Hezbollah and Hamas no longer pose a threat to Israel. The Islamic Republic of Iran’s “axis of resistance” lies in ruin. Both Iran’s and Syria’s air defense systems have been destroyed, and Iran’s missile capabilities decimated. Despite this, Iran is on the verge of producing enough weapons-grade uranium to build several bombs – so close, in fact, that relying on a timely warning from U.S. or Israeli intelligence of Iran’s imminent “breakout” may no longer be a reliable strategy. Now is the time for Jerusalem and Washington to take decisive military action against Iran’s nuclear program, ideally through a coordinated and joint strike.

In December 2024, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), warned that Iran was “dramatically” accelerating its enrichment of uranium to the 60 percent level, a threshold dangerously close to the 90 percent enrichment required to manufacture a nuclear weapon.¹ At the same time, the Office of the U.S. Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) reported that since its “last update in July 2024, Iran has continued to increase its stockpiles of 20-percent and 60-percent enriched uranium, manufacture and operate an increasing number of advanced centrifuges, and publicly discuss the utility of nuclear weapons.”² Furthermore, the IAEA assessed that Iran would require only weeks – not months – to “break out” from its current self-imposed 60 percent enrichment limit to the 90 percent or higher needed for a nuclear bomb. Iran’s November 2024 stockpile of 60 percent enriched fuel could produce enough Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) for at least four bombs in short order and many more within a matter of months. Over the past six months, Iran has significantly increased both the quantity and the rate of uranium enrichment to 60 percent.

Until recently, Tehran dismissed all discussions of its acquisition of nuclear weapons capacity as baseless, claiming that Supreme Leader Khamenei had prohibited it through an oral fatwa (an Islamic legal ruling).³ Senior officials now openly discuss the pros and cons of developing a nuclear bomb. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi recently stated that while Tehran currently “has no intention” of exceeding 60 percent enrichment, “there is this debate going on in Iran, and mostly among the elites ... whether we should change our nuclear doctrine.” A dramatic instance of that debate occurred in October of last year when 39 Iranian parliamentarians sent an open letter to Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, urging the country to “reevaluate its defense doctrine” in favor of acquiring nuclear weapons.⁴

The collapse of Iran’s anti-Israel “axis of resistance” gives Tehran an additional incentive to develop nuclear weapons. Khamenei’s longstanding plan to use proxies to weaken Israel is in ruins: Hamas barely subsists; Hezbollah no longer poses a serious threat to Israel; Shia militias in Iraq have stopped launching drones and missiles at Israel; and, most importantly, the collapse of Assad’s regime in Syria has all but shut down the arms pipeline Tehran had relied on for years to bolster Hezbollah. Only Tehran’s Houthi allies in Yemen remain active, but they do not pose a major military threat to Israel. Moreover, the ease with which Israel penetrated Iranian air space twice last year – symbolically in April and with real force in October – may have convinced Iranian leaders, who had previously been skeptical about the need for a bomb, that it is now necessary to deter further Israeli “aggressions.” In February, current and former U.S. officials told the New York Times⁵ that instead of using up-to-date techniques to weaponize HEU and fit the resultant bomb onto a ballistic missile – which could require up to two years – Tehran is considering designing a cruder but still very lethal device like the first U.S. nuclear weapons. They estimate that Iranian scientists could confect such a bomb in a matter of months, not years. This new project may indeed reflect Tehran’s unease at the collapse of its axis of resistance and the urgency with which it seeks a new way to deter the supposed Israeli “threat.”

The DNI, however, has not updated its assessment that “as of 26 September 2024, Iran is not building a nuclear weapon,”⁶ marking a subtle shift from its 2023 assessment, which stated that “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities that would be necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”⁷ The current assessment may be accurate in that Tehran has not yet assembled the full puzzle of a deliverable nuclear device, even though Iran is persistently fashioning the individual pieces. The expansion of uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz continues apace, and multiple sources report that Tehran is working to improve the accuracy of its ballistic missiles.⁸ This most recent threatening development prompted Israel to bomb a nuclear facility at Parchin last October. According to documents seized by Israel in 2018 from the Iranian nuclear archive, Iran began testing the high-explosive mechanism needed to compress an atomic core and generate a nuclear blast as early as 2003. Israel’s Parchin attack, however, appears to have been driven by more than just the facility’s historical significance. An AXIOS report from last November quoted a U.S. official stating that Iran had resumed nuclear weapons research at Parchin. Israeli officials added that the destruction of equipment at Parchin created a “bottleneck” that would slow down any Iranian efforts to advance the nuclear weapons program.⁹ It is also possible that the Parchin attack was linked to Iranian research into producing a simpler and swifter bomb discussed above.

