Iran may ‘go nuclear’ in wake of US-Israeli assaults, specialists warn
Iran could ‘go nuclear’ in the wake of the US-Israeli strikes, experts have warned.
The regime is resilient, and, if it survives, its resolve to build a nuclear weapon would likely be hardened, they said.
Global security expert Jeffrey Lewis said: ‘If the strike does not succeed in removing a regime there remain thousands of people in Iran capable of reconstituting a programme like this.
‘The technology itself is decades old, and a vengeful Iran is likely to reach the same conclusion that North Korea reached – that it’s a dangerous world with the United States, and it’s better to go nuclear.’
Ali Khamenei, Iran’s former Supreme Leader killed by the airstrikes on Saturday morning, had issued a fatwa – a religious edict – against building a nuclear bomb, meaning he was in theory opposed to it.
While the robustness and authenticity of this position was doubted, it has further been warned that the next generation of the regime may abandon it completely.
Kelsey Davenport, the director for nonproliferation policy at the Arms Control Association, said the risk of Iran reaching for nuclear weapons would be increased, whether the regime survives or not.
She told the Guardian the remnants of the current leadership would be ‘pushing Iran towards weaponisation no matter how this conflict ends, because of the nature in which it started’.
Iran’s Isfahan nuclear site, where the bulk of its enriched uranium is though to be stored
Iran’s assassinated Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had issued a fatwa against building a nuclear bomb
Ms Davenport said that if the regime collapses, there is a risk that its stock of nuclear material could be stolen and lost track of, which would pile pressure on the US to put boots on the ground in order to secure it.
She said: ‘There’s a real nuclear terrorism risk to Trump’s regime change objective that I have not heard the administration acknowledging.’
Preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb has been given as one of the primary justifications for waging war now.
Initially, both Israel and the US suggested they wanted to see regime change, but over the past few days the Americans have increasingly reverted to the nuclear argument.
Before the latest strikes, special envoy Steve Witkoff said Iran was a ‘week away’ from obtaining ‘industrial grade bomb making material’ – though no evidence has been produced to back up this claim.
Iran had around 440kg of uranium enriched to 60 percent before the US attacked its nuclear sites last June with Operation Midnight Hammer, according to estimates from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
That is enough to produce ten nuclear bombs, if it were further enriched to 90 percent.
It is unclear exactly what became of this uranium after the US strikes. IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said this week the agency had lost its ‘continuity of knowledge’ about the stockpile, but that he believed most of it to be held at the Isfahan plant.
The current conflict will only make it more difficult to keep track of this potentially deadly stash, Mr Grossi said.
Smoke rises over Tehran on Thursday after another wave of Israeli bombardment
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch this week used Iran’s desire for nuclear weapons to argue in favour of the war.
She said ‘Iran in 2026 is not Iraq in 2003’, and that the Islamic Republic would deploy nukes against Britain if allowed to develop them.
Meanwhile, Israel and Iran continued to trade blows overnight, with another brutal blitz hammering government and military sites in Tehran.
The first flight chartered by the UK government to evacuate Britons from the Middle East failed to take off due to a ‘technical fault’, forcing passengers to disembark the plane and return to hotels in Muscat, Oman.
