Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Gambit
Ever since the United States employed nuclear weapons to bring World War II to a conclusion, many countries have viewed the possession of nuclear weapons as an insurance policy protecting their future existence. The Soviet Union was the second country to develop nuclear weapons after clandestinely acquiring key nuclear technology from a U.K. citizen (Melita Norwood) who worked in a British government nuclear research facility. In passing that information to a KGB agent Norwood committed a clear act of treason. She did so believing that the best way to prevent a nuclear holocaust was to make sure that rival nations possessed them. Underlying this conclusion is the notion that no country would use nuclear weapons if they believed that nukes might be employed against them in retaliation. So far, Norwood’s rationale has proven correct.
A seeming corollary of Norwood’s reasoning is that a country possessing nuclear weapons becomes immune to attacks by a foreign nation. This was the reasoning underlying Israel’s development of nuclear weapons beginning in the late 1950s. That theory, however, did not prevent Israel’s Arab neighboring states from attacking it in 1967 and 1973. Nevertheless, it seems to have been the motivation for India, Pakistan and North Korea to pursue the development of nuclear weapons. It would thus appear that while the possession of nuclear weapons may offer some deterrent against hostile military action, that deterrent may not suffice if the nation is deemed to be a substantial threat to its neighbors.
In the late 1950s the President Eisenhower sought to discourage other nations from developing nuclear weapons. Realizing that the U.S. had proven Einstein’s theory that splitting atoms could release unheard of amounts of energy, President Eisenhower tried to encourage other nation’s to limit their use of nuclear energy solely to the production of electricity. Thus, he embarked on his “Atoms for Peace” program under which the U.S. would help other nation’s develop nuclear energy in return for their pledge not to weaponize that technology. Subsequent events have revealed that this program, while well-intentioned, was naïve at best.
Among the initial proponents of the “Atoms for Peace” program understandably were the four nations that had already developed nuclear weapons; namely, the U.S, the Soviet Union, the U.K. and China. They were joined by 186 other countries. Notable hold outs were India, Israel, Pakistan and South Sudan. Although North Korea and Libya initially signed non-proliferation agreements, both went on to pursue nuclear weapons. Libya’s nuclear facilities were dismantled in 2003 in an effort to normalize relationships with the U.S. and other western nations. Its military dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was rewarded by the French Secret Service’s arranging for his assassination. Libya’s sad experience prompted North Korea to withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty and to accelerate its development of nuclear weapons which apparently had been clandestinely underway during the preceding ten years.
In 2006 North Korea’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons came to fruition. During his first term as President, Donald Trump, sought to engage Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s dictator, in discussions directed at having North Korea give up its nuclear weapons. President Trump even boasted that he and Kim Jong Un had developed such a strong relationship that they exchanged “love letters.” Their discussions, however, only succeeded in weakening the U.S.’s relations with South Korea and Japan, the two nations most threatened by North Korea’s nuclear arsenal. It appears that Kim Jong Un had learned a valuable lesson from the ultimate fate of Muammar Gaddafi and had no intention of abandoning North Korea’s nuclear program.
This brings us to Iran and its long and persistent efforts to develop nuclear weapons. Formerly known as Persia, Iran was the dominant nation in western Asia for twelve centuries. It is located on what was called “the Silk Road” tying China in the East to the Greek and Roman empires in the West. As such, it was a merchant empire that developed substantial wealth rivaling that of the Greeks and Romans. It is also located on the Persian Gulf, allowing it to continue its prosperity after European nations turned to ocean-going trade in the 14th century. In the 20th century Iran’s economy got a further boost with the discovery of oil.
Unlike many nation in the Middle East and Far East, Iran had a relatively educated population which in part explains its long period of prosperity. During the 20th century Iran became allied with the U.S., the U.K and the Soviet Union helping them to defeat Germany in the Second World War. At that time Iran was ruled by the Pahlavi dynasty which participated in the Atoms for Peace program. In 1979 the Pahlavi government was overthrown in an Islamic revolution which turned the nation into a theocracy. The new government was strongly anti-American and regularly referred to the U.S. as the “Great Satan.” The new Iranian government also turned against the State of Israel and vowed to do everything in its power to destroy both it and the U. S.
