Is Iran's nuclear threat completely removed or imminently deadly? - analysis

One moment, top Israeli or American officials and some commentators say that the nuclear threat has been removed completely.

Is one side blatantly lying? Can both narratives be true?

The truth is that neither side is really telling the story as it is.

For the IDF, it was about preventing Iran from crossing a threshold of reaching a certain volume of conventional ballistic missiles that could overwhelm even Israel’s excellent defense shield.

When one says “overwhelm” in this context, that would not mean the results of this war, shooting down 90% of over 500 missiles over 38 days, leading to around 40 deaths, around 7,500 hospitalizations, and portions of central Israel looking somewhat battered.

It could mean 5,000 missiles over 10 days and thousands of dead, many tens of thousands wounded, and large portions of central Israel looking destroyed, like in Iran or Gaza.

That is what the IDF wanted to prevent, given that Iran was starting to produce 200-300 new missiles per month, a major leap forward in its pace of production.

For Trump and Netanyahu, regardless of what they say now, it was mostly about regime change.

They saw the protests in January and thought this could be the once-in-50-years moment to take the regime down.

Once Trump realized that regime change was going to be much harder than he thought, he shifted to focus on getting some new nuclear concessions from Iran, as it was the main issue where the Islamic regime would be most open to concessions, because it is an important issue, and because it fits nicely in a headline.

And if Trump manages to further defang Iran’s nuclear program, it will be another accomplishment of this war, along with some others.

But why wasn’t the nuclear issue actually the reason that anyone started this war?

Because there was actually no imminent threat.

When Trump said that Israel and the US “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program in June 2025, it was a significant exaggeration that was easily debunked.

But there was some real truth to the thrust of his claim in that the nuclear program, as it had existed, no longer really existed, was no longer effective, and would require around two years to reestablish at similar levels.

Iran then made almost zero new qualitative progress in rebuilding the program from June 2025 until this war started in February.

In that sense, many of the nuclear sites which Israel and the US bombed during this war were not terribly important, because there were not many important sites to bomb.

This could also be seen from the fact that in June 2025, the overwhelming focus of Israel’s initial and later rounds of bombing was Iran’s nuclear sites, whereas during this war, the IDF did not bother to bomb Iran’s remaining, more minor nuclear sites at the start of the war.

The first nuclear site the IDF mentioned bombing was on March 3, the fourth day of the war, and there were only a few more nuclear sites mentioned in the weeks after that, as opposed to the IDF striking dozens of nuclear sites in Iran repeatedly from day one in June 2025.

If all this is true, why are there so many alarm bells about the more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium that remain under mounds of rubble at the Isfahan site, and likely also at the Natanz site, if not also at the Fordow site?

A few good reasons.

60% enriched uranium can be fully weaponized in around a week, too short a time to necessarily detect.

Further, according to a range of top nuclear scientists, a mini dirty-bomb-style nuclear device can be completed with uranium enriched only to 60%, even without getting it up to 90%.

Sounds like pretty imminent danger.

If so, why wasn’t this issue the primary issue of the war, and in fact, why did Israel and the US do nearly nothing to militarily try to get to the uranium during the war, sufficing with trying to coerce Iran into a deal?

There are many reasons, but the first one is that Iran having 60% enriched uranium is not new.

Actually, Iran has possessed 60% enriched uranium since 2021.

Knowing this, neither Israel nor the US seriously contemplated attacking Iran’s nuclear program until the Islamic regime started pushing forward with various weapons group aspects of finalizing developing a nuclear weapon, as well as until a series of direct confrontations between Jerusalem and Tehran, initiated by Iran, led to Israel’s air force destroying Iran’s best Russian-made anti-aircraft systems in October 2024.

Those changes, along with eliminating Hezbollah as a party that could seriously deter Israel from attacking Iran by November 2024, were what led Netanyahu to finally contemplate attacking Iran’s nuclear program for real.

In other words, simply possessing 60% uranium, with no centrifuges (after months of attempted denials, Iran embarrassingly acknowledged in later 2025 that most or all of its around 20,000 fleet of centrifuges were damaged or destroyed in June 2025) and none of the weapons group factors which are needed to finalize and deliver a nuclear weapon, was not and still is not considered an imminent threat.

Much has been made by some of the idea that 400 kilograms could be enough for around 10 nuclear weapons, but the truth is that if Iran had the ability to potentially produce and use even one nuclear weapon, that would be far more threatening than the generic concept of 10 nuclear weapons being a medium amount of time away

What is a medium amount of time?

Back in 2021, optimists said two years, while pessimists said six months.

Some pessimists now say that a mini dirty bomb could be prepared in less than six months.

While a mini dirty bomb is nowhere near as destructive as a full-fledged nuclear device, and cannot be delivered by a ballistic missile, and is just much harder in general to get by land over 1,000-1,500 kilometers from Iran to Israel, it is still very serious business.

While a mini dirty bomb is far less destructive than a full-fledged nuclear device – and cannot be delivered by a ballistic missile – it would still pose a serious threat, even though transporting it overland from Iran to Israel (a distance of 1,000–1,500 kilometers) would be much more difficult.

Iran is taking the 60% enriched uranium to itself seriously by recently adding several roadblocks to the roadways leading to the said Isfahan site.

And yet after all of the qualifications about how less destructive this uranium is or how less likely that it could be used, the most significant reasons why the uranium does not present an imminent threat is because Iran does not actually possess it in the sense that it is buried, and the CIA and the Mossad are watching the site where it is buried like hawks.

From 2021 to June 2025, the only obstacles to the 60% uranium becoming a nuclear weapon were a decision to weaponize it further and to advance certain weapons group activities.

Now, in addition to all of those skills being set back significantly, Iran may not be able to get to the uranium because of how deeply buried it is, and it has not done so since June 2025. And if it ever did succeed in getting to the uranium, the CIA and the Mossad are watching closely, since everyone knows from where Iran would be removing it.

Iran knows it is being watched at these sites, which is probably another reason it has not attempted to remove the 60% uranium.

This war has not changed this situation and has only made it clearer to Iran that both Israel and the US are very willing to act if it crosses any red lines.

So the vast nuclear threat with multiple pathways to a large nuclear arsenal of dozens of nuclear weapons was mostly destroyed in June 2025 and has not been repaired much. This war was not necessary to do much more on that issue, and did not accomplish much new on that.

There does remain a much, much smaller threat, but that threat is no larger now than since 2021, and is likely smaller now because it is literally trapped in rubble and being watched.

Will the US and Israel be much happier if Iran hands over the uranium? For sure.

But that does not mean that there is any nuclear threat in the near term.