From Compliance to Target: The Strategic Death of Nuclear Non-proliferation
The US and Israel’s strike on Iran’s nuclear sites didn’t just target infrastructure – it signaled the collapse of the global non-proliferation regime and the death of treaty-based restraint.
The ceasefire, in the current Iran–Israel theatre, is less a diplomatic achievement than a stage-managed illusion. Iran launched an attack on the US Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar on Monday. It was followed by a unilateral ceasefire announcement by the US and rejected in its current form by Iran. The so-called truce reflects a familiar choreography: Washington claims de-escalation before consent, while Tehran conditions a pause on reciprocity. Beneath the optics lies the enduring logic of asymmetry – where Iran’s doctrine of forward defence and Israel’s doctrine of pre-emption remain irreconcilable. The silence of Gulf Arab states underscores the regional unease: this is not peace but a recalibration of risk and the US’s significant role in this ceasefire cannot be overlooked.
What we have at present is not a firm, mutually agreed ceasefire, but rather a proposal endorsed by the US. Iran has not yet given its formal consent, and the threat of hostilities – rockets and missile warnings – continues to loom. The next 24 hours will be a tense test: will Israel be the first to break the truce, will Iran reciprocate, or can the ceasefire serve as a foundation for broader de-escalation?
Historically, such ceasefires rarely resolve the underlying antagonism; they merely suspend it. Like the 1988 Iran–Iraq truce or the 2006 Israel–Hezbollah stalemate, today’s manoeuvre may freeze kinetic hostilities only to intensify shadow wars through cyber strikes, assassinations, and proxy entrenchment. At best, this is a managed confrontation. At worst, a prelude. In either case, the language of peace is being used to buy time – not to secure it. More likely, a frozen conflict model emerges – missiles stop, but cyber warfare, assassinations, and proxy skirmishes persist. This would mirror the US–Soviet Cold War detente era: deterrence without disarmament. The key to this outcome is whether Israel can accept a strategic stalemate without escalation and whether Iran sees the benefit in keeping its powder dry. These potential consequences of the ceasefire are crucial to consider in understanding the current situation.
Dirty Work
When German Chancellor Friedrich Merz recently praised Israel for doing the “dirty work” of striking Iranian targets, his remarks were framed as strategic realism. However, beneath that framing lies a deeper problem: a Western discourse that views the erosion of legal norms as a tactical necessity and the selective application of international law as unremarkable. The celebration of military action – whether Israeli or American – against Iran must be understood not as a discrete policy episode but as a rupture in the architecture of global nuclear governance.
The US bombing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, targeting sites at Natanz, Isfahan, and Fordow, is not just a kinetic escalation. It also signifies a symbolic dismantling of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as a credible international regime. The fact that these facilities were under International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversight and part of a system Iran has remained committed to for decades seems to matter less to policymakers than it should. What was struck was not just enrichment capability – it was the foundational premise that legal compliance offers security. This action marks a significant shift in the logic of proliferation.
Iran has remained a signatory to the NPT since 1970. Even after the 1979 revolution and the West’s adversarial stance, it did not withdraw. The 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) subjected Iran to one of the most stringent inspection regimes ever negotiated. The collapse of that agreement – triggered not by Iranian non-compliance but by the unilateral US withdrawal in 2018 – did not prompt immediate Iranian escalation. Tehran remained within the bounds of the NPT. “Under the 159-page deal, Iran ‘significantly reduced its nuclear program and accepted strict monitoring and verification safeguards to ensure its program is solely for peaceful purposes,” ABC News recently reported. On terminating US participation in the JCPOA, on 8 May 2018, President Trump reimposed economic sanctions on Iran. The Western allies of the US protested his move but later settled with it and began discussions with Iran about its crude oil reaching European countries given the sanctions.
