Why Might Iran Want a Nuke?
Is dropping it on Israel the most likely reason?

Let me start by stating I fully understand the adversarial nature of the relationship between Israel and Iran. There are enemies, and Israel has reasons to seek to protect itself from Iranian aggression. At a minimum, Iran’s support for Hezbollah and Hamas is enough to provide the basis for Israel to use military force against Iran. And, certainly, it makes all the national security sense in the world for Israel to prefer Iran not to become a nuclear power.
At a minimum, these are two regional powers vying for dominance, setting aside any other aspects of the conflict. They are both behaving as one would expect regional adversaries to behave, as each sees the other as a threat to their power and influence, including regime survival.
Given the kind of regional power conflict that is taking place between these two, not to mention between Iranian proxies and Saudi proxies in the hopes of achieving regional hegemony, it is not surprising that Iran wants a nuclear weapon.
Indeed, I have long thought (for at least two decades, if not longer) that Iran’s main interest in acquiring a nuclear weapon is not so that it can vaporize Tel Aviv, but because it primarily wants a deterrent against attacks, to include possible invasion, on its home territory. I think, too, it wants the prestige and enhancement of its regional position, and being a nuclear power would accomplish that.
I understand that Iran often speaks in apocalyptic terms. Famously (or, perhaps, infamously), Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) states that Israel needs to be “wiped off the map.” I know this was long interpreted as a statement of purpose for the Iranian nuclear program from Israeli and US perspectives. However, it is not a good idea to draw strong conclusions from heated political rhetoric (see, e.g., the Truth Social feed of a certain occupant of the White House who recently called for “UNCONDITIONAL SURRENDER” because, you know, that’s how this works).
I can understand and accept, however, how Israelis would take such rhetoric. And I can accept and support the notion that it is in Israel’s interests, if not many countries’ interests, to slow Iran’s progress towards a nuke. I would prefer some structure like the JCPOA, but Trump broke that back during his first term because he is a very stable genius.
Note that I reference “slow Iran’s progress” because it strikes me that over the long haul, it will be impossible to stop a determined state from acquiring these weapons. I understand the inclination to hope that maybe the regime will change in a way that is friendlier than its current iteration, but that is mostly based on nothing more than wishes and dreams at the moment.
Regardless, I have to stress again that the most plausible reason for Iran to want a nuke is not to drop it on Israel, but to enhance its prestige and power.
First, there is no reason to assume that Iran is a less rational actor than other states. States want to survive, and the use of nuclear weapons is a good way to commit suicide. A strike on Israel by Iran would invite retaliation from Israel as well as, almost certainly, from the United States. This is a massive risk they are almost certainly not going to undertake (note the history lessons below).
Second, it makes more sense that Iran wants a nuke to make attacks on them, like the one they are currently experiencing, less likely. To take a trip down memory lane, George W. Bush famously dubbed Iran, Iraq, and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil.” It seems worth underscoring that Iraq was invaded and its government toppled, Iran has endured a number of attacks and assassinations over the decades, but North Korea has been largely left alone despite the aforementioned provocations.
Care to guess which of those three countries has nuclear weapons and which don’t?
I have zero doubt that while the current war with Israel will set the Iranian nuclear program back (although how much is just a guess), I think it will also increase, not decrease, their ardor for such a weapon. I think it will increase their interest in fomenting anti-Israel terrorism as well, but that is its own discussion.
For what it is worth, I accept the general notion that, by definition, proliferation increases the chances of a nuclear weapon being deployed on some battlefield somewhere. It is just simple logic: each addition to the nuclear club adds a new variable to the probability calculation.
But it seems worth noting that we have had a number of natural experiments to test the general theory of nuclear deterrence. And hence why I think that the odds are far, far better than an Iranian weapon will be used the same way as everyone else’s nukes have been, instead of the way Israelis fear.
There is the simple, yet indisputable, bit of evidence that despite the substantial increase in the number of nuclear weapons, as well as the number of countries with nukes, there has been no battlefield deployment since their initial usage in two attacks on Japan by the US in August of 1945.
