Shortly before the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities this past weekend, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and Middle East Broadcasting Network interviewed me on how the Iran nuclear crisis occurred.
My short answer was that we let Iran make nuclear fuel, even though this activity brought them to the brink of bomb-making. We allowed this because we had already blessed nuclear fuel-making in Japan, India, and Euratom.
We should have known better. In 1946, the authors of the Acheson–Lilienthal Report warned that certain nuclear materials and activities were so close to bomb-making that no inspections could give sufficient warning of a military diversion to head off construction of a bomb. We learned this the hard way with India. The United States actually transferred designs for a civilian chemical separation plant, which India used to extract plutonium to make its first “peaceful” nuclear explosive (a.k.a. bomb).
It’s tempting to make our mistakes hereditary. That would suggest leaving our current nuclear rules as lax as they are. The next step would be to authorize Saudi Arabia to enrich uranium on its soil, so long as it agrees to “tough inspections.” We might also promote reprocessing technologies in support of U.S. advanced reactor exports as another risky measure.
The alternative would be to toughen the rules with like-minded countries block exports to non-weapons states for enrichment or reprocessing, to make withdrawal from the NPT more difficult and enforcement more likely.
You can find both segments below. As always, I’m curious to get your take.
As Ever,
Henry S.
June 25, 2025
ABC Australia Interviews Henry Sokolski
MBN Interviews Henry Sokolski