Analyses
Comprehensive overview of current events and trends in the field of international security and international relations
Strikes on Iran are not the victory many think
Mr. Linus Höller,
emerging researcher in international security and nuclear nonproliferation
July 14, 2025
Almost exactly ten years after the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – the Iran deal – was hammered out by an international coalition of great powers, Israeli and then U.S. airstrikes against the Islamic Republic ushered in an entirely new era for the country’s nuclear ambitions – and, quite possibly, for proliferation globally.
The Israeli and American strikes against Iran, setting aside serious questions over international legality, may appear as a victory for the powerful coalition. Indeed, Israel managed to kill many key figures in Iran’s nuclear program[1] and strike a host of nuclear- and missile-related facilities, while the U.S. bombs dropped from B-2 stealth bombers seemingly hit their marks, all of which happened at minimal cost to either Jerusalem or Washington[2]. But indeed, the costs may still be forthcoming and may be significantly more severe than those imposed by the few Iranian missiles that made it through the defense systems while interceptors were still in stock.
For one, there are now even stronger pressures pushing Iran toward developing nuclear weapons than there were before, and to do so quickly and in absolute secrecy. It appears that the Iranian leadership had not yet taken a decisive, top-level political decision to develop nuclear weapons before the strikes (although this is difficult to say for certain)[3]. Now, the supreme leader will face even stronger pressures – of both the political, and the security kinds – to reconsider this course and potentially give an unequivocal green light. He may have done so already, although again, this cannot be independently confirmed or refuted so far. Hard-liners in the country will likely have come out of this largest military exchange between Iran and its two arch enemies strengthened; they will likely see their influence further increased behind the drawn curtains of Iranian power politics.
As my original research, which PIR Center will publish in September, shows, military actions and the threat of military actions have served primarily acceleratory roles in relation to the Iranian nuclear program in the past. The revolutionary Islamic government, which at first shunned the Shah’s nuclear program, was persuaded to reverse course and even engage in clandestine weaponization research as a consequence of the Iran-Iraq war and Saddam Hussein’s widespread use of chemical weapons against Iran[4]. The U.S. assassination of Qassam Suleimani in 2020 similarly preceded an era of nuclear escalation on the Iranian part. Stuxnet (although a covert action rather than a military one) resulted in Iran doubling down on the program and fortifying facilities after it was revealed, rather than forcing the country to reconsider its nuclear path.
Of course, all of this would matter significantly less if the United States and Israel had fully achieved what they publicly stated they set out to do: To completely destroy the Iranian nuclear program[5]. Information leaking from the Pentagon and analysis by independent researchers increasingly suggests that the relevant Iranian programs, while struck, may have been set back only by months, not by years (although here, too, caution is required as most analysis can be best described as low confidence in intelligence parlance)[6]. Reconstituting them, even with the loss of key figures in the program and regime, should not be an insurmountable challenge for Tehran. At this point, the country has more than half a century of nuclear experience. Additionally, it seems doubtful that there would not have been backups of key knowledge, whether by design (dispersal of archives, redundant knowledge systems) or by accident (a nuclear program involves many people and facilities, spreading knowledge around). And as history has shown, despite stringent sanctions, materials can find their way into a country if it wants them hard enough – and it’s also easier in a fractured, multipolar world.
One of the key components of a possible dash for a nuclear bomb, the highly enriched uranium, marks perhaps the most striking failure of the U.S.-Israel coalition in achieving its stated goals. As Ian Stewart of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies was one of the first to publicly point out, Iran has a stock of 400 kg of 60% enriched uranium, the whereabouts of which the outside world has completely lost track of[7]. Because of the nature of enrichment of the fissile material, the work effort needed to bring it from 60% to around 90% (weapons-grade) would be much less than what it took to get it to 60% in the first place[8]. It would, by extension, be much quicker and less complex to achieve. With Iran effectively withdrawing from IAEA oversight[9] and foreign intelligence agencies, by nature, having a harder time operating in authoritarian systems than free democratic ones[10], it is reasonable to believe that this uranium will not be rediscovered anytime soon. It is a key weaponization risk; this is underscored by the uranium and associated enrichment processes being central sticking points in all Iranian nuclear negotiations. There is no real indication that Israeli-American strikes destroyed the country’s stockpile of fissile material[11].