We then had roughly four decades of a Cold War, which included many hot proxy wars mixed in, between two massive nuclear powers, the US and the USSR. No deployment of nukes.
But, maybe the US and the USSR were just so overpowered that mutually assured destruction was enough to forestall usage? Or, maybe, the US and USSR were just especially responsible nuclear stewards.
But then we have the case of India and Pakistan. India has had nukes since 1974, and Pakistan acquired them in 1998. There is substantial enmity between these two powers. It seems worth noting that major wars between the two sides stopped after India acquired nuclear weapons, and that while there have been military conflicts since Pakistan acquired its nukes, those conflicts have all been limited (but there have been a lot of them). Neither side has deployed nuclear weapons in these skirmishes.
Another example of a nuclear power that people like to say is craaazzeee is North Korea. And while Little Rocket Man has engaged in a number of provocative behaviors over his time in office, there has been no nuclear deployment.
The most recent example is Russia in Ukraine, which has, to date, been perhaps the most serious possible deployment of battlefield nuclear weapons since various Indo-Pakistani conflicts. To date, no nukes. And it is without any doubt the case that a possible nuclear standoff is why that war has not expanded to include the direct military involvement of NATO forces, including the US (and is why Russia has mostly avoided any provocations outside Ukraine’s borders.
So, again, I understand the Israeli position and I favor slowing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. But I am not convinced that this current war is a good idea,* given that controlling the outcomes of such events is not easy. Instability within Iran is actually more likely to redound against Israeli interests than it is to do so in their favor.
US involvement of the type being contemplated (i.e., direct military action in Iran by US forces) will only increase the odds of unintended consequences, in my view.
It would actually have been better to have allowed the Trump administration to try and restore some version of the JCPOA (jus call is USAPCPOA and move on), which would have helped slow Iran, and given that slowing is ultimately all that can happen (granted, rates of slowness may difer) a diplomatic solution solution would have been cheaper in Israeli military assets,** not to mention Iranian and Israeli lives and infrastructure.
*It is also kind of hard to ignore how much of this seems driven more by domestic Israeli politics than by some imminent threat. Via the AP: Netanyahu’s government survives vote to dissolve Israel’s parliament. That report was from June 12th. The bombing started early on the 13th. I think that hawkish Americans need to take this into account.
I will note that there may be some logic to be stated that the recent degradation of Hezbollah and of Hamas (as well as the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria) meant that this was a good time to attack, given that Iranian proxies near Israel were off the table
**What happens, for example, when either Israeli offensive or defensive stockpiles get low? This isn’t a video game wherein missiles can be endlessly produced at a rate that keeps up with usage.
Well argued. It echos a lot of other pragmatic analysis I have seen on the topic.
Both this, as James’s earlier article from this morning really call it the fundamental challenges at play here.
In related news…
Putin says ‘all of Ukraine is ours’ and threatens nuclear strike (Sky)
Putin declaring eliminationist and genocidal intent against Ukraine yet again, tacitly admitting Russia’s warmongering rests not on fake fears about NATO expansion but on the imperalistic belief Ukraine has no right to exist.
Yet some of the same folks saber-rattling for further US entanglement in the Israel-Iran fued are conspicuously less gung-ho about US security guarantees for Ukraine — guarantees made necessary by NATO forcing Ukraine in the 90s to cede nuclear control to Russia.
If Putin didn’t have nukes, what’s happening to Tehran right now would’ve happened to Moscow in 2014 during the Crimea attacks. If Zelenskyy had nukes, Putin would never have sent troops into Ukraine. That’s why Iran wants nukes.
It is not in US interests to passively allow further nuclear proliferation. But as the only country to ever drop a nuke, we should cut the holier-than-thou approach and discuss the subject more rationally, as Dr. Taylor does here with some success.
@DK:
Putin also said, today, that “wherever a Russian soldier sets foot is ours.”
Worth mentioning that even before North Korea had nukes, their principle opponent built their capitol within artillery range of the border with North Korea. Any first strike against the North that is not enormously effective has always been going to result in tens or even hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties in and around Seoul.