But the most basic reason to conclude that Iran still aspires to obtain nuclear weapons is how Tehran designed its entire nuclear program from the start: by enriching uranium domestically when imported fuel for a civilian nuclear program would have been much cheaper. Tehran consistently concealed key nuclear sites from the IAEA and the West, including hiding the Fordow site beneath a mountain. Most importantly, Iran sacrificed billions of dollars due to Western sanctions and lost foreign investment to develop a nuclear program that starkly contrasts with the approach of a country genuinely seeking peaceful nuclear power – such as the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Over a decade ago, the UAE agreed to the “gold standard” for nuclear power safeguards by forgoing domestic uranium enrichment and reprocessing – the two primary routes to producing fissionable weapons-grade material. The UAE will soon operate four safeguarded nuclear reactors, supplying about a quarter of its electrical energy needs, while Iran operates only one safeguarded Russian-built nuclear power plant at Bushehr, which supplies less than 2 percent of the country’s electricity needs. Even more significantly, Iran possesses a stockpile of over 183 kg (and growing) of 60 percent enriched uranium, for which there can be no peaceful use. It is no exaggeration to say that had Tehran adopted the UAE’s approach to nuclear energy, Iran could have become a major mid-level industrial power like Turkey or Mexico (with GDPs per capita of roughly $15,000 and $14,000, respectively). Instead, Iran remains an economic basket case, with a GDP per capita of about $5,000, relying almost exclusively on the export of crude oil, pistachios, and rugs.

The above discussion should have made clear the many challenges that President Trump faces, considering the advanced state of Iran’s nuclear program. Given the Republican Party’s division between isolationist America Firsters and more traditional internationalists, it would be unwise to predict the direction of the current administration. There are, however, signs that Trump strongly favors economic coercion and negotiations over military solutions. Shortly after the 2024 election, Trump advisor Elon Musk met with Iran’s U.N. ambassador to explore ways to “defuse tensions.” The new administration has already announced that it plans to reinstate the “maximum pressure” economic sanctions strategy of Trump’s first term, which Biden abandoned.¹⁰ Trump himself has consistently stated that his goal is to end wars and prevent new ones through personal diplomacy rather than through military means.

The president frequently boasts of his powers of persuasion. Trump criticized the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) as “the worst trade deal ever made” and praised his U.S.-Canada-Mexico trade agreement that replaced it. However, most observers assess that its improvements over NAFTA are relatively minor. Trump was even more scathing about the Iran nuclear agreement, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), that President Obama negotiated, correctly insisting that the deal “allows Iran to continue developing certain elements of its nuclear program and, importantly, in just a few years, as key restrictions disappear, Iran can sprint toward a rapid nuclear weapons breakout.”¹¹ It seems likely that Trump will seek to revive maximum pressure on Iran while simultaneously angling for negotiations with Tehran to secure a nuclear agreement that he can tout as a vast improvement over the JCPOA.

This, however, would be a grave mistake. If 25 years of nuclear negotiations with Iran have taught us anything, it is that the country’s rulers – the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) – are determined to acquire nuclear weapons. Given Iran’s current precarious economic and military situation, the Supreme Leader will almost certainly try to resume nuclear talks with the West. This will allow Iran to buy time and avert further economic sanctions, while simultaneously continuing to enrich uranium and support research on nuclear weaponization. Iran has no interest in forgoing domestic uranium enrichment except as a temporary tactic to stall for time. The Ayatollahs may calculate that Trump’s record on NAFTA, along with his eagerness to replace the JCPOA with an improved version bearing the Trump “good housekeeping seal of approval,” will result in a treaty Tehran can accept – one that, while appearing to address the JCPOA’s many shortcomings, still includes escape clauses that Tehran can exploit to achieve its future nuclear goals.

