Few believe Iran has nuclear weapons. We can’t afford to repeat the Iraq War lie

The Middle East is once again in danger of exploding, with massive global geopolitical and economic implications. The leader who bears most responsibility for this is undoubtedly Benjamin Netanyahu.

For years, the Israeli prime minister has doggedly pursued the demise of the Iranian Islamic regime in line with his power interests and his vision of Israel’s security requirements. His stated goal has long been to bring down the “Islamic empire in Iran”, “expand the Abraham Accords with Arabs” and once and for all end the Palestinians’ aspirations for an independent state. As part of this Middle East master plan, he has also zeroed in on Iran’s nuclear program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.Credit: Yonatan Sindel/Flash90

But let’s not forget: No concrete evidence exists that Iran has been manufacturing nuclear weapons. In a congressional hearing earlier this year, the United States’ Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard confirmed this fact. And earlier this week, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that “on the basis of our evaluation, we came to the conclusion that we could not affirm that there is any systematic effort in Iran to manufacture a nuclear weapon”.

Despite this, Netanyahu continues to insist that Iran is on course to produce nuclear weapons within weeks, and the US is teetering on entering the war in Israel’s support.

Meanwhile, he omits the fact that Israel itself has its own nuclear program.

Though Israel has never formally confirmed or denied its nuclear arsenal, its national Atomic Energy Commission was established in 1952. By 1958, researchers believe the government had established a weapons development site in Dimona, and American intelligence from the 1960s stated that there was a reprocessing plant for plutonium production at the site.

As the Federation of American Scientists wrote in 2007, “the existence of Israeli nuclear weapons is a ‘public secret’ by now due to the declassification of large numbers of formerly highly classified US government documents which show that the United States by 1975 was convinced that Israel had nuclear weapons”.

According to the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, Israel today has at least 90 nuclear warheads and enough material to produce hundreds more. The United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has also found that of the 30 countries capable of developing nuclear weapons, Israel is among nine that possess them (Russia, US, China, France, United Kingdom, Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea).

It is also one of just five countries that is not a signatory to the UN’s Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (along with North Korea, India, Pakistan and South Sudan).

Thus, Israel’s war with Iran is more about regime change than it is about limiting Iran’s capacity to produce nuclear weapons.

The Iranian nuclear program began in the early 1970s with Western backing under the Shah’s pro-Western monarchy. Following the 1978-79 revolution, and locked in lasting hostility with the US and Israel, the Islamic regime expanded the program for both peaceful civilian purposes and deterrent purposes.

Though the program initially had a secret military component, that was halted in 2003. At the same time, Iran’s powerful Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared a nuclear bomb as “un-Islamic” with no place in Iran’s defence doctrine.

On this basis, then-US-president Barack Obama and his moderate Iranian counterpart, Hassan Rouhani, hammered out the landmark multilateral Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action in 2015, which was also signed by Britain, France, Germany, Russia and China. In return for lifting US-led sanctions on Iran, the deal limited Iran’s uranium enrichment to 3.7 per cent for civilian use.

Despite the agreement working well for the better part of a decade and Iran honouring its commitment with signatories, Netanyahu called it “the worst deal of the century” and did not relent in his opposition. In 2016, he found his moment with the election of Donald Trump.

To the chagrin of all other signatories, Trump withdrew the US from the deal in May 2018, rendering the agreement virtually defunct. Tehran retaliated by installing more advanced centrifuges and accelerating uranium enrichment. It was allowed to do so under a snap-back clause of the agreement, and as a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Ironically, as a treaty member, Iran has allowed International Atomic Energy Agency inspections (though sometimes with restrictions) – something that Israel has never done.

Since mid-April, talks between Iran and the US had been taking place in a desperate bid to try to strike a new nuclear deal between the two nations. In attacking Iran and igniting a very costly war for both sides, Netanyahu has successfully sabotaged the process, with him and his extremist ministers successfully throwing their weight around and using the nuclear issue as a smokescreen for regime change.

Though Trump has criticised his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush, for waging war in Iraq with no evidence of weapons of mass destruction, he now appears to be on board with taking eerily similar steps in Iran.

If Trump decides to directly involve the US in another Middle East war without any concrete evidence, he would repeat Bush’s mistake. Russia and China – two strategic partners of Iran – have condemned Israel for starting the war and warned the US against involvement.

Once again, the Middle East is on the precipice of a huge disaster, with the balance of peace all hanging on Trump’s decisions. The region has seen too many conflicts since World War II; none have proved fruitful. The way forward is surely diplomacy, rather that a repeat of the fallacy of the Iraq War.

Amin Saikal is emeritus professor at ANU, adjunct professor at the University of Western Australia, Vice Chancellor’s Strategic Fellow at Victoria University, and author of Iran Rising: The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic (2021).