Nuclear hypocrisy and the Iranian dilemma
When Kenneth Waltz, the founder of neorealism in international relations theory, published his controversial article in 2012 entitled: Why Iran Should Get the Bomb: Nuclear Balancing Would Mean Stability, he divided the scientific community into two camps. The first, which he himself belonged to, argued that an Iranian nuclear bomb would not only fail to pose a security risk but would in fact be desirable, since it could serve as a practical deterrent against Israel (modelled on the US-Soviet experience of mutually assured destruction). The second school of thought believed that Iran must be prevented at all costs from becoming a nuclear power, warning that such a development would provoke conflict with the potential to spill beyond the Middle East region.
Today, the world remains politically divided along the same axis. The collective West, led by the United States and Israel, insists that Iran’s bomb must be stopped at any cost, while much of the rest of the world views the case of Iran’s nuclearisation as no different from any before it. Why should a country like France be allowed to possess nuclear weapons, but not Iran? Why don’t China or Israel give up theirs? In international relations there exists a kind of nuclear hypocrisy, so it seems that some countries are permitted to hold nuclear weapons unhindered (five permanent members of the UN Security Council), while others are explicitly forbidden, sometimes at the cost of becoming targets of military intervention, as in the cases of Iraq, Libya, Syria, and Iran.
It is important to stress that Iran views nuclear weapons primarily as a first-class defensive tool, meant to prevent a scenario in which its territory becomes a testing ground for Western weaponry, as was the case in neighbouring Iraq. On the other hand, according to the Begin Doctrine, Israel must prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear-weapon state, even through military intervention if necessary. When it comes to an attack on Iran, however, it seems that Israel has effectively abandoned the Begin Doctrine. Any strike that might have stopped Iran’s nuclearisation would have had to take place years earlier (around 2015). The fundamental objective, then, was not the nuclear program itself but rather to change the regime of the Ayatollahs, since the Iran of the Pahlavi era was not Israel’s mortal enemy. Operation Rising Lion, the name given to Israel’s strike on Iran, was meant to symbolise the political ascent of the exiled son of Reza Pahlavi, whose public address at that moment was no coincidence.
However, despite Israel’s initial successes, when nearly the entire Iranian military leadership was eliminated, it soon became clear that airstrikes alone could not stop Iran’s centrifuges from spinning at full capacity toward their ultimate goal. On the other side, the strong domestic opposition to the regime inside Iran was actually weakened by external intervention, which reinforced internal cohesion, since the entire nation had come under attack. Iran is no different from France or North Korea when it comes to possessing a nuclear bomb. It’s all a matter of perception and who is looking at a nuclear Iran, an enemy like Israel, or some other country.
History has shown that nuclear deterrence functions almost like a law in international relations, as there has never been a case where two nuclear powers engaged in a full-scale war. The most telling example is the recent limited conflict between India and Pakistan, where both nuclear-armed states avoided further escalation, knowing such a war would have no winner. On this point, there is a rare global consensus that there is no winner in nuclear war. And Iran, like any other rational actor, would not be the first to launch a nuclear strike if it meant the destruction of Tehran.
Where does Iran really stand on the nuclear stage?
It is interesting to note that Iran’s nuclear ambitions actually date back to the period before the Islamic Revolution, when the United States itself was assisting Iran in the field of nuclear technology. In 1967, Washington delivered a research reactor to Iran, together with highly enriched uranium (HEU). In other words, Iran, then a close American ally, was being supplied with weapons-grade uranium directly from the United States.
Nearly six decades later, the same country would be bombed for possessing the very same highly enriched uranium. American B-2 bombers were supposed to save Israel’s face and provide an exit strategy from a war against a country whose territory is larger than Germany, France, Spain, and Italy combined. After the US strikes with penetrating bombs, Donald Trump triumphantly declared that he had ‘completely and totally obliterated’ Iran’s nuclear facilities for uranium enrichment. Yet shortly afterwards, assessments from the Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) told a very different story: that the attacks had not destroyed Iran’s nuclear program, but merely set it back by a few months. The director of the DIA, General Jeffrey Kruse, was dismissed after these assessments leaked, contradicting Trump’s political and marketing-driven claims of total victory.
The actual effects of the American strikes will likely never be fully known, partly because it may suit Iran to let the world believe its nuclear ambitions have been halted. At the same time, Trump, eager for a Nobel Peace Prize, sought to maintain the narrative (at least on paper) that Iran’s facilities would ‘remain destroyed’ until the end of his term. Even if damage was inflicted on Iran’s centrifuges, this country already possessed enough material for several so-called ‘dirty bombs’. As far back as 2012, Benjamin Netanyahu was drawing red lines, warning that beyond them it would no longer be possible to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Thirteen years have passed since then, and Iran has hardly stood still, except during the 2015–2020 period, when it temporarily suspended nuclear activities under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Let us recall that in December 2021, the then US special envoy for Iran, Rob Malley, claimed that at the current pace, Iran would become a nuclear power: ‘If they continue at their current pace, we have some weeks left but not much more than that.’ In July 2024, then Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that Iran would have enough material for a nuclear bomb in ‘probably one or two weeks.’
