Visions of Mushroom Clouds

Israel and the United States justified their war against Iran on claims that its nuclear program posed an existential threat. Iran had no nuclear weapons, but the nature of its enrichment program exceeds what is necessary for peaceful energy production. An unintended consequence of U.S. and Israeli belligerence, say non-proliferation experts, could be that Iran now secretly races for a bomb. If the lesson here is that the only way to guarantee national security is to obtain nuclear deterrence, other nation-states might also break from the global non-proliferation regime. In this episode, national security analyst and career arms control expert Joe Cirincione takes us inside Iran's program and its implications for the rest of the world. Cirincione is one of a few Americans to have visited Iran's Isfahan uranium enrichment facility. Further reading: Strategy & History newsletter by Joe Cirincione