Iran ‘one or two weeks’ away from producing fissile material for nuclear weapons: US

Insights from Axios, The New York Times, and the Arms Control Association

The News

Iran is capable of producing fissile material — a key component in nuclear weapons — within “one or two weeks,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Friday, a development he blamed on President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018.

“Instead of being at least a year away from having the breakout capacity of producing fissile material for a nuclear weapon, [Iran] is now probably one or two weeks away from doing that,” Blinken told the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado. He clarified that the nation has yet to build a weapon that could use the fissile material, which is estimated to take at least a year.

His comments came a month after the Biden administration privately expressed concerns about suspicious Iranian research and development activities that could be used to produce a nuclear weapon, according to Axios.

SIGNALS

Top officials drop insistence that nuclear program is wholly peaceful

For the first time, top Iranian officials have “dropped the ritual assurances that Iran has only peaceful uses in mind for its nuclear program,” The New York Times reported, with one close to the supreme leader saying the nation would “reconsider its nuclear doctrine” if it faced an existential threat. The shift underscores Iran’s recently cemented role as a “threshold” nuclear state — one that approaches the line of building a weapon but does not cross it. But foreign officials disagree on what that means: Iran could be planning to remain on the cusp of nuclear weapons viability, or it could be preparing to take the final step.

Officials worry Iran will use US political turmoil as cover for nuclear developments

With the US engulfed in political chaos, officials fear that Iran’s recent research and development around its nuclear program could be “part of a covert Iranian effort to use the period around the US presidential election to make progress toward nuclear weaponization,” Axios reported. Those concerns led US and Israeli intelligence communities to probe whether Tehran has changed its nuclear policy. The country assured Washington it has not, and US officials said they have no evidence that Iran is nearing a testable nuclear device.

New president might have space to maneuver on nukes

It’s not clear how much influence Iran’s new president-elect, reformist Masoud Pezeshkian, will have on nuclear policy, though he campaigned to reduce sanctions to improve Iran’s economy. Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the one who truly wields power, especially on security matters. However, the Arms Control Association noted that “there may be some political space in Tehran for Pezeshkian to maneuver on the nuclear front.” Any movement to curtail the nation’s nuclear program would be welcomed by the US. But in an op-ed in the Tehran Times, Pezeshkian said Iran cannot be pressured into rolling back its nuclear activities, and accused the US of deliberately escalating hostilities by withdrawing from the nuclear deal, urging Washington to “learn from past miscalculations and adjust its policy accordingly.”