@Michael Cain: Not all deterents are nuclear, to be sure. And the geography of the Korean peninsula is part of the general calculation.
A well reasoned analysis. But a couple points:
1) Iran cannot be successfully invaded, not even by the US and certainly not by Israel. You’d have to be insane to invade a country of 90 million people in a space larger than Alaska which is virtually all mountain. It doesn’t mean the Iranians don’t fear it, but it is not a rational fear.
2) If simple deterrence were the point, Iran would not be forever threatening genocide. During the Cold War, even in the rabid 1950’s, we were not calling for the USSR to be wiped off the map. Deterrence assumes rational actors on both sides and rational actors do not declare genocide as a goal. Incidentally the same goal as Hamas.
So, it’s a reasonable analysis but suffers from being reasonable.
Is Iran rational? We don’t know, but they do not act rationally. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and threats of genocide don’t sound particularly rational. So, if I were Israeli, I’d have to assume the nuclear program is meant to be used against Israel. Which makes Israel’s actions rational, however much one might question the timing.
A reminder that the US went to the brink of nuclear armageddon because the USSR was putting nukes in Cuba. Israel has been far more restrained than we were then, and the USSR had not been threatening to wipe us off the map, just to compete with us and eventually overthrow our system of government.
@Michael Reynolds:
I’m not sure I trust people yelling and brandishing signs reading “death is sweeter than honey” to be rational.
I’m reminded of the blazing-eyed loons storming around Harvard Square in the late seventies screaming “death to the Shah” two inches from your face.
@CSK:
There was a Soviet leader back in the sixties, IIRC, who pounded a podium with his shoe while saying, in part, “We will bury you!” Rash and stupid of him, but those words were parsed out of context. This was used by those with a desire to take it at face value as irrefutable evidence the Soviets were 100%. committed to our utter destruction for decades. Not at all dishonestly either. People believe mainly what they want to believe. Another “constant struggle”.
With this group of incompetents? You don’t say.
@Michael Reynolds: Every indication for now almost 50 years of existence suggest Iran functions as rationally as other actors.
What is your evidence apart from some rhetoric?
@CSK: Perhaps I am misunderstanding, but are you suggesting that we judge the rationality of a nation state as an actor on the international stage via the actions of people at a protest?
@Michael Reynolds:
Because it would have upset the deterrent balance.
Iran, even if it obtained a nuke tomorrow would not change the dynamic of Israeli military superiority nor the US nuclear threat.
Michael, my friend, you sound like a neocon on this topic.
@Daryl:
According to ABC, Trump is leaning heavily on Steve Bannon’s advice now. Bannon, from what I understand, is strongly against U.S. involvement in Iran.
Who knows what to believe?
@Michael Reynolds: Hezbollah, Hamas, Houthis, and the other Proxies are rational tools for a regional actor to provide a counter threat to a global power and their client state absent direct confrontation—which would be suicidal.
I made a career in the business of war but I never expect sovereign nations at odds with our foreign policy to simply lie down to do whatever the US dictates. I like Iran getting its teeth kicked in, but respect them for pursuing their own aims for the region.
Frankly, I’d like Israel and Iran to both to kick each other’s teeth in. Israel is a better actor than Iran—but both are bad actors. A little creative destruction may facilitate the assent of better leadership in both countries and a better future for both nations.
I would respond, no doubt with devastating logic, but it’s 11 PM in Portugal and I may be slightly drunk, having consumed beer in the hot sun, wine with a disappointing pizza, and Talisker 10 in the air conditioned room. It’s called vacation, people.
ETA: And some mediocre weed.
@Steven L. Taylor:
No, but in my experience, protesters in non-Islamic cultures generally don’t wish for their own deaths. I could be wrong in that observation, of course. But it does not strike me as entirely rational.
Iran’s nuclear program makes no sense at all.
For most commercial uses, uranium needs to be enriched to 3-5%. For weapons, you need over 80%, the higher the better*. The figure often quoted is 60%, which seems not be good for anything other than further enrichment.
