The US actually ends Iran's nuclear program, they quit trying and obey ... because we bombed them?
Most of the recent middle east history doesn't seem to ever end as much as just go through a continuous cycle of violence creating more of what the folks condoning violence claim they're preventing.
Hard to see this being achievable over a just a couple of years if at all.
We knew about these sites because they have been under IAEA supervision for many years.
The smart thing for Iran to do at this point is do what Israel did: not submit to any arms control and develop their own weapons in secret. Clearly this is the only way to be safe when people in Tel Aviv and Washington are openly discussing the "Libya solution."
According to the IAEA, Iran has around 400kg of 60% enriched Uranium. Nobody disputes this. There is zero reason to ever enrich beyond around 5% for civilian purposes, and zero reason to ever enrich beyond around 20% for non-bomb purposes (naval ship reactors typically use higher enrichment to avoid refueling and increase power density). That's enough Uranium to build around 10 bombs if fully enriched. They've done work on designing the actual bomb itself, too, and there's very little dispute about that either.
They have a nuclear weapons program. What Iran hasn't done, or there's no evidence of them having done, is actually start putting one together. But many of the prerequisites to do so are in place, though people dispute exactly how long it would take them to pull it off once they decided to do so.
Tulsi Gabbard as Director of National Intelligence, March 2025:
"the IC continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program that he suspended in 2003. The IC continues to monitor closely if Tehran decides to reauthorize its nuclear weapons program." [1]
Please explain how "Iran doesn't have a nuclear weapons program" is grammar hacking the above quote.
False.
Iran is considered a bellicose enemy in much of the middle east. A nuclear-armed Iran would quickly lead to the rest of the middle east pursing their own nuclear weapons programs to counter Iran.
A nuclear armed Iran leads to rapid nuclear proliferation throughout the middle east.
I remember an old interview of Robert Fisk where in which his analysis was that the only way to stay safe from attacks like this was to have a nuclear weapon.
I can't think of any other way. Their rhetoric is needlessly belligerent but it doesn't seem like there's anything they can do to guarantee their own safety.
