Pranay Vaddi | Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
July 3, 2025
Iran’s proliferation strategy did not exist in a vacuum: It was possible as long as Iranian proxies and other asymmetric threats functioned to deter actions against Iran’s interests. But in the wake of the October 7 attacks, Israel degraded Iran’s regional deterrence-by-proxy strategy and air defense assets. Now, Iran’s nuclear ambiguity—being at the threshold of assembling one, or several, nuclear weapons—was laid bare as an inadequate deterrent on its own.
—Pranay Vaddi (CNSP)
Following Israel’s air attacks against Iran’s nuclear sites, which the United States joined a week later through Operation Midnight Hammer, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei now faces unpleasant options. As the US intelligence community is still assessing how far Iran’s nuclear program has been set back, it is clear, by all accounts, that Iranian nuclear facilities were damaged. Iran may retain sufficient capability, knowledge, and nuclear materials to restart a nuclear program—something that an intercepted call of Iranian officials seems to confirm. In doing so, Iran may focus on a more streamlined effort, rather than reconstructing and reusing the damaged facilities at Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.
But Iran must tread carefully.
A failure to negotiate a new deal with the United States, likely involving the United Kingdom, France, and Germany (the “E3” nations who participated in the original Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA), may result in the Europeans pursuing the “snapback” of United Nations Security Council sanctions against Iran’s economy, military, and nuclear program by an October deadline. More seriously, such a stance may trigger additional military action by Israel and the United States. On the other hand, concluding a truly comprehensive new deal when Iran is in its weakened state may mean being forced to accept draconian limitations on its nuclear efforts, eliminating its ability to develop a secret weapons program and eroding whatever domestic and international legitimacy the program may provide to Khamenei.
Iran has an incentive to continue diplomacy—but, also, a strong basis for moving more purposefully toward a nuclear weapon. Instead of the sprawling quasi-civilian program of the past, Iran may recover the necessary technical capacity and know-how for a streamlined, covert effort to pursue a nuclear weapon. Iran is more likely to pursue a nuclear weapon through a clandestine program, limiting cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to avoid detection of its undeclared activities, particularly after feeling the agency applied a double standard by refusing to criticize the United States and Israel for attacking nuclear facilities, despite its past condemnations of Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s nuclear facilities. Iran could also take advantage of US officials’ claiming an overwhelmingly successful US military operation, a lack of popular support for more expansive US military action in the Middle East, and the White House’s strong commitment to a recently negotiated ceasefire arrangement between Iran and Israel to delay further military action while it pursues a bomb.
Iran’s failed “threshold” proliferation strategy. Iran’s recent proliferation strategy—one in which it added advanced centrifuges and stockpiled enriched uranium to pressure the United States into diplomatic concessions during direct and indirect negotiations spanning three administrations—proved to be flawed. After buttressing Iran’s negotiating stance following the US withdrawal in 2018 from the JCPOA, everything changed with the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.
Iran’s proliferation strategy did not exist in a vacuum: It was possible as long as Iranian proxies and other asymmetric threats functioned to deter actions against Iran’s interests. But in the wake of the October 7 attacks, Israel degraded Iran’s regional deterrence-by-proxy strategy and air defense assets. Now, Iran’s nuclear ambiguity—being at the threshold of assembling one, or several, nuclear weapons—was laid bare as an inadequate deterrent on its own.