Rescuing Reason - E13 - Iran Pt2 - Nuclear Threat

The 2026 conflict between the US/Israel and Iran was supposedly started to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon capability. The nuclear weapon threat could be curtailed through destruction of the related systems (thereby removing the capability) or by causing regime change (thereby removing the intent). This episode is the 2nd episode in a 4-part series on Iran. It considers whether going to war over the nuclear threat is "ethical" or a "Just" cause for war - under the 'Laws of War' or 'Just War Theory'. The 'legal' reasons for going to war are detailed, along with a deep review of Iran's nuclear capabilities. One must also consider that Iran's proxy wars and state-sponsored terrorism are justification for going war, but that is covered in part 3 of this series on Iran. The actual conduct of the war is covered in part 4 of this series.

Transcript

SPEAKER_06 0:25

Hello and welcome to Rescuing Reason. This episode continues our four-part series on Iran. In today's episode of Rescuing Reason, we are considering the factors that influence whether we think the US-Israeli war with Iran is a just war or not. I'm your host, Bill Carolakis. I'm a retired senior Air Force officer. I use history and research to baseline the topics on rescuing reason, and I'll be offering you a Spartan perspective in each episode. In other words, taking a pragmatic view that values the nation and broader Western society over individual interests. Something we need to bear in mind when we're talking about Iran, nuclear power, war and war crimes, is that the media is rife with misinformation. Mostly because people are very biased on these topics, but sometimes because of deliberate misinformation or disinformation. I'll call out that bias as we go through the contentious issues related to Iran and the current conflict. Last episode we followed the journey of how Persia became modern day Iran. We talked about its rich and proud history, language, and how the West manipulated its governments, including the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected President Mossadegh. And we finished with a look at how the Islamic Revolution of 1979 altered Iran, including some elements of its national power like its government structure, the Revolutionary Guard, and its failing economy. We finished by noting that modern day Iran is known for supporting anti-West movements, terrorism, and is seeking to enhance its nuclear capabilities, all of which led to severe, albeit sometimes wavering, sanctions imposed by the international community, particularly the United States. These sanctions decimated the Iranian economy, and along with the repressive society imposed by their Islamic leaders, the result has been much unrest, including the Green Revolution, riots sparked by the death of Masa Asimi and recent protests. Today we're going to look at the state-sponsored behavior that has been the focus of Western and UN attention since 1979. Specifically, I'm referring to Iran's nuclear program, support for anti-West proxies, and state-sponsored terrorism. Now today's episode will only focus on the nuclear program, and next month we'll tackle the proxies and terrorism. Well consider the global response to all of this Iranian activity. And given Iran's actions and intent, whether the recent US and Israeli attacks on Iran are justified. I need to point out that I'm not referring to this conflict in the context of Israel's war on the Palestinians in Gaza or Hezbollah and Lebanon, although these will feature as topics in next month's episode. And before we begin, I'll mention that the fourth episode in this series will come out in two months and will be focused on Iranian, US, and Israeli conduct in their war, including a look at such things as the Iranian bombardment of Gulf states, the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, Israeli and US targeting in Iran, and Donald Trump's threatened annihilation of the Iranian people. For today, to discuss whether an armed attack is justified, we need to consider international humanitarian law, which I prefer to call by its previous name the laws of war. We'll start by revisiting what international law underpins the global understanding of warfare. I covered this extensively in episodes two and three of Rescuing Reason, and here's a recap. In general terms, war can be said to be conflict that a nation or formed group deliberately wages against another group or state to achieve some aim. If you want to understand this more deeply, I recommend A. C. Grayling's book titled War. Simply defined, war is the application of lethal force, economics, or some other method, for example, cyberattacks, against an organization or state to achieve strategic aims. Traditionally, we think of soldiers, sailors, and airmen using bullets and explosives. Based on these definitions, what we have in the Ukraine and Iran in April 2026 is war. To decide if a war is justified, we turn to history for a moment. Based on religious teachings from the 4th to 13th century, war was considered justified if it was sanctioned by an appropriate authority, say a king or a pope. It had to be waged for a good purpose, and its ultimate aim needed to be peace. In that context, the US declaration of war on Japan in 1941 could be considered a just war. From this basis, we developed the traditional just war theory, which uses the terms use ad bellum and use in bello. The first use edbellum means having a just reason for going to war. And the second use in bello means just conduct of war or how you fight the war. Or put another way, these are the terms that tell you when it's ethically permissible to go to war, which is use at bellum, and what it's ethically okay to do in war, which is use in bello. These two terms form the cornerstone of our modern laws of war. From the horrors of the war in the mid-1800s, we also got the Red Cross and the Geneva Convention for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded Armies in the Field, which is now known as the first Geneva Convention. There are more Geneva Conventions dealing with wounded, shipwrecked prisoners, civilians in war. For example, shooting people clinging to wreckage at sea is a crime, potentially a war crime. I'm just saying. We also have to mention the law of the Hague, which came from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and that gave us rules for the conduct of war. The law of the Hague deals with three key terms proportionality, discrimination, and necessity, all of which we'll review in two months' time. There are a pile more amendments and protocols. Suffice to say the powers of the world generally agreed to these principles, conventions, and protocols, thereby establishing what was originally the laws of war, then called the laws of armed conflict, and now it has its PC name, International Humanitarian Law. And these form part of what is referred to as the Rules-Based Order. To hear all about the rules-based order, I suggest you listen to episode seven of Rescuing Reason, although I've recorded that several months ago, and I have to say the modern geopolitical construct is shifting, and what I recorded even just a few months ago is becoming old news and no longer as relevant as it was when I recorded it. Regardless, to talk about the laws of war or the laws of armed conflict or international law or international humanitarian law, we need to differentiate between these terms. The term laws of war refers in some circles or in most people's view to use at bellum and use in bello. In other words, both justification for war and conduct of war. Now the term international law encapsulates all of the international laws, not just one aspect or the other. The term international humanitarian law, which is quite common these days in the media, is sometimes misconstrued to incorporate both use at Bellum and use in bello. But the reality is that international humanitarian law is a creation in a modern sense, and it specifically refers to the conduct of war, in other words, wanting it to be humanitarian simply by calling it humanitarian law. Fact of the matter is when you look at the origins of international humanitarian law or the conduct of war or use in Bello, it came from the laws of The Hague, which were derived from conferences in the late 1800s and early 1900s when the conduct of war was established and laid out and what you can and can't do in war as opposed to why you would go to war. So although there are technical differences between these terms, I'm using the overarching term of the laws of war, sometimes called the laws of armed conflict. And although some people use the term international humanitarian law for those two things, I'm not going to call it that because we are talking about the laws of war encompassing both conduct and why you would go to war. And quite frankly, I think the use of the term international humanitarian law is misleading in the way it's used by the media. It does not refer to why you would go to war or justification for war. And it's also misleading in that war is not humanitarian. Some conduct in war might be humanitarian, but overall it's the application of force and there's nothing humanitarian about it. Radio, I'll get off my soapbox. Anyway, the laws of war are supposedly enforced through the provisions of the United Nations, the International Courts of Justice, and the International Criminal Court. In theory, if these bodies chose to go after a nation or person for unjustly starting a war, we would see United Nations sanctions, perhaps UN action, which could take place under chapters six or seven of the UN Charter, and those chapters allow for the use of force. Or we would see warrants for the arrest of leaders who started the war. Remember, we aren't talking about conduct of war yet. Just whether starting a war or continuing a war is justified. But we haven't seen any serious UN or international criminal court or international court of justice actions regarding those who started the war on Iran, nor the Ukraine for that matter. We should note that there are some warrants issued relating to the conduct of war, but we'll discuss those two episodes from now. The ICC, ICJ, and UN have generally become toothless tigers in my opinion, and they're pretty much doing nothing to enforce the laws of war. I'm being a bit flippant here, but I'm not too far off the mark. The reason for their failures is that the major powers on the planet have generally walked away from using these bodies to enforce the rules-based order. This is particularly problematical for the UN, where the executive powers of the Security Council are usually stymied by partisan politics of the five veto powers, namely Britain, France, Russia, China, and the United States. And I'll cover this in a future episode. To recap, in today's episode of Rescuing Reason, and next month as well, we're only going to consider the factors that influence whether the US-Israeli war with Iran is a just war or not. We'll cover the conduct of the war in two episodes from now, which by the way, I'm very interested to look into because Donald Trump's call to obliterate Iran in early April could be construed as contravening international law. Some would say those threats are war crimes of themselves. The conduct of this war will cause huge legal debates in the years to come. As a side note, I didn't mention one of the legal principles that came out of the post-World War II Nuremberg trials. Individuals can be held accountable for their actions. Makes sense, right? But in those trials, many of the senior German officers and leaders said they were only following orders. So the principle that came out of the Nuremberg trials was that military people are required to assess all orders to ascertain if they are legal or not. It's not a legal defense to say I was ordered to do something. And here is retired United States Colonel Robert Hamilton explaining it.

