Iran Doesn’t Have Nuclear Weapons Yet. Israel Might Push Them Closer.

By Jen Kirby | October 23, 2024 | 8:05am

Photo by Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images

Big Story Israel-Iran Conflict

Iran Doesn’t Have Nuclear Weapons Yet. Israel Might Push Them Closer.

In July 2020, an explosion damaged a facility at Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facility at Natanz. Iran called it an act of “sabotage,” and it was probably right: Middle East intelligence officials told reporters that Israeli operatives planted the bomb to send a “signal to Tehran.”

This kind of sabotage – a mysterious explosion here, the assassination of a nuclear scientist there – is how Israel has gone after Iran’s nuclear program. It was one side of a shadow war that wasn’t exactly in the shadows, but it did offer a degree of plausible deniability: Israel would conduct these covert operations, and Iran waged a proxy war against Israel and its allies in the region. But Israel’s hot war in the Middle East over the past year has pushed Israel and Iran into direct confrontation – and now raises the possibility of Israel pursuing a much more unambiguous and provocative attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

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Such a strike risks seriously escalating the war between Israel and Iran, potentially pulling the United States fully in. And a targeted attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may achieve the opposite of what Israel, and the U.S., says it wants: potentially pushing Iran closer to the bomb.

Israel is currently reassuring the United States that it will not strike Iran’s nuclear facilities or oil installations as it plans its retaliation against Iran for its October 1 missile barrage on Israeli territory. Iran fired nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israeli military installations over Israel expanding its war in Lebanon against Hezbollah — Iran’s most important proxy militia — and killing its leader, Hassan Nasrallah. It was an aggressive response by Tehran, and the largest attack on Israeli territory since April, when hostilities between Iran and Israel spilled out into the open.

The U.S. fears any attack on sensitive nuclear or energy infrastructure might further inflame Iran, leading to an escalatory and unpredictable spiral. Israel has said it is eyeing military targets, but exactly what that means is murky, and not exactly a guarantee of restraint – or a guarantee that Iran will temper its response. Leaked intelligence documents posted on a Telegram channel over the weekend suggested Israel is readying long-range systems, but didn’t include details on specific targets. The U.S. deployed 100 troops to Israel and a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD) to defend against a potentially strong Iranian response. Israel has reportedly asked the U.S. if it would be cool if it could have one more of a limited number of THAADs, despite the potential strains it would place on the U.S. military.

Israel may be feeling emboldened to really pressure Iran right now: it has just killed Hamas’s leader Yahya Sinwar and has severely degraded Hezbollah’s capabilities. This has, by extension, weakened Iran, which funded and relied on militias like Hezbollah and Hamas to confront Israel. Israel’s tactical successes have only intensified its campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon, despite some urging from the U.S. that now is the time for a ceasefire. If Israel feels like it’s on a roll, it might not pass up an opportunity to go after Iran. That may force Iran, in turn, to raise the costs for Israel.

“In the second round, there’s far less confidence that the Israelis will not strike nuclear facilities or oil installations,” said Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “The fact is that we’re in an escalatory cycle – and the first step is far less relevant than what the last step is.”

This escalatory ladder may also push Iran to reconsider its own nuclear position – that is, go all-in on nukes. After Israel’s counter-strike against an Iranian military facility in April, Iran publicly threatened a change in its nuclear stance if its atomic facilities were targeted. Iran has greatly advanced its nuclear program, wildly in breach of the limits set by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), otherwise known as the Iran nuclear deal, which Donald Trump pulled out of in 2018. Iran says its program is just for civilian purposes, often citing a fatwa from the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that forbids weapons of mass destruction. The U.S. and its allies have challenged that idea – asserting that its uranium enrichment levels are far beyond the needs of such a program.

At this point though, U.S. intelligence still says that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon. “We do not see evidence today that the Supreme Leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponization program,” CIA Director Bill Burns said in October.

But Israel’s military campaigns may force Iran to reconsider its own security in the region. Tehran has relied on its proxy militias and its missile and drone capabilities to expand its regional influence and deter Israel, but without a direct confrontation. Those two key pillars of Iran’s approach are flailing, and so it may change its calculus on nuclear weapons.

There’s a “strong case being made that, look, Iran is already paying the cost for having a nuclear bomb, and it’s being made into a pariah state by the West without actually having the bomb,” said Ellie Geranmayeh, Deputy Director, Middle East and North Africa program at the European Council on Foreign Relations, of the Iran’s current debate. “So why not go for it?”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Iran’s Nuclear Program

Earlier this month, CBS moderators of the vice-presidential debate kicked off with a wild question:

“Iran is weakened, but the U.S. still considers it the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world, and it has drastically reduced the time it would take to develop a nuclear weapon. It is down now to one or two weeks’ time. Governor Walz, if you are the final voice in the Situation Room, would you support or oppose a preemptive strike by Israel on Iran?”

Both veep candidates mostly dodged the question, which was probably the right move, as the whole point was misleading. The exact time it might take for Iran to weaponize is really unclear. But it is almost certainly more than a couple of weeks.

What Iran is a few weeks away from is possessing enough of the material that would go into a nuclear weapon. Earlier this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that Iran had accelerated the production of uranium enriched to near-weapons grade, in this case 60 percent. This is not weapons-grade – that would be about 90 percent. But it is still concerning, because going from 60 percent to 90 percent enrichment is not a huge jump in terms of technical capabilities. Basically, the higher you are, the easier the process gets, and the so-called “breakout time” – having enough fuel for a bomb – shrinks. The JCPOA sought to limit Iran’s break-out time by capping Iran’s enrichment levels, and how much enriched uranium it could stockpile.