Following the revolution Iran’s politics were dominated by Muslim clerics led by an ayatollah (currently, Ali Khamenei). Even though its population was largely composed of Shiite Muslims, it was set apart from most of the other Arab nations, the populations of which were largely composed of Sunni Muslims. In addition, the new Iranian government ruled in a highly autocratic fashion prompting many of Iran’s intellectuals and merchants to flee the country, taking what they could with them. It didn’t take long for Iran’s new government to make enemies throughout the Middle East in addition to Israel and was met with economic sanctions imposed at the behest of the U.S. government. This largely explains why the clerics who ruled Iran following the revolution became attracted to nuclear weapons.
Under the Pahlavi government, Iran had participated in the Atoms for Peace program, with Iranian scientist being educated in the U.S. and Iran receiving uranium from the U.S. along with designs for nuclear reactors. Following the revolution the new government started a clandestine effort to develop nuclear weapons perhaps motivated by a need for a deterrent against military action by the U.S., Israel or another foreign nation. That effort primarily consisted of enriching uranium to the point that it could be used in an explosive device.
In 2015, the Obama administration, fearing that Iran not only possessed the means of delivering a nuclear weapon but also was nearing the point of being able to fuel a nuclear weapon, engaged Iran in multi-lateral negotiations witha Russia, China, the U.K., German and the European Union for the purpose of deferring the time when Iran could become a nuclear power. This effort resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in which Iran agreed to relinquish its stockpile of enriched uranium and defer for 15 years further efforts to enrich uranium in return for the release of Iranian assets estimated at $100 billion being held by western nations. The JCPOA also provided for international inspectors to assure that Iran’s compliance with those restrictions.
In many respects the JCPOA was merely a band aid on a festering sore. Perhaps its principal short-coming was the fact that Iran was heavily engaged in mischief-making throughout the Middle East which it did through a handful of non-state actors. Citing this as well as the release of the $100 billion of embargoed funds, President Trump in 2018 proclaimed the JCPOA to be a “disaster” and caused the U.S. to withdraw from it and to reinstitute some of the trading restrictions imposed upon Iran that had been lifted in the JCPOA. It’s difficult to understand why President Trump believed that reimposing trade restrictions on Iran would stop it from terrorizing the Middle East if they had not previously done so.
In any event, it didn’t take long for the mullahs controlling Iran to resume their country’s efforts to enrich uranium undoubtedly being motivated by North Korea’s experience that if a country possesses nuclear weapons it will be embraced, and not vilified, by The Great Satin. In addition, Iran continued its efforts to harass Israel through its various proxy organizations. On October 7, 2023, Hamas, an Iranian proxy organization controlling Gaza, attacked Israel killing approximately 1,250 individuals and taking another 250 captive. Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, immediately caused his country to attack Gaza in an effort to irradicate Hamas. That reaction has left Gaza’s cities largely in ruins, over 40,000 Gazan residents dead and hundreds of thousands Gazans on the verge of starvation. More importantly, from Netanyahu’s perspective, Hamas has been decimated with many of its leaders dead.
More recently, Israel has delivered a major blow to Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored paramilitary proxy organization operating in Syria. It did this by activating explosives concealed in the mobile phones used by Hezbollah operatives (a fascinating story unto itself). This, in turn led to the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, another Iranian ally. On top of that, Israel delivered huge blows to the Houthis in Yemen, yet another paramilitary group allied with Iran. Having crippled Iran’s proxy organizations that had been harassing it, Israel then turned its focus on Iran, taking control of the skies and demolishing many of Iran’s war planes, ballistic missiles and drones.
Israel’s ultimate objective was to bring an end to Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons, believing that once Iran had developed those weapons, it might become impossible to prevent it from continuing its harassing tactics. However, Netanyahu was confronted by the fact that Israel lacked the weaponry necessary to bomb Fordo, Iran’s principal uranium enrichment facility which is buried deeply under a mountain. Only the U.S., with its arsenal of 30,000 pound bunker-busting bombs, possessed that capability. President Trump, however, having seen the way that Iran and its proxies had been weakened by Israel’s actions and the praise which Fox News had heaped upon Israel’s military exploits, felt that this would be a good time for him to reinject himself and restart peace negotiations with Iran. He even floated the idea that he could be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
Netanyahu did not believe that such negotiations would (or even could) be productive—only long and drawn out, giving Iran more time in which to further enrich its stockpile of 60% uranium to the 90% density required for a nuclear weapon. He knew that the Iranians are well-seasoned in using dilatory negotiating tactics and that Trump could be easily manipulated as Kim Jong Un had demonstrated. Netanyahu further reasoned that if Trump wanted to negotiate a peace treaty, he first needed to convince him to stop Israel’s bombardment of Iran’s military facilities. He thus set out to use that inevitable conversation as an opportune moment to convince Trump that a faster route to peace in the Middle East would be for the U.S. to first demolish Iran’s nuclear installations.