SPEAKER_04 13:11

And the legal order is clear. It's either an order that's illegal under U.S. law, is illegal under military law, or is illegal under key components of international law, like the law of armed conflict or international humanitarian law, the Geneva Convention. So it's incumbent upon any service member to understand what is illegal and what is illegal and to refuse to carry out orders that are illegal, meaning orders that violate either US law, U.S. military law, or international humanitarian law. There are gray areas so much as there are a large body of law that I just referenced here, right? U.S. domestic law, the UCMJ, and international law. So uh the way we train service members to understand what's an illegal order and what's not is so there's extensive training at every level of the training and education system in all branches of the U.S. military, from basic training to the war colleges, which is the are the senior education institutions that educate lieutenant colonels and colonels. So at every level, there's extensive training. This comes from the Nuremberg Tribunal after the Second World War when many of the Nazi military and government officials on trial, their defense was I was following orders. In other words, I committed war crimes or crimes against humanity, but I was told to do that by my superior commander. The U.S. military from that point forward uh has made it explicit that military members have a duty to not carry out illegal orders. They have a duty to refuse illegal orders.

SPEAKER_06 14:41

Although Colonel Hamilton was US centric, this applies equally to all military personnel around the world, assuming that we still have a rules-based order and assuming we still follow these rules. Of course, I won't mention that after every rule I talk about today, but I just need to make that point. And I can tell you that as an ex-military man myself, I too was schooled in these principles. Let's get back on track. We are focusing on use ad bellum and whether a war is justified. We need to consider a few factors. And here is Professor Mike Schmidt of the University of Reading discussing how the United Nations manages and sees it.

SPEAKER_14 15:27

If we're talking about the use adbellum, then the mother of all rules, the rule in the use adbellum, is found in the United Nations Charter, which sets forth the core rules on the use of force. It's Article II, subparagraph four, known by lawyers as the two-for rule. The two four rule is very simple. It says, look, if you're going to be a party to this body, the United Nations, then you have to agree to refrain from using force against other states, against their territorial integrity, against their political independence, or most importantly, you must agree not to use force contrary to any purpose of the United Nations. That last clause is the most important one. In 1945, what people thought Article 2.4 was about was about invading other states. That's why it says territorial integrity and political independence. It was the aftermath of World War II. But today that's not what we're worried about. We're worried about the other clause because what the other clause means today is that you may not use force consistent with international law unless there is an exception found in the United Nations Charter. The other thing you should note is that this is a provision which appears in a treaty that governs reactions and interactions between states. And so this rule is limited only to states. It's a rule that says states violate international law if they use force. It has nothing to do with non-state actors. It has nothing to do with terrorist groups. So when Al-Qaeda attacks them, that's not a violation of this rule. That's a crime. There are exceptions to this rule. And there are two. And they are found within the framework of the UN Charter. We'll talk about each of them. The first is an authorization from the Security Council to use force consistent with the UN Security Council resolution, a mandate. And this technically is self-defense. You may use the force to defend yourself, and we'll look at the article that governs that. Let's begin at Chapter 7. This is a mandate under the Security Council. It's called a Chapter 7 authorization. And the reason is in the UN Charter, it happens to be Chapter 7. By the way, you should distinguish this from Chapters 6. Chapter 6 is about operations that are not forceful, peacekeeping operations. Chapter 7 is what's known as a peace enforcement operation. In other words, you're going to use force, and that force may be used without the consent of the state where the operations are underway. So the very first step in a chapter 7 operation, in fact, the very first article in chapter 7 is Article 39. Article 39 is the article which tells the Security Council when it can begin to handle the situation somewhere out there on the horizon. The Security Council can address situations in three cases: when there is a threat to the peace, when there's a breach of the peace, and when there is an act of aggression. This was the key when the charter was being framed in 1945. This was the key, and the reason is that states liked the ideal of this Security Council thing that would have authority to respond to threats of the peace, breach of the peace, and acts of aggression, but they were cautious they wanted to retain the right to defend themselves. So this article is the article which cinched the deal. Okay, we'll create the Security Council, but wait a minute, we want to be able to defend ourselves in the event the Security Council does not work, which in fact it arguably still today doesn't work. It certainly didn't work during the Cold War. It gave states a right to individual self-defense. State A has attacked me, I can respond to State A. But it also gave the right to collective self-defense, meaning one state can come to the defense of another. That is, for example, the basis for NATO.

SPEAKER_06 19:45

Professor Schmidt's explanation of use at Bellum describes what the United Nations sanctioned or rules-based order understanding is of when states can go to war. And he noted that a UN Chapter 7 operation is one of those instances. So, for example, we had such a case when Iraqi forces were attacked in the aftermath of the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. That was a just war. We have had very few Chapter 7 operations in the last three decades, the last one being in Haiti in 2023. And in the case of Iranian actions since 1979, nor the US Israeli attack on Iran, the UN did not pass a Chapter 7 operation against Iran. Now there have been some UN resolutions under Chapter 7, but none of them were to establish a peacemaking or peace enforcement action against Iran. Bottom line, we aren't going to cover Chapter 7 actions any further in relation to Iran, because there just aren't any. Schmidt also mentioned self-defense in response to an attack. And that's pretty self-explanatory. We all kind of understand that if someone is attacked, they can hit back. But of course, the law isn't as easy as that. Because we humans have differing interpretations of what an attack is and just how much threat we can tolerate before acting preemptively. So let's get back to Professor Schmitt now to describe the legally unclear reasons for going to war.

