Iran’s push for a nuclear bomb:

Iran’s push for a nuclear bomb: ‘A wounded animal is most dangerous’

Shimon Sherman

On Oct. 7, 2023, Iran’s fortunes were on the rise. Tehran had a vast and powerful arsenal of radicalized proxies spreading wider and wider through the Middle East. The Islamic Republic had ever-warming ties with Moscow and Beijing and found itself on the leading edge of the globally significant conflict in Ukraine.

In the background, passively facilitating all these developments, was a docile administration in the White House, which seemed intent on ignoring Iranian ambitions and even occasionally forwarding them (such as by freeing billions of dollars in previously frozen assets for Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s use).

Fast forward to today and the Iranians find themselves in a starkly different reality. The Axis of Resistance lies in rubble as one pawn after another has been removed from the board by the Israel Defense Forces. The only reliable proxy left to them is the Houthis in Yemen, which seem destined to be taken off the board in the coming months.

Russia, meanwhile, seems bogged down in Ukraine and has demonstrated a disinterest in the Middle East after allowing its long-term ally, Bashar Assad of Syria, to be toppled by a group of ragtag rebels. Furthermore, the incoming US president, Donald Trump, has vowed to reinstall the “maximum pressure” campaign against Iran, which is certain to include crippling sanctions and likely military force.

“The Iranians are facing a dilemma that they have never faced before because their entire strategy has been based on the Axis of Resistance and that strategy is now collapsing,” Alexander Grinberg, an expert on Iran at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) told JNS.

Grinberg further explained that the regime in Iran is plagued with rigid thinking.

“The Iranians have a fundamental strategic problem. They do not know how to plan for unexpected circumstances. They have a plan A but can’t even talk about a plan B or a plan C, because even considering the option that the original plan won’t work would be to question the wisdom of the ayatollah, which is unacceptable,” Grinberg said. “You can see that the Iranian elites are in disarray and are blaming each other, pointing fingers because they know something is wrong, but they can’t point their finger at the only person who is truly responsible.”

The nuclear option

There is strong evidence that the Iranians are likely to push for a nuclear weapon instead of embracing a more moderate approach.

According to Grinberg, rumblings of a shift towards the nuclear option have been increasing in Iran ever since the war began to go badly for the ayatollahs following the first direct Iranian attack on Israel in 2024.

“Ever since April, they have been hinting that this option may be on the table because from their perspective the situation is changing very rapidly,” Grinberg said.

The most recent of these “hints” came just last week when Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters in Beijing that “2025 will be an important year regarding Iran’s nuclear issue.”

In practical terms, Iran has clearly ramped up its efforts to produce a nuclear weapon in recent weeks. According to Grinberg, the development of a nuclear bomb requires several components: sufficient enriched uranium, a fissile explosive that can detonate the bomb, a precise delivery platform and a nuclear test.

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