May 2, 2024: Iran has shown that it can penetrate Israeli ABM defenses with a few strategic ballistic missiles if it launches 100+ simultaneously, but Iran has not yet announced that it has missile-ready nuclear warheads. There are still claims that it can’t, but it is now clear that Iran can produce those whenever it wants.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said last summer that Iran had amassed 121.6 kilograms of 60 percent enriched U-235 and could produce more at the rate of 9kg a month. At this point there could be 202.6kg. There are December 2023 estimates that Iran can purify 3kg of 60 percent enriched U-235 uranium to 2kg of weapons-grade (90 percent) at the rate of 25kg a week. In two months all of Iran’s 202.6kg of 60 percent enriched could be 135kg of weapons-grade. That’s enough for 16 ballistic missile warheads.

In two months, starting any time from now, Iran could truthfully announce it has at least 16 nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles with ranges of 1500 kilometers, and can increase that by two every three months. This would probably be enough to deter attacks on Iran and allow it to order its proxies to attack its enemies with impunity. Those are Iran’s objectives in acquiring missile-ready nuclear weapons and are achievable in this way.

When they choose to do this is a political decision for Iran’s leaders. They certainly now have that capability.

The usual naysayers will contend that testing of such weapons is required before they can be deemed missile-ready, and that Iran’s implosion-type U-235 triggers require 15kg rather than 8kg of U-235. Those ignore the critical technical assistance Iran has obtained from Russia in the past year in payment for Iranian drones and missiles sold to Russia for the Ukraine war. Russia is desperate for hard currency so its barter of nuclear weapons design/fabrication knowledge, plus loan of some technicians, was effectively free of any immediate cost to Russia save souring of its relations with Israel concerning Russia’s basically vanished relationship with Syria. Russia owes the West a great deal of payback over Ukraine and this is an effective secret way to get it. Giving Iran nuclear capability sooner than it could achieve on its own is so much in Russia’s interests to make it more likely than not that they’ve done it. Plus Iran could have gotten the same assistance cheaply from North Korea or, for a lot more hard currency, from Pakistan whose corrupt military regime has run out of other peoples’ money.

Still worse, Russian aid in Iranian nuclear warhead design, to the extent of giving it advanced U-235 implosion weapon capability, also implies ballistic missile warhead yields closer to 60kt rather than the 15kt of Trinity and Nagasaki.

Iran’s failed missile attack on Israel established that any attempt to hit Israel with nukes would be a complete waste of Iran’s limited nuclear weapons. A hundred missile strike with only 20 of those carrying a nuke would have only a 7.5 percent chance of a given missile hitting anywhere in Israel, and a 1.5 percent chance of one of those carrying a nuke. It is more likely that Syria, Lebanon, the Negev Desert, West Bank or Mediterranean Sea would be impacted by an Iranian nuclear detonation than a populated Israeli area.

Iran’s present refinement rate of U-235 can produce only enough for 8 nuclear warheads a year. This makes it unlikely that it could have enough warheads for an appreciable chance of landing even one nuke on an Israeli city for at least five years, during which time the defenses will improve. An Israeli - Iranian nuclear war is unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Iran’s other worst enemy in the area is Saudi Arabia, which has long been aware of Iran’s nuclear weapons program and prepared for it. Only the Saudis can go nuke almost immediately with strategic ballistic missiles they obtained from China in 1988, and nuclear warheads for those which are already in existence someplace else. When Iran finally announces it has nuclear weapons, the Saudis can do so too in just a few months.

Saudi Arabia has 36 Chinese liquid-fueled DF-3A (CSS-2) Dongfeng IRBMs with nuclear capability, 4000 kilometer ranges and 1000 meter CEPs. That large a CEP makes them useless against military targets absent nuclear warheads, while their limited number makes them useless against cities absent nuclear warheads.

Saudi Arabia did not develop its own nuclear weapons. It instead paid for most or almost all of Pakistan’s nuclear development program in exchange for promises that Pakistan would provide some of its nuclear warheads to Saudi Arabia upon request. Pakistan plain lacked the money to develop nuclear weapons as fast as it did, and in particular build warheads that fast. It would have taken much longer without Saudi financing. The two countries have a long history of military cooperation. At one point 15,000 Pakistani troops were in Saudi Arabia defending them, and 2,600 are still there, while for some time half or more of the Saudi Air Force were flown by Pakistani pilots.

Even if the Pakistanis consider welshing on the original deal, their corrupt and incompetent military government has finally run out of other peoples’ money and would happily sell 40 or so of its 210+ warheads for several hundred billion dollars. And possibly deliver those to GPS coordinates in Iran of the Saudi’s choice for suitable additional compensation.

This does not mean nuclear war between Iran and Saudi Arabia is likely once one or both have nuclear weapons. It only means that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will then be a dead letter, and countries fearing nuclear threats will be much more inclined to develop their own nukes. Russian President Vladimir Putin publicly admitted that Ukraine can and almost certainly will do so if it survives its on-going war with Russia.

Plus, the Chinese might do something about the appalling prospect of a nuclear war between their two biggest oil suppliers.

- - Tom Holsinger