Although the discussions that took place between Trump and Netanyahu have received little news coverage, the one thing that has been made public is that Netanyahu convinced Trump that Iran was much closer to producing nuclear weapons than the U.S. intelligence agencies had been advising him. It also seems likely that Netanyahu convinced Trump to at least announce that he was considering joining Israel’s attacks on Iran if it did not quickly agree to peace negotiations. Trump may have been thinking that he could play both warring parties against each other. To that end, he would announce that he was considering joining Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear facilities and that he would make a decision within “two weeks.” He would then await Iran’s response. If Iran did not profess an immediate desire to begin peace negotiations, he would initiate the military actions Netanyahu was requesting. This would be a win-win situation. He would destroy Iran’s ultimate defense and would place Iran in an even weaker bargaining position.
What Iran did was to initiate a small attack on a U.S. military facility after taking precautions to avoid killing U.S. military personnel stationed there. It then announced its willingness to discuss a cease-fire, but said nothing about giving up its quest to develop nuclear weapons. This was hardly the response that Trump was seeking, leading him to proceed with the attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities that Netanyahu had been urging.
As it turned out, Trump’s win-win strategy may have turned into a lose-lose situation. The results of the bombing of the three Iranian nuclear facilities may have been far less than the “complete obliteration” that Trump had immediately proclaimed. In addition, there are now reports that while Trump was awaiting Iran’s response to his ultimatum, Iran was busy removing its stockpile of uranium and equipment from the three sites targeted by the U.S. This means that Iran would still be able to further enrich its estimated 900 pounds of 60% purified uranium.
The final outcome could be that the U.S. has become a combatant and is no longer even in a position to arrange a peace settlement between the two warring nations. Even worse, it may be dragged into yet another Middle East war. On top of that, Trump has outraged members of Congress whom he chose not to brief in advance as required by law. He has also angered members of his MAGA coalition who believed that his “America First” pledge was a vow not to engage the U.S. in another foreign war.
It is not clear how this story will end. As he is inclined to do, Trump immediately refuted the initial intelligence report that the bombing raid only set back Iran’s nuclear program by as much as six month. He characterized as “scum” those news organizations that had reported that admittedly early assessment. This morning, Defense Secretary Hegseth in a quickly called news conference characterized the news reports as being misleading and designed to make the Trump administration look bad. In that same news conference, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Dan Caine, gave a detailed factual recitation of the bombing mission but declined to provide any guidance as to its outcome, stating that he was only in the business of providing military services and not assessing the results of those services. Those statements were followed by a statement by CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, that “the CIA can confirm that a body of credible intelligence indicates that Iran’s Nuclear Program has been severely damaged by the recent targeted strikes.” This was followed by a White House Statement summarizing these efforts to back up President Trump’s immediate statement that the three Iranian nuclear facilities had been “totally obliterated.”
It is difficult to accept the validity of those statements. It has been demonstrated many times that continued employment within the Trump administration requires not contradicting anything the President has said. It is also important to note that none of these statements addresses the continuing viability of Iran’s nuclear program. In addition, the Trump administration deferred its briefing of the members of Congress on the results of the bombing operation which had originally been scheduled for this past Tuesday and has now stated will be limiting the classified information it plans to share with the Congress.
The answer to this mystery may be revealed in how long Israel is willing to observe a cease fire with Iran. If Israel concludes that Iran still has a chance to continue with its nuclear weapons program, it will not be willing to wait for long. Conversely, if Iran’s nuclear weapons program remains viable it may express a willingness to extend the cease fire and even engage in comprehensive peace negotiations. The one thing that is not likely to happen if Iran still harbors nuclear ambitions is that it will invite the International Atomic Energy Agency to inspect its nuclear weapons facilities.