Instead, there are strong open-source indications, including satellite imagery of convoys of trucks, that Iran moved this material out of the targeted nuclear sites and likely managed to save most if not all of it in unknown locations[12]. With it, the country’s breakout time – the time it would take to quickly dash for a nuclear weapon, leaving the international community no time to respond – is much reduced compared to starting from scratch.
Many experts have also been reading the tea leaves to predict what Iran will do regarding the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Serving as the backbone of the global nonproliferation regime, the treaty has been around since 1968. Its central bargain is that countries that didn’t already have nuclear weapons at the time refrain from developing them in exchange for the right to nuclear peaceful energy. It is complemented by international law against military intervention, and negative security assurances by the nuclear weapons states. In short, the nonproliferation regime, undergirded by the NPT, promises countries that don’t develop nuclear weapons that they won’t regret forfeiting this opportunity and that the benefits of refraining outweigh the risks. This bargain clearly has not worked for Iran (as it hasn’t for countries struck by great power regime change, including Syria, Iraq, Ukraine and Libya, all of which had the option of having indigenous nuclear arsenals). In truth, it is too early to know what Iran will do regarding its NPT membership; talk of exiting by Iranian politicians has existed long before the strikes[13]. But much like going nuclear, the incentives to pull the trigger may now be heightened.
We will have to wait to see what will happen, and in what fashion. On the one hand, Iran has more leverage while in the NPT and threatening to leave it than after it has actually done so. But staying in also reveals its prior threats as being empty and may make the leadership look weak; furthermore, it doesn’t play very well ideologically. There is also the possibility of North Korea-style shenanigans, such as a partial exit that bends the rules and leaves the country in a sort of quantum state, neither fully inside nor fully outside of the non-proliferation treaty. What Iran chooses to do depends to a significant degree on what the country seeks to achieve: If Iran still seeks a diplomatic solution, it will likely act quite differently than if a political decision has been made to embrace the pariah status and dash for nuclear weapons as soon as the program is sufficiently reconstituted.
Even if Iran decides not to develop nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Israeli victory may have an expiry date. The effect of the strikes against Iran on the global nonproliferation regime, which, although strengthened by treaties, is fundamentally buttressed by global norms, may be significant. These impacts may take years to materialize fully, much like the geopolitical effects of the callous War on Terror and Washington-instigated regime change only became clear with some delay. The strikes on Iran erode the base bargain at the heart of the nonproliferation regime and additionally put the International Atomic Energy Agency, tasked with ensuring nuclear power is used for peaceful purposes only, in an incredibly difficult position.
Combined with the changing U.S. role in the world and its president calling into question some of the mechanisms that maintain various levels of an American nuclear umbrella over the country’s traditional allies, the calculus in national capitals about whether and when to go for a nuclear deterrent of their own may shift. In Europe, the discussion surrounding a “Euro deterrent” has been reinvigorated in light of an American retreat from responsibility for the continent[14]. It is conceivable that lessons learned by Iran will inform countries with incentives to go nuclear in the future: Iran’s fate may suggest to them that there is little value in engaging in diplomacy and dragging out the process, when they could instead act covertly and decisively, ultimately presenting the world with a fait accompli of having developed nuclear weapons, something that appears to be practically impossible to reverse by external pressure (only one country, South Africa, has given up its homegrown nuclear arsenal, and it was for domestic – racist – reasons[15]). Perhaps especially alarmingly, this calculus – the merit of which is still up for debate – may conceivably even find traction in U.S. allies such as South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Poland or even Germany, depending on how geopolitical winds blow in the years to come.
