U.S. Spy Agencies Assess Iran Remains Undecided on Building a Bomb

[oneworld2]

U.S. Spy Agencies Assess Iran Remains Undecided on Building a Bomb

U.S. intelligence officials said Iran was likely to pivot toward producing a nuclear weapon if the U.S. attacked a main uranium enrichment site, or if Israel killed its supreme leader.

www.nytimes.com

June 19, 2025

U.S. intelligence agencies continue to believe that Iran has yet to decide whether to make a nuclear bomb even though it has developed a large stockpile of the enriched uranium necessary for it to do so, according to intelligence and other American officials.

That assessment has not changed since the intelligence agencies last addressed the question of Iran’s intentions in March, the officials said, even as Israel has attacked Iranian nuclear facilities.

Senior U.S. intelligence officials said that Iranian leaders were likely to shift toward producing a bomb if the American military attacked the Iranian uranium enrichment site Fordo or if Israel killed Iran’s supreme leader.

The question of whether Iran has decided to complete the work of building a bomb is irrelevant in the eyes of many Iran hawks in the United States and Israel, who say Tehran is close enough to represent an existential danger to Israel. But it has long been a flashpoint in the debate over policy toward Iran and has flared again as President Trump weighs whether to bomb Fordo....

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, in 2003 that has prevented the country from developing nuclear weapons. That is “right now holding,” a senior intelligence official said, adding that the Israeli assessment that Iran was 15 days away was alarmist.,,,


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Hmmm....is Netanyahu playing trump and the American public?

If they weren't planning to have a nuclear deterrent it would make perfect sense for them to try to get one asap.

AFAIK the level of enhanced uranium needs to be at 90% tp be used for nuclear weapons, the Iranians were found at around 60 by the IEAE who found no evidence of a weapons programme despite them being lied about in service to the empire.

 

[Fledermaus]

If they weren't planning to have a nuclear deterrent it would make perfect sense for them to try to get one asap.

AFAIK the level of enhanced uranium needs to be at 90% tp be used for nuclear weapons, the Iranians were found at around 60 by the IEAE who found no evidence of a weapons programme despite them being lied about in service to the empire.

Highly enriched uranium (HEU)​

Highly enriched uranium (HEU) has a 20% or higher concentration of 235U. This high enrichment level is essential for nuclear weapons and certain specialized reactor designs. The fissile uranium in nuclear weapon primaries usually contains 85% or more of 235U known as weapons grade, though theoretically for an implosion design, a minimum of 20% could be sufficient (called weapon-usable) although it would require hundreds of kilograms of material and "would not be practical to design"