According to the IAEA’s May 2025 report, Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium had reached 408.6 kilograms. Every physicist knows that the technical process of converting 60 percent uranium into weapons-grade uranium (over 90 percent) is relatively straightforward. This entire stockpile could be converted in less than three weeks into material sufficient for several nuclear bombs, while producing enough for one bomb could take no more than three days! The reason lies in the fact that enrichment using cascades of gas centrifuges is most difficult at the very beginning, when the proportion of U-235 (isotope for nuclear weapons) in the total uranium mass is negligible, rather than later on, when it constitutes the majority.
Israel was fully aware of this, yet its strike came only on 13 June 2025, when it was too late to destroy Iran’s nuclear program. Stopping Iran’s nuclear program was more of a pretext than the real motive for the attack, since it was physically impossible to destroy fissile material that could fit into the trunk of a large van. As noted earlier, the true objective of the military action was not the elimination of Iran’s nuclear program but destabilisation and, ultimately, regime change. No Israeli air campaign could have eliminated the already secured stockpile of nuclear material, even if Iran had produced not a single additional gram of HEU thereafter.
The future of nuclear diplomacy
The American argument about destroying Iran’s nuclear program is just as naive as Iran’s claim that its program is strictly civilian in nature. Iran has, in fact, attempted to conceal the military dimension of its nuclear activities. However, it is relatively clear that although Tehran’s ultimate goal may not necessarily be the immediate construction of a nuclear bomb, it does seek the capability to produce such a weapon in the shortest possible time, if the need arises (what is often described as a latent nuclear arsenal).
Iran operates a nuclear power plant in Bushehr to generate electricity, for which it purchases nuclear fuel from Russia. From a rational and economic standpoint, there is no genuine need to develop an independent fuel cycle for a single nuclear reactor. Doing so would be the equivalent of building your own gas station just because you bought a new car. Also, Iran has no civilian use or justification for its production of 60 percent enriched uranium, particularly at the level of hundreds of kilograms.
As for further negotiations, they can serve many purposes, but Iran has realised that renouncing nuclear weapons would only invite new attacks in the future. Iran no longer believes in negotiations, and not without reason. The best evidence of this was Israel’s strike on the eve of the sixth round of talks in Oman, during which Iran’s chief negotiator, Ali Shamkhani, was killed. Earlier, in 2015, Iran had agreed to a deal (admittedly deeply flawed in many respects). Still, the United States unilaterally withdrew, followed by a new wave of sanctions and the assassination of beloved general Qassem Soleimani.
Iran has since concluded that its only path to survival lies in skillfully balancing on the edge of nuclear armament, always remaining just ‘a hair’s breadth’ away from the status of a nuclear power. To be close enough for deterrence, yet with the idea of avoiding to openly provoking Türkiye, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia into pursuing nuclear weapons of their own.
Since July 2025, IAEA inspectors no longer have ‘eyes and ears’ in Iran, meaning the country could have begun producing nuclear weapons almost two months ago. The US withdrawal from the JCPOA and Israel’s recent strike not only failed to stop Iran’s nuclear program but left it without IAEA oversight and without any formal agreement in place. ‘We are not in a ceasefire, we are in a stage of war. No protocol, regulation, or agreement has been written between us and the US or Israel,’ said senior Revolutionary Guards general Yahya Rahim Safavi. Alluding to the possibility of future nuclear retaliation while trying to establish an Iranian deterrent system, Safavi added: ‘I think another war may happen, and after that, there may be no more wars.’
Iran will now move forward with strengthening its nuclear component, focusing on securing the latent capacity to build a weapon in the short term. What we are witnessing is a truce, not a lasting peace. The main focal point will be the unresolved Palestinian question. At the same time, Israel’s number one enemy (Iran) will continue to be the target of subversion, destabilisation, cyberattacks, and perhaps even another limited conflict. ‘Proliferation breeds proliferation’, so Iran will probably trigger other regional powers to pursue nuclear weapons of their own. Meanwhile, Trump will seek to maintain the truce until the end of his term to protect his legacy as a peacemaker in the Middle East. This refers to the Abraham Accords, which he pushed through in his first term, with expectations that Saudi Arabia and Syria may become the next signatories.
Paradoxically, the most significant value of nuclear weapons lies in their ability to deter an enemy. Yet for deterrence to work, the adversary must be aware of a credible threat regarding nuclear capability. If Iran conceals the military component of its program, it risks losing credibility in strategic communication, since the opponent may not realise it is facing a nuclear power. Israel’s situation is somewhat different. It has never officially confirmed possessing nuclear weapons, but neither has it denied. If Iran truly wants to secure a defensive shield through nuclear deterrence, it will eventually have to announce to the world that it has been ‘cheating’ all along, and that it has become a (latent) nuclear power. How does nuclear deterrence work in practice? Perhaps the best person to ask is Kim Jong Un, the leader of North Korea, a country that has never been the target of a military strike, despite many in the West wishing to see American planes dropping bombs on Pyongyang.
I will end this text with an anecdote. When Colin Powell argued in 2003 that Iraq needed to be attacked and was asked in the cabinet what the reason was, he replied: ‘Because Iraq has weapons of mass destruction’. But when he was asked why, then, the United States did not attack North Korea, his answer was simple: ‘Because they have weapons of mass destruction!’