SPEAKER_14 21:23

So the question is: what does that right of self-defense mean? When can you engage in self-defense and so forth? And the International Court of Justice has said there are two criteria for the lawful use of self-defense. The first is necessity. The principle of necessity is very simple. It means that you resorted to force and self defense against an armed attack because there was nothing else you could have done. In other words, you can't resort to military force if there's some other means of resolving the situation. And that use of force must be proportional. When you think of proportionality, what you think of is the use in Bellow rule, the law of war rule, which has to do with civilian casualties. You may not engage in a military operation if the likely civilian casualties are excessive relative to the anticipated military advantage. That's a rule of the law of war. That has nothing to do with this. Civilian casualties are irrelevant when we're considering this particular rule. What proportionality means in this context is you may be do no more than required to defend yourself. So if there is a border incident, a serious border incident, of course you can defend your borders, but this doesn't mean you can invade and conquer the other country. So your response must be sensible with regard to defending yourself. Now sometimes that may be grossly excessive relative to what they did to you. And sometimes you can defend yourself by using uh much less force than they used against you. The answer is you can only use that force that's necessary for you to effectively mount a defense and no more.

SPEAKER_06 23:12

Schmidt's comment about proportionality in the context of use in bellow or conduct of war will come into play in two episodes from now when we look at the conduct of the US Israeli and Iran war. While you wait for that episode, consider this question. Was Israel's response to the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas proportionate? Or was Iran's spraying of missiles against several Gulf states in March and April 2026 proportionate? I'll leave that with you and we'll go back to Schmidt now to continue our understanding of what is a just war in the context of self-defense.

SPEAKER_14 23:51

Immediacy, which is also known as immincy, is something that the International Court has never addressed, but it deals with when you can conduct defensive operations. This body of law says this look, you can defend yourself, you can even defend yourself before they attack you because you don't have to take the first shot. But there's got to be some relationship between the time you act and the need to defend yourself. In other words, you can't defend yourself too early. You can't just look out there on the horizon and say, I think those guys are dangerous, and therefore I'm going to strike now. You have to get to the point where they're going to attack you, and then you strike to defend yourself. The other piece of the when can you engage in self-defense is after the fact. So you've been attacked, and uh you want to respond, you want to act pursuant to Article 51, you want to defend yourself, but you gotta act kind of at a time that makes sense that you're still defending yourself and not just striking back. I mean, if you want to understand these rules, you should think of just your regular, I know most of you are Americans, but it applies to every country in the room. I mean, the rules of self-defense on the streets of Newport. If I'm in the streets of Newport and I see you down the street, you're a very dangerous-looking guy. You look deadly to me. I become frightened. Can I then shoot you as you come down the street? Of course not. That's too early. However, if you come towards me and then you make uh threatening gestures, then it looks like you're gonna hit me. Can I defend myself? Of course I can defend myself. It's exactly the same way with states. And now you have attacked me, okay, and because you're much tougher than I am, you knocked me to the ground, I'm unconscious, I'm lying there. Can I then wake up, say, who was that guy? Well, that's Bill. He lives down on the point. So I drive to your house and I strike you. Is that self-defense? No, it's not self-defense in Newport, it's not self-defense in Belgium, and it's not self-defense in international law. That's punishment, that's retaliation. But in the course of you attacking me, can I strike back? Yeah. Or if you knocked me to the ground and you're still there, can I stand back up and strike you? Of course. Exactly analogous in international law. Now, this timing thing has become relatively controversial because of the 2002 national security strategy issued by uh Bush II, issued by his his administration in the aftermath of 9-11. Now, traditionally, the timing on self-defense had been understood to be a question of timing. So a month would probably be too early, a week, maybe not so wrongful. You could probably defend yourself in anticipation of an armed attack being launched against you the day before the attack was launched. So it was all about did those guys act too early in terms of hours or days or months. It was about looking at your watch and about looking at the calendar. This was the classic understanding of anticipatory self-defense, anticipating an armed attack and acting before you took the first shot. Now, President Bush in the strategy kind of rethought that. And what he said in what I find to be an extraordinarily sensible, logical argument was yeah, that was fine when military forces lined up on the bar border, when they had to mobilize troops, they had to ride trains to the front, et cetera. That was what the law was designed to do. But that's not the way the world works today. Today, we may be struck by a non-state actor, for example, without warning. And that blow could be catastrophic because of weapons of mass destruction. And so he said the old standard, it doesn't make any sense because the first warning I have of an armed attack occurring or about to occur is when it actually does occur. That doesn't make sense. So what he said here is that we're going to act against emerging threats before they are fully formed. Again, very sensible, but this caused a big, big, big brujaja in the international law community. I mean, everyone went nuts when he said this. This was classic Americans, especially that Texan guy, Bush, redefining international law. Who do they think they are? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In fact, I believe what they were doing was just applying the existing body of law in a more sensible way to the current circumstances. And we always do that. And this is my standard. My standard is you can act in self-defense in the last feasible opportunity, last window of opportunity in the face of an attack that's almost going to certainly occur. That requires the confluence of three things. First, the guy you think is going to attack you, the state you think is going to attack you. Well, they have to have the capability to attack you, or it must be almost there. Obviously, I'm thinking of Iran. Secondly, it's not just about them having the capability to attack you, but they have to intend to use that capability. Otherwise, states would be invading states all over the world on the basis of self-defense because the other side looks like they could attack. Before you act militarily, you have to wait to the point where that other side is going to use it. And then finally, final opportunity, even if they have the capability, and even if they intend to use that capability, you gotta you let all the non-forceful means kind of play themselves out. In other words, you can't act militarily until the point where you believe, reasonably believe, that if I don't act now militarily, it's gonna be too late. That's the moment at which your right of self-defense matures.

SPEAKER_06 29:50

Okay, so Schmidt covered some great points there. Firstly, self-defense. And his example of being threatened or attacked on the street is perfectly reasonable to most of us. We all kind of understand that, right? I also liked his summary of how Bush, too, President Bush, altered the discussion on preemptive timing by getting rid of the old interpretation, which didn't deal well with weapons of mass destruction. A great example of bringing reason back into a bait. I really like that. And pertinent to this series on Iran, preemptively striking based on eminency, capability, and intent. And these things all very subjective. For example, here we have two different views from within the United States government on whether the U.S. was justified in attacking Iran.

SPEAKER_13 30:40

This decision to launch this operation was based on a cumulative effect of various direct threats that Iran posed to the United States of America and the president's feeling based on fact that Iran does pose an imminent and direct threat.

SPEAKER_09 30:55

I've said repeatedly since the first briefing over 10 days ago, there was no imminent threat to the United States that I believe would constitute putting our sailors and soldiers in harm's way.