But they’ve been at this for decades now. They could have had 90% enriched uranium by now. They could also have developed and tested various implosion techniques, and eventually a working nuke.
Why haven’t they?
As for El Taco, speaking of lack of rationality, what kind of emergency can he declare if he took his country to war against an alleged nuclear power?
*In theory, uranium enriched to 20% can be used for a bomb, but it would take like a half a ton of it and the yield wouldn’t be that high.
@CSK: I was yesterday years old when I learned “death is sweeter than honey” comes from a Midieval Islamic story about the Battle of Karbala, where a vastly outnumbered force chose to face their certain death with valor rather than fear. That’s less “wishing for death,” more like saying if we are destined to lose, better to go down swinging rather than surrender — even if we die.
This is the standard rhetoric of patriotic resolve. Not any more irrational than Patrick Henry rallying Virginia to commit to Revolution with “Give me liberty, or give me death!” or the old Underground Railroad abolitionist hymn with the refrain: “And before I’ll be slave / I’ll be buried in my grave / And go home to my Lord and be free.”
@Kathy:
Small modular reactors are the darling designs of the day. The business plans for some of those designs do not include in-the-field refueling. After 20 years, a replacement reactor arrives and the old unit is sent back to the factory for refurbishing (and refueling). Such designs require fuel to be enriched to something over 20%.
@CSK: I just don’t think you can extrapolate nation-state behavior from things someone at a protest says.
Especially if those protests were in the 1970s.
@DK:
Well, I could argue that nowadays, no one in the U.S. is shouting “give me liberty or give me death,” not even the most demented MAGAs, but I won’t. And I take your point.
Still, screaming “death to the shah” in my face seems rather…pointless. Was I going to hop on a plane to Tehran and shoot Reza Pahlavi?
@Steven L. Taylor:
No, the “death is sweeter than honey” cry is from June 21, 2025.
@DK: It sounds a lot like the “Come and Take It” flag from the Texas War for Independence from Mexico. Or, really, any number of things people will say when they are willing to go to war.
I would note that going to war, and especially being willing to be in the armed forces in a war, is being willing to die for a cause one believes in.
Without at all saying that all causes are equal, we tend to pretend like “we” (whoever we may be) being willing to die for a cause is rational, if not romantic. But if “they” (whoever they may be) proclaim the same they are irrational fanatics.
@CSK:
Hehe. Did Ivan The Terrible Redux offer any commentary on these allegations ?
Russian cannibal soldier ate his own comrade, leaked audio from Ukraine’s HUR claims (Kyiv Idependent)
Only the best people for Putin and his puppets.
@CSK: I don’t judge a government’s rationality based on what protestors say. Again, the current Iranian state has existed for just shy of 50 years, and there is nothing that makes me see it, whether I approve of its actions or not, that shows a state that functions all that differently than others. It has goals, seeks power, and wants to survive.
See, also DK’s comment above.
@CSK:
This actually a great example, as it is a revered phrase in our patriotic history.
I would be willing to wager that some Tea Party types and others have used that phrase in protest over the years. We all know the reference and so have cultural context.
Darmok and Jalad at Tanagra (if you know what I mean–if not, I will gladly explain).
@Steven L. Taylor: BTW: if one does an image serach on “give me liberty or give me death” protest sign, it isn’t hard to find contemporary examples.
@Steven L. Taylor</a : Patrick Henry who is quoted as having said "give me liberty or give me death", was at that time one of Virginia's largest slaveholders with hundreds of enslaved persons. Liberty for me but not for thee.
We should Iranian statements like this seriously, but not literally.
They’ve certainly had the capability to attack Israel with dirty bombs, but they haven’t. If they were suicidally intent on destroying Israel, all of Israel’s cities would be radioactive by now.
Anyway, I agree with all of Doc Taylor’s post. Iran has been a rational actor, and with the US not being a rational actor, and Israel seeking regime change for the past 40 years, they have every incentive to have nuclear weapons, and a lot of incentives to pursue them (separating those two scenarios, since the pursuit phase has an added immediate risk for them)
I’d rather Iran have security guarantees that can be trusted, and change the entire calculation. But there’s literally no one who can grant those.
