Iran Is Being Driven Towards the Nuclear Threshold

Iranian missile display at the Holy Defense Museum in Tehran -- Fars Media Corporation, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

By Vijay Prashad

The gravest danger in the present war is not that Iran has already decided to manufacture a nuclear weapon. There is no verified evidence of such a decision. The danger is that another major US escalation could convince Tehran that remaining a non-nuclear state inside the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) no longer provides protection, recognition, or even the elementary security that the treaty was supposed to guarantee. Washington may therefore produce precisely the outcome that it claims to be trying to prevent.

Iran is approaching its NPT red line. Withdrawal from the treaty is no longer discussed merely as rhetorical retaliation. Iranian institutions, including parliament, have examined it as a practical response to attacks upon safeguarded nuclear facilities, the International Atomic Energy Agency’s failure to condemn those attacks, and the suspicion that information gathered through inspections has found its way into US and Israeli targeting processes. In late March 2026, a triple-urgency bill proposing Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT was uploaded to the Iranian parliament’s legislative system, although it had not yet been debated or adopted.

The NPT permits withdrawal when a state concludes that ‘extraordinary events’ have jeopardised its supreme interests. Iran can plausibly argue that the bombing of its nuclear facilities by nuclear-armed states constitutes precisely such an event. Iranian officials who advocate withdrawal have stressed that such a step would not necessarily signal a decision to manufacture a bomb. Alaeddin Boroujderdi, a member of parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Commission, argued in March 2026 that Iran should leave the NPT while insisting, ‘We are not seeking a nuclear bomb’. Such a move would, however, terminate or radically reduce the inspection system through which the IAEA monitors Iran’s nuclear material. That distinction is legally significant but strategically thin. Once Iran has left the treaty, restricted inspectors and increased enrichment, other governments will necessarily assume that it is preparing a weapon.

Reporting by Transition Protocol shows that Iran has decided to move its uranium stockpile to 90-percent enrichment. Iran had accumulated roughly 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent before inspectors lost the ability to establish the location and condition of the entire stock. Uranium enriched to 60 percent is already far beyond the level ordinarily required for civilian power generation, although it is not in itself a nuclear weapon. Enriching this material to approximately 90 percent would bring it into the range conventionally described as weapons-grade.

Conversations with people in Iran have revealed that Iranian authorities have instructed the nuclear establishment to prepare to process much of this material towards 90 percent if the United States escalates again. Enriching uranium, converting it into suitable form, constructing an explosive device and developing a deliverable weapon are related but distinct stages. Nevertheless, if the intelligence is accurate, the direction is unmistakable. Another major US attack could cause Iran to leave the NPT, enrich uranium to weapons grade, and move to threshold deterrence. Tehran might then assemble a device without testing it, or it might conduct an underground or demonstrative detonation to remove any doubt that it had crossed the threshold. Such a detonation would constitute an entirely new stage in the history of West Asia. But it would be the consequence of an existential war, not evidence that Iran had always secretly intended to reach this point.

Korea vs. Libya

The choice Iranian strategists confront is increasingly described through two precedents: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) and Libya.

Libya surrendered its embryonic nuclear and missile programmes in 2003. It transferred equipment and documents to the United States, accepted intrusive inspections, and sought normal relations with the West. Washington and London presented Muammar Gaddafi’s decision as proof that disarmament would produce security and international rehabilitation. Eight years later, NATO used a United Nations resolution ostensibly intended to protect civilians to conduct a war for regime change. The Libyan state was destroyed, and Gaddafi was captured and killed.

The DPRK followed the opposite course. It withdrew from the NPT in 2003, tested a nuclear device in 2006, and gradually developed a survivable nuclear and missile capability. North Korea has endured sanctions, isolation, military exercises and repeated threats. Yet no US government has attempted a full-scale invasion or regime-change war against it. Washington negotiates with Pyongyang under conditions fundamentally different from those it imposed upon Baghdad, Tripoli, or Tehran because the consequences of attacking the DPRK cannot be confidently controlled.

The lesson drawn in Tehran, Pyongyang, and elsewhere is devastatingly simple: Gaddafi relinquished his deterrent, opened his country and received no durable guarantee against Western attack. His compliance removed an obstacle to regime change rather than ensuring Libya’s sovereignty. This is not an endorsement of nuclear proliferation. Nuclear weapons are instruments of mass destruction, and their abolition remains a human necessity. It is an explanation of the strategic calculation produced by Western conduct. The nuclear powers have failed to fulfil the NPT’s disarmament bargain, protected Israel’s undeclared nuclear arsenal, attacked non-nuclear states, and demanded that selected adversaries remain permanently vulnerable. They have turned nuclear possession into the most credible insurance policy against forcible overthrow.

Iran has so far resisted this logic. Its official position remains that nuclear weapons are religiously prohibited, militarily unnecessary, and incompatible with its declared doctrine. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated after earlier attacks that Iran had not abandoned this policy and continued to regard the production, stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction as inhuman and un-Islamic. He also explained that Iran raised enrichment to 60 percent to demonstrate that threats and pressure would not compel capitulation. Yet doctrines are not immune to changes in material circumstances. If a state is repeatedly attacked while observing a prohibition, and if its attackers openly discuss destroying its government (even with nuclear weapons), its leaders will inevitably reconsider whether moral restraint has become strategic exposure. The debate within Iran has already moved from whether nuclear weapons are desirable to whether nuclear latency may become indispensable for national survival.

Should Iran cross the threshold, it would almost certainly present the decision as the construction of a shield, not preparation for an offensive war. Iran has repeatedly said that it does not seek territorial conquest, nuclear coercion, or attacks upon neighbouring peoples. Its immediate purpose would be to convince Washington and Tel Aviv that no campaign to destroy the Iranian state could proceed without unacceptable consequences.

A deterrent, however, cannot be made entirely safe by declaring it defensive. Other governments cannot know future intentions with certainty. An Iranian weapon could stimulate nuclear hedging by Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Egypt or others. Israel might attempt a preventive attack before Iran completes weaponisation. The transition period – between enrichment to 90 percent and establishment of a credible deterrent – would be particularly dangerous. Miscalculation could produce the catastrophe that all parties claim to oppose.

That is why the decisive responsibility now lies with the states choosing whether to escalate. If the United States attacks again, intensifies an economic siege designed to break the Iranian state, or makes negotiations indistinguishable from an ultimatum, it will strengthen those in Tehran who argue that the Libyan road ends in death and only the DPRK road guarantees survival.

Iran appears to be preparing to endure rather than capitulate. It is hardening its command arrangements, preserving missile and drone capacity, and organising for a prolonged economic war. Tehran’s wager is that it can absorb immense pressure until the US coalition confronts mounting military costs, commercial disruption, and political disagreement (particularly after the US mid-term elections in November). The nuclear question now sits inside that wider strategy of survival.

The choice is therefore stark. Washington can accept a verifiable agreement that recognises Iran’s right to peaceful nuclear technology, guarantees non-aggression, and restores credible inspection. Or it can continue a war that destroys the remaining constituency for restraint inside Iran. If it chooses escalation, it should not pretend to be surprised when Iran concludes that treaties provide no shield, inspections bring no safety, and only possession of the ultimate weapon prevents another Libya.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian and journalist. He is the author of forty books, including Washington Bullets, Red Star Over the Third World, The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World, The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South, and How the International Monetary Fund Suffocates Africa, written with Grieve Chelwa. He is the executive director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, the chief correspondent for Globetrotter, and the chief editor of LeftWord Books(New Delhi). He also appeared in the films Shadow World (2016) and Two Meetings (2017).

This article was produced by Globetrotter.