Recent, intensified attacks by Iran on Gulf nations have exacerbated international concerns that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) cannot be trusted with enriched uranium. Reports indicate Iran is producing 60% enriched uranium and has rejected U.S. requests to hand over its stockpiles, sparking fears over the proliferation of nuclear material.
Attacks by Iran against Gulf neighbours (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman) are intended to disrupt oil shipping and pressure the U.S. through allies, leading to a widespread view that Iran is acting as a rogue state.
Iran has increased its uranium enrichment rate to 60%, a level which is technically close to the 90% needed for weapons-grade material.
Iranian officials have rejected U.S. demands to turn over stockpiles of enriched uranium, stating that such materials will not be shipped to the United States.
The IAEA has lost the continuity of knowledge regarding Iran’s uranium inventory and centrifuges, making it impossible to guarantee the peaceful nature of the program.
The IRGC, through its actions, has increased regional instability, further complicating diplomatic efforts to secure its nuclear program.
An interview with a former Iranian official is making waves online after he admitted Iran had always intended to build a nuclear bomb.
Ali Motahari, who served as Parliament deputy speaker from 2016 to 2019, made the statements in 2022 while speaking on Iranian news media outlet ISCA News, saying: ‘When we began our nuclear activity, our goal was indeed to build a bomb. There is no need to beat around the bush.’ Motahari noted that Iran had no plans for detonating the bomb, only using it as a deterrent, meaning a weapon intended to discourage enemies rather than immediately use it, citing the Quranic verse: ‘Strike fear in the hearts of the enemy of Allah.’ Having a nuclear bomb for deterrence purposes, Motahari said that it ‘would not have been a bad thing… All I am saying is that since we started, we should have proceeded to the threshold.’
According to Motahari, the plan failed because Iran could not keep its nuclear activities secret, particularly after the People’s Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI) leaked confidential reports, bringing international attention.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly stated that the current attacks were primarily meant to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, destroy its ballistic missile and military capabilities and counter what his administration described as a long-term threat from the Iranian regime and its proxies . The resurfaced clip quickly spread across social media, drawing sharp reactions from analysts, engineers and national security commentators who debated whether the remarks confirmed long-standing Western suspicions about Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
During the interview, Motahari also shared that the objective of building a bomb was pursued and supported by ‘the whole regime, or at least, by the people who started this activity.’ PMOI, also known as Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), exposed the Amad Plan in 2003, which aimed at creating a nuclear weapons capability. That included producing five 10,000-ton TNT warheads, establishing a clandestine nuclear fuel cycle and preparing for underground nuclear tests by 2004.
A 10,000-ton TNT warhead, also known as a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, carries roughly two-thirds the explosive power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945, giving a sense of the scale scientists believed Iran was pursuing. The project, which proceeded in secret, was led by Mohsen Fakhrizadeh and made considerable progress in just a few short years. Under the Amad Plan, Iran acquired several foreign weapon designs and refined them to develop its own, conducted conventional explosives testing, carried out casting and machining experiments with surrogate materials and studied how to integrate the warhead with a Shahab-3 missile.
These steps are considered critical in nuclear weapons development because scientists must precisely shape explosives so they compress nuclear material inward, a process known as implosion, which triggers the chain reaction needed for a nuclear blast.
The main element that Iran lacked during this program was the weapons-grade uranium or plutonium to fuel the bombs, according to Iran Watch , a site run by the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control that tracks Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and other weapons of mass destruction.
While the Amad Plan came to a halt, Iranian leaders later divided the nuclear program into overt and covert streams. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), scientists continued using computer simulations to test how a nuclear bomb would explode until 2009. These simulations allowed researchers to digitally model how nuclear materials compress, ignite and release massive amounts of energy, enabling weapons development work to continue even without conducting real-world nuclear tests.
By the summer of 2013, Iran had installed more than 18,000 basic centrifuge machines, devices that spin samples at very high speeds to separate materials based on density , and about 1,300 newer, more powerful models at its nuclear facilities.
Centrifuges are the core technology behind uranium enrichment, spinning uranium gas at extremely high speeds, often faster than 50,000 revolutions per minute to separate lighter particles from heavier ones. Over time, this process increases the concentration of uranium-235, the isotope required to fuel both nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons. Iran had also built up a stockpile of roughly 21,000 pounds of uranium enriched to five percent and about 815 pounds enriched to 20 percent. Natural uranium contains less than one percent uranium-235, meaning it cannot be used directly in most reactors or weapons.
Enriching uranium to about five percent typically allows it to power nuclear reactors, while enrichment levels above 90 percent are generally required to create weapons-grade material. Material enriched to 20 percent is considered especially significant because it dramatically shortens the time needed to reach weapons-grade levels, a milestone nuclear experts often describe as entering a ‘danger zone’ of enrichment capability.
According to the US government in 2016, experts said that with further processing, this material could have been turned into enough fuel for one nuclear weapon in as little as two to three months. Following revelations of secret facilities in 2002, Iran faced international sanctions, leading to the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), restricting its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief, which was abandoned by the US in 2018 .
The JCPOA placed strict limits on how many centrifuges Iran could operate and capped uranium enrichment levels at 3.67 percent, far below weapons-grade thresholds, while allowing international inspectors to monitor facilities for signs of illicit activity. Shortly after, Iran reduced compliance, exceeding the treaty’s enrichment limits to reach 60 percent purity, close to weapons-grade, causing a rise in nuclear threshold status.
Uranium enriched to 60 percent is widely viewed by nuclear experts as a critical warning level because it represents the majority of the work needed to reach weapons-grade material. At this stage, Iran was increasingly described as a ‘nuclear threshold state,’ meaning it possessed the technology, materials and knowledge necessary to build a nuclear weapon on short notice, even if one had not yet been assembled.
On June 12, 2025, the IAEA formally declared Iran in breach of its non-proliferation obligations. The following day, Israel launched a military operation targeting Iran’s military and nuclear fuel cycle sites , substantially damaging them. In October 2025, Iran officially ended the 2015 JCPOA, declaring that all restrictions on its nuclear program were void.
Ending the agreement removed formal limits on centrifuge numbers and enrichment levels, allowing Iran to expand its nuclear infrastructure without the same level of international oversight. Fast forward to 2026, and Trump launched joint attacks with Israel against Iran. ‘Our objectives are clear. First, we’re destroying Iran’s missile capabilities… and their capacity to produce brand new ones, pretty good ones they make,’ the president said on March 2. ‘Second, we’re annihilating their navy… Third, we’re ensuring that the world’s number one sponsor of terror can never obtain a nuclear weapon… And finally, we’re ensuring that the Iranian regime cannot continue to arm, fund, and direct terrorist armies outside of their borders.’
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