This approach means that the United States, Israel, and the IAEA must remain vigilant to prevent Iran from “breaking out” and acquiring enough HEU for several bombs. Neither Israel nor the United States has made it clear whether they can detect such a breakout early enough to stop it. As Iran continues to enrich more uranium to 60 percent, its path to the breakout 90 percent level becomes shorter and likely more difficult to identify, further shrinking the window for Western intelligence agencies to alert their governments and give them enough time to respond. Former CIA Director Bill Burns stated in October 2024 that Iran’s breakout time to bomb-strength HEU was “a week or a little more.”¹²

Similarly, in July 2024, former Secretary of State Antony Blinken assessed that Iran’s breakout time was as little as “one to two weeks.”¹³ Not for nothing have some wags referred to such a breakout as a “sneakout,” which could either escape detection or be solidly identified only when Iran was days away – or had already acquired – enough HEU for a weapon. It would be exceedingly challenging for Washington and Jerusalem to quickly navigate the bureaucratic, diplomatic, and military hurdles necessary to agree on military action to quickly halt such a breakout.¹⁴

However, such a breakout would not immediately give Iran the bomb. Experts assess that Tehran would need anywhere from several months to two years to weaponize HEU, although the shorter, cruder bomb method mentioned earlier could drastically reduce this time frame.¹⁵ This means that destroying Iran’s large, stationary nuclear targets – primarily the uranium enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz – would no longer effectively block its path to a bomb. The new targets would be far more difficult to locate and destroy. HEU is not bulky and can be stored anywhere in a country three times larger than Texas. Likewise, scientists can undertake research on weaponization in a facility the size of a large garage. Relying on intelligence agencies to monitor these developments accurately is unrealistic, especially given past failures, such as those of U.S. intelligence prior to 9/11 and during the search for Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), as well as the comparably serious Israeli intelligence failure of October 7, 2023.

A better solution would be to use military means to destroy Iran’s major nuclear facilities now. Israel seriously contemplated such action in 2012, but a combination of U.S. pressure and divisions within the Israeli government and the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) removed the kinetic option from consideration. However, Iran is much weaker now, and many past obstacles to military action are no longer relevant. Among these are Hezbollah’s downfall, which has significantly reduced Iran’s ability to retaliate through foreign proxies.

Until this year, the most compelling argument against an Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was the risk of unleashing a catastrophic war with Iran’s proxy Hezbollah (and, to a lesser extent, Hamas). War games and simulations had predicted that Israel would emerge victorious in such a conflict but only at a staggering cost: thousands of military and civilian casualties, along with massive destruction of its industrial and transportation infrastructure.

Last June, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres warned that such a conflict risked triggering a catastrophe “beyond imagination.”¹⁶ But Iran has lost its ace in the hole: Hezbollah’s leadership has been decimated; most, if not all, of its long-range precision-guided missiles that could reach anywhere in Israel have been destroyed or are now in Israeli gunsights; and Hezbollah’s short-range rockets have little more than nuisance value in Israel’s northern regions. The much-ballyhooed danger that Hezbollah missiles could overwhelm the Iron Dome and Israel’s other air defenses has proven false, removing a major restraint on Israeli action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Equally significant is the collapse of Iran’s oldest and closest state ally in the Middle East – the Assad regime in Syria. Israel’s “war between the wars” strategy in Syria over the past decade successfully thwarted Iran’s efforts to replicate a Hezbollah-like missile threat against Israel in Syria. Now, Israel has destroyed much of the Syrian army’s heavy weaponry, and the country has become a “no-go” area for Iranian military operations. Tehran’s “land bridge” from Iran to Lebanon through the vaunted “Shia Crescent” is blocked, and Iran can no longer easily replace Hezbollah’s equipment and missile losses. Israel’s massive assaults on military sites in Syria, which took place the morning after Assad fled to Russia, were the largest in the “war between the wars” and have deprived any government that emerges in Damascus of the capability to attack Israel.

