...
By Tom O'Connor
Deputy Editor, National Security and Foreign Policy
0
Share
Newsweek is a Trust Project member
See more of our trusted coverage when you search.Prefer Newsweek on Googleto see more of our trusted coverage when you search.
While President Donald Trump has repeatedly asserted that preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon was a key aim of the war he launched alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Islamic Republic's new leader may opt to do just that should he and his government survive the conflict.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei has yet to make an appearance one week since being named successor to his slain father, Ali, who was killed alongside much of Khamenei's immediately family in joint U.S.-Israeli strikes that set off the ongoing war, which has now spread across the Middle East. Trump has even indicated Khamenei may already be dead.
Yet a vengeful, fiery statement attributed to the elusive and reportedly wounded ruler confirmed what many feared: that he may emerge as even more hard-line than his predecessor, putting him in a position to make a decision with regional and likely global security implications.
Read More on News
Iranian officials have for decades rooted their denials of seeking a nuclear weapon in a fatwa, an Islamic ruling, issued by the late Ayatollah Ali Khamenei during his lengthy reign. Now the younger Khamenei ostensibly enjoys that same political and religious authority, with potentially greater motivation to pursue a weapon of mass destruction.
"The only good thing which one could say about [Ali] Khamenei, for many years—although I think it changed a little bit in the last few years, perhaps because of his age—was that he was usually very cautious," Raz Zimmt, director of the Iran and the Shiite Axis research program at the Institute for National Security Studies and a former Iran expert for the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), told Newsweek. "He didn't take very risky decisions. And I think that the new leadership under Mojtaba might be willing to take more risks."
At a point where Zimmt feels "it's very likely that we will not see a regime change" in Iran, his most serious concern is "if Iran, after the war, will be able to still use the fissile material—which is still left in Iran, there is 450 or 400 kilograms of enriched uranium to 60 percent—in order to enrich uranium to 90 percent, then convert that to uranium metal and break out, which is certainly a possibility."
"This is one of the things we could expect from Mojtaba," Zimmt said. "This would be a very negative development. I think this is the worst thing we could expect from him."
...
Crossing the Threshold
Iran's nuclear history dates back more than two decades before the 1979 Islamic Revolution led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. Shortly after a CIA-backed 1953 coup that overthrew Iran's prime minister and strengthened the pro-West shah, the U.S. actually contributed to Iran's nuclear energy development through the Cold War-era Atoms for Peace program.
The program was intended to improve non-weaponized nuclear cooperation among allied states, with the first two recipients for reactors being Israel and Pakistan, both of which would ultimately go on to produce nuclear weapons—though the former does not officially acknowledge its nuclear status.
When Khomeini came to power, Iran turned friend from foe. But his personal opposition to nuclear technology and resources consumed by the devastating 1981-1988 war with Iraq sparked little progress on the nuclear front, and it was not until his death in 1989 and the rise of the elder Khamenei that key infrastructure, technology and expertise was obtained through a mix of indigenous breakthroughs and assistance from Russia, China and, perhaps most critically, a proliferation network led by Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan.
Iran's nuclear development drew international scrutiny in the 1990s, particularly across the West and from soon-to-be Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. Unlike North Korea, which pressed forward with conducting its first nuclear test in the face of international pressure and ongoing talks in 2006, however, Iran never crossed the nuclear weaponization threshold and rather sought to leverage its advancements at the negotiating table.
The tactic appeared to finally pay off in 2015 with the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a multilateral deal that under former President Barack Obama lifted sanctions on Iran in exchange for limits on the nation's enrichment capabilities. The thaw was short-lived, however, as Trump abandoned the agreement during his first term in 2018, doubling down on restrictions at a period when tensions between Washington and Tehran began to rise dramatically.
Now, the friction that began with Trump's first election a decade ago has erupted into open war, the course of which may ultimately determine its next nuclear steps, according to Seyed Hossein Mousavian, who served on Iran's nuclear negotiations team in the mid-2000s and is today a visiting research collaborator with Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security.
"Iran’s nuclear doctrine will ultimately depend on the end state of the current U.S.-Israel war against Iran and how Tehran assesses its long-term security environment after the conflict," Mousavian told Newsweek. "If the war reinforces perceptions of an existential threat, it could naturally intensify debates inside Iran about revisiting aspects of its nuclear doctrine."
