Introduction:

If the Iran war does not de-escalate and stop soon, apart from the destruction it will bring to the global economy and the energy infrastructure of the world, serious concerns about the possible use of nuclear weapons may even arise. Some of these concerns are gradually being voiced already in some quarters, but the discussions are for the most part theoretical as of now. They may move from the realm of theory to the realm of practice if this war drags on.

In the discussion on the possible use of nuclear weapons if this war gets prolonged, three specific questions are important for critics and experts to address:
 

1. Who could use it?
2. Under what scenario?
3. And what kind of nukes?

Israel:

If nuclear weapons enter the fray at some point, the most likely user will be Israel. Israel is an opaque proliferator: it neither officially denies nor accepts it has nuclear weapons. Most experts, however, agree that Israel has between 80-100 nuclear warheads of various payloads, including tactical nuclear weapons. These nuclear warheads are Israel’s ultimate guarantee against complete strategic defeat at the hands of powerful external enemies like Iran, which may lead state disintegration and collapse. Israel is a small state lacking strategic depth with a population that is roughly one-ninth the size of the population of Iran. If this war drags on and Israel keeps taking the kind of punishment that Iran is inflicting on it at the moment, a point may come when Israel is confronted with complete strategic defeat, mass-scale casualties, and growing civil unrest that could lead to the destruction and disintegration of the Jewish state. In that kind of a scenario, Israel’s surviving political and military leaders may be tempted to use nuclear weapons against Iran for two good reasons: (a) The use of nuclear weapons will force the Iranian leadership and the IRGC into a complete and unconditional surrender, which will bring the war to an end and stop the collapse and disintegration of the Jewish state; And (b) the use of nuclear weapons may trigger regime change in Iran along with the disintegration of the IRGC, which would most likely destroy any possibility of Iran ever developing nuclear weapons that could threaten the existence of Israel.

If Israel does decide to exercise the “Samson Option” what kind of nukes is it likely to use? Israel would most likely use tactical nukes with small payloads on specific targets such as nuclear reactors and research installations, IRGC command and control centres, missile and drone manufacturing factories and storage facilities, critical infrastructure that could reduce the ability of the IRGC to fire rockets and drones at Israel and other Gulf states, and so on. In other words, tactical nukes could be used to rapidly degrade the Iranian military and IRGC, destroy Iran’s military-industrial complexes and nuclear research facilities, and force the surviving political and military leadership into a complete and unconditional surrender. This will then set the stage for regime change. American and Israeli boots could be placed on the ground at that stage as they are not likely to meet much resistance to facilitate and bed-in the new regime.

United States:

The United States is unlikely to use a strategic nuclear weapon on Iran unless Tehran makes the mistake of launching a massive attack on the American mainland itself, destroying major military, industrial, economic and political facilities. This is unlikely to happen. Iran does
not have the military capability to hit the American mainland with an overwhelming and pulverizing type of attack. Nor does it have the political intention to do so even though the Iranian regime’s hatred for the United States remains unshakeable.

However, if this war gets prolonged, the IRGC’s attacks on American targets in the region (military bases in the region; American warships, aircraft, radars, military equipment and storage facilities and personnel deployed in West Asia and the Persian Gulf; oil and gas installations in US-allied countries; and ports, airports, shopping centres, corporate offices, banks and other economic assets in US-allied countries) is likely to increase in intensity and frequency. The use of hypersonic missiles, cluster munitions, and kamikaze drones by the IRGC will mean massive damage to American military and economic assets in the region as well as those belonging to the US-allied Gulf states. A stalemated and prolonged war causing massive economic, financial, military and reputational damage to the United States will bring incredible pressure on the Trump administration to either retreat from the region with its tail between its legs or do something ‘out of the ordinary’ to bring the war to a rapid close by destroying the IRGC and forcing the Iranian regime to surrender completely and unconditionally. What could be an ‘out of the ordinary’ move? Once again, we must consider the actual usage of tactical nuclear weapons by the United States, perhaps in conjunction with Israel.

If tactical nuclear weapons are used by the United States, the aims or objectives of that attack would be similar to Israel’s: to degrade the IRGC; destroy Iran’s military, economic, financial and industrial capacity; take control of Iran’s nuclear research facilities and any stockpile of fissile materials and enriched uranium; and remove the current regime from power and replace it with a regime led by leaders handpicked by and friendly to the United States and Israel.

Iran:

Although President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu have not provided a clear and convincing rationale for launching this war against Iran, if one sifts through the myriad excuses they have put forward at different times, one thing becomes clear: This war is mainly to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons; and since Iran’s nuclear research labs and enrichment facilities, located deep underground, cannot be destroyed by conventional aerial bombardment alone, a regime change operation will have to be carried out to bring to power a more compliant regime that would allow America and Israel access to these facilities.

