Public sentiment is deeply skeptical and critical of the narrative around Iran's nuclear capabilities, with significant concerns about global security implications, military intervention, and distrust towards media and political motivations. Many commenters express fears over nuclear proliferation alongside empathy for ordinary Iranians caught in geopolitical tensions.

Iran

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Israel

The same thing stopping everybody else, the lack of refined nuclear material necessary. Every other part of a nuclear weapon is easy, literally 1940s technology. There are almost certainly high school students who could pull it off if they just had enough uranium-238.

But in order to get the high-grade nuclear material you need, you have to have a hell of a lot of lower grade nuclear material and some very specialized equipment like gas centrifuges to process it. And that is a very long and involved process that effectively eliminates most of the world from being able to make it happen.

Sic_Semper_Dumbasses

A concept easy to understand on a theoretical level, exceptionally difficult on a production level.  This process takes a many years, thousands of highly trained people, and a significant percentage of your country’s GDP to develop.

Dbgb4

Any physics major can be taught how to make the bomb. The problem is in the actual making.   
  
Uranium  enrichment requires a supply chain and highly sophisticated machinery; earlier attempts to obtain both have been detected and thwarted. 

See: [https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-real-story-of-stuxnet](https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-real-story-of-stuxnet)

Secondly, once you have a big enough blob (say 20kg) of Uranium, it needs a very powerful and concentrated injection of energy to start the fissile reaction, after which the uranium can take over. The manufacture of these detonators is not trivial either.

Third, storage of highly fissile material is tricky. It'd be nice to not poison one's own colleagues.

cone10

They have sophisticated technology, good scientific programs and do enrich uranium to 60% for medical purposes. However their head of state has [legally banned their usage](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ali_Khamenei%27s_fatwa_against_nuclear_weapons#:~:text=In%20February%202025%20during%20a,United%20States%20or%20its%20allies) since the 1990s, apparently for religious reasons. Some people think that a successor would probably be less principled and the existing government of Iran is obviously under a great deal of pressure to develop nuclear weapons to defend themselves against other nuclear powers opposed to them, like Israel and the United States.

Psymour

Okay! Iran wants to bake chocolate chip cookies (nuclear weapons), but chocolate chips are super hard to get — only a few countries make them, and they don’t like sharing.

The cookie police (UN and others) say, “You can bake cookies, just no chocolate chips!” They check Iran’s kitchen a lot.

So even if Iran wanted chocolate chips, it’s really hard to sneak them in without getting caught. That’s why Iran still doesn’t have chocolate chip cookies.

FrostyBook

Making a nuclear weapon requires fissile material (in this case, a certain amount of uranium enriched to a certain degree) and the development of the warhead and mating it to a delivery vehicle (like a missile). 

The fissile material is the most difficult phase of this. Iran has been working on the technology that could be used for this for many years and have gotten it to a fairly advance stage. 

The reason they have not developed weapons is political. They are members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and are thus legally bound not to make weapons. This means their facilities are monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. There has long been suspicion of Iran's work and there has been occasional sabotage by the Israelis and USA. The Iranians thus far have apparently judged the idea of leaving the NPT and going "all out" for a bomb to be more risky or costly than doing whatever it is they have been doing.

In 2015, Iran joined the JPOA, the "Iran deal," in which it agreed to further curb its nuclear program in exchange for having some of its funds unfrozen and having access to other useful things. This essentially froze their program in a certain low level of progress.

In 2018, despite Iran being largely compliant, the USA pulled out of the JPOA and denied Iran what it was owed as part of the deal. The official reason was that while Iran might have been compliant with the JPOA, they were doing other bad things (e.g. supporting terrorism) and the US was no longer willing to treat these as two separate issues (which it had done because there was no other way forward on a nuclear deal). The unofficial reason that many have suspected is that Trump wanted to undo yet another Obama program just for its own sake. Israel and US hawks on Iran were also very opposed to the "deal" because it did not permanently resolve the question (what an achievable, permanent solution would look like outside of war and regime change is unclear, if there is anything other than war imagined by such hawks — they tend to either talk about war, or not talk at all about a workable alternative). 

Since the US pulled out of the "deal" and reimposed sanctions and frozen assets, Iran has been slowly but deliberately violating the terms of the JPOA, in part as a sort of "protest." 

