Iran and weapons of mass destruction


Iran is not known to currently possess weapons of mass destruction and has signed treaties repudiating the development and possession of WMD including the Non-Proliferation Treaty, Biological Weapons Convention, Chemical Weapons Convention, and Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. The nuclear program of Iran has been one of the most scrutinized in the world; Iran asserts it is purely civilian, while the IAEA Board of Governors has found Iran in non-compliance with its International Atomic Energy Agency obligations. Iran has called for nuclear-weapon states to disarm and the establishment of a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone. Over 100,000 Iranian troops and civilians were victims of Iraqi chemical attacks during the 1980s Iran–Iraq War.
Development of nuclear technology began in the Pahlavi era and continued after the 1979 Iranian Revolution. The United States Intelligence Community assessed in 2007 that Iran pursued nuclear weapons under the AMAD Project between the late 1980s until 2003, then ceasing its effort. In 2005, the IAEA Board of Governors found Iran in non-compliance with its NPT safeguards agreement and in 2006 the United Nations Security Council demanded Iran cease uranium enrichment and imposed sanctions. Throughout the early 2010s, US, EU, and Russian officials said Iran was pursuing nuclear latency, but not weapons possession. The US and Israel sought to covertly degrade the Iranian nuclear program, with the 1990s US Operation Merlin, the 2009 use of the jointly-developed Stuxnet computer worm, and Israeli assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2010, part of the Iran–Israel proxy conflict.
In 2015, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action was signed by Iran with the P5+1, China, France, Russia, the UK, the US, plus Germany: Iran agreed to extensive monitoring and restriction of activities at nuclear facilities in Iran including Arak, Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz, in exchange for sanctions relief. In 2018, US president Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from the plan, imposing a maximum pressure campaign of sanctions, and Iran began stockpiling enriched uranium and largely suspended IAEA monitoring.
On 12 June 2025, the IAEA found Iran non-compliant with its NPT safeguards agreement for the first time since 2005. On 13 June, Israel launched airstrikes targeting Iranian military leaders, nuclear scientists, and nuclear facilities, beginning the twelve-day Iran–Israel war. On 22 June, the United States bombed Iranian nuclear sites with larger bunker-buster bombs. Iran subsequently suspended operation with the IAEA. In August, France, Germany, and the UK triggered the snapback mechanism, which reinstated UN sanctions in September. On 18 October, Iran, Russia, and China declared the JCPOA terminated and the UN sanctions legally void.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Aerospace Force's acquisition of missile technologies, especially ballistic missiles, has also led to sanctions. In 2010, UNSC Resolution 1929 prohibited Iran from ballistic missile technology, although it is disputed if the 2015 UNSC Resolution 2231 overturned this. Iran supplies missiles to its allies, particularly the Houthis and Hezbollah.

Nuclear weapons

Overview

In September 2005, the IAEA Board of Governors, in a rare non-consensus decision with 12 abstentions, recalled a previous Iranian "policy of concealment" regarding its enrichment program and found that Iran had violated its NPT Safeguards Agreement. Another IAEA report stated "there is no evidence that the previously undeclared nuclear material and activities... were related to a nuclear weapons program." Iran has claimed that the military threat posed by Israel and the United States is forcing it to restrict the release of information on its nuclear program. Gawdat Bahgat of the National Defense University speculates that Iran may have a lack of confidence in the international community which was reinforced when many nations, under pressure from the United States, rejected or withdrew from signed commercial deals with the Iranian nuclear authority.
On 31 July 2006, the UN Security Council passed a resolution demanding Iran suspend its enrichment program. On 23 December 2006, the Security Council imposed sanctions against Iran, which were tightened on 24 March 2007, because Iran refused to suspend enrichment. Iran's representative to the UN argued that the sanctions compelled Iran to abandon its rights under the NPT to peaceful nuclear technology. The Non-Aligned Movement called on both sides to work through the IAEA for a solution.
US intelligence predicted in August 2005 that Iran could have the key ingredients for a nuclear weapon by 2015. On 25 October 2007, the United States declared the Revolutionary Guards a "proliferator of weapons of mass destruction", and the Quds Force a "supporter of terrorism". Iran responded that "it is incongruent for a country who itself is a producer of weapons of mass destruction to take such a decision." Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the IAEA at the time, said he had no evidence Iran was building nuclear weapons and accused US leaders of adding "fuel to the fire" with their rhetoric. Speaking in Washington in November 2007, days before the IAEA was to publish its latest report, Israeli deputy prime minister Shaul Mofaz called for ElBaradei to be sacked, saying: "The policies followed by ElBaradei endanger world peace. His irresponsible attitude of sticking his head in the sand over Iran's nuclear programme should lead to his impeachment." Israel and some western governments fear Iran is using its nuclear programme as a covert means to develop weapons, while Iran says it is aimed solely at producing electricity. For its part in the conflict-ridden Middle East, Israel is a member of the IAEA, but it is not itself a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and is widely believed to currently be the only nuclear-armed state in the region.