SPEAKER_06 31:34

And theoretically, subject to UN reaction or even war crimes accusations, one wonders how that's going to pan out in the future. By the way, we can wrap the terms immincy, capability, and intent together in a simple word, threat, which is how military intelligence frames it. If we're feeling threatened with some sense of immincy, then preemptive self-defense is a reasonable course of action in law. And we're now going to look at Iran's activities to see if we can find reason with respect to the US-Israeli preemptive attacks on Iran. In particular, we'll look at Iran's nuclear program, and as I said earlier, next episode we'll look at Iran's support for proxy wars and state terrorism. Some might also argue that Iran's domestic record of human rights is also a factor, and there's an argument to be made that humanitarian reasons also justify wars, but we're not covering that aspect today. Given that the nuclear program started before the Islamic Revolution, we'll start there. In the early 1950s, US Iranian talks began regarding the transfer of civil atomic energy capability to Iran. They also talked with Israel, Pakistan, and India at the same time. But there was an explicit condition. It was only for the purpose of creating energy, not weapons. In 1967, the US supplied a five-megawatt nuclear reactor to Iran in Tehran, along with enriched uranium for fuel. By the 1970s, Iran had expanded its research into nuclear technology, building expertise along the way. Then, in 1979, the Islamic Revolution happened, and the U.S. halted support for the Iranian nuclear program. Eight years later, in 1987, Abdul Khan, a Pakistani scientist, stole plans for a centrifuge and additional expertise for nuclear bomb making and sold these plans to Iran. The key here was centrifuge technology. Centrifuges are essential for separating uranium into different isotopes so that it can then be enriched to the point of being incorporated into a nuclear warhead. In June 1991, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, whose acronym is NCRI, advised the US of Iran's covert nuclear weapons program and the locations of the facilities, which at the time were Natanz and Iraq. In October 1992, Iran sought to obtain nuclear warheads from Kazakhstan. This was confirmed by the Kazakh Ambassador to Washington, who was in charge of their nuclear program in 1992. Apparently the shipment was intercepted prior to being delivered to the Iranians. Iranian nuclear ambitions became much more public in August 2002 when the NCRI held a press conference and advised the world of Iran's nuclear program. Although the US knew the NCRI reports were true, given the NCRI's bias against the Iranian regime, many nations and experts didn't believe it, as you'll hear now from former U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton.

SPEAKER_05 35:19

This revelation about Natans for the US government was incredibly important because in the march of uh of efforts that we had made since uh George W. Bush was inaugurated, we had accomplished a couple of important things, but but uh we we had many more to do. We had uh successfully withdrawn the United States from the 1972 anti-ballistic missile treaty in large part so that the United States could construct national missile defenses to defend against attacks from rogue states like Iraq, Iran, North Korea. And we were turning to the real problem of nuclear proliferation, primarily from Iraq, Iran, and North Korea. But it was hard, I would say, to get uh people in Washington, to get uh our friends in Europe and elsewhere around the world really to focus especially on the threat from Iran. There was a feeling in many capitals, I think, that they were far, far away from any kind of nuclear weapons capability. There was skepticism that they had a nuclear weapons program at all. Uh and while I won't get into what the state of knowledge of the U.S. government was at that time, I can tell you when uh Ali Reza had his press conference and word about the enrichment facility at Natans got out and was increasingly well understood, it had a dramatic impact publicly in this country and I think around the world because the palpable evidence that was presented made it inescapable that Iran had an advanced, sophisticated nuclear program that was almost surely pointed to the development of nuclear weapons.

SPEAKER_06 37:05

In time, most of the detail in that NCRI report was proven to be correct. For the US government perspective, here we have U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman recalling the combined impact of the Al-Qaeda attacks of 11 September 2001, the consequent war against terror, and U.S. perspectives on Iran, including the NCRI reports of Iran's nuclear program.

SPEAKER_12 37:35

We were on alert, if you will. While terrorists were at the heart of that alert on Capitol Hill, I'm speaking from the perspective of somebody who was in Congress then. We understood that Iran was a threat going back to when it first uh seized our embassy and hostages shortly after the revolution occurred and its links to terrorism, which was uppermost in our minds and were pretty clear. But um Ali Ray's NCRI's report in 2002, August, was jarring and riveting. And on a Capitol Hill, it led to years of bipartisan uh support of essentially economic sanctions and other punitive acts against uh the Islamic Republic of Iran based on their development of what we took to be their clear development, though they denied it then and continue to deny it now in the face of overwhelming evidence. Their commitment to develop uh nuclear weapons, let alone their develop their support of terrorist organizations.

SPEAKER_06 39:00

Now, once the CATS was out of the bag, the International Atomic Energy Agency got involved, and it didn't take long for the IAEA to pass a resolution in 2003 seeking to suspend Iranian nuclear activity and conduct inspections. A year later, in 2004, the IAEA was warning the world about Iran's failure to cooperate with inspectors. And in response, Iran refused to cooperate with the IAEA. Then, in 2009, the Fordo facility was discovered, and it housed way more centrifuges than are needed for peaceful purposes. Making matters more dire in the eyes of the world, in 2009, Iran launched a satellite. Now you might say, so what? But the fact of the matter is to launch a satellite, you need to be able to produce a missile. So it's indicative of a ballistic missile capability, which isn't too far away from having a long-range missile strike capability, potentially with a nuclear warhead. But we need to be clear here, there was no assessment, nor is there an assessment today that says Iran has a long-range nuclear-tipped missile. It's just that if you put those two capabilities together, a nuclear weapon and a missile, it isn't much of a leap to have a ballistic nuclear capability. During 2009 to 2015, the Iranian nuclear program, combined with its proxy wars and support for state terrorism, led the West to increase diplomatic pressure on Iran and increase sanctions to get them to stop their nuclear program and allow the IAEA to monitor it. These sanctions were crippling for the Iranian economy, and Iran decided to enter into negotiations to ease those sanctions. This resulted in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA, which gave Iran sanction relief in exchange for supposedly major reductions in their nuclear research program. Here is how it was pitched to the American people and the world by President Obama at the time.

SPEAKER_03 41:19

Today, after two years of negotiations, the United States, together with our international partners, has achieved something that decades of animosity has not: a comprehensive long-term deal with Iran that will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon. In our time, the risk is that nuclear weapons will spread to more and more countries, particularly in the Middle East. Because of this deal, the international community will be able to verify that the Islamic Republic of Iran will not develop a nuclear weapon. Every pathway to a nuclear weapon is cut off. And the inspection and transparency regime necessary to verify that objective will be put in place. Because of this deal, Iran will not produce the highly enriched uranium and weapons-grade plutonium that form the raw materials necessary for a nuclear bomb. Because of this deal, Iran will remove two-thirds of its installed centrifuges, the machines necessary to produce highly enriched uranium for a bomb and store them under constant international supervision. Iran will not use its advanced centrifuges to produce enriched uranium for the next decade. Iran will also get rid of 98% of its stockpile of enriched uranium. To put that in perspective, Iran currently has a stockpile that could produce up to 10 nuclear weapons. That stockpile will be reduced to a fraction of what would be required for a single weapon. This stockpile limitation will last for 15 years. Iran will modify the core of its reactor in Iraq so that it will not produce weapons-grade plutonium. We will, for the first time, be in a position to verify all of these commitments. That means this deal is not built on trust. It is built on verification. Inspectors will have 24-7 access to Iran's key nuclear facilities. This ensures that Iran will not be able to divert materials from known facilities to covert ones. Because of this deal, inspectors will also be able to access any suspicious location. Put simply, the organization responsible for the inspections, the IAEA, will have access where necessary, when necessary. That arrangement is permanent.