Tehran has now blown through those restrictions, possessing some 30 times the level of enriched uranium allowed for in the JCPOA, according to the IAEA. International watchdogs have also called out Iran for not being fully transparent about its nuclear activities, but based on what they do know, no strictly peaceful or civilian program would need this much stockpiled enriched uranium.

But having enough material for a nuke is not the same as having a nuke. Iran needs to get all this material into a warhead, and it must get that warhead onto a missile, and this is a complex process. Iran would probably want to have more than one nuke, too. According to a report from the Congressional Research Service, the State Department said in 2022 it would take Iran about a year to make one weapon. A 2024 U.S. intelligence assessment concluded that Iran is not pursuing the bomb, but its activities since 2020 put it into a “better position … to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”

As Darya Dolzikova, a research fellow in proliferation and nuclear policy at the Royal United Services Institute in London said, this political decision is as critical as Iran’s technical capabilities.

“The risk that you run is that, if Iran’s not made that decision to weaponize, yet, if you do militarily attack those facilities, you might actually push Iran towards a decision to weaponize, because it decides that that’s what it needs,” Dolzikova said. “It needs that nuclear deterrent to keep itself safe.”

Is This Pushing Iran Closer to the Bomb?

Iran has officially been out of compliance with the JCPOA since 2019, after the Trump administration imposed “maximum pressure” sanctions, which have strangled Iran’s economy, but have not slowed its nuclear activities, weapons-making, or regional ambitions. Israel’s sabotage operations have delayed or disrupted Iran’s nuclear program, but it has failed to halt them completely – and in some cases, have prompted Iran to double down and accelerate uranium enrichment.

The Biden administration tried to resurrect a version of the JCPOA, but it wasn’t an early priority, and by the time it was on the agenda, Washington and Tehran had little trust between them; neither could overcome the prickly reality that even if they returned to the deal, the next (or same) guy could tear it right back up. Iran now has a more moderate government in place after surprise elections this year, and new Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has signaled a desire to re-engage with the U.S. on the nuclear negotiations. But the more favorable politics in Tehran collide with the spiraling regional war and a confrontation with Israel that make any such discussions politically impossible right now.

But if the past few years are a guide, sanctions and military operations have failed to fully upend Iran’s nuclear ambitions – which would seem to undermine the case for a direct military strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Israel could likely successfully target and damage some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but it would be extremely difficult to penetrate them or destroy them. Iran’s nuclear program is diffuse, spread out among many sites and its enrichment facilities are hardened and do not make easy military targets. Iran will deploy its own air defenses, and while Israel thinks its air force could take those out, it does not mean it can actually hit the nuclear sites. Natanz, one of Iran’s main enrichment facilities, is deep underground. Another, Fordow, is built into the side of the mountain.

Only the U.S. likely has the bunker-busting bombs to penetrate these facilities, and even then, it’s not clear if those would do the trick. Even if the U.S. supplied these weapons to Israel, they could not use them because it doesn’t have the B-2 bombers it would need to drop them. This means a meaningful strike on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure would likely require U.S. engagement, which then puts the U.S. and its own troops in the region at incredible risk.

That dangerous escalation, again, is not assured to end Iran’s nuclearization. “I don’t think that, at this point, elimination of the Iranian nuclear program through military means is actually possible because the program is so advanced,” said Dolzikova. Iran already has the expertise, and such a strike might push Iran to disperse its facilities even more, or harden them further, making them harder to reach or track. “Now, don’t get me wrong, a military strike could roll back the program,” Dolzikova added. “It could roll it back considerably. But again, it wouldn’t eliminate the program.”

Despite the colossal risks, with unpredictable outcomes, some hawks are cheering such an operation in Jerusalem and Washington. But even if it doesn’t happen this time, the prospect of a direct strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities looms as long as Israel is expanding its regional war. That may be enough to back Iran into going all-in on the bomb.

“The Netanyahu government has sought to exploit and capitalize on Iran’s strategic patience, knowing that Iran doesn’t want this war and thinking right now is the time to hit as much as possible – to test every Iranian red line,” Geranmayeh said. “So I think now there is a much greater force behind this argument that really just like Pakistan and India, we need to go nuclear against Israel, as the Middle East nuclear power, and only the mutual assurance of destruction will assure us the security, the regime’s stability, that the leadership in the Islamic Republic are seeking.”

The mutually assured destruction of nuclear weapons can sometimes have a stabilizing effect (Israel won’t admit it, but it almost certainly has them). That is quite the existential gamble, especially in the Middle East. Iran’s nuclearization might set off an arms race as others, like Saudi Arabia, believe they need to pursue capabilities. And a nuclear Iran might be an unleashed Iran: it can use the militias and its conventional missiles all the more boldly knowing that the U.S. and its allies might have to temper its retaliations.

That would make Iran a far bigger threat to the U.S. and Israel than it is now. Iran has not yet crossed that nuclear red line, and it may never do so. But bombing Iran may end up being its most persuasive argument in favor of the bomb. “The voices that oppose the idea of not building a bomb are much louder, more numerous,” Parsi said, of the nuclear debate within Iran. “I’m not saying they’re a majority. But the momentum is clearly on their side.”