Iran has not until this point been making any kind of "race for a bomb." They have been playing something of a game of "will they, won't they," building up capability but not overtly racing for a weapon.

If you are skeptical of Iran's claims towards only peaceful intentions (which I am), then one possible interpretation is that their goal is to their goal was to keep the door open, and use the possibility of them not getting a bomb as a way to keep the USA from trying to attack them, while keeping the possibility of them getting a bomb as a future hedge against an unreliable USA. That is, using some (very light) plausible deniability as a way of building up their infrastructure to a place where, if they needed to, they could "race" to a bomb very quickly, while not being so blatant about it that they would trigger a war. It's what I would do if I were them, frankly. 

If the current Iran–Israeli conflict escalates to a point where Iran thinks it is inevitable that the USA will try to "regime change" them, then they might indeed pull out of the NPT and make a "race for the bomb." But that isn't what they have been trying to do _so far_, as far as we can tell. They've been getting things in place so that is an _option_.  

So what is Israel's goal in attacking Iran now? The short-term answer might be further sabotage, essentially. Whether that will be successful is unclear; the Iranians have been sabotaged for years, and under threat of attack for years, and so presumably have built some redundancy and resiliency in their work. The long-term answer is that Israel is plainly hoping that the USA will invade Iran and do a "regime change"; Israel does not have the capacity to do it themselves. Israel is probably hoping that they are forcing the US's hand, by setting up the conditions under which Iran would feel almost compelled to get a nuclear weapon, and hoping that the US would be able to take out the current Iranian regime before that would happen. It's a gamble. I doubt it will end well; even if Iran's current regime is toppled, the recent examples of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya give me very little reason to think that an era of peaceful relations would follow.

So the overall answer is it is partially an infrastructure/technology issue — it takes time to build up capacity to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities — but mostly a diplomatic/political issue. It is not that the Iranians are not smart enough to make nuclear weapons.

restricteddata

They can’t build the infrastructure and cannot procure enough of the material needed to develop the program beyond energy provision. It’s all very very tightly monitored as per the agreement reached during the Obama administration.

pleasethrowmeawayyy

USA and other countries beating down on them. Metaphorically and literally speaking.

LyndinTheAwesome

Insufficient ***time*** to enrich sufficient uranium.

You need a lot of very specialized equipment and a lot of time to enrich even a tiny bit. And you have to put it through three sequential stages of enrichment to get the weapons grade stuff. 

The world has blocked their access to the equipment, and at some point Israel managed to get a firmware upgrade on to their machines that resulted in the machines destroying themselves, sending them back.

Sanctions further held them back, but they soldiered on and were some number of months or low digit years away from completion, depending on who you’d ask. 

Israel now put an end to it - there’s still one site they didn’t lose, Fordow, and if they scraped by and kept it they might still get there in a decade or two. But… by the looks of it, there’s now a non trivial chance the theocratic part of their government with the palace guard who keeps them in power may be overthrown.

oripash

Apologies for joining the discussion a bit late, but I think many commenters are missing the main reason why Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapon yet.

In truth, building nuclear weapons is simple technology by today's standards - it's 80-year-old know-how that any determined small country could manage. Even a poor, isolated, and technologically backward nation like North Korea succeeded in developing compact Teller-Ulam hydrogen bombs for its missiles within a few years. This is a country where many fields are still plowed by animals and whose air force still flies Korean War-era jets. By modern standards, nukes are not high-tech at all.

The real reason so few states have nuclear weapons comes down mostly to diplomatic and military pressure.

Major nuclear powers have a strong incentive to keep the club exclusive: it increases the power of their arsenals, keeps non-nuclear states dependent on their protection, and allows them to pursue imperial ambitions - as seen with Russia's invasion of Ukraine or China's potential interest in Taiwan.

At the same time, many countries fear that more nuclear states would trigger an arms race or raise the risk of large-scale nuclear war.

This is why, for the past 70 years, there has been broad cooperation among nuclear and non-nuclear states alike to stop the spread of nuclear weapons.