SPEAKER_06 43:36

So that all sounded very positive and promising, right? Well, let's hear the counterview. And here's John Bolton again and what he thought of the JCPOA.

SPEAKER_05 43:47

Well, I think the Obama administration in negotiating the deal in 2015 made a huge strategic mistake from the perspective of the United States. And you can talk about a lot of circumstances of the deal. Talk about Iranian violations of the deal after it was enacted. The central part of the deal was to permit Iran to enrich uranium to reactor grade levels, as if that is a constraint on their ability to get to weapons grade uranium, when in fact enriching to reactor grade does 70% of the work necessary to get to weapons grade. People, I think, fundamentally don't understand this, including the American negotiators who cut the 2015 deal. Time is always on the side of the proliferator. Time spent in fruitless negotiations is time that allows the proliferator to overcome the enormous scientific and technological difficulties to perfect nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Let's not leave that out of it, not covered by the 2015 deal, but obviously very important for Iran to have an effective delivery system.

SPEAKER_06 44:55

So the question is, what happened after signing that JCPOA deal? Did it work? Well, we wouldn't be at war today if it did. And what happened was Iran got sanction relief and the release of about$100 billion in frozen assets. And initially, it appeared that Iran was complying with the inspection regime of the JCPOA in the IAEA inspection routine. Then came the reality check. In October 2015, Iran test fired a medium-range missile and began to increase its missile arsenal. And it quickly became apparent that Iran was using its regained wealth to markedly enhance its funding of proxy wars in the region. Now, neither of these were violations of the JCPOA, and the IAEA inspectors and reports indicated that Iran was indeed initially generally complying with the JCPOA. However, Donald Trump came to office in 2016 and took off the presidential rose-colored glasses that Obama had been viewing the world through and the Iranian nuclear program through. Under the Trump administration, there was a different take on the Iranian nuclear program, and they weren't very happy with the JCPOA. To back its displeasure with the JCPOA, Israel revealed that they had acquired secret Iranian documents about their nuclear program, and this was back in April 2018. And here is Prime Minister Netanyahu talking about it at that time.

SPEAKER_16 46:48

You may well know that Iran's leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons. You can listen to Iran's foreign minister, Jahad Zarif.

SPEAKER_15 46:59

We didn't have any program to develop nuclear weapons. Anyway, we consider nuclear weapons both irrational as well as immoral.

SPEAKER_16 47:06

Well, tonight I'm here to tell you one thing. Iran lied big time. After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret nuclear files. In 2017, Iran moved its nuclear weapons files to a highly secret location in Tehran. Now, from the outside, this was an innocent-looking compound. It looks like a dilapidated warehouse. But from the inside, it contained Iran's secret atomic archives locked in massive files. A few weeks ago, in a great intelligence achievement, Israel obtained half a ton of the material inside these vaults. 55,000 pages, another 55,000 files on 183 CDs. We've shared this material with the United States, and the United States can vouch for its authenticity. So let me tell you the history of this material. We've known for years that Iran had a secret nuclear weapons program called Project Ahmad. We can now prove that Project Ahmad was a comprehensive program to design, build, and test nuclear weapons. We can also prove that Iran is secretly storing Project Ahmad material to use at a time of its choice to develop nuclear weapons. From these files, here's what Project Ahmad's explicit goal was: creating nuclear weapons. And here's the mission statement: design, produce, and test five warheads, each with 10 kiloton TNT yield for integration on a missile. That's like five Hiroshima bombs to be put on ballistic missiles. And indeed, when we analyzed what's in these archives, we found that Project Ahmad had all the five elements, the five key elements of a nuclear weapons program. First element is designing nuclear weapons. Second component, developing nuclear cores. Third component, building nuclear implosion systems. Fourth element, preparing nuclear tests. Here's a map of five potential locations for a nuclear test in eastern Iran. And fifth, integrating nuclear weapons on missiles. Here's a design for a nuclear payload on a Shahab III missile from the archive. And I don't have to remind you, I think, that Iran is continually expanding the range of its ballistic missiles, its nuclear-capable missiles. They started with a thousand kilometers, they're now up to 2,000, roughly. They can reach Riyadh, Tel Aviv, Moscow, but they're working on far, far greater ranges. They're planning much longer range missiles to carry nuclear weapons. Iran was faced with mounting pressure in 2003. You remember that? That was following the Gulf War. So it was forced to shelve Project Ahmad, but it didn't shelve its nuclear ambitions. So Iran devised a plan to do two things. First, to preserve the nuclear know-how from Project Ahmad, and second, to further develop its nuclear weapons-related capabilities. That plan came directly from Iran's top leadership. Following the new directive of Iran's Minister of Defense, the work would be split into two parts: covert and overt. A key part of the plan was to form new organizations to continue the work. This is how Dr. Mukhsen Fahizadeh, head of Project Ahmad, put it. Remember that name, Fahi Zadeh. And he says the general aim is to announce the closure of Project Ahmad, but then he adds, special activities, you know what that is. Special activities will be carried out under the title of Scientific Know-how development. And in fact, this is exactly what Iran proceeded to do. It continued this work in a series of organizations over the years. And today, in 2018, this work is carried out by Sapan. That's an organization inside Iran's defense ministry. And you will not be surprised to hear that Sapan is led by the same person who led Project Ahmad, Dr. Fahi Zadeh, and also, not coincidentally, many of Sapan's key personnel worked under Fahid Sadeh on Project Ahmad. The Iran planned at the highest levels to continue work related to nuclear weapons under different guises and using the same personnel. You all remember the uh Ford facility? Fourdeaux uranium enrichment facility. This was a secret underground enrichment facility that the Iranians built under a mountain. You don't put thousands of centrifuges under a mountain to produce medical isotopes. You put them there for one reason nuclear weapons. Enrichment for nuclear weapons. But the files show that Fordot was designed from the get-go for nuclear weapons as part of Project Ahmad.

SPEAKER_06 52:27

In summary, there was nothing new revealed by those stolen files, but it showed Iran's long-term past and future intents. The mere fact that they were storing these documents secretly tells you something. The fact that they were secretly building nuclear-related facilities tells you something. And the indications to the more Street Smart of our politicians indicated that Iran intended to continue the nuclear weapons project. Less than two weeks after Netanyahu's revelation, Donald Trump announced that the US was withdrawing from the JCPOA. And here he is making that announcement.

SPEAKER_10 53:35

After these consultations, it is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement. The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen. In just a short period of time, the world's leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world's most dangerous weapons. Therefore, I am announcing today that the United States will withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal.

