Taking the “scary Iran story” angle to a new low, a new report today reveals that Iran could theoretically make 5 nuclear bombs if it took all of its civilian uranium and dedicated it exclusively to weapons production.
The bulk of Iran’s uranium is enriched to 3.5%, the level needed to power the Bushehr plant, with a smaller portion enriched to 20%, the level needed to fuel the Tehran Research Reactor. All of Iran’s uranium is under surveillance per IAEA safeguards.
So to make those “five bombs” Iran would need to take every last bit of uranium they have, enrich it all to over 90% (weapons grade), figure out how to turn it into a weapon, test the weapon, and work out some sort of delivery mechanism.
By the same token, Iran could be accused of having “enough bacteria” to make a lot of bioweapons, or “enough chemicals” that if they mixed a bunch of them together they could probably make a lot of chemical weapons.
This is the level of “proof” people need these days. We saw a similar narrative with the NATO3 last week, charged with terrorism on the basis of a beer-making kit that contained “enough empty beer bottles” to theoretically make a lot of Molotov Cocktails.