An Iranian nuclear weapon just became more likely

COMMENTARY / World

An Iranian nuclear weapon just became more likely

Why Teharan now likely sees the bomb as its only protection

This satellite image taken on June 19 shows damage at the Iranian nuclear facility at Arak in central Iran after an Israeli strike. | Maxar Technologies / via AFP-JIJI

By Brahma Chellaney
Project Syndicate

Jun 27, 2025

NEW DELHI – Israel and the United States have dealt punishing blows to Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. “Operation Rising Lion” and “Operation Midnight Hammer” have been portrayed as precision strikes that will stop the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program in its tracks. But whatever the bombings might have achieved tactically, they risk forfeiting strategically, as Iran is now more convinced than ever that nuclear weapons are the only way to deter future aggression and ensure the regime’s survival.

Iran was once brought to the negotiating table through a carefully calibrated mix of pressure and incentives. Despite its imperfections, that approach worked. In 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was agreed, with Iran agreeing to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief and other concessions. But — at Israel’s urging and despite Iran’s apparent compliance — Donald Trump abandoned the JCPOA during his first term as president, destroying whatever mutual trust had been built over the course of 20 months of painstaking diplomacy.

Now, despite pursuing new nuclear negotiations with Iran, the U.S. has joined Israel in abandoning strategic patience in favor of spasmodic force. Some argue that Iran invited the attacks by deceiving the international community, stoking regional conflicts and enriching uranium to levels well beyond those needed for any civilian application. These are legitimate complaints.

Even the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in a report released just before Israel’s campaign began, raised concerns about Iran’s compliance with its international obligations. Indeed, an analysis of this report by the Institute for Science and International Security argued that “Iran can convert its current stock of 60% enriched uranium into 233 kg of [weapon-grade uranium] in three weeks at the Fordo Fuel Enrichment Plant (FFEP), enough for 9 nuclear weapons.” That conclusion may well have lit a fire under the Trump administration.

But the IAEA also concluded that it had “no credible indications of an ongoing, undeclared structured nuclear program” in Iran, while underscoring the urgency of reaching a nuclear deal. “Iran,” the agency warned, “is the only non-nuclear-weapon state in the world that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60%” — just a short technical step away from the 90% purity needed for weapons-grade material.

Even so, U.S. and Israeli decision-makers greenlit attacks on Iranian nuclear sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan — facilities that are subject to IAEA safeguards and monitored under Iran’s Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) commitments. With that, they unraveled the legal and verification framework that exists precisely to prevent weaponization.

Beyond undermining the authority of the IAEA and its inspection regime, the attacks violated the NPT’s principle of peaceful nuclear use (Article IV) and breached international law, including the United Nations Charter. The U.S., a nuclear...