The focus of the US-Iran war – and now the negotiations on a ceasefire between the US and Iran – has shifted to Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz, so much so that the original justification for the war (destroying Iran’s nuclear program) can sometimes feel like an afterthought.
It is not clear to what extent it is still even a priority for the US government. On Wednesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth insisted that Iran’s nuclear program would still be dismantled while Vice President JD Vance, who is leading ceasefire talks in Pakistan this weekend, suggested he was not concerned about Iran. give up its right to nuclear enrichment. Meanwhile, President Trump has suggested at various points that this is a moot point, as Iran’s nuclear program has been damaged beyond repair. (Note: He made the same claim after airstrikes against Iran in June.)
Is Iran still on the path to a nuclear weapon? Can the US and Israel do anything about it? To help clear up the confusion, I spoke to him Jeffrey Lewisprofessor at the Middlebury Institute’s James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Lewis is a non-proliferation expert and a leading open-source analyst who studies the nuclear and military capabilities of countries like Iran and North Korea.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
On Wednesday, we heard Defense Minister Pete Hegseth, Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, and others insist that Iran must turn over its remaining uranium stockpile and dismantle its enrichment program. They also say it could still be removed by force if Iran doesn’t agree. Is that even remotely true?
It is true if we own the country, but in short, no. The claims we have heard is that half of the highly enriched uranium is in (the underground tunnel complex in) Isfahan. So, where is the other half? And if not all of Isfahan, then how many other sites are there? Are some of them still in Fordow and Natanz? Is it in some third place? What about their ability to produce centrifuges? What about the centrifuges they have in storage? What about people who know how to drive them?
You can push them back by destroying things, disabling things, and taking things, but there is a large group of people who understand how to manipulate these things. There is a basic ability there.
And oh, by the way, the neighbor that has been handling the ceasefire talks (Pakistan) has a very large and powerful centrifuge program that was source of centrifuges originally from Iran. So, what’s the deal here, guys?
In a speech last week, Trump said that Iran’s “nuclear dust” – as he called it – was buried underground and could not be used. Is there anything to that claim?
There is no evidence of that. I mean, we see tunnels. The tunnels are intact, so they are not buried. The only burials were Iranians burying the entrances to protect them, but we have seen them open the doors and enter the tunnels. If you keep something in a safe in your house, it doesn’t mean you can’t get your money, right? You just need to open the safe.
True, but given the level of satellite surveillance that Iran is subject to, and the level of American and Israeli intelligence penetration into the Iranian government, isn’t there a case to be made that it would be crazy for the Iranians to try to restart their nuclear program now?
The penetration of the mind was real. Is it still true? Nobody knows that. Monitoring is nothing like 24/7. We get satellite images taken several times a day, and there is a waiting time. But unless we fly drones 24/7 over those sites, we won’t know for sure unless the Iranians are very slow.
If they had opened the tunnels, I don’t think it would have taken them long to evacuate (the reservoir). So if we saw them opening the tunnels, that would cause the race to beat them. But it is also true that we saw them open the tunnels back in September and Octoberand we did nothing about it.
As a general statement, I’m not sure if (the US and Israeli governments) know where all the materials are. I am not as confident as they are that they can detect material movement.
On Tuesday, when we saw Trump threatening to destroy an entire civilizationit got to the point that the White House actually had to deny that it was considering the use of nuclear weapons, and people like Tucker Carlson calls for officials to disobey nuclear orders. I’m curious as to what you made of it as someone who considers nuclear risk regularly.
I didn’t think they would use nuclear weapons, and I didn’t interpret that as a nuclear threat. Trump likes explosions, and I took him to mean impressive bridges and power plants – which of course are illegal, and I’m certainly morally uncomfortable with them.
But, you know, nuclear weapons should target underground facilities. They would be very useful for these missions. I’m glad the US hasn’t used them, and I think it would be a huge mistake to do so. But it occurs to me that it is uranium which I think it is it is not buried in rubble could be buried in rubble if they hit Isfahan with a nuclear weapon, which I don’t want them to do.
There is still trouble there, but I don’t know how strong the taboo is.
When it comes to Iran’s missile program, the Pentagon has to keep many figures about the number of missiles and drones and launchers destroyed, but how much do we know about what capabilities Iran still has after being hit for almost 6 weeks?
The problem is, we didn’t have a good baseline of how many launchers, how many missiles, (initially).
Those kinds of projections are always a bit of voodoo. We don’t do them on the open source side, because we don’t think we can do it honestly. When you have a factory that works (making drones or missiles), unless you try to count every box that comes in and every box that goes out, it’s very hard to tell.
It is also difficult to know what you have damaged. I mean, the Iranians are almost certainly using a lot of deception, which the Serbs did in the 90s. That’s not to say that these are all deceptions that are being played, but until you get down to it, it’s very hard to tell.
What lessons do you think nuclear proliferators can take from this war?
That it makes sense to end the nuclear arsenal as soon as possible. I would definitely look at the three countries that disarmed – Iraq, Libya, and Iran – or at least made disarmament agreements; The United States twice crossed all. And then, I would look at North Korea, and they seem to be fine. I would rather be in North Korea or Pakistan than Iran, Iraq or Libya.
