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What Was the Status of Iran's Nuclear Program on the Eve of the War?
(Ha'aretz) Avner Cohen - The accepted Iranian discourse was to categorically deny that Iran has any interest in nuclear weapons. However, in early 2024, I noticed a significant change in the discourse of well-informed Iranians regarding nuclear capabilities. In a Feb. 12 interview on Iranian TV, Ali Akbar Salehi, who had served as Iran's foreign minister and as head of its Atomic Energy Organization, said: "We've crossed all the significant nuclear scientific and technological thresholds. Let me give you an example. What does a car require? A chassis, engine, steering system, gearbox and so on. You're asking whether we've produced the gearbox, and I say yes. Have we produced the engine, and I say yes, and so on." I believe Salehi was trying to hint that Iran already has the knowhow and the ability to produce all or most of the components of a nuclear weapon, not just the ability to produce fissile material by enrichment. His remarks conveyed an understanding that the difference between a finished nuclear device and a collection of its components amounts to no more than a quick change of phase. I took his remarks to be a veiled admission that Iran had completed - or was very close to completing - most of the research and development necessary to produce a nuclear explosion and was a few weeks or even days from being able to assemble the entire device. A study of remarks about the nuclear program by senior government and nuclear officials beginning in 2015 confirmed that Salehi was not alone. Since October 7, 2023, a significant shift in the Iranian nuclear and bomb discourse occurred. This is reflected in pronouncements that Iran had cleared all the relevant technical thresholds for building a device, and that the Iranian commitment not to develop a nuclear weapon wasn't absolute but conditional. The writer is Professor of Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey College, and the author of Israel and the Bomb.