Until this year, Israel had never mounted a serious air attack against Iran and could not know for certain how effective the regime’s Russian-supplied S-300 air defense system would be. The verdict is now in: Jerusalem’s response to Iran’s October 1, 2024, launch of almost 200 ballistic missiles against Israel all but obliterated Iran’s air defenses. Israel sent scores of aircraft against Iran, aerially refueled them, and did not lose a single plane. This has left Iran’s nuclear and military sites largely undefended, significantly enhancing the success of any prospective air force attack, whether carried out by Israel and/or the United States. Furthermore, Israel’s recent destruction of virtually all of Syria’s air defenses adds flexibility to any Israeli operation against Iran that must traverse Syrian airspace.

Iran attacked Israel twice in 2024 with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones, abandoning its long-standing reliance on proxies to directly target the Jewish state. The attacks revealed that Iran is a “paper tiger” when it comes to missile warfare against Israel, as most of the missiles were intercepted or allowed to land in rural areas. A handful of missiles reached their intended military targets in Israel but did not inflict serious damage. Moreover, Washington, Western allies, and moderate Arab Sunni states – including Saudi Arabia, which does not even officially recognize Israel – helped Israel repel Iranian missiles. In addition, Israel successfully targeted Iranian missile and missile fuel production facilities, making it much more difficult for Tehran to replace its losses. While it is unclear how many of Iran’s surviving missiles can still reach Israel, Tehran’s two foiled strikes last year suggest that they no longer present a major threat.

Iran’s weakness provides Jerusalem with a golden opportunity to diminish Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The Israel Air Force (IAF) has proven its ability to target Iranian military and nuclear sites with minimal civilian collateral damage, without relying on land refueling in a neighboring country like Azerbaijan. Moreover, the destruction of Iran’s air defenses has shattered the longstanding assumption that Israel could only deliver one surprise blow against Iran’s nuclear facilities before Iran’s residual air defenses would make further attacks too dangerous. With Iran’s air defenses largely demolished, Israel would likely be able to launch follow-up sorties in the hours and days after the initial strike to revisit insufficiently damaged sites.

Israel could target key Iranian nuclear sites without causing extensive collateral civilian damage. Most of the sites are in sparsely populated areas, and conducting attacks at night would minimize workplace casualties. Furthermore, there is a low risk of nuclear fallout or the spread of radioactive material from attacking the Fordow or Natanz facilities, as these sites produce uranium that has not been irradiated in a nuclear reactor. While there may be some minimal ecological damage, the impact would be localized and small, and in no way comparable to the nuclear reactor accidents of Chernobyl or even Three Mile Island.¹⁷

There is, however, one major drawback to Israel mounting an independent “blue and white” attack on Iran’s nuclear sites – the uranium enrichment facility at Fordow. The IAEA reports that Iran has recently increased enrichment at Fordow, which could quickly produce enough HEU for several bombs. Fordow is a subterranean bunker built under a mountain, making it difficult for Israel, which lacks a heavy bomber fleet, to destroy it from the air. That said, one should never underestimate Israeli ingenuity. The IDF and the Mossad may have alternative plans for neutralizing Fordow, potentially involving ground operations and cyberattacks.¹⁸ Yet the fact remains that, however successful Israel might be at targeting Iran’s other nuclear sites, including the enrichment plants at Natanz and the gaseous diffusion facility at Isfahan, leaving Fordow operational after an Israeli attack would likely prompt Iran to push its centrifuges there into overdrive, quickly producing as much weapons-grade HEU as possible. This would be precisely the scenario that Israel’s attack was intended to prevent in the first place.

At this juncture, Washington’s involvement would become crucial. The United States Air Force (USAF) possesses a non-nuclear weapon that can almost certainly penetrate and demolish Fordow: the GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), colloquially referred to as a “bunker buster” bomb. The MOP is a 30,000-pound self-guided munition, currently only deliverable by the USAF’s B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft. Washington used the MOP in October 2024 in Yemen to demolish Houthi underground missile facilities. This was overkill for the Houthis’ relatively modest installations, which could have been taken out by smaller munitions. Most observers see the incident as a clear warning to Tehran that its Fordow bunker is not impregnable.¹⁹

