Laurence Norman and Michael R. Gordon
WSJ, Aug. 9, 2024
“Driving the change in the new intelligence assessment is scientific and engineering research work that Iran has been doing over the past year.”
Iran is pursuing research that has put it in a better position to launch a nuclear-weapons program, according to a new assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies. The shift in Washington’s view of Iran’s nuclear efforts comes at a critical time, with Iran having produced enough highly enriched nuclear fuel for a few nuclear weapons. The U.S. intelligence community still believes that Iran isn’t currently working to build a nuclear device, a U.S. official said. Nor does it have evidence that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, is considering resuming his country’s nuclear-weapons program, which U.S. intelligence says was largely suspended in 2003.
But a July report to Congress from the director of national intelligence warned that Iran has “undertaken activities that better position it to produce a nuclear device, if it chooses to do so.”
The report omitted what has been a standard U.S. intelligence assertion for years: that Iran “isn’t currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons development activities necessary to produce a testable nuclear device.”
Tensions in the Middle East have sharply escalated since Iran threatened to strike Israel following the assassination of a leading Hamas figure in Tehran that the Iranians have blamed on the Israelis. President Biden has repeatedly said that the U.S. will never allow Iran to acquire a nuclear weapon, raising the possibility of military action if Washington was to determine that Tehran has embarked on an intensive effort to build a nuclear device. Iran says that its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes. … [To read the full article, click here]