The Case for Attacking Iran’s Nuclear Program

A few weeks ago, on a research trip to Washington, I had dinner with a fellow historian who suggested that with Iran’s position in the Middle East so reduced by the weakening or collapse of its various proxies, this is a propitious moment for the United States and Israel to attack the nuclear program with which it threatens regional stability. Paradoxically, with Iran now weaker in so many other ways such an attack is not only convenient but becoming urgent.

Since the Iran-Iraq War ended in stalemate in 1988, Iran has pursued regional hegemony through means other than direct conflict with regional rivals. It has undertaken an extensive nuclear program ostensibly designed for civilian ends but which is capable of leading to a nuclear arsenal. After the 2003 invasion of Iraq created a power vacuum, Iran has gradually moved to fill it. Iran-backed militias and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran’s main unconventional combat force, now control much of the country. Iranian proxies such as Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, and the Assad regime in Syria, allowed Tehran to project its power without risking direct conflict, while a nuclear weapons capability grew closer. Given Tehran’s repeated threats to eliminate Israel, that state could not accept a nuclear-armed Iran, but Hezbollah’s thousands of rockets in Lebanon complicated any Israeli plans for attack by threatening retaliation.

Inevitably, Iran’s pursuit of hegemony encouraged greater cooperation among those threatened by it, Israel and its Arab neighbours, leading to the 2020 Abraham Accords and discreet security cooperation among Israel and a growing number of Arab states. It was to shatter the increasingly cohesive coalition emerging to contain it that Iran supported the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, hoping the resulting conflict would strain Arab ties with Israel. While there were strains, the coalition survives. Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia even provided discreet assistance to Israel’s air defences against the drone and missile assault Iran launched last April, after an Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy  in Damascus.

Not only is the coalition persisting, Iran’s key proxies have been significantly weakened by Israeli operations. Hamas is largely contained, while most of Hezbollah’s leadership has been killed, its forces degraded, and it has accepted a ceasefire with Israel. Hezbollah’s inability to provide the Assad regime with ground troops was a major factor in the regime’s collapse last month , which deprived Iran of its land corridor to Lebanon. Moreover, Iran itself is now more vulnerable. On October 2, Iran launched a second missile attack on Israel, relying entirely on ballistic missiles alone rather than in conjunction with cruise missiles and drones, in order to evade detection and damage Israeli air defences. Not only was it less successful than anticipated, Israel’s retaliatory strike of October 26 largely destroyed Iran’s air defences. While it avoided nuclear facilities in response to US pressure not to provoke escalation, it also eliminated plants producing critical components for ballistic missiles.

Yet with its proxies effectively neutralized and its own credibility and security impaired, Iran now has every temptation to accelerate its pursuit of a nuclear capability, its principal remaining means of projecting power.

The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) saw Iran accept limits on its nuclear program, along with monitoring by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to ensure its compliance. In exchange, the European Union and the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council agreed to lift existing economic sanctions. In 2018, the Trump administration announced US withdrawal from the agreement, and Iranian compliance, always problematic, has since declined. IAEA inspectors have often denied access and cameras monitoring operations at nuclear facilities have been removed. Iran is already breaching JCPOA limits on the number of facilities at which it enriches uranium, the number of centrifuges employed in enrichment, and its stockpile of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU). 

Uranium enriched to 20% purity is considered HEU and can readily be refined to the 90% purity that constitutes Weapons Grade. The JCPOA limited enrichment to 3.67%, but Iran announced in 2019 that 20% purity was within its reach. It has now enriched up to 60%, the only state without a declared nuclear weapons capability to do so, and uranium particles found far from disclosed enrichment facilities indicate there are undisclosed ones.

Iran’s capacity to deliver a nuclear weapon is also improving. It has the largest and most effectively diversified ballistic missile inventory in the Middle East. Tehran can use data gathered during its own recent attacks on Israel and the use of Iranian missiles by Russia in Ukraine to increase the precision and lethality of its missiles as well as pinpoint weaknesses in Israeli air defenses. In exchange for Iran augmenting its stock of missiles, depleted by the war in Ukraine, Russia has stepped up military cooperation with Iran and may already be providing information and equipment to bring an Iranian nuclear capability closer.

The JCPOA was formulated so as to deny Iran the capacity to achieve “breakout” and produce a useable nuclear weapon within one year, a timeframe that was useful for setting terms, as well as for providing sufficient warning time to concert an international response. But Iranian progress in recent years suggests that breakout could be achieved in less time. US estimates suggest that production of enough HEU for a single weapon could take as little as a week, and if Iran has engaged in sufficient undetected research on weaponizing it, a deliverable weapon could be very near.

US intelligence estimates from late 2024 concluded that Iran was not yet constructing a nuclear weapon but was better equipped and prepared to do so than a few years ago. And it has already used its proximity to one as leverage in negotiations. Recent and unprecedented public musings by Iranian leaders about the deterrent effect of a nuclear weapon may encourage, if they do not reflect, a shift in governing circles towards acquiring a nuclear arsenal. And that proximity confers leverage will only make actual possession more attractive.

Tehran’s intentions are opaque and can readily change in response to circumstances, so we would be wise to act not according to what we take to be Iranian intentions but according to Iranian capabilities. In November, Rafael Grossi, Director General of the IAEA, visited Tehran after Western powers submitted to the IAEA board a resolution censuring Iran for non-cooperation. During that visit, Iran agreed to cap its supply of uranium enriched to 60%, but Grossi warned Iran’s position could change and cautioned others against actions that might worsen tensions. It would be only prudent to treat this Iranian commitment as yet another effort to gain leverage from closeness to a weapon and to delay Western action until there is one.

In October 2025, the JCPOA expires, and with it agreed-upon limits on Iran’s nuclear program.  The sanctions that the JCPOA has suspended, could also theoretically “snapback.” Iran will then have a free hand without a rather improbable renewed international agreement to oppose its nuclear ambitions.

What to do? To be sure, a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, presumably involving Israel with some degree of US collaboration, would entail substantial risks. Iran might well retaliate and precipitate wider conflict. Even Iran’s known nuclear facilities are heavily protected, and there are almost certainly undisclosed ones. The nuclear expertise Iran has already acquired would also remain. A single attack would slow Iraq’s progress but not eliminate the threat. It would have to be repeated as required until the regime in Tehran desisted in its pursuit of nuclear weapons or was replaced.

A targeted Israeli-American strike on one or more Iranian nuclear sites would demonstrate the capacity and the will to take action to ward off an Iranian bomb, perhaps persuading Tehran the risks of pursuing one were unacceptable. But even if Iran were to persist, attacking Iran would do less to destabilize the Middle East than the emergence of a nuclear-armed Iran. With a nuclear shield, Iran would be well-positioned to reconstitute and strengthen its “Axis of Resistance” and strain ties among the anti-Iran coalition. Containment would also be difficult and require a substantial diversion and commitment of US military resources for an indefinite time and heightened engagement in regional diplomacy. And of course, Saudi Arabia, Iran’s principal rival in the region, would probably seek nuclear weapons of its own. 

The prospect of a nuclear arms race in perhaps the world’s most combustible region is not, to put it mildly, a recipe for stability. And it is far from clear that mutual deterrence, which presupposes a modicum of rationality on both sides, would operate in the case of Iran. With the risks of a nuclear-armed Iran less manageable than those of preventing one, and time for action growing short, the case for attacking Iran’s nuclear infrastructure becomes compelling indeed.