History

Iran's nuclear program began as a result of the Cold War alliance between the United States and the Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who emerged as an important US ally in the Persian Gulf. Under the Atoms for Peace program, Iran received basic nuclear research facilities from the United States. In return, Tehran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1968. Fueled by high oil prices in the 1970s, Iran sought to purchase large-scale nuclear facilities from Western suppliers in order to develop nuclear power and fuel-cycle facilities with both civilian and potential military applications. In March 1974, the shah established the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran. Sensing a heightened risk of nuclear proliferation, the United States convinced Western allies to limit the export of nuclear fuel-cycle facilities to Iran. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whose revolution displaced the Shah's monarchy in 1979 and ruled the newly established Islamic Republic of Iran until his death in 1989, placed little emphasis on nuclear weapons development because it was viewed as a suspicious Western innovation. During that time, many of Iran's top scientists fled the country while the United States organized an international campaign to block any nuclear assistance to Iran.
Following the death of Ayotollah Khomeini, the leadership of President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Supreme Leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei sought to revive Iran's overt nuclear civilian program and expand undeclared nuclear activities during the 1990s. According to a strategic dossier from International Institute for Strategic Studies, Iran turned away from Western suppliers and obtained nuclear assistance from Russia and China in a number of key areas, including uranium mining, milling and conversion, as well as technology for heavy-water research reactors. However, Washington intervened with Moscow and Beijing to prevent Iran from fully acquiring its list of nuclear power and fuel-cycle facilities. The 1990s also saw Iran expand its furtive nuclear research into conversion, enrichment and plutonium separation. "Most importantly, on the basis of additional centrifuge assistance from the A.Q. Khan network, Iran was able to begin the construction of pilot-scale and industrial-scale enrichment facilities at Natanz around 2000." Full exposure of Iran's nuclear activities came in 2002, when an Iranian exiled opposition group, the National Council of Resistance of Iran declared the Natanz project in August of that year. Since that time, international pressure on Iran has remained steady, hampering but not halting the country's nuclear development. Iran remains legally bound to the NPT and states its support for the treaty.
On August 28, 2025, E3 members, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, initiated the process of the snapback mechanism, with the prospect of freezing Iranian overseas assets, blocking arms deals with Iran, imposing penal action against development of Iran's ballistic missile program and further restricting Iran's military and nuclear activities. In a letter addressed to the president of the UN Security Council, the foreign ministers of the E3 stated that since 2019, Iran had "increasingly and deliberately ceased performing its JCPOA commitments", including "the accumulation of a highly enriched uranium stockpile which lacks any credible civiliian justification and is unprecedented for a state without a nuclear weapons program". The letter detailed additional Iranian violations of the agreement despite the fact that the E3 "have consistently upheld their agreements under the terms of the JCPOA". The activation opened a 30-day window, intended ro reengage Iran, "whose refusal to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency's inspectors started the crisis", in diplomatic negotiations before full restoration of sanctions. According to Euronews, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi declared that it was "unjustified, illegal, and lacking any legal basis" and promised that "The Islamic Republic of Iran will respond appropriately".
There are various estimates of when Iran might be able to produce a nuclear weapon, should it choose to do so:
  • A 2005 assessment by the International Institute for Strategic Studies concluded "if Iran threw caution to the wind, and sought a nuclear weapon capability as quickly as possible without regard for international reaction, it might be able to produce enough HEU for a single nuclear weapon by the end of this decade", assuming no technical problems. The report concludes, however, that it is unlikely that Iran would flatly ignore international reactions and develop nuclear weapons anyway.
  • A 2005 US National Intelligence Estimate stated that Iran was ten years from making a nuclear weapon.
  • In 2006 Ernst Uhrlau, the head of German intelligence service, said Tehran would not be able to produce enough material for a nuclear bomb before 2010 and would only be able to make it into a weapon by about 2015.
