Prepare for a Nuclear Iran

With the necessary political will, however, Iran’s path to the bomb can still be stopped.

I ran is closer to developing nuclear weapons than many realize. Few are planning for what happens when it does.

In May, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that Iran has enriched enough weapons-grade uranium to produce multiple nuclear bombs in a matter of days. Recent reports also suggest that Iran may have already begun advanced work on “weaponization,” which involves computer modeling and the acquisition of key parts to build deployable warheads.

Of course, Iran may be even further ahead than Western intelligence indicates — North Korea shocked the world in October 2006 when it completed an underground nuclear test. Iran already has a robust arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles on which to deploy a warhead, a capability North Korea achieved only in 2017, eleven years after nuclearization.

Despite these worrying developments, an unnamed Biden official recently swore that “Iran will never get a nuclear weapon.” Given Biden’s record in the Middle East since taking office — especially since October 7 — consider the jury unconvinced.

Iran has far more to gain from quickly developing a weapon than it does by waiting. Especially if Donald Trump returns to office in January 2025.

One view is that if Iran goes nuclear, the Saudis will quickly pursue their own capability through a U.S. commitment or directly via Pakistan, thus negating Iran’s advantage. But if you’re Iran, you’ve proven that you can directly strike a nuclear-armed adversary (Israel) without serious threat of reprisal. The Saudis are far less capable than the Israelis, and if they’re reliant on support from the U.S., like Israel is, they will fail to establish a credible deterrent. No matter what, the Biden administration will always push its allies to de-escalate.

Hezbollah, Iran’s most formidable proxy, has been willing to ratchet up attacks against Israel without the cover of an Iranian nuclear umbrella. Should a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah break out, Iran could threaten nuclear retaliation against Israel before it could put Hezbollah out of the fight. Right now, the Israelis would bear significant but liveable costs from striking deep into Lebanon to neutralize Hezbollah. That changes if Iran can threaten nuclear retaliation to keep its proxy from losing.

States like Iraq and Qatar, which currently balance between the U.S. and Iran, would be forced to bandwagon in Iran’s direction under threat of nuclear blackmail. Tehran and its proxies would increase pressure on both countries to push U.S. forces out of their territory, with the aim of moving the U.S. entirely “offshore.”

Critically, Iran’s growing entwinement with China and Russia will make it less vulnerable over time to Western sanctions as a tool of punishment. According to data from United Against Nuclear Iran, as of May, Iran now ships nearly 90 percent of its oil to China, compared with roughly 50 percent in May 2020. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Tehran has provided Moscow with ballistic missiles and sophisticated missile-defense platforms — high-end systems it withheld in the past due to fear of Western pushback. No longer.

The basic picture is that the Middle East would become inhospitable to the U.S. and its allies when Iran goes nuclear. Israel would find itself isolated, with fewer options for deterring Iran or confronting its proxies. The Saudis and Emiratis would be forced into uncomfortable compromises.

Without a change in direction, the U.S. would be forced offshore sooner than we think. While some believe the U.S. can or should live with that, Houthi piracy on the high seas should dispel that notion. Houthi attacks have made the region’s waterways hostile to Western shipping while Western adversaries, namely China, transit unmolested. Roughly 30 percent of global trade now runs through the Malacca Straits, but at least 10 percent still runs through Suez.

Most worrying of all, interior lines connecting the economies and militaries of Eurasia’s three authoritarian powers — the nightmare scenario of U.S. military analysts going back decades, not even a reality during the Second World War — would be protected by a nuclear triangle. Axis blackmail and mutual support would make this emerging reality harder to dislodge in the event of a global conflict involving the U.S. and its allies.

So long as Biden is president, there is little that can be done to avoid this outcome. His policies all but assure it.

But if Trump makes it back into the White House before Iran gets the bomb, there might still be time to reverse course.

Any course reversal has to start by recognizing that the United States has entered the early stages of a global conflict in which the Middle East is set to be a main attraction, not a sideshow.

Directly or not, the U.S. is engaged in this conflict and has a significant stake in its outcome. In Europe, American and Western arms are the only things standing between Ukraine and its defeat at the hands of Russia. In the Middle East, American arms remain indispensable to Israel’s survival as it wages a defensive, multifront war against Iran and its proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. In the Indo-Pacific, China has embarked on the greatest military buildup since World War II, its eyes set on Taiwan but ultimately U.S. primacy.

While Iran is the smallest of these three powers, China and Russia rely on it greatly for oil and weapons, respectively. Both rely on it as a tool to degrade America’s position in the region. Constraining Iran and preventing its nuclear breakout would keep waterways open for Western shipping and undermine a key node in the supply chain for China and Russia.

