Iran May Be on the Verge of a Nuclear Weapon; Will Israel and the United States Act?

US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu just met in Washington — and not a moment too soon. A team of scientists in Iran is reportedly working to short-cut Tehran’s route to nuclear weapons in case the Iranian leadership orders their complete construction.

Trump and Netanyahu have a narrow window to stop Iran if it opts to build those weapons. The US and Israel must urgently review and revamp their intelligence gathering and sabotage capabilities, while preparing military options to jointly destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities should it sprint for atomic weapons.

According to current and former US officials who spoke to The New York Times on February 3, during the waning months of Joe Biden’s administration, unnamed countries — likely the United States and Israel — gathered intelligence indicating “a secret team of [Iranian] scientists is exploring a faster, if cruder, approach to developing an atomic weapon if Tehran’s leadership decides to race for a bomb.”

These findings track with an Axios report from November quoting a US official who said that Iran had been “conduct[ing] scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.” 

What is this so-called “crude” nuclear device that Iran might seek in a hurry, compared to a regular nuclear weapon?

Such a device, built more quickly, may lack the functionality assurances provided by a lengthier nuclear-weapon assembly time. This assembly process, known as “weaponization,” entails key scientific and engineering work that enables the production of a functioning nuclear bomb that integrates a uranium fissile core, a triggering mechanism, and explosives.

To short-cut its way to nuclear weapons, Tehran may even fuel a crude weapon with highly-enriched uranium (HEU) in lieu of the preferred weapons-grade uranium. While this would make Iran’s nuclear weapons larger and heavier, it would serve the purpose of establishing Tehran as nuclear-armed.

At last count, Iran had enough HEU for almost five nuclear weapons, and enough enriched uranium overall, if enriched further, for at least 16 weapons.

How fast could Iran weaponize its nuclear material?

Tehran could likely construct a crude device within six months of starting, only moving its enriched uranium stocks to a secret site for subsequent enrichment and/or weaponization around the four-month mark. Relocating those stocks would trigger international alarm bells, since the material remains under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards. Yet unless the United States and Israel detect Tehran near day one of a six-month breakout to the bomb, they may just have weeks to stop Iran after the fuel goes missing.

To target Iran’s nuclear plants militarily, Washington and Jerusalem require exact intelligence about where Iran might be constructing nuclear weapons. A facility located deep underground raises additional obstacles, even for bunker-busting bombs.

If the United States and Israel were unable to stop Tehran, Iran could quickly declare itself a nuclear power, possibly issuing photos to the world and only later conducting a demonstration test.

What’s more, Iran knows well how to build nuclear weapons, having spent nearly three decades — from 1985 on — acquiring and then mastering the technology.

Under Tehran’s late 1990s to mid-2003 nuclear weapons program known as the Amad Plan, the regime set out to construct an initial five nuclear bombs and ready the capability to test them.

However, in 2002, opposition groups and non-governmental organizations detected Iran’s covert nuclear facilities. The possibility that the United States, under the George W. Bush administration, might invade Iran based on Tehran’s efforts to seek weapons of mass destruction — as America had done in neighboring Iraq — likely caused the regime to downsize the Amad Plan’s weaponization activities. 

However, Iran planned to continue progressing some weaponization activities for a rainy day, while openly progressing its production of fuel.

Today, the IAEA has never been able to issue an all-clear that Tehran’s nuclear program is devoted to peaceful uses, as Iran obfuscates and maintains secrecy over past and ongoing activities.

Signs have periodically emerged of an ongoing weaponization effort, but the US intelligence community assessed, until at least July 2024, that Tehran maintained the Amad Plan’s halt. In early 2024, Israel and the United States reportedly acquired intelligence pointing to new Iranian weaponization-related activities.

During an October 2024 strike on Iran in retaliation for a missile attack, Israel destroyed a site known as Taleghan 2, where some of these alleged activities were taking place.

Facing Israel’s decimation of its proxies in Lebanon, Syria, and Gaza, lacking the means to defend its air space, and confronting an inability to quickly build new missiles since Jerusalem’s strike, the regime in Iran knows it is more vulnerable than ever — and is likely eager to have a plan to quickly acquire a nuclear deterrent.

Trump and Netanyahu have a historic chance to stop Iran once and for all.

They should immediately evaluate and enhance intelligence gathering and related operations aimed at detecting Iranian efforts to build nuclear weapons. They should ready sabotage operations to stop these efforts. Both countries have used sabotage in the past — namely cyber-attacks, supply chain disruption, and explosives — to successfully disrupt and deter Tehran’s nuclear progress at key facilities.

In addition, the two countries should hold a new round of Juniper Oak military exercises, the last of which were held more than two years ago. These exercises showcase their ability to jointly destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities and could help deter a breakout by the regime before it starts. 

Washington and Jerusalem should also enhance the interoperability of such a mission. In particular, the United States should allow Israel to practice refueling its fighter jets using American KC-46 refueling aircraft while Israel awaits US deliveries of KC-46 refueling aircraft to replace Jerusalem’s aging fleet.

Tehran may be desperate and poised to acquire the ultimate deterrent — a move that successive administrations in Washington and Jerusalem have said they will never tolerate.

 Trump and Netanyahu may soon have to enforce that threat.

Andrea Stricker is a research fellow and deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). Follow her on X @StrickerNonpro. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.