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Hyping threats of nuclear proliferation to justify war undermines legitimate counter-proliferation policies and paradoxically incentivizes proliferation. The Trump administration’s effort to justify the Iran war as a means of saving the world from a nuclear armed Iran rings as hollow as George W. Bush’s similar claims about Iraq a quarter century ago.
Both threats were real, until the United States and the international community reduced them. The 1990 Gulf War and the ensuing inspection regime ended Iraq’s nuclear weapons ambitions. A little over a decade later, the George W. Bush administration justified its war in Iraq with claims about Saddam’s supposed nuclear (and chemical and biological) weapons. Addressing questions about the veracity of those claims, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice argued at the time, “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.” Secretary of State Colin Powell told the UN, “…the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction” Inspectors scoured Iraq in search of those weapons and found none, but the war dragged on at huge cost in lives and money.
The nuclear threat from Iran was and remains real, and like Iraq’s was also contained. Like Iraq, Iran signed the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) but played cat and mouse games with its compliance for decades. Iran’s covert enrichment program received a boost in the 1980s when Tehran acquired centrifuges from Pakistan. Iran pursued a two-track strategy of building its civilian atomic energy program, which was open to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and a parallel covert program focused on nuclear weapons. For years Iran routinely denied access to IAEA inspectors who compiled extensive evidence of undeclared, weapon-related activities, which Iran denied. US and UN sanctions weakened Iran’s economy, but did not persuade Iran’s leaders to change course. The June 2025 US-Israel strikes severely damaged the critical facilities essential for Iran’s nuclear program.
At the very least, Iran’s enriched uranium and its centrifuges are buried under tons of rubble, unreachable and readily monitored. Iran’s path from buried canisters of 60% enriched gas to a usable weapon is difficult, time consuming, and depends on the very facilities and equipment that were reportedly destroyed. The threat of an Iranian bomb has been degraded, at least for now. The initial strikes, if as effective as claimed, have bought the international community time.
Buying time is a legitimate nonproliferation strategy. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) of 2015 relied on this strategy. Under the JCPOA, Iran agreed to a number of key limitations. Enrichment was restricted to low enriched uranium (LEU, below 3%), there were caps on the number and types of centrifuges, limits on centrifuge production and LEU stockpiles, canceling a plutonium project, and unfettered access to international inspectors. The deal was to last for 15 years.
Critics argued that the deal ignored the full range of Iran’s bad behavior. It shelved the IAEA’s list of unresolved issues related to nuclear weapons-related activities and did not eliminate Iran’s latent technical capabilities to build a bomb. The knowledge never goes away. Moreover, the international community lifted sanctions and Iran was allowed access to $1.7 billion of its own money that was seized because of sanctions, plus $400 million from a longstanding dispute over military sales.
The JCPOA was imperfect. It did not address the regime’s support for terrorism, but it was not designed to. It was designed to restrain the most important aspects of Iran’s nuclear program, its ability to produce weapons-usable materials, without which there would be no Iranian bomb. Had the Iranian regime abandoned the JCPOA, the United States and other backers of the agreement (the United Kingdom, Russia, China, France, Germany, the EU and the UN) were poised to reinstate sanctions and take other actions as necessary to bring Iran into compliance.
That never happened because the Trump administration repudiated the JCPOA in 2018. That reversal freed Iran to expel the international inspectors, ramp up its enrichment program, and reignite fears of a hidden nuclear danger. Bombing the facilities in 2026 achieved similar goals as the JCPOA, but at a much higher price in blood and treasure. The nuclear threat has been contained. Yet, the war continues and the Trump administration continues to cite the Iranian nuclear threat as its chief war aim.
We should assume that the Iranian regime remains committed to obtaining nuclear weapons. The JCPOA would have delayed the realization of this ambition by 15 years. The 2025-26 bombings also delayed realization, although it is unclear for how long. Hyping nuclear threats, however, is counterproductive, because it persuades others of a degree of nuclear danger that does not currently exist, and incentivizes others, like Saudi Arabia, that they too must pursue a weapon, if only to deter Iran.
The United States may have other reasons for continuing the war with Iran, but they should be clearly articulated along with the price that Americans will pay to achieve them.
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