In Iran's case, they face severe sanctions, the threat of military strikes, and even direct attacks. This creates strong reasons to avoid building a bomb outright and instead use their nuclear program for diplomatic leverage - especially when they still had a large network of proxy groups, which gave them a sense of security. One could argue they felt safe enough with their existing capabilities, knowing they could build a bomb quickly if needed.

Of course, things have changed, and it remains uncertain whether Iran will ultimately pursue a nuclear weapon. For now, it's still an open question.

Sebsibus

Did you read about Stuxnet, the computer virus that hindered them before? [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet)

AlexMTBDude

Wonderful_Emu_2385

Honestly Islamic radicals having a nuclear bomb would be the worst thing possible for society at large like...I don't trust them to be rational and use it as merely a deterrent when their stated goal is quite literally "Death to America" and they want to destroy Israel lol

[deleted]

Time for Tom Cruise and Miles Teller to shine

Kselli

***The Telegraph reports:***

Iran is “dramatically” [increasing enrichment of uranium to near-weapons grade](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/11/01/iran-nuclear-weapon-existential-threat-israel/), the UN atomic watchdog warned on Friday, as fears grow that the regime is edging closer to having the capacity to build a nuclear bomb.

[Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency,](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/06/rafael-grossi-interview-nuclear-weapons-iaea/) said Tehran was growing its capacity to enrich uranium at up to 60 per cent purity, bringing it closer to the 90 per cent weapons-grade threshold.

“Today the agency is announcing that the production capacity is increasing dramatically of the 60 per cent inventory,” Mr Grossi said on the sidelines of a security conference in Bahrain.

He added that Iran’s capacity could rise “seven, eight times more, maybe, or even more” than the previous rate of five to seven kilograms per month.

It came as a US intelligence report said that Iran had enough fissile material to potentially produce more than a dozen nuclear weapons, and that the risk of Tehran becoming a nuclear power was rising.

The US report also expressed concerns about a growing debate within Iran about the value of nuclear weapons as a deterrent.

“This debate risks emboldening nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decision-making apparatus and shifting the thinking of current and future Iranian elites about the utility of nuclear weapons,” the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

**Read more:** [**https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/06/iran-increases-uranium-enrichment-nuclear-bomb-fears/**](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2024/12/06/iran-increases-uranium-enrichment-nuclear-bomb-fears/)

TheTelegraph

I hate to admit this but Iran can’t be allowed to have nuclear weapons.  If it means attacking them directly to prevent this it must be done.

Panda_tears

And the people of the West will inevitably blame the West when Iran decides to use it on the West.

That seems to be the current way of thinking these days. It's like the world is slowly becoming radicalised.

InSight89

I’d rather the guys who utilize suicide bombing NOT have atomic weaponry

Nickthedevil

They use it once and their country will be obliterated in retaliation.

Well, the west is showing no uncertain terms that nuclear threats are the only ones that are respected, regardless of the context and seriousness they're thrown around.

ThePheebs

Time for a shipment of new pagers to be sent over

Nelson-and-Murdock

Remember when Trump pulled out of the nuclear deal with no backup?

hdiggyh

After the curbstomping they received, it's obvious that this is their only avenue. 


It must be prevented. 

Bromance_Rayder

Irans Islamic terror regime is a cancer to the world. Free Iran 

Y2_416

Does Iran want some more freedom? Cos this is how you get freedom.

TheShip47

So, we’re really going to send the end of humanity in our lifetime.  What are the chances!

Odd_Copy_8077

Rotor4

The lesson learned in the past 25 years is having the bomb keeps the wolves at bay, giving it up invites them in and makes your allies weak in the knees.

zackks

Remember that we had a working deal with Iran that could have brought some normalcy and reduced the risk of the bomb back in 2015? And then Trump tanked first thing in his mandate.

nim_opet

Given what is going on in Ukraine, Israel and with Trump assuming office in 6 weeks, is anyone surprised?  The only sure defense is a nuclear defense

Menethea

As an American myself, I find it crazy ironic when people talk about what countries shouldn't have the bomb when we're the only ones that have actually used it.  Not once, but twice.

atlantasmokeshop

You can thank trump for this. Had he not pulled the USA out of this, it wouldn't have been until this year or later that Iran might have not had a chance to do this.


All because he was jealous of the black guy.

TonyG_from_NYC

Wise138

I don’t see how we avoid a war next year.