"At the same time, it is important to understand that Iran’s capability to produce a nuclear weapon cannot be permanently eliminated through military strikes, because the country possesses the scientific knowledge and technical know-how," Mousavian said. "Facilities can be damaged, but knowledge cannot be bombed."
...
Debating the Divine
The debate surrounding Iran's nuclear doctrine predates the current conflict and even the 12-Day War last June, after which Trump claimed to have "obliterated" the Islamic Republic's nuclear capabilities.
For years, and especially since the outbreak of the war in Gaza sparked a regional confrontation now in its most intensive and geographically expansive phase, prominent Iranian figures and analysts, sometimes even officials, would hint at the possibility of lifting a nuclear weapons ban in a moment of existential crisis. While few would openly challenge the supreme leader, these discussions gained further momentum as the likelihood of a decisive war became increasingly apparent.
As for the central fatwa, which has been cited by Iranian officials since around 2003—shortly after some of the country's previously undisclosed nuclear activities were exposed and the same year the U.S. led an invasion of Iraq on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction—its religious backing comes from the late Khamenei's clerical status as a marja' al-taqlid (source of emulation), the highest rank in the Twelver branch of Shiite Islam and Iran's unique Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) system of governance.
Yet this system, even under the growing influences of staunch principlists, has often demonstrated strategic flexibility.
Neither father nor son Khamenei held the top religious title until being promoted by clerics upon becoming supreme leader, and their judgments may inherently be subject to revision based on changing circumstances. Khomeini, for example, shifted his position on a number of domestic issues, such as expanding the state's power to override Islamic obligations if deemed necessary, modifying conscription and tax codes and allowing women to vote.
And though the new ruler may inherit a position subject to far greater influence from other internal drivers, namely the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), much of what is known about Mojtaba Khamenei indicates a likely continuation of Iran's effort to raise the costs of the conflict for the U.S. and Israel and prioritize the survival of the Islamic Republic.
"I honestly do not know what the fatwa of Iran’s new Supreme Leader might be regarding nuclear weapons," Mousavian said. "Such a decision will ultimately depend on the future leadership’s political and security calculations and on the strategic environment Iran faces after the current war."
"In general, however, when states perceive an existential threat and conclude that nuclear deterrence is the only reliable way to preserve their existence, they may move in that direction; Iran would not be unique in this regard, as other countries like Israel facing similar pressures have made comparable choices," he added. "In this sense, the U.S.—Israel war against Iran was a major strategic mistake because it will almost certainly affect Iran’s strategic calculations about its long-term security and deterrence requirements."
...
Technical Difficulties
Beyond speculation over Khamenei and his inner circle's willingness to adopt a new nuclear doctrine, however, remains the question of capability.
Iran's nuclear facilities and scientists have been directly targeted at length during last year's 12-Day War and current U.S.-Israeli campaign. Yet many observers suspect the Islamic Republic retains the capacity to develop a nuclear bomb, should it choose to do so, especially given the large amount of highly enriched uranium believed to remain in the hands of the government.
Among them is Richard Nephew, a former U.S. State Department official who served as principal deputy coordinator for sanctions policy during the JCPOA negotiations and is now senior research scholar at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy.
"The guiding principle for all of our assessments of Iran's nuclear capabilities has been that acquisition of sufficient fissile material was the main determinant of weapons or no weapons," Nephew told Newsweek. "That's why the JCPOA was focused on denying Iran a quick route to weapons-usable material; that's why JCPOA opponents were so worried about the sunsets for the JCPOA and thought they needed to be longer."
"It's all down to whether Iran can enrich material to weapons usable levels," Nephew said. "After all of the attacks from June until today, Iran still possesses sufficient HEU that they could produce nuclear weapons relatively quickly, if they chose to do so."
Echoing Zimmt, Nephew explained that such a process would entail further enriching stockpiled uranium from 60 percent to 90 percent, followed by the crucial stages of creating uranium metal components and then combining this uranium metal with non-nuclear components to complete the so-called "breakout" of weaponization.
"Now, the types of non-nuclear components, the shape of those components, the weight of those components, the electronics in those components, etc., all would determine how effective or usable the resulting device would be," Nephew said.
"You need more sophistication to build a missile-deliverable reentry vehicle than you do the device we used at Trinity," he added. "But, at it's most basic level, if Iran has the HEU, they have a potential bomb in the basement."
View 0 Comments
Submit Correction
View Editorial & AI Guidelines