New intelligence about Iran's nuclear program has convinced U.S. officials that "a secretive group of scientists is studying a faster, if cruder, approach to developing nuclear weapons" if Tehran's leadership decides to pursue a bomb, The New York Times reports, citing current and former U.S. officials, UNN writes.
Details
The development comes amid signals that Iran's new president is actively seeking talks with the administration of US President Donald Trump.
The intelligence was gathered in the final months of the Biden administration and then handed over to President Trump's national security team during the transition of power, officials said.
"The intelligence assessment warned that Iranian engineers and weapons scientists were essentially looking for a shortcut that would allow them to turn their growing stockpile of nuclear fuel into a workable weapon in a few months rather than a year or more - but only if Tehran decided to change its current approach," the newspaper writes.
U.S. officials said they continue to believe that Iran and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei did not make the decision to develop weapons, officials said in interviews over the past month.
"But new intelligence suggests that since Iran's proxy forces have been 'gutted' and its missiles have failed to penetrate U.S. and Israeli defenses, the military is seriously exploring new options to deter a U.S. or Israeli attack," the article says.
Iran, officials said, "remains on the nuclear threshold." In the years since Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear deal, the country has resumed uranium production and now, as noted, "has enough fuel to make four or more bombs." "But that's not enough to actually make a weapon, and the new evidence focuses on the final steps Iran must take to turn the fuel into a weapon," the paper writes.
This evidence, as noted, "will almost certainly be part of Tuesday's discussion between Mr. Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu." Netanyahu is the first world leader to visit the White House since Trump's inauguration two weeks ago. For years, the Israeli leader has come close to ordering an Israeli military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, but then backed down, often under pressure from his own military and intelligence leaders, as well as the United States, the newspaper notes.
"But now the dynamics are different, and Netanyahu's calculations may also be different," the article says.
"Iran has never been weaker than it is today," according to U.S. and Israeli officials. Hamas and Hezbollah, which it financed and armed, have lost their leadership and ability to strike Israel. Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad has fled to Moscow, and his country is no longer an easy route for Iranian weapons.
At the same time, as noted, Trump has made it clear that he is in no hurry to start a direct conflict with Iran and seems to be open to negotiations. When asked immediately after his inauguration whether he would support an Israeli strike on the targets, he said: "I hope it can be resolved without worrying about it. It would be really great if it could be resolved without taking that next step." Iran, he added, will hopefully "make a deal.
Iranian President Massoud Peseshkian, who took office in July after his predecessor was killed in a helicopter crash, has repeatedly said that he too would like to negotiate a new deal. But history shows that he may not know what the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is working on, preparing a "nuclear option," former U.S. officials and Iran experts say.
"President Pesekian and the Iranian Foreign Ministry are probably unaware of the regime's internal nuclear discussions," said Karim Sajjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
U.S. officials have long claimed that Iran abandoned its weapons program in 2003 after the U.S. invasion of Iraq. Iranian government officials have also insisted that the country is pursuing civilian nuclear technology.
Nevertheless, there is no doubt about Iran's longstanding plans to produce weapons. Documents that Israel stole during a 2018 raid on a Tehran warehouse detailed technical efforts.
"If Tehran decides to change its policy and pursue nuclear weapons, Western officials have long estimated that it would take only a few days for Iran to enrich uranium to the 90 percent purity level typically required to make a bomb. It has already produced enough fuel, enriched to 60 percent, to produce four or five weapons," the newspaper points out.
But enriching uranium to bomb-grade levels is not enough for Iran to make a nuclear weapon, as noted. And for years, U.S. officials have said it would take anywhere from a year to 18 months to turn this highly enriched uranium into a sophisticated warhead that could be mounted on a ballistic missile. Some Israeli estimates were even longer, more than two years.
"The Iranians have known for years that such a long development time is a huge vulnerability. If the International Atomic Energy Agency, which still conducts limited inspections of nuclear fuel production, announces that Iran is producing bomb-grade fuel - enriched to 90 percent purity - Israel and the United States have warned in the past that they would likely be forced to take military action," the newspaper writes.
"So the best way to deter Iran would be to turn this fuel into a working weapon. But it would not have much time," the publication says.
"U.S. officials believe that Iran has the knowledge and experience to build an old-style nuclear weapon that could be assembled much faster than the more complex designs that Tehran has considered in the past," the newspaper notes.
Such a weapon reportedly would not be able to be reduced to the size of a ballistic missile. It would also likely be far less reliable than any modern weapon design, the publication points out.
As a result, it is noted, the weapon is unlikely to pose a direct offensive threat. But such a crude weapon is the kind of device that Iran could quickly build, test, and announce to the world that it has become a nuclear power, U.S. officials said.
"Although it would be difficult to use such weapons against Israel, they could have a deterrent effect, making countries considering an attack on Iran think twice," the publication notes.
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