Moritasgus2

vwboyaf1

Seems like just a matter of time, as tech becomes easier to access, that the worst kind of people will get one. And use one.

If they get one there will never be peace in the Middle East.

CodeXploit1978

I guess BB will not visit the UN with a drawing of a cartoon bomb this time? This story shows up every once in a while, and by now it just comes across as: Here's your weekly fearmongering about iranian nukes. Yawn.

MercantileReptile

That’s one country I don’t want them w

Dtoodlez

I’ve been reading this same headline for 30 years!

Tobias---Funke

let them make their bombs, theyre fucking themselves over anyways, and hopefully ends us imperialism in the region

MattiasLundgren

Obama's deal with Iran was releasing their own locked funds for a guarantee that they would cease ALL nuclear enrichment and weapon research. It included allowing monthly inspections and surprise inspections. Iran agreed and inspections showed they ceased ALL weapon research. Trump went back on that deal and the next month Iran began operations again. Trump is singlehandedly responsible for enemy terror organizations having nuclear weaponry

CatStacheFever

Oh, has it already been two weeks since the last time it was claimed Iran is close to making an atomic bomb. Wow, the time sure flies.

authustian

The US and Israel both have stated they will not allow Iran to get the bomb -- and will use any means necessary.  I wonder if anyone means it or is this just the long version of Biden's famous "Don't".

Not sure where Trump stands.  He acts like he's going to be hell on Iran.  But also has made it a standing policy to stay out of foreign wars.  Can't do both.  I think Iran is going to become a nuclear power.  And if so it should come as no surprise when they and Israel blow each other apart.  Even if Iran uses a proxy to avoid retaliation, they're going to find themselves on the receiving end of a dozen nukes.  Not to mention Israel has resorted to striking first when they see it coming.

Wambo74

Well, that's awkward to read after the latest breaking news...

Masterhorus

Iran announces closure of new enrichment site

silentsnip94

stygg12

Andddd it's gone.

(Insert South park meme here)

METRlOS

Wow this post AGED really badly in the 6 hours since it went up.

deadbeatmac

Genuinely starting to believe all this talk of Iran being able to rush a device in a week, and I can imagine in  an even shorter timeframe.

BringbackDreamBars

Kogre_55

The IDF confirms it has launched an aerial campaign against Iran's nuclear program. Dozens of targets across Iran related to the nuclear program and other military facilities are being struck by the Israeli Air Force,

craiger_123

Theistus

waldo--pepper

Or rather, "Iran announces a new target for Israel."

NyriasNeo

Does Iran have balistic missiles capable of deploying nuclear warheads? Also, this is probably the fastest any country has developed their nuke program with or without any help. This is crazy

OneSailorBoy

This would be the third country that had their attempts at building a nuke bombed by Israel, after Syria and Iraq. 

Wolf_Cola_91

HugheyM

That aged so badly. Like milk left in the sun

SoulForTrade

matter of time till they turn the sandbox into a sheet of glass

Angryceo

Iran sure made it a "target rich environment" with this announcement

ToughComprehensive19

Think the editor was all ‘ oh shit I forgot to press send button’

Agitated_Carrot9127

megaplex66

So we should Green light Israel to invade with bombing support from the carrier group in the R3d Sea and the bombing fleet housed currently at Diego Garcia?


Is that what I am supposed to support?

anemone_within

&gt;Netanyahu said the strikes would continue for as long as it would take “to remove this threat.”

So, for ever like the Gaza war?

ux3l

Announcing a site without coordinates  smart geopolitics  Harder to pressure what you can’t locate

Redsox4lyfe5

Well clearly Iran needs nukes to defend itself against its savage neighbours!

skullthroats

Can someone explain how Iran for decades can somehow be weeks or months away from producing a bomb?

All of this smells quite a bit like Iraq and it’s alleged ”weapons of mass destruction” for those of us who are old enough to remember that whole charade.

FinestObligations

The relevant text is:



"“They can have, you know, in a matter of months, I would say, a few cascades of centrifuges spinning and producing enriched uranium, or less than that,” Grossi said on Friday, according to a transcript of the interview released Saturday."


---


It is relatively easy to install spare centrifuges into a new facility. That said, how many spares do they have?


50? 100? 1000?