Later, the US assassination of General Qassem Soleimani in the pre-dawn dark of 3 January 2020, near Baghdad International Airport, did more than decapitate Iran’s most formidable military strategist – it detonated a geopolitical tremor whose aftershocks are still unfolding. In Tehran, and beyond, the killing collapsed factional divides as hundreds of thousands mourned not merely a man, but a doctrine of calibrated deterrence, regional entrenchment, and the projection of Iranian sovereignty through asymmetric means. Iran’s retaliatory missile strikes on US bases in Iraq, though symbolically measured, signaled a chilling proximity to full-scale war.
In this theatre, the strike marked an epochal shift: the normalization of high-profile political assassination as a tool of statecraft, rendering blurry the already fraying distinction between war and peace. What was extinguished in that moment was not only a man but the tenuous scaffolding of regional stability, replaced by a doctrine of impunity masquerading as strategy. The killing marked a precedent-setting moment: the first time a state actor had openly assassinated a high-ranking official of another sovereign nation in peacetime. It blurred the lines between war and targeted killing, expanding the scope of “legitimate” pre-emptive action in global politics.
Israel launched its strike on Iran just days before a planned sixth round of nuclear talks in Oman, exploiting Tehran’s assumption that negotiations with the US would forestall any attack. Netanyahu has long framed the dismantling of Iran’s nuclear program as a non-negotiable priority for Israel’s national security. Then again, simply pursuing his own political survival was likely another reason to strike Iran.
The US bombing of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure signals a strategic shift with far-reaching consequences. The NPT regime, already weakened by decades of double standards, now risks terminal collapse. A state that broadly cooperated with IAEA inspections, its enrichment regime, and accepted intrusive monitoring has found itself punished rather than protected. The implication is stark: the treaty does not provide security – it exposes vulnerability.
The narrative in the West is premised on the logic of a report the IAEA issued on 31 May 2025. The report was highly contested by Iran and Russia. For the first time in two decades, the IAEA formally rebuked Iran on 12 June 2025, sharpening international scrutiny just as whispers of a looming Israeli military strike grow louder. The censure vote on the resolution submitted by the US, Britain, France and Germany, with 19 votes in favour, 11 abstentions, and 3 against – Russia, China, and Burkina Faso, drawing the line against a Western script they no longer read from.
Proliferation and its Logic
The logic of proliferation is now inverted. Where once restraint signaled credibility, it now invites risk. It is a proliferation catalyst. Regional powers, such as Turkiye and Saudi Arabia, which have long hedged their positions, now face a stark choice. The logic of restraint has collapsed. Withdrawal from the NPT – once politically unthinkable – now seems strategically rational. The bomb, once considered a threat, has become the only viable shield. Non-nuclear status, once a pillar of global consensus, now reads as strategic vulnerability.
And for what? The tactical gains, if any, are illusory. No bomb can erase knowledge. No missile can obliterate scientific memory. Technical capacity, once acquired, is not so easily destroyed. Infrastructure can be rebuilt; expertise is retained. If the objective was to delay Iran’s nuclear capability, the more probable result is to accelerate it – this time in total opacity. Iran’s exit from the NPT now appears not just plausible but imminent. Outside that framework, there will be no inspections, oversight, or restraint. What was once visible to the international community will go dark irrespective of the slated objective of a regime change.
There is also the operational dimension. Over 40,000 US troops are stationed across the region. They now face an expanded spectrum of asymmetric retaliation. Iran’s regional networks – state and non-state alike – are calibrated to respond asymmetrically, from cyber operations to targeted strikes via proxies. A single strike on nuclear facilities may thus trigger a prolonged and diffuse regional confrontation.
The deeper issue, however, is not operational. It is structural. The JCPOA was not a perfect agreement, but it achieved tangible non-proliferation outcomes. It capped enrichment, reduced stockpiles, and ensured transparency. Israeli and American intelligence services acknowledged these results. The agreement’s flaw was not technical but political: it offered the possibility of Iran’s reintegration. For some, that was unacceptable. The sabotage of the deal – through economic strangulation, assassinations, and now overt bombing – must be read as a campaign not against weapons but against normalization.