SPEAKER_06 54:20

It's interesting that Netanyahu's revelations and Trump's JCPOA withdrawal coincided. Perhaps it was planned, perhaps not. Does it really matter? No. Regardless, despite Obama's assurance that IAEA verification would keep the deal in place, Trump didn't like the deal. And so there was no deal anymore with the United States. Now Trump had three main issues with the JCPOA. Firstly, as noted by John Bolton earlier, the JCPOA did not stop Iran from enriching to 70% of the bulk of the work to get to weapons grade. Secondly, it allowed Iran to build its civil nuclear capability with sunset clauses that ended the deal within 10 to 15 years. In other words, it didn't get rid of the Iranian nuclear capability. And finally, instead of using the billions of dollars Iran regained out of trade and easing of sanctions and release of funds, they used much of that money to sponsor increased levels of regional terrorism. And as Trump put it, that was not in the spirit of the JCPOA deal. We can also take the view of Prime Minister Netanyahu when he spoke about a year after the U.S. left the JCPOA, and here he is.

SPEAKER_16 56:15

Bring them close to Israel so they can fire at our cities, at our citizens. We will not accept this. I will say that denuclearizing Iran, I don't think I'm saying anything that you don't know. I don't think the agreement that was reached was going to achieve that goal. It basically did a very simple thing. It said, in exchange for not enriching uranium for one bomb, you, Iran, will be able to enrich uranium for a hundred bombs within uh a few years. And I don't think that's a good deal. The other thing that it gave, the deal gave Iran a tremendous cash bonanza, just a tremendous cash machine, which they used not to uh develop Iran, uh and not to make it more moderate, because the oppression and the tyranny continues there. And they took the money to try to conquer the Middle East. That's basically what they did. They did this in Yemen, they did this in Syria and elsewhere and in Lebanon, now in Gaza. So the the if the deal was supposed to moderate Iran, it did the very opposite. It gave them the money to uh build the empire.

SPEAKER_06 57:19

Now I know Prime Minister Netanyahu isn't trusted by many of you and in some circles, but he wasn't the only one talking about Iran's use of funds to foment regional instability. And here's an Iranian expert on the topic, Nazanin Ansari, who is a member of Chatham House and the International Institute for Strategic Studies, talking about the financial aspect of the US-Israeli concerns.

SPEAKER_01 57:46

Certainly, I think uh when you look at the amount of financial help that Iran is sending to Hezbollah, which according to Mr. Nasrullah, is uh you know helping them logistically with weapons training. It's estimated to be$1 billion a year. To Syria, it's between$6 to$15 billion a year, different estimates. So all this money that JCPOA was supposed to be able to generate for the betterment of the Iranian economy has been diverted.

SPEAKER_06 58:20

And so the JCPOA withered, with the EU and Iran trying to keep it alive while Trump reinstated heavy sanctions in Iran and on anyone trading with Iran. Iran responded to that by saying that if the sanctions weren't lifted, it would renew its enrichment program. The toing and frowing continued, and then in early 2020, the U.S. killed General Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Kudz force. The US claimed he was heading terrorist operations. Iran responded to that killing by saying it would no longer comply with the JCPOA limits on uranium enrichment. Despite Joe Biden's election in late 2020, the US did not return to the JCPOA. And a stalemate ensued with both the US and Iran contravening the terms of the JCPOA. Here's a debate that gives you the UN perspective, then the US perspective, then the Iranian perspective. And it occurred in the United Nations in late 2021. The first speaker is the Under Secretary for Political and Peacemaking Affairs, followed by the U.S. Representative and finishing with an Iranian government representative.

SPEAKER_18 59:34

I appeal to the United States to lift or waive its sanctions as outlined in the plan and extend the waivers regarding the trade in oil with the Islamic Republic of Iran. Also important is the extension of U.S. waivers regarding certain civilian nuclear-related activities taking place at the Boucher nuclear power plant, the Fordau facility, and the ARIC reactor. We also call on the Islamic Republic of Iran to reverse the steps it has taken that are not consistent with its nuclear-related commitments under the plan. In this reporting period, the International Atomic Energy Agency indicated that Iran has continued its research and development activities related to uranium metal production.

SPEAKER_11 1:00:25

President Biden has been clear. And we're convinced that if Iran approaches talks in Vienna with urgency and good faith, we can quickly reach and implement an understanding on mutual return. We cannot, however, allow Iran to accelerate its nuclear program and slow walk its nuclear diplomacy.

SPEAKER_07 1:01:10

Make no mistake, we are not imposing any preconditions or new conditions. We are talking about the same conditions that are embedded in the JCPOA and resolution 2231. The same conditions that form the very foundations of the JCPOA, and the same conditions that resulted in reciprocal commitments of the parties in the JCPOA. Without full satisfaction of these conditions, the accord is useless for the Iranian people.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:46

No one was budging. Crippling sanctions were in place. The United Nations and the Europeans wanted the JCPOA to be fully reinstated, but Iran had recommenced its nuclear activities in contravention of the JCPOA. Despite their firm positions, there were still negotiations going on between the US and Iran. Here is the Biden administration, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken giving us some insight into those negotiations.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:46

And in particular, re-extending the timelines, the constraints that um the original deal had had in them on the nuclear program. We couldn't get to where we thought we needed to be to make it uh worthwhile. And we were doing it in partnership, in very close partnership, with our Europe uh European friends and allies, with the French, with the uh British, with the Germans, with the European Union, uh something that hadn't been the case in the immediate uh previous years. And I think we all agreed the deal that the Iranians were willing to sign on to was simply not adequate.

SPEAKER_06 1:03:15

And as Blinken mentioned, even if Iran could be brought to its knees economically by the sanctions, there were other factors affecting Iran's decision to go slow on negotiations and to continue its nuclear program. In particular, Israeli actions and Israel's targeting of the Iranian nuclear program gave Iran cause to continue to pursue its goals. Here's Mazir Bahari, who reports extensively on Iran, giving us some insight into Israel's attempts to deal with the Iranian nuclear program. And I need to say up front, Bahari used to be a Newsweek reporter in Tehran until he was arrested and tortured by Iranian authorities in 2009. So his views are clearly anti-Islamic revolution, but I think he takes an objective stance on most things.

SPEAKER_17 1:04:06

We don't know much about the actions of the Israeli government before 2006-2007 against Iran's nuclear program, but we know from 2006 to 2007 on that the Israelis assassinated several uh Iranian nuclear scientists, several people who were involved in Iran's nuclear program. They've had surreptitious actions against Iran's nuclear program. Stocksnet, which was a virus that was put into a nuclear radiator in Iran. Uh, I think it was through a flashcard, a USB card. In recent years, they've had several attacks which Iranians did not talk about. The Israelis did not claim responsibility for them uh against Iranian targets inside Iran. Israelis they managed to steal a truckload of documents from Iran that was paraded very proudly by uh Prime Minister Netanyahu a few years ago. And they've had several surreptitious activities. One of the most audacious attacks that the Israelis had was the assassination of Mossep Akhriz Hadev, who was the man in charge of the Revolutionary Guards nuclear program. They just assassinated him in daylight and they killed him as several people who were with him.