A joint U.S.-Israel attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities offers another major advantage: it would allow for the targeting of many more nuclear and missile sites, inflicting much greater damage than a unilateral Israeli operation. There are numerous ways in which the two allies could cooperate. For instance, Washington could deploy the MOP against Iran’s large subterranean nuclear sites, including an unfinished installation at Natanz, which is designed to be even deeper underground than Fordow, and potentially a few select non-nuclear sites.²⁰ Meanwhile, Israel could target Iranian missile storage and production facilities, along with other military targets, especially the many smaller and more vulnerable nuclear facilities that supply key inputs for the Fordow and Natanz enrichment plants. Destroying these feeder facilities would severely hinder any Iranian attempt to restart its nuclear program after a combined U.S.-Israel strike.²¹

Some U.S. policymakers oppose almost any use of military force in the Middle East out of fear that the ensuing “escalation” could drag the country into another prolonged conflict like those in Iraq and Afghanistan. Tehran constantly plays on these fears. For example, Foreign Minister Abbas Aragchi told Al-Jazeera TV on January 31, 2025, that attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities “would be one of the biggest historical mistakes that the U.S. could make” and would plunge the Middle East into “an all-out war.” ²² However, neither Iran’s ongoing threats nor the examples of Afghanistan and Iraq offer much in the way of insight into the consequences of an attack on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities. Such an operation would not require a single U.S. boot on the ground (although clandestine Israeli boots may play a role). No one is proposing landing a U.S. expeditionary force to march to Tehran as in the cases of Baghdad and Kabul. Israel’s experience over Iran’s skies means that USAF pilots are likely to return home as heroes rather than in coffins.

Nevertheless, some critics argue that even a limited airstrike targeting only nuclear and military installations would effectively mean the United States is going to war with Iran and thus should be avoided. This reasoning is specious. For all intents and purposes, the United States has been engaged in a low-intensity war with Iran since the Carter administration’s hostage crisis. The two countries have no diplomatic relations, and Iran has mounted or attempted numerous terrorist attacks against U.S. officials and military personnel both within the United States and across the Middle East with the help of its proxies. In 2020, Washington responded to Iran’s numerous hostile actions by killing General Qassem Soleimani, the legendary head of the IRGC Quds Force, in Iraq. Tehran apparently learned nothing from this experience. Last November, the Justice Department announced the arrest of an Iranian national whom the IRGC had tasked to assassinate then-President-elect Trump.²³ While sparring between the two powers would likely intensify following a U.S. airstrike, its major features – clumsy attempts to kill U.S. officials on American soil and strikes against U.S. troops and allies throughout the Middle East – would remain largely unchanged. One could call this a state of war, but it is nearly indistinguishable from the current hostile relationship between the two nations.

A more credible objection is that, while Iran cannot significantly penetrate Israel’s air defenses or those of major U.S. military bases in the region, it can still wreak havoc on U.S. allies in the Persian Gulf, particularly the UAE, Bahrain, and Saudi Arabia. Like Hezbollah, Iran possesses thousands of short-range projectiles that can target military and economic assets in these and other neighboring countries. Tehran has already demonstrated their effectiveness. In 2019, Iran launched a cruise missile and drone attack on Saudi Arabia’s Abqaiq oil production facility, disabling the Kingdom’s premier petroleum processing plant for several weeks and causing a brief spike in global oil prices. A sustained series of such attacks could inflict significant damage on U.S. allies in the region.²⁴

The threat of Iranian retaliation against the West’s Arab allies, however, is not a game-changer. The Gulf states’ air defenses are far more advanced today than they were in 2019, when Tehran caught Riyadh off guard. Since then, a regional air defense network has been established, encompassing Israel, the United States, and the major moderate Sunni states. This network demonstrated its resilience twice last year by successfully defending Israel from Iran’s missile and drone attacks.²⁵ In recent years, Washington has supplied nearly a dozen different air defense systems to the Gulf states, along with training. While some Iranian missiles will inevitably penetrate these defenses, the notion that Iran can quickly devastate Gulf oil production and processing facilities in retaliation for an attack by either Israel and/or the United States is greatly exaggerated.

