[Salon] Iran is Now the Second Undeclared Nuclear Weapon State in the Middle East

A note from Ted Postol

See Attachment:
Iran Has Now Become the Second Undeclared Nuclear Weapon State in the Middle East_(July 17, 2025)_

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Summary of Observations and Conclusions

This note contains an observation that strongly suggests that if Iran proceeds to build atomic bombs they will do so with 83.7% enriched uranium 235 rather than 90% enriched uranium.

In early 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) detected uranium particles enriched to 83.7% purity at Iran's Fordow Enrichment Site.

This indicates (and should have been reported by the IAEA) that Iran can now produce 10 low-technology atomic bombs with lower-enriched 83.7% uranium 235 rather than with higher 90% enriched uranium 235.

The final enrichment effort and time from 60% enriched uranium 235 to 83.7% bomb-grade uranium would be reduced by about 25% relative to the time and effort to get 90% enriched uranium (92 separative work units, SWU’s, for 83.7% enriched versus 120 SWU’s for 90% enriched.

The produced atomic bombs would still be low technology and not require compression of the uranium core with explosive lenses.

In addition, whenever a new technology is under development, there is always a possibility that something may not work as expected.

In this particular context, the Iranians have experimentally proven to themselves that their centrifuges can produce atomic bombs that use 83.7% uranium.

A second and perhaps more important observation is that Iran stopped the IAEA from monitoring its production of centrifuges in February 2021. During the time between February 2021 and now, the IAEA believes that Iran has produced roughly 13,000 centrifuges.

If roughly 1.5% of the centrifuges were diverted from the IAEA unmonitored centrifuge production line, Iran would have been able to build a 174-centrifuge cascade, which could easily be hidden and would cover no more than 60 m ² (600 ft ²) of floor space.

This one cascade could produce one atomic bomb every five weeks by enriching 60% enriched uranium 235 to the 83.7%.

Two such Cascades could produce an atomic bomb in half that time, and so on.

Prior to the US and Israeli attacks on Iran, the only reliable barrier to such a clandestine Iranian operation was the IAEA’s monitoring of the 408 kg of 60% enriched uranium hexafluoride.

Now that there is no monitoring of the 408 kg of 60% enriched uranium hexafluoride, the world has no way of knowing if Iran is, or is not, a nuclear weapon state.

Given these uncontestable technical facts, there is absolutely no basis for any claim by the United States that the attack on Fordow stopped Iran from producing nuclear weapons.

The attached slides document the technical details that are needed to verify the findings reported above.

I am attaching three articles making claims about Iran’s capabilities to produce nuclear weapons. As usual, the article from the New York Times is the most misleading and inadequately reported of the three.