SPEAKER_06 1:05:41

What Bahari didn't mention were some of the more recent actions that further antagonized Iran. For example, Israel bombed the Iranian embassy in Damascus in 2024 and shortly thereafter assassinated the Hamas chief in Tehran. By the time Trump came back. Office in 2025, the situation was at an impasse, and Iran's nuclear program was back in full swing. But to Trump's credit, he reinitiated talks with Iran in April 2025. These negotiations necessarily involved the IAEA, and in late May 2025, the IAEA reported that Iran had sharply increased its stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% purity, again, just below weapons grade, and had over 400 kilograms of it. And here we have IAEA Director General Grossi talking about those mid-2025 negotiations.

SPEAKER_08 1:06:42

What we should recognize, first of all, is that this is a negotiation between the United States and Iran. And the negotiator is uh Special Envoy, Ambassador Steve Whitkoff, and the Foreign Minister of Iran, Dr. Abbas Arrachi, is the Iranian negotiator. Of course, I talk to both very regularly because any agreement, to be credible, to be serious, will have to be verifiable. I think the president has done something very, very important in reaching out to Iran. This is very, very important because there was no diplomatic platform. There were no conversations between Iran and the United States. And while this was happening, Iran continued enriching uranium at very, very high levels at 60% of uranium, uh one uranium isotope, which is very, very close to the type of enrichment you need to make a nuclear weapon. So we were having a situation where we were on a collision course without anybody doing really uh anything. So I think uh this has been tremendously important, that this process has started. And of course, why not recognize it that Iran engaged? The bone of contention that seems to be affecting the negotiations, which has to do with enrichment. And it is very clear that this technology, of course, because of its potential uh proliferation effects, it needs to be addressed in a correct way. The problem here is that there is an international uh concern. Sometimes my Iranian counterparts remind me of this. They say, well, all the technologies should be available for us, uh, which in principle may be correct. But the other side of the coin is that there has been Apache passed, and uh there is a legitimate, I would say, concern, which I have been also echoing when we see an accumulation at this point, more than 400 kilograms of uranium enriched at this very high level without a very clear use. Iran is the only country in the world that is doing this. I see the concern not only on the part of the president of the United States, of course, which is essential, but but in general in the international community. So the point here, and I think what Ambassador Whitcoff and their counterparts are going to be discussing is whether there can be a formula, a diplomatic formula, political formula verifiable, where there can be that kind of restraint which would allow a convergence, whereby the enrichment, its principle, perhaps uh some minimalistic formula that that could be agreeable for both. The JCPOA was 10 years ago. The Iran of 10 years ago has nothing, nothing to do with the Iran we see now. At that time, the technologies they had were more primitive, they had much less material, less places were they doing all this enrichment. Now this program has grown. So I believe that the position of the United States is clearly addressing the heart of the matter. And I think this is the challenge that both sides will have if they want to move towards an agreement.

SPEAKER_06 1:10:14

By June 25, the US and Israel had had enough of the go slow Iranian negotiation tactics, and they struck Iranian nuclear facilities and related targets. This initiated the 12-day war, which we'll cover in more detail two episodes from now. After that attack, the IAEA's monitoring job became next to impossible. As unlikely as it might be, negotiations were reinitiated by the Trump administration in the latter half of 2025 and early 2026. But those negotiations were not productive. This resulted in the recent US-Israeli attacks on Iran, which commenced on the 28th of February, 2026. Of course, Iran has its perspective, and here we have Professor Syed Marandi of the Tehran University giving you an alternative view.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:45

The deeper irony, of course, is that we never should have been in this position, insofar as the agreement that President Obama reached, the Iran nuclear deal, the so-called JCPOA, put Iran's nuclear program in a box. It made sure that Iran could not produce the fistile material needed for a nuclear weapon in uh less than a year. And so if they chose to break out of the box and go for that, we'd see it and we'd have plenty of time to be able to do something about it. President Trump tore up that agreement, instead he replaced it uh with something better. He never did, and that's the road that we then wound up on that led to, in in some ways, to where we are today, with Iran yet dramatically advancing its production of fistile material so that that breakout time moved from one year to a couple of weeks. But you don't only need fistile material, you actually need a weapon too. And I think, um, as has been publicly reported, our intelligence agencies and others, uh the IEA, continue to conclude that Iran has not made a decision to actually weaponize. If and when they do, or if and when they did, most estimates had that um that timeline at a couple of years. There are uh different kinds of weapons, less sophisticated ones you could build on a quicker timeline. But the bottom line is that on the nuclear side, there was no imminent threat. There was, though, the the the fact that, yes, in terms of physical material production, uh they'd gone from the the Obama deal more than a year to a few weeks.

SPEAKER_06 1:13:06

So when you listen to Blinken, he sounds like he's making a lot of sense, right? But remember his bias. He was a JCPOA supporter. And the timelines he expressed here, one year to a weapon or two years to a weapon, well, these are not supported by other credible sources. Basically, the imminency of the threat isn't clear, it's not known until the threat is actually there, particularly if Iran's going to be doing things in secret. For a more grounded view, we'll return once more to the Director General of IAEA, Grossi, as he reflected just recently on the state of play with Iran's nuclear program.

SPEAKER_08 1:13:50

We were part of a negotiating uh process. Uh, I had been invited to participate in the two last rounds of consultations, negotiations that were taking place in Geneva, and with the participation of uh Dr. Kushner from the United States, special envoy Steve Witkoff, Foreign Minister of Iran, Abbas Rakchi. So that was a very pretty intense exercise, which obviously did not come to fruition. What I can say is that the situation in Iran was uh concerning. Iran had not been giving for quite some time the IEA access to places, clarifying activities and a number of things that led us to a place or or a position where we lost the necessary continuity of knowledge to be able to confirm that everything in Iran was in peaceful use. As to whether there was a short distance or a long distance to manufacturing nuclear weapons, it is clear that there were some elements of concern. Also, the accumulation of very big stockpiles of highly enriched uranium, very close to military grade, without any justifiable reason. So all of this painted a complicated picture. When it comes to Iran, one should perhaps not stop at the snapshot, but try to look to the bigger picture. And in the case of Iran, there is a history spotted with moments of non-compliance, moments of hidden activities, and also moments of compliance at the time of the famous JCPOA. But also lately, in particular since late 2019 and beginning of 2020, the IEA started to gather information about activities that were undeclared and got into a sort of a dire strait with Iran to try to get information, to try to get access, and access being gradually restricted or limited.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:06