If my assessment is correct about America and Israel’s war objectives, it raises two very important questions. First, does Iran possess enough fissile materials, enrichment facilities and scientific and technical experts to manufacture one or more nuclear warheads? Second, does Iran have the intention to produce nuclear weapons? Given that the information required to answer these questions in a definitive way is classified, we can only try and put forward an argument based on materials that are already in the public domain.

On the first question, it has been reported in the media and even talked about by American, Israeli and other experts, that Iran possesses around 450 kilos of 60% enriched uranium. Iranian Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, in recent interviews also acknowledged that Iran has this material. According to some experts, if this amount of uranium is enriched up to and beyond 90%, it may be enough to produce 10 to 12 nuclear warheads. So, a key question is: where is this enriched uranium currently located? The consensus view among Western experts and journalists, based on feedback from American and Israeli military and intelligence agencies, seems to be that Tehran has relocated this material inside a tunnel complex buried 80-100 metres under the granite rocks of the Pickaxe Mountain or Kuh-e Kolang Gaz La, about one mile south of the town of Natanz in central Iran. At this depth, the enriched uranium cannot be destroyed by American and Israeli bunker buster bombs. Another key question is: can Iran further enrich this uranium to manufacture nuclear warheads? During the American and Israeli launched twelve-day war against Iran from 13-24 June 2025, the US and Israeli air force dropped a massive payload of conventional bombs on the three main nuclear research centres of Iran—Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan—causing significant damage to these facilities. President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed after this attack that Iran’s capability to produce nuclear weapons have been dealt a crippling blow. During the recent attack on Iran, American and Israeli jets have again carpet bombed these facilities; these facilities were also hit with Tomahawk cruise missiles. Iranian media has claimed that the Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan centres have suffered significant damage, which has degraded Iran’s capability to carry out nuclear research and enrichment. Iran’s scientific and technical knowledge base on nuclear issues have also suffered massive losses. Israel’s covert intelligence agency, Mossad, has carried out decapitation strikes on several leading Iranian nuclear scientists. In the recent strikes on Iran, America and Israel carried out deliberate decapitation attacks not only on the political and military leadership of Iran but also its top nuclear scientists and experts. The losses Iran has suffered has seriously dented its scientific expertise without which it is hard to imagine Iran crossing the threshold to produce nuclear weapons.

On the issue of Iranian intention to produce nuclear weapons, it has been reported that Iran supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei regarded nuclear weapons as un-Islamic; hence, he remained strictly opposed to the development of nukes until his death during the first wave of decapitation airstrikes by the United States and Israel on 28 February 2026. It is yet unknown what his son and successor, Ayatollah Mujtaba Khamenei, feels about nuclear weapons. It is also a fact that Iran had agreed to limit uranium enrichment to 3.67% (which is normal for civilian use like electricity generation), reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium, and allow full-scale International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) safeguards and inspections of its nuclear facilities under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) agreement signed in 2015. This agreement was rejected by the United States during President Trump’s first term in office in 2018. During President Trump’s second term, Iran again agreed to negotiations on nuclear research. However, these negotiations were abruptly terminated after America and Israel launched the twelve-day bombing war against Iran in June 2025. Although feeling betrayed by America, during the military buildup to the current war, Iran was still willing to negotiate a deal with the United States and other stakeholders. According to the Foreign Minister of Oman, Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi, who acted as an interlocuter between the Iranian and American negotiating teams, a deal was very close to hand: it was based on Iran’s commitment not to stockpile any enriched material (thus ruling out the possibility of making a nuclear bomb) and to accept full-scope IAEA inspections and safeguards of its nuclear facilities. It is in the middle of these negotiations that America and Israel launched the current war on Iran.

Now that Iran is facing its gravest existential crisis, could it rush the development of a nuclear deterrent that could be used to bargain an end to the American/Israeli attacks, or could be used against Israel and America in the event of a complete strategic defeat? It is impossible to answer this question definitively. All one can say is for this to happen, Iran would have to find a way to further enrich the uranium stockpile it has in the middle of a major war and for its new supreme leader to give the order to weaponize. Both are unknowns at this point. But if (and this is a big if) Iran were to cross the threshold, will it be tempted to use its nuclear warheads pre-emptively? I think not. The only scenarios where I feel Iran could consider using nukes would be: (a) if Israel/America has already used tactical nukes against Iran; and/or (b) the state is on the verge of collapse and disintegration.

Consequences:

If nuclear weapons enter the picture and are actually used, several incredibly serious consequences are likely to follow.

