say it would take repeated, precision strikes by the nation’s largest “bunker busters” to reach that deep.
Despite harsh condemnation of the nuclear deal by Republican members of Congress nine years ago, Iran initially complied with its terms, limiting its production of nuclear fuel to a small fraction. IAEA inspectors come and go regularly, and the agency’s cameras monitor the chain of custody of Iran’s fuel around the clock, despite debate over whether to reconstruct a history of Iran’s past activities.
Moreover, Iran has developed new IR-6 centrifuges, which can produce fuel much faster than the old IR-1 centrifuges that have struggled for years, largely under the watchful eye of inspectors, as it prepares for the day when it can install the new machines as required by the deal.
Then President Donald J. Trump abandoned the 2015 deal. He argued that reimposing sanctions would destroy the Iranian regime and predicted that Iran would beg for a new deal.
Trump was wrong on both counts. The Iranians slowly began to restart the plant. They removed some cameras and barred some inspectors. They began enriching uranium to 60 percent purity—bringing Iran closer to making bomb fuel than it had been 11 years earlier when Burns and Sullivan were sent in for secret negotiations.
The Biden administration’s efforts to reestablish key elements of the deal failed in 2022. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said after a recent visit to Tehran that the 2015 deal, which Trump withdrew from, is now dead.
“No one applied it, no one followed it,” he recently told a Russian newspaper. “There were attempts to revive it in Vienna. But unfortunately, although they came relatively close, they failed for reasons I don’t know.”
Weapons denial plan begins to unravel
Iran insists it cannot build or use nuclear weapons under a 2003 fatwa, or religious decree, issued by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It says the fatwa remains in effect even after Israel stole and released a massive archive of Iranian documents that made clear Iran was trying to design a nuclear weapon.
U.S. officials say there is no evidence that Iran is currently working to weaponize near-nuclear-grade uranium; Israelis believe such efforts are indeed taking place under the guise of university research.
For Iran, the risk of weaponization is high. Although Iran has removed or disabled some of the IAEA cameras, it is clear that the program is deeply penetrated by Israeli, American and British intelligence agencies.
The cat-and-mouse game between inspectors and Israeli and Western spies has been going on for years. But the most recent nuclear expansion can be traced back to missile launches in April, when Iran and Israel teetered on the brink of war.
Soon thereafter, three senior officials close to Khamenei began to assert that Iran’s no-weapons policy could be rescinded if it faced an existential threat. (Shia Islam allows clerics to rescind edicts and fatwas to reflect the demands of the times.)
The officials are Khamenei’s foreign policy adviser and former foreign minister Kamal Kharrazi, prominent diplomat Abbas Araghchi, a former deputy foreign minister and nuclear negotiator for the 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, and General Ahmad Haq Taleb, a member of the Revolutionary Guards and commander responsible for protecting and safeguarding Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Gen. Haqq Talab said in a speech in mid-April that if Israel threatened Iran’s nuclear facilities, “it is entirely possible and conceivable that the Islamic Republic of Iran would reconsider its nuclear doctrine and policy and change its previously stated positions.”
Weeks later, Kharrazi told Al Jazeera that Iran had the capability to build a nuclear bomb but had not yet decided to do so.
“If Iran’s survival is threatened, we will have no choice but to change our nuclear policy,” he said.
In late May, Araghchi told a conference in Doha, Qatar, that the Israeli attack “could force other countries to reconsider their security calculations and nuclear posture.”
The statements appear to be coordinated, or at least reflect a debate within Iranian power circles over whether the country should weaponize its nuclear program and build a bomb, according to four Iranian officials, including diplomats and members of the Revolutionary Guard, all of whom are aware of the ongoing strategic debate.
Sharp divisions remain, but “many Iranians are now beginning to believe and speak out that, given all the threats we face, building a nuclear deterrent is not just a military strategy,” said Mehdi Chadganipour, who served as an adviser to former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. “It is pure common sense.”
