How close was Iran to the bomb, and how far has Israel now pushed it off?
Rafael Grossi, the head of the UN’s nuclear weapons watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned a few weeks ago that “they’re not far off,” and also cautioned that Tehran’s obstruction of his agency’s inspectors has meant that the IAEA has not been able to keep track of recent progress by the regime on the various aspects of its program.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was still more dramatic, characterizing Israel’s resort to force on Friday as preemptive action against an imminent “existential” threat. In a video address at the start of the campaign, Netanyahu said Iran had stockpiled enough uranium to build nine bombs, had taken unprecedented steps in recent months to weaponize that enriched uranium, and could get to the bomb “in a very short time — it could be a year, or it could be a few months.” (The IDF at the launch of the attacks said Iran could enrich enough uranium to weapons-grade level for 15 bombs “within days,” and did not specify how long it would take the regime to complete its nuclear weapons project.)
By contrast, CNN on Tuesday cited a host of American sources assessingthat Iran was “up to three years away” from being able to build, deliver and detonate a bomb and asserting that it was not even “actively pursuing” one — an implausible claim, not least in light of the regime’s documented production of increased quantities of near-weapons-grade uranium with no civilian application.
As far as I have been able to determine from interactions with several sources familiar with the matter, Israel’s intelligence assessments are that Iran was very close indeed to attaining nuclear weapons — as in, building and delivering a working bomb. Closer, that is, even than Netanyahu’s public estimate.
The Iranians have the enriched uranium, produced at their now largely destroyed main enrichment facility at Natanz. It has likely been stockpiled at the Isfahan site, also targeted by the IAF. In 2023, the IAEA reportedevidence of uranium enriched further, to 83.7 percent purity, just short of weapons-grade, by the advanced centrifuges at the relatively invulnerable Fordo facility.
Critically, too, they have developed the highly complex nuclear detonator — the engineering device that causes the nuclear explosion of the bomb’s uranium core. And they have long had the missile capacity to deliver such a device.
Putting all the required components together, should Iran have chosen to do so, I was given to understand, was a matter of no more than two months, and possibly as little as a week.
Or, rather, it would have been — before Israel launched its attacks.
The Iranians have the enriched uranium, produced at their now largely destroyed main enrichment facility at Natanz. It has likely been stockpiled at the Isfahan site, also targeted by the IAF. In 2023, the IAEA reportedevidence of uranium enriched further, to 83.7 percent purity, just short of weapons-grade, by the advanced centrifuges at the relatively invulnerable Fordo facility.
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