Secondly, a credible threat by the United States and Israel to cripple Iran’s economy, should it attempt to retaliate, would likely cause Tehran to reconsider its actions. The initial joint Israeli-U.S. airstrikes on Iran should be limited to nuclear and military sites, enough to keep both air forces occupied for several days.

Industrial and oil production facilities could be deliberately spared from damage. However, the United States, Israel, and possibly some European powers could send a unified message, whether overtly and/or through clandestine conduits, to Tehran, coinciding with the dropping of the first MOPs over Fordow and Natanz: we do not seek to target your economy. But if you retaliate against Israel, the United States, or any of its regional allies, we will completely destroy your oil and gas production and export facilities. One major installation alone – the Kharg Island petroleum terminal – handles nearly 90 percent of Iran’s gas and oil exports, which, in turn, accounts for 40 percent of the country’s export earnings. Israel could easily demolish Kharg Island, while the United States could target other facilities that the IAF might have more difficulty reaching. Iran has already received a sneak preview of how Israel and/or the United States can harm its economy. Early last year, Israel sabotaged two key Iranian oil pipelines, disrupting oil availability and electrical production in several provinces.²⁶

The prospect of losing the jewel in its economic crown will likely make Tehran think twice before retaliating against Israel, the United States, and the Gulf states in anything more than a perfunctory manner. Even more intimidating would be an Israeli-U.S. pledge to target the entirety of the country’s petroleum infrastructure, along with other major industrial sites. Of course, there is a downside to destroying Kharg Island and similar targets: world oil and gas prices would immediately surge. However, this risk should not prevent the threat from being taken seriously. Saudi Arabia has ample excess oil capacity that it could quickly bring into production, minimizing the impact of reduced Iranian oil production and exports on global petroleum prices. This would be the bare minimum Riyadh should contribute to a campaign that would eliminate its most dangerous enemy’s nuclear weapons potential for many years to come.

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s economic and political stability is at the lowest point since the immediate post-revolutionary period of 1979–1980. The country’s severe energy crisis – driven by sanctions, mismanagement, aging infrastructure, and (wasteful) consumption – has compelled schools to switch to online-only formats, shuttered or darkened stores and shopping malls, forced at least 17 power plants to go offline, and halted production in many factories. Millions of Iranians are literally freezing in their homes this winter, while the Rial reached an all-time low of 275,000 IRR to the U.S. dollar in December 2024, representing an almost 50 percent loss in value since December 2023.²⁷ At the same time, the regime’s political base is shrinking. A recent opinion poll, conducted before the ongoing economic crisis and the recent setbacks to Tehran’s foreign proxies, found that over 80 percent of the population opposed the Islamic regime and favored democratic rule.²⁸ Violent protests against the regime have increased in frequency, size, and lethality over the past decade. For example, Iranian security forces killed over 550 citizens and maimed many more during the recent Mahsa Amini “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests.²⁹ Discontent has even surfaced in the regime’s tightly controlled elections, where abstention rates of over 60 percent are now commonplace, and voters routinely reject candidates most closely associated with the Supreme Leader Khamenei’s hardline policies, as in last year’s presidential election.

These developments have led many regime opponents to declare that the Ayatollah’s government is unstable and only needs a firm push to collapse completely. While predictions of the imminent demise of the Islamic Republic have been common over the past 40 years, the regime continues to defy both pundits and its own population. Moreover, we do not know how Iranians – both the governing elite and the general population – would react to a concerted attack on the country’s nuclear and military facilities. Such a setback could prompt Khamenei, the IRGC, and the regime’s Basij militia to intensify persecution, driven by the fear that Iranians might come to believe the Islamic Republic is on its last legs and will rise up against it.

Judging by its recent repression of popular protests, the regime seems to maintain the loyalty of its most capable and ruthless security enforcers. Whether the massive international and domestic embarrassment caused by a nuclear setback of gargantuan proportions would shake this loyalty is uncertain. There is at least a chance that such a clear demonstration of the regime’s weakness could break the impasse that has thus far prevented the Iranian opposition from threatening Islamic rule. It is evident that, at the very least, the regime would not emerge stronger, either externally or internally, from such a shock. In fact, it would likely have to allocate even more men and resources to preventing political instability from boiling over.