The Neoconservative Fantasy
The bombing also clarifies what this confrontation has always been about. Not uranium enrichment. Not latency thresholds. The deeper objective is regime degradation. A non-nuclear, diplomatically integrated Iran is more threatening to the regional status quo than an isolated, sanctioned one flirting with a breakout capacity. The JCPOA, though technocratic in its substance, posed a political risk: it worked. It capped enrichment, reduced stockpiles, and established a model of rigorous verification and inspection. But it also offered a path to normalization. That was the red line for some.
For Iran’s adversaries, the most successful blows have not been overt airstrikes but covert operations: the targeted assassinations of scientists, the infiltration of supply chains, and the sabotage of facilities. These quieter wars have done more to undermine Iran’s autonomy than any jet-fueled spectacle. The bombing is not a strategy – it’s theatre. It is a spectacular punctuation to a long campaign designed to deny sovereign technological development.
And now, the neoconservative fantasy is realized. John Bolton did not achieve this war under George W. Bush. Nor under Obama. It was Donald Trump – who campaigned as the anti-war populist – who delivered it. After decades of lobbying, position papers, and strategy memos from think tanks and pressure groups, it was Trump who authorized what others resisted. The spectacle of “America First” has now resolved into something far darker: America, conscripted as the enforcer of another state’s maximalist ambitions. This is not strength. It is submission.
The context matters. The US–Iran relationship is long and bitter: the CIA-led coup of 1953; support for Saddam Hussein in the Iran–Iraq War, even as chemical weapons were unleashed; the 1979 hostage crisis; decades of sanctions, cyberwarfare, and targeted assassinations. But this moment marks a departure. This is the first direct US strike on Iranian territory. And it is unlikely to be the last.
The implications for international law are stark. If compliance does not confer protection, then the incentive structure embedded in the NPT collapses. Yet the rituals remain. After the missiles fall, the press conferences follow. Generals return to their podiums, and diplomats to their scripts. They speak of “restraint” as though it were still on the table. They call for peace while standing in the rubble of its foundations. They burn your house and then ask you to host the next round of negotiations. This is not diplomacy. It is imperial satire.
A Strategic Catastrophe
What is now celebrated by some as a tactical success will be remembered as a strategic catastrophe. The precedent is grim. In 1981, Israel bombed Iraq’s Osirak reactor, claiming to halt Baghdad’s nuclear ambitions. In reality, it merely drove the program underground, beyond the IAEA’s scrutiny, accelerating it in secret. Force did not bring compliance. It deepened resolve.
A similar dynamic now begins. Iran will not fold. It will fortify. The line between hedge and imperative will vanish. And across the region, the message is unmistakable: to be non-nuclear is to be vulnerable. Deterrence is the new diplomacy. In Ankara, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, and Cairo, officials are not recalibrating their policies due to Iran’s ambitions. They are recalibrating because of America’s message: treaties are expendable; force is the rule.
The JCPOA was not flawless, but it worked. It capped enrichment, reduced stockpiles, and subjected Iran to a verification regime more intrusive than any in history. Even Israeli intelligence conceded its efficacy. But for hawks in Washington, Tel Aviv, and Tehran, its success was intolerable. Not because it failed to constrain Iran but because it threatened a normalization of relations.
Now, with Iran poised to withdraw from the NPT, the treaty is at risk of collapse. With Russia and China unlikely to oppose such a move, the regime’s universality dissolves. What replaces the NPT will not be a new consensus – it will be a void – a world governed not by law but by power.
And in that vacuum, proliferation will flourish. The logic has already shifted. The treaty does not protect non-nuclear states – they are punished within it. The bomb, once a taboo, is now a tool of sovereignty. The post-NPT world is no longer theoretical. It is emergent.
The irony is brutal: scientific knowledge cannot be unlearned. Enrichment capacity, once achieved, becomes permanent. Bombs can destroy hardware, but not capability. Once a nation crosses the technical threshold, the only outcomes left are sustained diplomacy or permanent occupation. Bombing is neither. It is not a solution. It is provocation dressed in policy.