Assuming that nuclear weapons are used by Israel and/or the United States on Iran, the most immediate consequence will be radiation fallout on the Iranian people. Tactical nukes carry small payloads; hence they affect smaller areas in terms of radiation contamination. And if the weapons are used on relatively remote military-industrial targets, it may help to further contain radiation exposure of the general population. But even then, parts of Iran will become no-go areas since these areas will be highly contaminated with radiation poisoning. And depending on wind flows some of that radiation poisoning will affect population areas. How many civilians would die and what long-term health risks the Iranian people will face is hard to quantify. Most likely, thousands would perish and many times more that number may face significant long-term health risks.

Second, a nuclear strike is likely to harden Iranian people’s attitude towards Israel and the United States. Iran will therefore come at Israel and the United States with everything they still have left. If Iran has crossed the threshold and is in possession of a few nukes of its own, it will probably not hesitate any longer to launch them against Israel. If Iranian hypersonic missiles with nuclear warheads hit Israel, the consequence will be catastrophic. Hundreds of thousands would perish and millions more would face an extremely bleak future. Vast areas of Israel will face a nuclear winter for the next hundred years, which may lead to the complete ruination of the Jewish state. West-to-east wind flows will carry the radioactive ash from the blast in Israel to neighbouring states like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and even states in the Persian Gulf. People living in these states will also suffer from radioactive poisoning and face a bleak future.

Third, Israeli/American nuke strikes against Iran will lead to the activation of Tehran-affiliated and -supported terror sleeper cells in Israel, the United States, and Europe. The nuke strikes against Iran will further bring the entire Muslim world together, and there will be mass support for major terror attacks against Israel, America and Europe. Large-scale terrorist strikes against the United States, Israel, and European states are likely to happen, leading to domestic political instability in these countries and widespread violence and loss of lives.

Fourth, any Israeli/American nuclear strikes against Iran will certainly harden the stance of Arab governments in West Asia, North Africa and the Persian Gulf. It has been reported recently that several Gulf states that were attacked by the IRGC during this war have urged the American government to continue its attacks on the Islamist regime in Iran. These Arab governments are currently upset with the Iranian regime for targeting their countries. However, if nukes are used against Iran and Muslim opinion in the Gulf and worldwide becomes outraged, it will not be long before these Arab states withdraw their support for the war. Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates may then demand that the United States close down its military bases in the region and withdraw all military hardware and personnel. If this were to happen, it will make Israel feel incredibly vulnerable in terms of its national security. Israel’s ties with Arab neighbours will deteriorate as the Abraham accords are thrown out. Powerful Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE and Egypt along with Türkiye may even come together, with support from non-state actors such as the Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, to launch major attacks against a weakened Israel.

Internationally, the reaction to the nuking of Iran will be ballistic. Israel and America will be widely condemned, and Netanyahu and Trump will be considered as war criminals by the entire world. Even Israel and America’s staunchest allies in Europe and Asia will find it hard to defend the decision to nuke Iran. Russia and China’s reaction will be much more severe. Moscow may threaten nuclear retaliation against Israel, America, Europe and Ukraine. China may use the opportunity to invade and occupy Taiwan. Beijing and Moscow are certain to get together with the Arab states and demand complete American withdrawal from the West Asia. If the Arab states and Turkey launch a joint invasion of Israel, Russia and China are most likely to support the invasion. The entire West Asian and Persian Gulf regions along with East Asia could be up in flames pretty quickly.

Nuking Iran will also effectively finish off the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT). For almost six decades, the NPT has been the cornerstone of global non-proliferation efforts. While the treaty is not perfect, it has kept the number of states possessing nuclear weapons to nine (the US, UK, France, China and Russia are allowed to have nuclear weapons; North Korea withdrew from the NPT to develop nukes; and India, Pakistan and Israel are non-signatories to the NPT). This has allowed the international community, according to non-proliferation advocates, to deal effectively with the danger of unchecked nuclear weapons proliferation. This is what risks being unravelled if Iran is nuked by Israel and/or the United States. States with nuclear weapons ambition will make a simple calculation: that Iran’s failure to acquire a credible nuclear deterrent is what allowed Israel and America to launch this war with impunity; by contrast, America has not dared to launch a similar kind of attack on North Korea because of the fear that an all-out attack may induce Pyongyang to launch nuclear weapons at South Korea, Japan and the United States itself. This simple message will now resonate with several states that once had a nuclear weapons development program but later gave it up (Brazil, Argentina, South Africa) as well as states with known nuclear weapons ambition (Saudi Arabia, Türkiye). States like Japan, South Korea and Australia may also feel compelled to think about developing their own nuclear deterrence. In other words, the proliferation of nuclear weapons beyond the current nine will become a real possibility. This may have serious a destabilizing effect on the entire international system.

