Of all the questions America’s bombing of Iran has generated, two that have received little attention are how did we get here, and how do we make sure we never come this way again. The short answer is we’ve got to tighten the nuclear rules.
In the attached Financial Times piece, “The old nuclear rules won’t stop proliferation,” I argue the crisis regarding Iran’s worrisome nuclear bomb-related activities was locked-in almost 20 years ago when the United States said Tehran had a right to make nuclear fuel.
We should have known better. Back in 1946, America’s leading nuclear scientists warned that nuclear fuel-making, including uranium enrichment and recycling plutonium, were too close to bomb-making to prevent military diversions. They rightly insisted that no inspections could ever give enough warning of possible diversions to allow outside authorities to intervene to prevent bombs from being built.
India, North Korea, and now Iran have validated this point. The question now is what are we going to do. The Trump administration is right in arguing that enrichment enables weaponization. The same is true of recycling plutonium.
Now that much of Iran’s nuclear fuel-making activities have been severely damaged, Tehran has no reason to rebuild them unless it wants to build an arsenal of weapons. More important, we should insist that from now on non-weapons states that are members of the NPT should stay clear of building nuclear fuel-making plants.
Non-compliant states also should not be allowed to leave the NPT until they’ve come back into full compliance with the treaty. Automatic sanctions against any such attempts should be laid out now before any non-compliant state attempts such a move.
Finally, our government needs to reassess its current enthusiasm to develop and export the very kinds of nuclear capabilities it just bombed. The White House wants to strike 20 new nuclear cooperative agreements in the next three years. These agreements will result in the export of advanced reactors that use very enriched uranium and rely on advanced plutonium fuel cycles.
As always, I’m curious to get your take.
July 9, 2025
Author: Henry Sokolski
The old nuclear rules won’t stop proliferation
Of all the questions America’s bombing of Iran has generated, the one that’s received the least attention is how we got here. The US and Israeli assault on Iran’s nuclear facilities was the predictable result of persistent US and international unwillingness to draw the line properly between safe and dangerous nuclear activities or materials.
If America and like-minded nations continue to condone nuclear fuel-making and allow Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) violators to leave the treaty with impunity, the bombing of Iran won’t change much. Indeed, more countries in war zones may pursue a nuclear weapons option under the guise of peaceful nuclear energy.
As far back as 1946, the Acheson-Lilienthal Report warned the world that certain nuclear materials and activities were so close to bomb-making, inspections could never detect their military diversion in time to allow an outside intervention to block bombs from being built. It also suggested that engaging in these dangerous nuclear activities and possessing related materials was itself an act of war. The nuclear trajectories of India and North Korea should have made this clear. With India, the US allowed New Delhi to make nuclear fuel by recycling plutonium. The US even shared reprocessing plant designs in support of India’s civilian nuclear programme. The result in 1974 was India’s detonation of a “peaceful nuclear explosive” — in other words, a bomb.
The story with North Korea wasn’t much different. In 1993, US Intelligence and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) caught the North Koreans lying about their materials inventories and their plutonium reprocessing activities. Pyongyang resisted special inspections of its nuclear fuel-making activities and stocks and threatened to withdraw from the NPT.
In 1994, in exchange for two civilian US-designed power reactors, Pyongyang promised eventually to allow routine IAEA inspections. That day never came. Instead, North Korea secretly started to make nuclear fuel by enriching uranium, which US intelligence agencies tracked. Yet, when President George W Bush finally called this out, North Korea withdrew from the treaty with impunity in 2003 and exploded its first bomb in 2006.
The troubles with Iran also began with demands to make nuclear fuel. The US had supported enrichment and reprocessing in Japan and Europe since the 1970s. At the time, US diplomats argued nuclear fuel-making was an “inalienable right” under Article IV of the NPT. That opened the door for Iran to insist on similar rights. In the 1970s, the Shah wanted to enrich and to reprocess. In the early 1990s, Tehran finally acted on these ambitions by secretly acquiring Chinese plans for a uranium hexafluoride conversion plant — a critical step towards enriching uranium. Again, the US sat on this information for nearly a decade.
When Iran finally admitted it was enriching uranium, Washington conceded it had a right to do so, but wanted Russia to enrich uranium for Iran instead. Instead, Iran proceeded to enrich, played the international safeguard system, and got to the brink of bomb-making capacity. Last week, the IAEA admitted it does not know where Iran might be storing its 400kg of near-weapons grade material.
As special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff rightly noted, “enrichment enables weaponisation”. Yet, policy has not changed to reflect that realisation. The White House recently directed the Department of Energy to pursue 20 new international civil nuclear deals that would include technologies and materials — including enriched uranium and advanced plutonium fuel cycles — that the US deemed too dangerous for Iran. Similarly, the US has offered to help Saudi Arabia enrich uranium as a part of any civil nuclear deal. That’s a mistake if Washington wants to avoid further proliferation.
Besides saying no to reprocessing and enrichment, the US and like-minded nations should lay down the law on NPT withdrawals. Non-compliant nations should not be allowed to leave the treaty until they’ve come back into full compliance. Automatic sanctions against any such attempts should be laid out now before any non-compliant state attempts such a move. Finally, nuclear-armed nations that left or never joined the NPT — Israel, North Korea, Pakistan and India — should be encouraged to come into full compliance.
Some will argue that in a multi-polar world, tightening the rules is for fools. The stark alternative of a nuclear Wild West suggests otherwise.
To read the full piece, click here.