Iran’s leadership is conducting a “strategic debate” over whether the time has come for it to start making nuclear weapons, The New York Times reports, citing four Iranian officials, including diplomats and members of Iran’s powerful Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
Pointing out that three senior officials close to Iran’s Supreme leader Ali Khamenei have publicly declared in recent weeks that Iran’s ostensible no-nuclear-weapons doctrine is reversible if the country deems itself to be facing an existential threat, the Times says Iran’s “power circles” are discussing whether it is “time to weaponize the nuclear program and build a bomb.”
It notes that Iran has enriched enough uranium to 60 percent purity for at least three bombs. It has also installed 1,400 “next-generation centrifuges” at its Fordow enrichment facility in recent weeks, and would thus be able to double that inventory in weeks or months should it so choose. (Uranium enriched to 60% can be converted to bomb-grade fuel in days or weeks, the report states.) The Fordow facility is buried so deep, the report adds, quoting military officials, that it would require “repeated, precise strikes by the United States’ largest ‘bunker buster’ to reach down that deep.
Citing interviews with a dozen American, European, Iranian and Israeli officials, and with outside experts, the Times assesses that Iran has now “cemented its role as a ‘threshold’ nuclear state, walking right up to the line of building a weapon without stepping over it.”
“American officials are divided on the question of whether Iran is preparing to take that final step,” the report adds.
While US officials tell the paper there is no evidence of a current Iranian effort to weaponize the uranium, “Israelis argue that such efforts are indeed underway, under the guise of university research.”
The Times ties Iran’s recent “nuclear expansion” to its unprecedented missile and drone attack on Israel in April, and says some of Iran’s leaders believe that attack, which was almost entirely thwarted by Israel and US-led allies, underlined “the need for a far more powerful deterrent.”
“Even though it would still take more than a year to actually produce a weapon,” the Times says, “the question is whether American or Israeli spy agencies would detect the move and be able to stop it.”
If Iran had been enriching uranium at current levels a few years ago, when the region was not as tense as it is today, “Israel would almost certainly be considering military options to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities,” the paper further says, citing a European diplomat involved in discussions with Iran.
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, right, listens as Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, left, speaks during their meeting at the Pentagon in Washington, June 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
On Tuesday, at a meeting at the Pentagon with US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, in public comments in English, said that “time is running out” in the fight to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, and stressed that Israel and the US must work together to prevent the threat from being actualized. “The greatest threat to the future of the world and the future of our region is Iran,” Gallant said. “Now is the time to realize the commitment of the American administrations over the years to promise to prevent Iran from possessing nuclear weapons.”
According to an Axios report yesterday, citing three Israeli officials, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reestablished a series of working groups two weeks ago to deal with Iran’s nuclear program, amid concern that the Islamic Republic could aim to move toward the bomb as early as January.
Israeli settlers and supporters gather in the outpost of Evyatar in the West Bank, April 10, 2023. (AP/Ariel Schalit)
Anti-government protesters call for the release of hostages held in Gaza, near the home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Caesarea, June 27, 2024. (Flash90)
Thousands attend a concert in Tel Aviv in memory of the victims murdered at the Nova festival by Hamas terrorists on October 7, and calling for the release of the hostages still held captive by Hamas in Gaza. June 27, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Rockets fired from southern Lebanon by Hezbollah are intercepted by the Iron Dome over the Upper Galilee on June 27, 2024. (Jalaa Marey/AFP)
People gather around an impact crater in the aftermath of Israeli bombardment in the Sabra neighbourhood in the south of Gaza City on June 27, 2024. (Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP)
Smoke rises after a missile launched from Lebanon hit a house in Metula, near the border with Lebanon, June 26, 2024. (Ayal Margolin/Flash90)
Tens of thousands attend a party in Tel Aviv in memory of the victims murdered at the Nova festival by Hamas terrorists on October 7, June 27, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/FLASH90)
A Palestinian woman says goodbye to her sick son before leaving the Gaza Strip to get treatment abroad through the Kerem Shalom crossing, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