With 50, you aren't going to do very much, but technically-speaking, that is enriching uranium... by fractions of a percentage.


And how fast can they build more?

Happy_Feet333

I think they may have just been persuaded to push though and build one

wombat9278

How some people here seem pleased by this possibility is perplexing to me.

Bynairee

ITT: People who are wholly unaware of what the IAEA is or does. 

They are not a government organization. They are an international organization aimed at monitoring and reporting on nuclear activity worldwide, including proliferation. 

They do not advocate for military policy. They only advocate for global security regarding nuclear. 

The fact so many comments here seem like they’re horrible for simply reporting on things they’ve always reported on as *nuclear scientists and policy workers* is depressing. The lot of y’all here would do well to take a media literacy course.

materialgewl

This never would have happened if Trump were president.

neologismist_

Iran's been 6 months away from a warhead for the last 40 years, now they've been reduced from that to weeks from enriched uranium?

When did that happen?

IvanNemoy

What motivation does Iran have to NOT pursue a nuclear weapon? The attack on Iran was ill-advised and will have unwanted consequences.

cynical_pill

Damn. Too bad there isn't an international deal in place to inspect their sites to verify they are only using it for nuclear power, like we had until recently, before abruptly cancelling it, then bombing them because they might be doing it.

your_fathers_beard

At some point Iran will have nuclear weapon, it’s just a question of when.

larrysshoes

Wow, what a shocker. Iran is again just “weeks” or “months” away from nukes. It’s like nuclear Groundhog Day at this point. Every year, same headlines, same experts nodding seriously on TV, same vague timeline that never quite lands.

Almost like keeping Iran just short of a bomb makes it easier to justify whatever comes next. Sanctions? Check. Airstrikes? Check. Oh, and maybe just maybe one day a full invasion to liberate some democracy into the region and maybe accidentally stumble into a few oil fields along the way. Oops.

But hey, it’s definitely about peace and security. Definitely not about resources or implementing a puppet state. Definitely.

Ok_Assistance_5643

Oh noes, if you only someone told that before.

Trollimperator

The black CIA is on record saying they have proof that Iran bought yellow cake from the cradle of civilization! Whoody hoo!

Israel has been saying that since 2016 at the earliest.

darewin

The true definition of quantum state. When simultaneously few months and decades away from developing nuclear weapons. Finally, that poor cat can rest.

-Celador-

And then we will be right back to where we are.  The world keeps turning.  Iran can choose to let it go, or invite a war to come.  Or perpetual conflict.  You could say they have the right, and sure.  But it’s their choice.

Spirited-Feed-9927

neutralityparty

I feel as though this falls under a similar scenario to the Japanese. Japan is a nuclear *capable* country that actively chooses not to develop its own nuclear weapons. If Japan decided today that they wanted to become a nuclear nation, barring international pushback, they could have a working bomb by the end of the year.

Therefore japan is *always* 3-6 months away from having nuclear weapons. This speaks more about Irans ability to enrich uranium than it does about whether or not they’re actually going to do it, and so this piece is basically a scare tactic.

SideWinder18

Wait… that’s not what tRump Daddy said.

rellsell

tismschism

"We're going to find those weapons of mass destruction. Now watch this dirve." -a former president who's IQ actually charted

lackingbean

This theater is so funny they have been months away for 30 years now. There was a video posted cut together from speeches of Netanyahu saying this going back to 1995. Sure they'll have it soon i believe you, better invade. BS

Nanjiroh

ZERO_PORTRAIT

So Trump being his usual ineffective self per usual.

ConkerPrime

Sounds a lot like the WMD lies from 20 years ago that landed everyone in Iraq

Toreap

Berlin_Blues

It’s going to take Iran a matter of months just to completely assess all the damage.

rossww2199

i read it like "IKEA chief says" and was like "woah how does he become an Expert inzwischen matter?

fstizzi

Potential-Analysis-4

They have been saying this since 1992. How are people this stupid?

Puzzleheaded-Wolf318

They’re gearing up for the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ thing again.

vaskovaflata

The same way Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and some how still had them even after a UN inspection team found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction?

Anustart2023-01

The head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, warned that Iran could restart enriching uranium within months, raising international concerns about the potential for the country to develop nuclear weapons.

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