The Logic of Enrichment
To understand Iran’s nuclear posture, it is essential to listen carefully to those who have studied its internal logic. In Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History, Vali Nasr, among the most astute of these voices, articulates a critical truth: Iran’s nuclear program is not a step toward Armageddon but a bid for emancipation. It is a strategy of autonomy – not aggression. Enrichment, in Tehran’s calculus, is not about weaponization; it is about leverage.
The centrifuge spins not toward annihilation but toward dignity. Enrichment is Iran’s answer to coercion, its insurance against regime change, and its shield against extortion. Even the so-called moderates – Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Javad Zarif – defended the program not out of dogma but because they understood the alternative: dependency or defeat. The JCPOA was, for Iran, not capitulation but calibrated détente – a temporary compromise to preserve long-term sovereignty.
Its collapse merely confirmed what many within Tehran already suspected: that diplomacy, absent deterrence, is performance. That compliance, in a system shaped by brute force, is a liability. The centrifuge, then, becomes not a provocation but a necessity. A message in enriched uranium: We will not be ruled from afar.
Iran’s foreign policy, Nasr argues, is shaped less by ideology than by trauma. Its doctrine – what he terms “forward defence” – is not expansionist but prophylactic. It is a shield built from memory: the 1953 coup, the eight-year war with Iraq, chemical weapons raining from the sky with international impunity, and the economic throttling of sanctions.
This is not the strategy of zealots. It is the logic of a state besieged. Iran’s support for regional allies is not a project of exporting revolution but rather a strategic buffer. Its regional posture is not a bid for empire but for deterrence. Its nuclear policy is cut from the same cloth. Enrichment serves as a hedge – a calculated deterrent against existential threats.
This is precisely why the bombing strikes at something far more dangerous than uranium. It targets the entire doctrine of deterrence. And in doing so, it ensures its opposite.
Why now?
Given that on 17 June 2025, the United Nations was to host a High-level International Conference for the Peaceful Settlement of the Question of Palestine, the Israeli launch of the surprise attack on 13 June is not a surprise. Co-chaired by France and Saudi Arabia, it was touted as the moment when gesture would give way to action. It did not. Worse still, it served to redirect headlines and political attention away from the ongoing tragedy in Gaza.
Besides, the onslaught of the political framing of this bombing – as a defence of stability or a blow against terrorism or for Israel’s sake – is a distraction. It is a military act with systemic implications. The non-proliferation order was never perfect. It has long tolerated exceptions – Israel, India, and Pakistan among them. But the illusion that the treaty offered a meaningful restraint mechanism has now dissolved. What remains is a world where force determines compliance and legal frameworks are tactical tools, not binding norms.
In a world where the very premise of disarmament has collapsed, the NPT has become an empty formality. Its foundational bargain – that non-nuclear states would abstain from developing weapons in exchange for nuclear powers gradually disarming – has not only been abandoned in practice, but now in principle. Iran, paradoxically, found itself punished not for defying this order, but for adhering too closely to its rules. After the US unilaterally withdrew from the JCPOA in 2018, Tehran responded by incrementally breaching the deal’s constraints, eventually enriching uranium to 60 percent – a level still below weapons-grade, yet far closer to it than the original 3.67 percent cap.
This escalation, far from a reckless dash to the bomb, has been widely interpreted as a calculated act of strategic ambiguity: a deterrent posture designed to increase leverage in future negotiations, signal the unsustainability of sanctions, and expose the cost of diplomatic failure. In this light, enrichment to 60 percent is not a provocation but a provocation’s mirror – forcing the West to confront the consequences of having broken its own word.
By striking Iran under these conditions, the US has not only undermined the credibility of the NPT. It has created a precedent that nuclear restraint is unwise and treaty fidelity naive. The result is a proliferation catalyst, not a solution. Already, nuclear latency is being reconsidered not just in Tehran but in capitals across the Middle East. Non-proliferation has not been advanced. It has been set back.
This moment may be remembered not for what it destroyed, but for what it revealed: a strategic doctrine in which law is subordinate to force, diplomacy to coercion, and restraint to vulnerability. In that doctrine, proliferation is not a failure. It is a rational response.