How Iran Overplayed its Hand

After Israel struck Iran’s nuclear facilities, there were good reasons to be skeptical about the official justification for launching the operation. After all, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a decades-long history of crying wolf about the “imminent threat” of Iran pursuing nuclear weapons. When Israel recently presented the United States with what was supposed to be new evidence of Iran’s sprint towards the bomb, American officials were less than convinced.

Yet, every skeptical voice ultimately had to deal with what seemed to be the key question: Why else would Iran recently produce such large stocks of highly enriched uranium, if not to build nuclear weapons? As representatives of Western states have kept repeating, uranium enrichment to a 60 percent concentration of the isotope U-235 — close to a 90 percent “weapons-grade” level — is unusual for a country without a nuclear arsenal and with “no credible civilian justification.” As such, after the latest International Atomic Energy Agency report highlighted a further dramatic increase in the production of sensitive fissile material, as well as a host of additional concerns about Iranian non-transparency, it has been fairly easy for many observers of Iran’s behavior to settle for a simple answer: Tehran is probably on a quest to acquire nuclear weapons. And it is only a matter of time until it gets there.

All the existing evidence, however, points to a more complex story behind Iranian decision-making. Rather than a sign of immediate intent to build nuclear weapons, Tehran’s decision to amass highly enriched uranium could be plausibly interpreted as a gambit for leverage in negotiations with the United States. The situation has become particularly urgent this year: Without a new agreement in place, Iran faced the prospect of reimposed “snapback” sanctions and overall worsening of its strategic position. However, by speeding up enrichment and effectively becoming a “latent nuclear state,” Iran may have overplayed its hand — and now faces limited options for adapting its failed coercive strategy.