Iran was 'running to the bomb'. Some say it's now in a nuclear sprint

Australia Broadcast Center

25-06-2025

Despite a ceasefire being declared between Israel, the United States and Iran, we're now "moving into a true danger zone".
That's what Robert Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago is predicting, anyway.
Twelve days of deadly air strikes and missile launches may have ended for now, but Professor Pape, an expert in global security affairs, has a warning.
Iran is likely to speed up its nuclear program — which the US and Israel say has been the primary target of their massive strikes this month — in the wake of the attacks.
He told CBS the country's conservative regime would "probably" now "sprint to that nuclear weapon".
US President Donald Trump claims his country's bombing campaign had "obliterated" three of Iran's nuclear sites.
However, even senior White House figures — including his deputy, JD Vance — admit the Iran may still have enough uranium to make 10 atomic weapons.
Iran has already said it plans to withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), aimed to limit the spread of nuclear weapons globally, and stop co-operating with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which had previously inspected its facilities.
Professor Pape is worried the program will speed up in the shadows, saying "we're not going to be able to see it coming".
"That is the real danger zone we're moving in to.
"People are focusing on the things they can see, and then maybe counteract.
"What the problem is, is what we can't see, and what we won't see, because Iran is not going to tell us exactly how they're fashioning that remaining nuclear material, and whether they have some other nuclear sites we don't even know about."
Retired IDF General Yaakov Amidror spent more than three decades in Israel's military and has previously advised the country's prime minister on national security.
He says his division uncovered intelligence in the 90s that Iran had a nuclear weapons program and told the ABC the Gulf state had more recently been "running to the bomb".
"How did we know? Because they have enriched uranium for years, and they had, at the beginning of the war, more than 400 kilograms of enriched uranium up to 60 per cent.
"They needed a few weeks to enrich it to military grade."
Assessing the impact 12 days of fighting has had on Iran's nuclear program is difficult.
The most high-profile targets Israel and the US attacked were facilities at Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow.
While Mr Trump has been bullish about the damage done, a leaked preliminary report this week says otherwise.
Before this attack, US intelligence had reportedly predicted Iran could have been as little as three months off developing a nuclear bomb.
The classified report leaked to The New York Times and other outlets this week claimed it had been "delayed but by less than six months".
On Wednesday, local time, multiple Iranian state media outlets reported the country had already begun repairing the Natanz nuclear facility.
Jason Brodsky is the policy director at United Against a Nuclear Iran (UANI), a US-based not-for-profit which bills itself as "formed to combat the threats posed by the Islamic Republic".
He's studied the region extensively, and believes these latest attacks could have set Iran's nuclear program back "years".
He described Mr Trump's decision to order the US bombings at the weekend as a "gutsy move".
"It will change Iran in many ways as well," Mr Brodsky told the ABC.
"I was always concerned about eroded American deterrence vis-a-vis Tehran.
"I think they took advantage of America's self-deterrence after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, and other deeply divisive wars that took place during that time.
"The Islamic Republic thought it could get away with murder — with everything.
"The United States sent a very loud message, that we are not going to be deterring ourselves any more with respect to your nuclear program, and your proxy activities," he said.
There are conflicting accounts swirling elsewhere, too.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Israel's ambassador to France, Johsua Zarka, claimed at least 14 Iranian nuclear scientists had been killed in the 12 days of fighting.
"The fact that the whole group disappeared is basically throwing back the program by a number of years, by quite a number of years," he said.
Alain Bauer, a leading criminologist and national security expert, told French broadcaster BFM TV Iran's most prominent 20 nuclear scientists had been moved to Russia before the attacks.
James Acton, a co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is sceptical about how much the country's mission to build an atomic weapon had been set back.
"The problem the United States and Israel have is that Iran almost certainly has materials and equipment, in locations we don't know about," he told the American Broadcasting Company.
He said it was unlikely Iran's highly enriched uranium, which was previously stored at Isfahan, was destroyed in the attacks.
"This is material that is stored in things that look very much like scuba tanks. It's that small. Tracking that material is going to be exceptionally difficult," he said.
Iran has claimed about 400kg of it was moved before the US dropped its bombs.
"I tend to believe them," Mr Acton said.