(Also, and right winger who has ever uttered anything like “an armed society is a polite society” should be relentlessly mocked — just in general, but particularly if they say we have to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons)
You know what?things might settle down if North Korea or Pakistan just gave them three nuclear bombs. Enough to be a deterrent, not enough to be a good option for attackers
@CSK:
iirc, Adolf Hitler said something similar.
He turned out to be mistaken.
There are numerous reasons for desiring nuclear weapons, which are often quite rational.
But also may be in pursuit of policies that are of arguable rationality, and quite likely to provoke response by other states, who reasonably fear what nucler deterrence might enable.
Consider a hypothetical:
Atomic research had proceeded a little faster.
Germany in the late 1930’s is racing for an atomic weapon in order to pursue its ambitions in central and eastern Europe free of the likelihood of war with Britain and France.
In that circumstance, it would have been rather sensible for Britain and France to launch a preventive war.
“But that’s an entirely hypothetical situation…”
True. But there was an equivalent:
In 1935 Germany denounced the Versailles limitation on its military, and reintroduced conscription and a Luftwaffe in 1935.
From that point on the fuses were lit: Germany just needed a couple of years to create a Wehrmacht with millions of trained reservists.
The sensible strategic response would have been an immediate Anglo-French ultimatum, and if that was not complies with, a declaration of war.
But that was politically impossible, in bothe the UK and France.
And from that political impossibility, much grief ensued.
Of course, it would have been impossible to determine the nature of a subsequent government in Germany.
Perhaps a still more insane Nazi leadership would have taken power.
Or perhaps, as many in the UK and France feared, a fascist collapse would have opened the door to communist ascendancy.
Perhaps it would have required another war with Germany soon after.
Nonetheless, I for one am inclined to think that stomping Nazis in 1935 would probably have been the preferable option.
@Kathy:
@Michael Cain:
Or you could use the CANDU reactor design, which can use natural uranium with just chemical elemental separation, without isotopic enrichment.
Even for specialist reactors, like naval power plants, enrichement above 20% is not required.
Going above that has only one purpose: atomic weapons.
@CSK:
No one in the U.S. has a historically hostile nation’s bombs falling on their heads. If the US government was on the verge of being violently toppled by China, we’d hear a lot of Americans shouting a lot of things far more defiantly morbid than that — MAGA and anti-MAGA alike.
@DK:
US politics tends to be rather solipsistic in regard to international relations.
And this is not just a left/right thing, either.
Many Europeans had considerable experience of hostile bombs.
The overall experience, after a lot of pain and horror, indicated that “death to …” rhetoric was profoundly dangerous, and also rather pointless.
North Korea produced an atomic bomb, and Iran is a far more technologically and industrially advanced country. If Iran wanted an atomic bomb, they would already have one.
While not stated explicitly, it’s clear Iran has wanted a nuclear deterrent. But that doesn’t necessarily require an actual atomic bomb. What it does require is a short enough breakout time to produce an atomic bomb, if and when faced with an existential threat.
Netanyahu is right that Iran has been weeks from an atomic bomb for twenty years—but Iran never produced one, supporting the claim that Iran has wanted nuclear deterrence but not necessarily an atomic bomb.
The JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed during the Obama administration) pushed out the breakout time to half a year or so. Iran signed because they thought half a year would be short enough to constitute a credible deterrent, while the West signed because they thought half a year would be long enough for them to react if Iran actually moved to produce an atomic bomb.
Trump, in his wisdom, reneged on the American commitment. That shortened Iran’s breakout time to just weeks. Iran still didn’t produce an atomic bomb, supporting the claim that they just wanted deterrence. Trump also supported their belief that the Americans are duplicitous.
However, Iran’s calculation has changed. Breakout deterrence failed. There is no reasonable argument (short of surrender) that Iran shouldn’t produce their own atomic bomb. If they had moved their highly-enriched uranium before the recent American attack, then they may soon produce an atomic bomb.