Military experts have suggested to Fox News Digital that there remains a real possibility that Iran will declare itself a nuclear power this year, with the political future of the United States uncertain amid a hotly contested presidential election.
“I think it’s a real option,” said James Carafano, vice president of foreign policy and defense studies at the Heritage Foundation. “I mean, if I were the Iranian and I had to do it, I would do it now because Biden’s not going to do anything.”
“The Israelis are bogged down, and you have months before – if Trump wins – before he gets into power, and by then you will have established nuclear power and what’s going to happen.
“He’s not going to start World War III, is he?” Carafano added. “He’s not going to bomb Iran on day one. He’s not going to, and they know it.”
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The Biden administration has repeatedly warned over the past year that Iran is on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told the Aspen Security Forum in July that Iran “is probably a week or two away” from achieving “the capability to produce fissile material for a nuclear weapon.”
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei meets with Iranian interim President Mohammad Mokhber and cabinet members at Imam Khomeini Husseiniya in Tehran, Iran, July 7, 2024. (Iranian leader’s press office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Blinken blamed Iran’s accelerated development on the failure of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal. He stressed that the United States had seen no evidence at the time to suggest Iran already had nuclear weapons, Barron’s reported.
A US State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital: “We are committed to never allowing Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon, and we are prepared to use every element of national power to ensure that outcome.”
Carafano argued that the uncertainty of the US presidential election, particularly President Biden’s lame duck status after deciding not to seek a second term, has given Iran a key opportunity.
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“It doesn’t matter whether you can deploy a nuclear weapon or not,” Carafano said. “They’ll just say that and everybody will freak out. They can say, ‘Well, I declare myself a nuclear power now and I will defend myself with nuclear weapons.’ And of course, it’s even worse if you say that and people know that you can actually defend yourself if you carry weapons.”
“Once you’re a nuclear state, you feel like you’re surrounded by a force field, like the Starship Enterprise,” Carafano added. “If you look at the timing of this attack … are the Israelis going to attack you? I mean, they’re kind of busy right now. What’s Biden going to do? Biden’s not going to do anything between now and the election and January, and if Trump wins, it’s going to be months before he gets into office.”
This photo shows a replica of Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant during an exhibition at the International Conference on Nuclear Science and Technology in Isfahan on May 6, 2024. (AFP via Getty Images)
Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Moore agreed with Carafano’s assessment, calling it “a distinct possibility,” but he stressed the limited power to declare nuclear capabilities, mainly because “declaring yourself a nuclear power and being able to deploy and effectively use a nuclear weapon are two entirely different things.”
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to assume that following an Iranian ‘declaration’ or during the final steps necessary to effectively test a weapon and turn it into a delivery system, we would see Israel and/or the United States take steps to prevent that from happening,” Moore said.
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Carafano admitted that in the long run, nuclear weapons only act as a deterrent to other nuclear weapons. He cited the September 11 terrorist attack and the recent Russian invasion, with Ukraine pushing back Moscow and even entering Russian territory this month.
“Nuclear weapons have a very limited utility, which is to deter a nuclear conflict with another nuclear power, but other than that … if you can’t win a conventional war, you don’t start a nuclear war, right?” he said. “It’s not a get-out-of-jail-free card for the Iranians, and … five seconds after they become a declared nuclear power, the Saudis, the Turks, the Egyptians and others want to become a nuclear power.”
This file photo released on November 5, 2019 by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran shows centrifuges at the Natanz uranium enrichment plant in central Iran. (Atomic Energy Organization of Iran via AP, file)
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said that nuclear incrementalism “gave way to significant nuclear advances by Khamenei while Biden was in office” and speculated that “it is entirely plausible that these are gains that Tehran might want to secure or immunize against if Trump were to return.”
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“Let us not forget that Iran’s initial goal was to make nuclear power a fait accompli for the world before it was detected in 2002,” Taleblu said. “Tehran ran a crash program to produce a handful of nuclear weapons that it hoped would give it both status and security.”
“Fundamentally, militarization is a political decision, but it is composed of a whole series of technical processes,” he added. “The decision to undertake one or the other can be influenced by Western politics, for better or for worse.”