  • A 2007 annual review the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London stated that "If and when Iran does have 3,000 centrifuges operating smoothly, the IISS estimates it would take an additional 9-11 months to produce 25 kg of highly enriched uranium, enough for one implosion-type weapon. That day is still 2–3 years away at the earliest."
  • The former head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, said on 24 May 2007 that Iran could take between 3 and 8 years to make a bomb if it went down that route.
  • On 22 October 2007, Mohamed ElBaradei repeated that, even assuming Iran was trying to develop a nuclear bomb, they would require "between another three and eight years to succeed", an assessment shared by "all the intelligence services".
  • In December 2007, the United States National Intelligence Estimate concluded with a "high level of confidence" that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and "with moderate confidence" that the program remained frozen as of mid-2007. The new estimate says that the enrichment program could still provide Iran with enough raw material to produce a nuclear weapon sometime by the middle of next decade, but that intelligence agencies "do not know whether it currently intends to develop nuclear weapons" at some future date. Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said 70 percent of the U.S. report was "true and positive," but denied its allegations of Iran having had a nuclear weapons program before 2003. Russia has said there was no proof Iran has ever run a nuclear weapons program. The former head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, stated that he had seen "maybe some studies about possible weaponization", but "no evidence" of "an active weaponization program" as of October 2007. Thomas Fingar, former chairman of the National Intelligence Council until December 2008, in reference to the 2007 Iran NIE and using intelligence to anticipate opportunities and shape the future, said intelligence has a "recently reinforced propensity to underscore, overstate, or 'hype' the findings in order to get people to pay attention" and that the 2007 NIE was intended to send the message "you do not have a lot of time but you appear to have a diplomatic or non-military option". A National Intelligence Estimate is the most authoritative written judgment concerning a national security issue prepared by the Director of Central Intelligence.
  • The U.S. Director of National Intelligence said in February 2009 that Iran would not realistically be able to a get a nuclear weapon until 2013, if it chose to develop one., and that US intelligence does not know whether Iran intends to develop nuclear weapons, but believes Iran could at least be keeping the option to develop them open. Mossad Chief Meir Dagan was more cautious, saying recently that it would take the Iranians until 2014. German, French, and British intelligence said that under a worst-case scenario it would take Iran a minimum of 18 months to develop a nuclear weapon if it chose to build one, and it would have to first purify its uranium and weaponize its uranium. An anonymous source in the German Foreign Intelligence Service whose rank was not provided has gone further and claimed Iran could produce a nuclear bomb and conduct an underground test in 6 months if it wanted to and further asserted that Iran had already mastered the full uranium enrichment cycle, and possessed enough centrifuges to produce weapons-grade uranium. Physicists said that if Iran were to choose to develop a nuclear weapon, it would have to withdraw from the International Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and expel International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors from the country. George Friedman, head of the global intelligence company Stratfor, has said Iran is "decades away" from developing any credible nuclear-arms capacity.
  • On 12 February 2010 US think tank expert David Albright, the head of the Institute for Science and International Security, said in a report that Iran was seeking to "make sufficient weapons-grade uranium".
  • An IAEA report issued 8 November 2011 provided detailed information outlining the IAEA's concerns about the possible military dimensions of Iran's nuclear program, noting that Iran had pursued a structured program or activities relevant to the development of nuclear weapons.
  • On 30 April 2018, Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu revealed thousands of files he said were copied from a "highly secret location" in Teheran which show an Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons between 1999 and 2003.
  • On 1 May 2018 the IAEA reiterated its 2015 report, saying it had found no credible evidence of nuclear weapons activity in Iran after 2009.
  • In 2021, a group of former Republican officials including ex-CIA director James Woolsey, wrote in the National Review that "Iran probably has already the atomic bomb," citing past detection failures by U.S. intelligence and the IAEA.