Iran Could Build a Nuclear Weapon Sooner Than You Think

Gregory S. Jones and Henry Sokolski

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Earlier this summer, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken revealed that Iran could produce enough weapons-grade uranium to make its first nuclear bomb in just one or two weeks. That’s pretty frightening. But now some experts argue that Tehran would still need up to one year to fashion this material into a working weapon and even longer—perhaps a year or two—to fully build a missile-deliverable warhead.

You should be skeptical. A look at other countries’ nuclear bomb-building efforts suggests that these projections are wrong. For a missile-deliverable weapon, Iran needs to perfect nonnuclear, high-explosive-related components to compress the weapons-grade uranium and produce a nuclear yield. These nonnuclear components also need to be small and light enough to be carried on ballistic missiles.