At a regional level, President Trump had the right idea with a doctrine of “maximum pressure” against Iran and a corollary of “maximum support” for U.S. allies such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.

Should he take office again in 2025 before Iran achieves nuclear breakout, Trump should bring this doctrine back, with a few twists adjusted to new realities. The objective should be to restore a credible military deterrent while forcing Iran into material trade-offs between its nuclear program and support for its allies and proxies.

• First, Trump should publicly blame Iran for October 7. By design, the Biden administration has avoided laying the blame for the October 7 attacks at the feet of Iran. Doing so would invite escalation with Tehran and repudiate the administration’s policy of rapprochement with the regime through sanctions waivers and lax enforcement. Iran has, therefore, faced few consequences for the actions of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, or various proxy militias in Iraq and Syria, which have fired at and killed U.S. troops. That needs to change from Day One. Iran should become the watchword whenever President Trump talks about the Middle East. When civilians die in Gaza or Western ships get sunk in the Red Sea — blame Iran. Trump should also call out Tehran for keeping China afloat with cheap oil and undercutting prices for U.S. oil and gas exports.
• Second, toughen sanctions on the regime. Trump should immediately reimpose the toughest sanctions actionable under U.S. law and on the widest range of sectors, including energy, banking, armaments, shipping, and more. He should also stiffen enforcement of sanctions on China and other countries that purchase Iranian oil. From a staffing perspective, Trump should quickly move to fill key sanctions roles at Treasury, State, and Commerce to signal that comprehensive enforcement is back. Altogether, this approach would begin to starve Tehran and its proxies of much-needed cash and make China think twice about how much energy it imports from Iran. It would also force Tehran into trade-offs between providing material support to its proxies and investing in its nuclear program.
• Third, impose direct military consequences on Iran for the actions of its proxies. As noted, the Biden administration has avoided blaming Iran for the actions of its proxies throughout the region. This asymmetry can be fixed. For example, Trump could publicly threaten to sink an Iranian naval vessel for every Western vessel sunk by the Houthis in a one-to-one ratio. Similarly, he could announce that any drone or missile used in an attack on U.S. troops would put the IRGC facility that produced it under threat of a U.S. strike. So long as it were willing to follow through, America would maintain escalation dominance over the regime.
• Fourth, harden U.S. military bases in the region — and announce it. Since the onset of war between Hamas and Israel, U.S. bases in the region have become targets for Iran’s proxy militias. This has led to rumors that the Biden administration is considering shifting U.S. bases out of Iraq, where roughly 2,500 servicemen are deployed. Instead of ceding these important outposts, Trump should commit to hardening them against future drone and missile attacks, and say so loudly. He doesn’t need to increase the number of U.S. troops, but he can better protect those currently deployed. This would signal resolve to the Iranians that the U.S. isn’t going anywhere and that future attacks would be weathered, and answered for.
• Finally, upgrade the Abraham Accords to an “Abraham Alliance.” The Abraham Accords, a signature achievement of Trump’s first term, focused mainly on improving economic and diplomatic ties between Israel and its Arab neighbors, not military ties. With the Middle East now at war, the Accords should get leveled up to a full-on security partnership.

The limiting factor for Israeli–Arab military coordination has been the Biden administration: Rather than putting its weight behind Israel and its Gulf allies simultaneously, Biden has tried to play them off each other — for example, dangling the prospect of Israeli–Saudi normalization in exchange for a cease-fire in Gaza and Israel’s recognition of a Palestinian state, both of which are nonstarters in Jerusalem.

To deter Iran, Trump should work to expand the Accords into an alliance along the lines of AUKUS, a security partnership between the U.S., U.K., and Australia designed to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. Militarily, the promise of such a partnership was on display when Iran conducted direct strikes against Israel in April: The Saudis helped shoot down Iranian projectiles while Jordan allowed Israel to take defensive measures over its airspace. Like the Accords, the ingredients for a security partnership already exist; they just need to be encouraged and formalized. Similar to AUKUS, the Abraham Alliance could facilitate the exchange of key technology and weapons systems between the U.S., Israel, and Gulf allies. It could also serve as an informal mechanism for defensive and offensive planning against Iran.

In a global context, the Abraham Alliance would round out the historic Atlantic Alliance in Europe and AUKUS in the Indo-Pacific, solidifying U.S. footholds in the three core theaters of great-power competition, or a future war.

With the necessary political will, Iran’s path to the bomb can still be stopped. But should it acquire the ultimate weapon, the U.S. and its allies must be ready for what comes next.