For the nonproliferation regime, then, the strikes on Iran have the potential to present a remarkable watershed moment. The gleeful mood in Washington and Israel may persist for some while longer, but there is plenty of cause for concern, ranging from the possibility of an Iranian reconstitution of the program to the longer-term geostrategic reverberations. While the past gives us a frame of reference for viewing the current development, and information is slowly emerging that provides us with a clearer picture of the world after the airstrikes, we will have to wait to see the full impact of this episode. What seems nearly inevitable, though, is that the consequences will stretch well beyond the confines of the Middle East.
References:
[1] Leicester, John. “Israel Killed at Least 14 Scientists in an Unprecedented Attack on Iran’s Nuclear Know-How.” Associated Press, 25 June 2025. Available at https://apnews.com/article/israel-iran-nuclear-science-attacks-e298f00ba261debba4499a48c9df8b3d?utm_source=copy&utm_medium=share.
[2] Ferragamo, Mariel. “U.S., Israel Attack Iranian Nuclear Targets—Assessing the Damage.” Council on Foreign Relations, 25 June 2025. Available at https://www.cfr.org/article/us-israel-attack-iranian-nuclear-targets-assessing-damage.
[3] Barnes, Julian E. “U.S. Spy Agencies Assess Iran Remains Undecided on Building a Bomb.” The New York Times, 19 June 2025. Available at https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/19/us/politics/iran-nuclear-weapons-assessment.html.
[4] Tabatabai, Ariane M., and Annie Tracy Samuel. “What the Iran-Iraq War Tells Us about the Future of the Iran Nuclear Deal.” International Security, vol. 42, no. 1, July 2017, pp. 152–85, https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00286.
[5] Jazeera, Al. “US Joins Israel in Attacking Iran, Strikes Fordow, Isfahan, Natanz Sites.” Al Jazeera, 22 June 2025. Available at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/6/22/us-joins-israel-in-attacks-against-iran-strikes-key-nuclear-sites.
[6] Bertrand, Natasha, et al. “Exclusive: Early US Intel Assessment Suggests Strikes on Iran Did Not Destroy Nuclear Sites, Sources Say.” CNN, 24 June 2025. Available at https://edition.cnn.com/2025/06/24/politics/intel-assessment-us-strikes-iran-nuclear-sites.
[7] Mecklin, John, and Ian Stewart. “The 15-Minute Interview: Ian Stewart on the Present and Future Status of the Iran Nuclear Program.” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 27 June 2025. Available at https://thebulletin.org/2025/06/the-15-minute-interview-ian-stewart-on-the-present-and-future-status-of-the-iran-nuclear-program/.
[8] Krass, Allan S., et al. Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation. Routledge, 2020.
[9] Al Jazeera. “IAEA Inspectors Depart Tehran after US-Israel-Iran Conflict.” Al Jazeera, 4 July 2025. Available at https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/7/4/iaea-inspectors-depart-tehran-after-us-israel-iran-conflict.
[10] Walton, Calder. Spies: The Epic Intelligence War Between East and West. Simon and Schuster, 2023.
[11] Helmore, Edward. “JD Vance Suggests Iran’s Uranium Stockpile Is Still Intact despite US Strikes.” The Guardian, 24 June 2025. Available at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/24/jd-vance-trump-iran-nuclear-program.
[12] Brumfiel, Geoff. “Satellites Show Damage to Iran’s Nuclear Program, but Experts Say It’s Not Destroyed.” NPR, 22 June 2025. Available at https://www.npr.org/2025/06/22/nx-s1-5441734/satellites-show-damage-iran-nuclear-program-not-destroyed-experts-say.
[13] Mecklin, John. “What If Iran Withdraws from the NPT?” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 25 June 2025. Available at https://thebulletin.org/2025/06/what-if-iran-withdraws-from-the-npt/.
[14] Höller, Linus. “France, UK Join Forces in Step toward European Nuclear Deterrent.” Defense News, 10 July 2025. Available at https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2025/07/10/france-uk-join-forces-in-step-toward-european-nuclear-deterrent/
[15] Masiza, Zondi. “NPR 1.1: A Chronology of South Africa’s Nuclear Program.” The Nonproliferation Review, vol. Fall, 1993.
Keywords: Iran, Nuclear Non-Proliferation, Global Security
NPT
E16/SHAH – 24/07/14