The takeaways from this interview are that the IAEA saw Iran as being non-compliant with the JCPOA, but they couldn't categorically say Iran had a nuclear weapon. And what you see in the media now is you see some people just focusing in on Grossi's words about not having a weapon. Or you see some people focusing in on Grossi's words about how close Iran was to a weapon. And the fact of the matter is you can spin this story either way. I think we've covered Iran's nuclear story well enough to understand a few key points. So let's just summarize them. Iran has been seeking to acquire a nuclear weapon capability. That is clear. As of 2026, Iran had the material and missile technology required to construct a nuclear ballistic missile weapon. Well, actually, more like ten weapons, but there's no evidence to say that they've already done that. Although the US and Israel tried to destroy Iran's nuclear capabilities in 2025, it's apparent that they were unsuccessful. Otherwise, why have we got this war today? As of 28 February 2026, the US and Israel commenced attacking many targets in Iran, some of those being nuclear related facilities, and one assumes that was done to hinder progress towards construction of a nuclear weapon. They also struck a much wider array of targets, and we'll consider the conduct of the conflicts in our episode in two months from now. Yes, this story is necessarily drawn from biased sources, but I suggest to you that some of those sources are at least neutral or tending towards neutral. The Director General of the IAEA, United Nations officials, and most of the academics I've presented today should be considered to be objective and working for the good of knowledge and a rules-based order. Clearly, politicians and bureaucrats are not unbiased, so apply some critical thinking to their comments. Regardless, the preponderance of the evidence helps us understand a critical question to end today's episode. Is Iran's nuclear weapon program a threat that required the US and Israel to preemptively attack Iran? Put another way, does the Iranian nuclear program constitute a threat under international laws such that a war on Iran was justified? Earlier I mentioned that under Yusid Bellam, in other words, when is it just to go to war, there are several components. One of them being a just cause, which we've talked about, so self-defense. The other one is that it's under a legitimate authority, and of course the president of a country can do it. It has to be done for good purposes. And so in our case with Iran, the point being to remove the threat of nuclear terrorism. War under Yusad Bellum has to be the last resort. In other words, all peaceful alternatives must have been exhausted. And in the case of Iran, there have been decades of negotiations, and so you could kind of understand how we are potentially at the point of last resort, and yes, it's debatable. There has to be a probability of success. You don't just wage war if it's impossible. And in the case of the attack on Iran, yes, it was possible to achieve the aim, you would think. And I guess the jury's out on this, we don't know for sure whether or not there will be a successful outcome, depending on your point of view. And finally, as Professor Schmidt said, proportionality matters. And we'll talk more about that when we talk about the conduct of the war and whether or not we think the United States and Israel were proportional in their attempts to remove the nuclear threat through regime change or by destroying or disabling the capability itself. And recall that under UN law, or put another way, the principles of the laws of war or the rules-based order, the requirement for a preemptive attack is that an enemy has an imminent capability that must be struck before it can be used. Based on what I presented to you today, there's no question about the capability. Iran is clearly seeking to attain a nuclear weapon and it isn't too far away from completing that goal, particularly in the aftermath of the defunct JCPOA. Having a weapon though is only half the threat. Recall that the other half of a threat is intent. Whether Iran had or has the intent to employ a nuclear weapon is debatable. Iranian intent will be more fully addressed in the next episode of Rescuing Reason when we look at Iran's history of fomenting unrest, state terrorism, and warfare in the Middle East. Suffice to say, I'll give you a clue as to how the next episode ends. Iran has a long track record of supporting and conducting terrorist attacks and initiating proxy wars. For now, I need you to accept that Iran does indeed have the intent to use weapons for the purpose of terror. Whether we can categorically say that Iranian intent includes the use of nuclear weapons is simply unanswerable using the sources I have. But in my line of work, I managed risks for a living. So let's supply a risk-based lens. Risk is comprised of two elements, likelihood and consequence. I'd say the consequence of a nuclear attack by anyone is one of the absolute worst outcomes we humans could possibly imagine on this planet. It's horrific and something that we must avoid at all costs. Now, some countries already have nuclear weapons, but aside from the US attacks on Japan in 1945, those countries all have a history of self-restraint. In other words, their intent isn't great. They have the capability, but not the intent when it comes to using nuclear weapons. The risk question then comes down to likelihood. What is the likelihood of an Iranian nuclear attack? I'd say it isn't no likelihood. In fact, given the history of failed talks, failed sanctions, duplicitous behavior from Iran, and their propensity for violence in the region, I'd say it could be in the possible or even probable category as opposed to unlikely. And back to risk management, risk managers all know that if you have a grossly unacceptable consequence mixed with a probable or even possible likelihood, you are dealing with a very high risk and it needs to be controlled. Ideally, in such a way as to prevent that event from happening in the first place. Put another way, it's my assessment that an Iranian nuclear capability must not be allowed to be developed because the risk is too high for the world. Basically, setting aside the eminency question for a moment, we were at the point where a preemptive strike on the Iranian nuclear program was indeed justified. Here is this sentiment expressed in simple terms by ex-Mossad Director Zohad.

SPEAKER_08 1:23:58

They're looking for the right moment in order to run to the bomb. And our job, as the good guys, is to try to stop them.

SPEAKER_06 1:24:07

Now, yes, Zohad's very biased, but that was a pragmatic answer. The only remaining question regarding whether a preemptive strike is a just war is the question of imminency. And I'll bring you back to the point made earlier by Professor Schmidt, who commented on George Bush's redefinition of preemptive strikes. In a world where weapons of mass destruction can be used without any warning, preemptively striking the capability system of that weapon is a legitimate reason for starting a war. And the question of immincy is not as relevant due to the rapid nature of those weapons and how they are deployed. Here's ex-national security advisor John Bolton again on this point.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:51

People say there was no imminent threat. To me, it doesn't matter if there was an imminent threat. If if you wait till there's an imminent threat, you've waited too long. Because our intelligence can be imperfect. And if we miss just by a little bit, then we have to accept a world with these uh crazed rulers uh having nuclear weapons in their hand. That's not a risk I want to take.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:12

I don't think you could say it much better. And I agree with Bush, Bolton, and Schmidt. That logic makes total sense to me. So if the US and Israel attacked Iran for the purpose of destroying Iran's nuclear capability or to change the regime such that they no longer have the intent to conduct terrorism, then I applaud this attack as being perfectly reasonable and I assess it to be fully justified. The costs are high though. We're all paying for it with increased inflation, and Iranians are paying for it with their lives. But if you are bemoaning the human toll or the impact on your wallets and your way of life, remember this. We Westerners live freely. We have a high standard of living. Thanks to the wars we fought to break free of autocracy and authoritarianism. As much as it might bother you financially or morally, if you want to keep your relatively safe and comfortable lifestyle, you should be supporting the odd war as a necessary part of the global community because those autocrats aren't going away. Giving in is not an option. So we need to fight when the time is right. When it is a just war. That leads to a much bigger question that we'll tackle soon. Is the execution of the US Israeli attack on Iran going to achieve one of those two aims I mentioned earlier? In other words, destroying the nuclear capability or changing the regime. You'll have to wait two months to hear my thoughts and the thoughts of the experts on that topic. Who knows? By then we might even have a sanctioned operation from the United Nations that authorizes the use of force against Iran to achieve those aims. Nah. Who am I kidding? Join me next episode as we look at another possible reason for a just war on Iran. That is Iran's proxy wars and state-sponsored terrorism. More next month, and following that, we'll consider the conduct of this war and whether it was planned well, executed well, and what end state we might expect. Hopefully in two months we'll have a much clearer picture of how it turned out, as opposed to how it's still going. If you enjoyed this episode of Rescuing Reason, please forward a link to a friend. Thanks for listening.