Finally, the American/Israeli attack on Iran has taken place in flagrant violation of international norms and international law. The international system is based on the fundamental norm of ‘state sovereignty’ and its two entailments: ‘non-intervention’ and ‘non-use of force’. If states are to be sovereign, then other states must not intervene in the affairs of a sovereign state; other states must also not use force or threaten to use force against a sovereign state. The only exception to this norm is the right of self-defence. As the United Nations (UN) Charter under Article 51 makes clear, states may use force individually or collectively against another state but only in self-defence and only after an armed attack has taken place. Moreover, the self-defence response must be proportional to the original violation. The Israeli/American attack on Iran, therefore, is a flagrant violation of Iran’s sovereignty. It happened pre-emptively without a shred of evidence that Iran was developing nuclear weapons and intended to use these weapons against Israel and the United States. On the contrary, as stated by the Foreign Minister of Oman, Iranian negotiators were close to accepting the American negotiators’ demand that Iran will not possess any enriched uranium, will allow the existing stockpile of 60% enriched uranium to be neutralized by IAEA experts, and will accept complete IAEA safeguards and regular inspections of its nuclear research facilities and reactors. If the grounds for the attack were illegal under international law and a serious violation of the international norm on which the entire international system is based, the way this war has been carried out also violates the proportionality principle. It would have been one thing to target only nuclear installations in Iran (as Israel and America mostly did during the twelve-day aerial attacks in June 2025), even though that would have been hard to justify. But to carry out massive decapitation strikes, and carpet bombing of the country goes way beyond illegality. It is tantamount to mass murder, which is a serious war crime. The whole thing is based on the dubious argument that to get to the stockpile of enriched uranium and destroy Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons, mass murder of regime leaders leading to regime change is required. President Trump’s incendiary comments that he can do whatever he feels like, or he will continue to attack Iran until such time when he feels like stopping further adds to the criminality of the entire attack. This war will therefore send very wrong signals to would-be law breakers in the world.

Conclusion:

As the illegal war against Iran intensifies and becomes prolonged, it threatens to not only bring down the global economy and with it the wellbeing of millions of people, but also to undermine the sacrosanct international norm of state sovereignty on which the entire international system is based and international law pertaining to the legal and proper use of military power. But even more importantly, it potentially threatens to undermine an unwritten international consensus of such immense magnitude that its violation is impossible to consider even as a matter of academic debate. This international consensus—that nuclear weapons do not have any actual military use—has served the world well for the past eight decades.

This war therefore must be ended immediately. How could this be done? In my judgement, three things need to happen, which may compel Israel and the United States to agree to stop the attacks on Iran.

First, the Gulf states and other powerful Muslim states must sever their military ties with the United States immediately and request the removal of American soldiers and military hardware from their soil and territorial waters. This will immediately stop Iranian attacks on these countries and save their economies from complete and utter ruin.

Second, the entire BRICS must stand with Iran and support it militarily, economically and diplomatically to resist the Israeli/American aggression. The BRICS as a whole must also insist on an immediate ceasefire and mediated negotiations to bring this war to an end. Apart from Russia and China, the stance of one specific BRICS member will be crucial in this calculus: India. Under Prime Minister Modi, India has aggressively followed a policy of multi-alignment and strategic autonomy. In practice, multi-alignment has meant that India is open to business with all without much care about existing alliances and friendships/enmities. So, India can be friends and business partners with Israel and Iran or with the United States and Russia simultaneously, without letting the nature of the relationship between actors in each dyad to adversely affect their ties with India. Some might call it a classic hedging strategy by India. Others may see India as purely transactional. I tend to regard this as India’s aggressive implementation of the concept of strategic autonomy, which has been a bedrock of Indian foreign policy for the past eight decades. But this stance is now beginning to create problems for India within the BRICS, particularly in the context of the Iran war. If the Modi government accepts the premise that the Israeli/American attack on Iran is illegal and fraught with all kinds of dangers, it then needs to open its mouth and say it. The Indian government’s initial silence after the war started and Ayatollah Khamenei was assassinated has not gone down well with other BRICS members and within the Global South community. Given Modi’s stature in international relations and his personal ties with both Trump and Netanyahu on one hand and Pezeshkian and Araghchi on the other, his active moves (if he makes them) to bring this war to an immediate end may actually prove effective. But to do that, India can no longer sit on the fence. It needs to take a stance, along with other BRICS members, on the side of international norms and international law.

Finally, the role of European powers and the European Union will be important if this war has to end immediately. Spain took a principled stand on the US/Israeli attack on Iran even though it invited the enmity of the US government and President Trump. Britain, France, Germany, Poland, and the European Union must now show courage and emulate Spain. America’s principal non-European allies, particularly South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Canada and Australia must do so as well.

The collective message that America and President Trump must be sent is this: The era of hegemony and naked predatory aggression is now over; You will find yourself isolated and friendless if you choose to walk on this path.

If America gets this message, Netanyahu and Israel will, too.