The current situation marks a critical juncture in the three-decade-long struggle to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran has never been weaker, both domestically and internationally. Its “axis of resistance” is in disarray, and what little popular support the mullahs still have is steadily eroding. The only place where Tehran is not retreating is at the Fordow and Natanz uranium enrichment plants where the danger of a nuclear breakout looms larger than ever. Meanwhile, both Israeli and U.S. military capabilities are also stronger than ever, significantly increasing the likelihood of successful kinetic action against Iran’s nuclear program.

These circumstances will not last forever. Russia is already helping Iran restore its air defenses by supplying Tehran with additional units of the formidable S-400 system. This system – unlike the S-300s that Israel destroyed last October – can potentially shoot down U.S. fifth-generation aircraft such as the F-35, the likely warhorse of any joint Israeli-U.S. kinetic attack. Iran will need time to effectively operate the S-400s. The United States and Israel have various workarounds, but the longer Washington and Jerusalem delay an attack, the greater the uncertainties surrounding the strengthening of Iranian air defenses caused by Tehran’s acquisition of the S-400s.³⁰ Another source of uncertainty is Tehran’s recent purchase of an unknown number of Russia’s Sukhoi-35 fighter jets. Moscow has not yet delivered these jets, and Iranian pilots will take time to operate them effectively. However, this is yet another case where waiting and watching may create additional perils for a military attack on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.³¹

Furthermore, Jerusalem is increasingly concerned that deepening ties between Moscow and Tehran – highlighted by Iranian President Pezeshkian’s visit to Russia on January 17, 2025, to sign a broad strategic agreement with the Kremlin – may pave the way for enhanced nuclear cooperation between the two countries. Although the accord did not stipulate that each party would come to the other’s aid in the event of war, it did pledge, according to Tass, “to strengthen cooperation in the field of security and defense.” Senior Israeli security officials fear that, in exchange for Iran’s support in its war against Ukraine, Moscow could assist Tehran in overcoming the scientific and technical challenges of weaponizing its HEU and integrating it into a ballistic missile warhead. Such cooperation would significantly increase Iran’s strategic capabilities, posing a heightened threat not only to Israel but also to Western interests across the Middle East and beyond.

Meanwhile, Iran is already drawing Washington into an endless cycle of negotiations, which Tehran will exploit either to steadily advance toward a breakout or secure a deal only slightly less favorable than the original JCPOA. Should the latter happen, the West will once again have just kicked the Iranian nuclear ball down the road in the forlorn hope that it explodes on somebody else’s watch.

Colin Winston

Former CIA Analyst

Dr. Colin Winston is a 30-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, where he specialized in Middle East affairs and retired in 2012 as a member of the Senior Analytical Service. From 2012 until his departure in 2024, he served as the senior in-house Middle East expert for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The views expressed in this article are exclusively his own and do not reflect those of the CIA or AIPAC.

1. https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-dramatically-increasing-enrichment-near-bomb-grade-iaea-chief-2024-12-06/

2. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Unclassified-Irans-Nuclear-Weapons-Capability-and-Terrorism-Monitoring-Act-of-2022-202411.pdf

3. No such Fatwa appears to exist. See: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/iran-nuclear-weapons-fatwa-khamenei/

4. https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/504781/Number-of-Iranian-lawmakers-push-for-pursuit-of-nuclear-weapons

5. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/03/us/politics/iran-nuclear-weapon.html

6. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/ODNI-Unclassified-Irans-Nuclear-Weapons-Capability-and-Terrorism-Monitoring-Act-of-2022-202411.pdf

7. https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Iran-Nuclear-Weapons-Capability-and-Terrorism-Monitoring-Act-of-2022.pdf

8. https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/can-iran-restore-its-missile-mojo

9. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/op_eds/2024/12/25/the-curious-case-of-irans-destroyed-nuclear-site/. President Biden publicly warned Israel before the October strike not to target Iranian nuclear facilities. However, Washington has not admonished Jerusalem after the fact, suggesting that the United States was just as concerned as its ally about the research going on at Parchin.

10. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/trump-set-reimpose-maximum-pressure-iran-official-says-2025-02-04/

11. Remarks by President Trump on Iran’s Strategy, Oct. 13, 2017. https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-iran-strategy/

12. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-year-living-dangerously-tehran-strategy-ali-vaez?check_logged_in=1

13. https://www.firstpost.com/world/irans-nuclear-weapon-breakout-is-down-to-1-2-weeks-blinken-issues-stark-warning-13795086.html

14. https://www.axios.com/2025/01/02/iran-nuclear-weapon-biden-white-house. President Biden reportedly requested options for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities should Iran attempt a breakout shortly after last year’s election. Far from reassuring, this suggests that Pentagon planning for such an attack may still be in its early stages. It most definitely indicates that the U.S. government will be hard-pressed to authorize and execute an attack on Iran’s nuclear program, alone or with Israel, in the final days preceding a successful Iranian breakout.

15. https://www.foreignpolicy.com/2024/10/10/iran-nuclear-weapon-warhead-missile-how-soon/

16. https://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/306081

17. https://www.forbes.com/sites/stephenpastis/2024/10/08/will-israel-attack-irans-nuclear-program-heres-what-to-know-as-ex-pm-calls-for-strikes/

18. Examples of such ingenuity include the Stuxnet bug that hampered the efficiency of uranium centrifuges at Natanz; the Mossad’s theft of the Iranian nuclear archive in 2017; the beeper and walkie-talkie attacks that decimated Hezbollah’s military strength; the systematic killing of the Lebanese terrorist group’s top leadership; and a ground attack in September 2024 (“Operation Deep Layer”) by Israeli commandos against an Iranian missile production facility in Syria, which was deemed too deeply underground to be destroyed by airstrikes. See https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-confirms-commandos-raided-iran-missile-factory-deep-in-syria-4-months-ago/

19. https://www.forcesnews.com/usa/us-use-secretive-b-2-stealth-bombers-underground-houthi-weapons-facilities

20. https://www.globaldefensecorp.com/2024/10/16/irans-new-nuclear-site-is-80-meters-deep-underground/

21. Some analysts have suggested that, to increase the pressure on Iran and avoid direct U.S. military participation if a kinetic attack become necessary, Washington should provide Jerusalem – in an updated version of WWII’s lend-lease act – the wherewithal to attack Fordow. This would be better than nothing but not as effective as direct U.S. participation. It would take time to train Israeli crews on the MOP and the B-2 Sprint aircraft, potentially delaying the strike. Furthermore, Iran, and the rest of the world would quickly divine the nature of U.S.- Israeli cooperation and consider Washington just as guilty a party as Jerusalem. See https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/path-transformed-middle-east

22. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/1/31/iran-fm-abbas-araghchi-attack-nuclear-sites-war-us-israel-gaza

23. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-announces-murder-hire-and-related-charges-against-irgc-asset-and-two

24. https://www.criticalthreats.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Abqaiq-Analysis-1.pdf#:~:text=The%20attack%20on%20Abqaiq%20was%20planned%20and%20executed,response%20to%20the%20Trump%20Administration%E2%80%99s%20%E2%80%9Cmaximum%20pressure%E2%80%9D%20campaign.

25. https://breakingdefense.com/2024/05/spurred-by-iran-us-and-gulf-nations-meet-to-boost-integrated-missile-defense-early-warning/

26. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/16/world/middleeast/iran-israel-attacks-gas-pipelines.html

27. https://www.iranintl.com/en/202412143221

28. https://www.arabnews.com/sites/default/files/rsu_iran_at_a_crossroads_in_2024.pdf

29. https://www.iranhr.net/en/articles/6200/

30. https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/russia-giving-iran-s-400-missile-batteries-should-israel-be-worried-214464/

31. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2025/01/iran-confirms-purchase-russias-sukhoi-35-fighter-jets-what-we-know

32. https://tass.com/politics/1900981

33. https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/12/israel-wary-russia-iran-ties-deepen-possibly-involving-nuclear-program?token=eyJlbWFpbCI6Im5pbG9jMzYxQGdtYWlsLmNvbSIsIm5pZCI6IjY4NTQ0In0%3D