Weakened Iran could hit back with a nuclear bomb, Trump told by White House

Weakened Iran could hit back with a nuclear bomb, Trump told by White House

Benedict Smith

Iran could move to build a nuclear bomb after being weakened by wars in the Middle East, the White House has warned Donald Trump.

Joe Biden’s national security advisor said he had briefed the incoming president on the “risk” of Tehran obtaining the weapons.

It comes as Mr Trump is reportedly considering airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities when he becomes commander in chief again.

Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said he has told the Trump team to be “vigilant” for the threat of nuclear escalation.

Observers fear that the loss of Iran’s key allies may prompt Tehran to accelerate its nuclear programme as a means of defence.

Iran’s position has weakened following Israeli strikes on its proxies, Palestine’s Hamas and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and the fall of Bashar al–Assad, the Iran-aligned Syrian president.

Mr Sullivan warned that there was an increased risk that Iran might abandon its promise not to build nuclear weapons.

“It’s a risk we are trying to be vigilant about now. It’s a risk that I’m personally briefing the incoming team on,” Sullivan said, adding that he had also consulted with US ally Israel.

He added that given Iran’s “weakened state”, Mr Trump, who takes office on Jan 20, could also persuade Iran to commit to dismantling its nuclear capacity.

However, the president-elect and his team have been assessing Iran’s diminished regional position and are now considering air strikes on nuclear facilities, the Wall Street Journal reports.

It would mark a breach of the longstanding US foreign policy of containing Tehran with diplomacy and sanctions.

Mr Trump has told Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, in recent calls that he is concerned about Iran achieving nuclear capability, the Journal reported.

Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, the nominees for secretary of state and national security adviser, have consistently taken hardline stances on Iran.

Both men criticised Joe Biden, the US president, for pressuring Israel to avoid bombing nuclear facilities when it launched a retaliatory airstrike in October. Mr Trump said at the time that Israel should “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later”.

It signals that, even if the US does not engage in airstrikes against Iran directly, it would likely give Israel more freedom to strike Tehran than the Biden administration.

The UN’s atomic regulator warned on Tuesday that Iran has already reached the cusp of obtaining nuclear weapons.

There was no point reviving a 2015 diplomatic deal, agreed by then-US president Barack Obama, because Iran had dramatically expanded its production of uranium and is “practically at the same level as nuclear-armed states”, it said.

In a further sign of rising tensions between the powers, Tehran on Saturday formally protested against the arrests of two Iranians accused of transferring sensitive US technology.