alt Hacker NewsIran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons. This stockpile was built under the previous leader, who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them, and yet he knew. who you are trying to claim was opposed to developing them and yet he knew. Iran didn't have nuclear weapons, however for years they were only a few weeks away from having them. They had all the hard parts in place to build one. There's a reason to think they had plenty of experts who could do it. So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader.
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> Iran has long said they're not working on nuclear weapons. However, they have built a large stockpile of particles of rich uranium, which is something completely useless to have unless you're planning on building nuclear weapons.
After the JCPOA the stockpile went to zero (esp. >5% enrichment):
* https://www.statista.com/chart/23528/irans-stockpile-of--low...
* https://www.armscontrol.org/factsheets/status-irans-nuclear-...
* https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2020/11/18/the-de...
One year after the US left JCPOA (during Trump 1.0) the stockpile started going up again.
They said they weren't working on nukes, and our intelligence community released assessments which agreed.
The level of enrichment they've been doing is higher than they need for power generation but it also isn't nearly enough to make nukes. A more reasonable explanation (given the assessments they aren't working on nukes) is that they were being deliberately provocative.
> So far as we know they never actually built one but they absolutely could and this was done under the previous leader
Right, they could, and didn't. Why? It was only 7 years from the discovery of fission to a proof of concept in the form of the trinity test. Either you assume a level of incompetence entirely divorced from Iran's efficacy on the international stage, or you accept they weren't trying.
Iran has domestic uranium deposits. They design and build their own centrifuges, and had thousands of such centrifuges during the JCPOA. It's basically impossible to denuclearize them or prevent them from building a rudimentary reactor or bomb, and it has been that way for at least two decades.
Diplomacy was a proven path to prevent Iran from reaching for nuclear deterrence. The plan worked well for America and Iran, which is probably what motivated Likud to escalate the situation and force them both to pick sides.
The general assessment on Iran has long been that they aim to become a nuclear threshold state (have the ability to make nuclear weapons quickly (~1y timeline or less) should they need to), but not actually acquire nuclear weapons for themselves.