How has the approach to handling Iran's nuclear programme changed?

RTÉ News​

17-06-2025

For decades, the international community has wrung its hands over Iran's nuclear programme, fretting over the Islamic dictatorship's potential to build a bomb.
Strategies on what to do about it have largely bounced from sticks to carrots and back again with little agreement - to this day - on the best approach.
Now Israel, with US support, has chosen the stick.
So how did we get here?
In testimony to the United States Senate in 1992, the then-director of the US Central Intelligence Agency Robert Gates said that Iran's attempts to acquire nuclear weapons could be a "serious problem" within five years or less.
The US started pressurising and incentivising Iran's nuclear suppliers - Russia and China - to scale back cooperation with Tehran, which was largely successful.
Iran insisted its nuclear development was for civilian purposes only.
But, by the turn of the century, the International Atomic Energy Agency investigations into Iran's undeclared nuclear activities revealed traces of high uranium enrichment at a site in Natanz.
And soon, the populist President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was threatening to "wipe Israel off the face of the earth".
The US quickly imposed sanctions with the UN Security Council following suit in what would be the first of several rounds of punitive measures imposed by the UN, EU and individual countries.
Israel called for the international community to keep the pressure on.
Benjamin Netanyahu, then and now prime minister of Israel turned up at the UN General Assembly in 2012 with an illustration of a bomb depicting, he said, Iran's nuclear capability.
"The relevant question is not when Iran will get the bomb," he told delegates. "The relevant question is at what stage can we no longer stop Iran from getting the bomb," he said.
But then, in 2015, the mood changed.
Then-US President Barack Obama oversaw a historic deal offering sanctions relief in exchange for Iran limiting its nuclear capabilities.
Known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), it won the support of major powers including all five permanent members of the UN Security Council – the US, UK, France, Russia and China, as well as Germany.
Mr Netanyahu remained staunchly opposed.
He said the deal "could well threaten the survival of my country and the future of my people".
Far from blocking Iran from getting a nuclear bomb, he said, the deal paved the path to a bomb.
Donald Trump agreed, and as president in 2018, he pulled out of the deal.
Some analysts saw that as a costly move that prompted Tehran to redouble its efforts to acquire a nuclear weapon, away from the prying eyes of international inspectors.
But others believed that Iran would have pursued nuclear capability regardless and agreed with Mr Trump that it was a "horrible one-sided deal".
Nevertheless, by the time he came to power a second time, his intelligence chiefs appeared to have concluded that Iran was not, in fact, close to developing a nuclear warhead.
In March, the Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told a Senate hearing that the intelligence community assessed that Iran was "not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme leader Khomeini has not authorised the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003".
"We continue to monitor closely if Tehran decides to re-authorise its nuclear weapons program," she said.
But last week as Israel began its assault on Iran's nuclear and military sites, Israeli officials framed it as a pre-emptive act of self-defence.
"If not stopped, Iran could produce a nuclear weapon in a very short time. It could be a year. It would be within a few months, less than a year".
"This is a clear and present danger to Israel's survival," he added.
In his remarks, Mr Netanyahu appeared to reference a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency that found Iran had enough uranium enriched to 60% purity – a significant step towards the 90% needed – to potentially make nine nuclear bombs.
The body also declared Iran to be in breach of its non-proliferation agreements.
But that should not be a pretext for military action, said Susi Snyder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons.
"If every country that was in noncompliance with its non-proliferation agreements - as cited by the IAEA - were bombed, we would have seen bombs blow up all over the planet," she told RTÉ News.
"The reason that the IAEA reports is in order to alert the international community to enable a diplomatic solution not to be used as an excuse for attack," she said.
But now that Israel has bombed Iran's nuclear sites, what happens next?
Trita Parsi, Iran expert at the Quincy Institute, a think tank, expects that the Iranian leadership will be reluctant to engage in further negotiations to limit its nuclear capability.
"Support for acquiring a nuclear weapon has surged among Iran's elite and broader society in response to the Israeli bombings," he said
"This has raised the political cost for Tehran to agree to limit enrichment to civilian levels, making a deal more difficult," he added.
The question now is whether Israel's strikes have dealt a decisive blow to Iran's nuclear ambitions.
"Despite inflicting significant damage on the Natanz nuclear site, Israel has failed to penetrate the far more critical and heavily fortified Fordow facility," Mr Parsi said.
Rafael Mariano Grossi, the head of the IAEA, said the Friday attack destroyed the above-ground part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant at Natanz, one of the plants at which Iran was producing uranium enriched up to 60%.
However, he said there was no indication of a physical attack on the "underground cascade hall containing part of the Pilot Fuel Enrichment Plant and the main Fuel Enrichment Plant".
Much of Iran's secretive programme remains underground.
But this conflict is not over yet.
World leaders are increasingly anxious to see a return to the negotiating table.
President Trump said he wanted Israel and Iran to do a deal.
And last night, European ministers reportedly held a call with their Iranian counterpart, urging Tehran to resume talks and refrain from escalating the conflict with Israel, according to Reuters.
The international community may once again find itself having to choose between carrots and sticks.