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Search Rupal N. Mehta March 9th, 2026 US strikes may have turned Iran from a state with latent nuclear capability into one with a nuclear grievance 0 comments | 4 shares
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
LSE United States Politics and Policy Latest commentary and analysis on the United States from academic experts
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Search Rupal N. Mehta March 9th, 2026 US strikes may have turned Iran from a state with latent nuclear capability into one with a nuclear grievance 0 comments | 4 shares
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
4 Shares The latest US strikes against Iran – and those of June 2025 – have been justified by the Trump administration as curtailing the country’s nuclear weapons programme. Rupal Mehta writes that while the latest operation has been successful at damaging Iran’s nuclear programme, it may have also fundamentally rewritten the strategic landscape of the Middle East. Its nuclear programme may have been delayed, but the attacks may mean that the Iranian regime now sees gaining a nuclear weapon as integral to guaranteeing its own future survival.
In the wake of the late February 2026 joint US-Israeli military strikes – an operation the Trump administration has named “Epic Fury” – the Middle East finds itself at an uncertain crossroads. While the immediate smoke from the military campaign is still clearing, there is little doubt that the strategic landscape has been irrevocably altered: at a minimum, it has dismantled the decades-long assumption that Iran’s “nuclear latency” (or other latent programs for that matter) was an untouchable status quo. Nuclear latency refers to the condition of a state having the technical, material, and intellectual capacity to produce a nuclear weapon quickly, even if it has not yet done so. For years, Iran has lived in this “threshold” space. Today, after the most significant military intervention in decades, new questions emerge: did these recent strikes permanently end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, or did they simply drive the “latency” deeper into the bedrock?
Iran’s latent nuclear capability and US strikes
As I noted in my analysis of the June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer military campaign, Israel’s decision to launch pre-emptive military strikes against Iran – specifically against its nuclear and military facilities – was because of the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear latent capability. President Trump noted in a recent video on Truth Social that the rationale behind this most recent military campaign was concerns over Iran’s intent, and ability, to rebuild its nuclear program. He stated,
“That is why in Operation Midnight Hammer last June, we obliterated the regime’s nuclear program at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan. After that attack, we warned them never to resume their malicious pursuit of nuclear weapons, and we sought repeatedly to make a deal. We tried. They wanted to do it. They didn’t want to do it. Again they wanted to do it….They’ve rejected every opportunity to renounce their nuclear ambitions, and we can’t take it anymore.”
The Trump administration’s justification for the ongoing air strikes against both high-profile political and military targets highlights the challenges of countering threshold or latent nuclear weapons programs. Open-source intelligence and analysis suggests that Iran is unlikely to have made substantial progress in rebuilding their key nuclear sites since June 2025 and that the programme seems to be even more “in limbo” without clear political guidance about how to move forward. Before the strikes, US intelligence suggested that Iran’s “breakout time” (the time needed to produce enough weapons-grade uranium for one bomb) was estimated at less than two weeks. In the aftermath of last summer’s military campaign, IAEA estimates suggest, however, that that Tehran’s nuclear program was “very slow … perhaps we could say frozen, if not, almost stopped.”
At the same time, according to the Trump administration, recent US-led negotiations with Iran have made little progress on diplomatic efforts to engage Tehran on curbing future uranium enrichment and ballistic missile program. This stalemate on the fundamental issues of nuclear latency may have prompted the United States to consider broadening the objectives of this year’s military operation to move beyond just the nuclear program and aim to destroy the Iranian regime in total.
The immediate tactical success of Operation Epic Fury seems largely undisputable. By employing a combination of cyber-disruption and advanced bunker buster bombs, the campaign successfully breached the hardened facilities at Natanz and severely damaged the mountain-shielded enrichment facility at Fordow – though again, it’s unclear what type of reconstitution may have occurred after the June 2025 attacks. And there is no doubt that the strategic landscape of the Middle East was fundamentally rewritten with last week’s military operation and the ensuing broadening of the conflict to include attacks on other US partners and allies in the region. But as we assess the fallout, a fundamental question remains: can you bomb a country out of its desire for a nuclear deterrent, or does such a strike make the acquisition of an eventual nuclear weapon deterrent an existential imperative? A few thoughts for consideration.
What the strikes may really mean for Iran’s nuclear proliferation
First, while Epic Fury is likely to have reduced the immediate short-term risks of Iranian proliferation, the program still exists. As commentators from the Centre for Strategic and International Studies recently wrote, “Iran still possesses 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched uranium, and the exact location of that nuclear material remains unknown.” Unlike the 1981 Israeli strike on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, which effectively successfully ended a nascent program, Iran’s program in 2026 is a mature, decentralized network that likely remains somewhat in-tact and more difficult to monitor. As noted by analysts, “within hours, Iranian forces launched simultaneous retaliatory attacks across multiple fronts without waiting for centralized authorization, suggesting pre-delegated response authority — a sign that decapitation strategies face diminishing returns against a regime that has spent months dispersing its command structures.”
A U.S. Air Force B-52H Stratofortress bomber taxis for takeoff in support of Operation Epic Fury, March 2, 2026. (U.S. Air Force Photo) “The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoW) visual information does not imply or constitute DoW endorsement.”
Second, and perhaps more important are the long-term political consequences of the military campaign for the future of the Iranian regime and their appetite for a nuclear weapons program. My own research highlights the significant political risks associated with a counterproliferation strategy that employs preventive military force to achieve its objectives. My book explores that while instances of preventive force (like Epic Fury) may physically delay a program, they are also likely to intensify nuclear ambition. When a state is actually struck, the “shadow of military force” is no longer a shadow – it is a reality. This often removes the incentive for nuclear reversal negotiations and replaces it with a desperate need for a completed deterrent to prevent a further strike. A central theme in nuclear security studies is that while technology is a tool, knowledge is a permanent asset. This “cognitive latency” means that Iran retains the blueprints, the mathematical modelling, and the engineering expertise required to reconstitute a program.
The most significant change following the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the subsequent leadership of the IRGC-led military council is likely to be the psychological shift in Iranian strategic doctrine regarding a nuclear latent or weapons program. For years, Iran maintained strategic ambiguity, staying just below the threshold of a bomb to avoid the very strikes that have now occurred. As I explore in earlier work, as this virtual deterrent strategy failed to prevent a decapitation strike, Tehran’s new leadership faces a grim calculation: while the pursuit of nuclear weapons was dangerous, having an unfinished bomb was the fatal mistake.
Victory now, but at what cost?
Operation Epic Fury has succeeded in its immediate goal: it has stopped the Iranian regime from continuing its nuclear program. However, in the realm of international relations, physical destruction is often a temporary fix for a permanent political problem.
Iran has now transitioned from a state with a latent nuclear capability to a state with a nuclear grievance. The desire for a weapon is no longer a bargaining chip for sanctions relief; it has become a perceived requirement for national survival. The world may find that a wounded, rudderless, and vengeful Iran is far harder to monitor and engage than the one that sat at the negotiating table in Geneva just weeks ago.
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Note: This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of USAPP – American Politics and Policy, nor the London School of Economics.
About the author
Rupal N. Mehta Dr. Rupal N. Mehta is an Associate Professor (on government leave) in the Department of Political Science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
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