Iran and Proliferation

The war on Iran raises doubt that the NPT can be a central pillar of

international security. If not, will more countries seek nuclear weapons,
including US allies or friends? And will China and Russia be emboldened to
follow the US-Israeli example to forcibly try to stop them? The US and
Israeli leaders who pushed withdrawal from the JCPOA, including President
Trump, did not know or care much about the NPT. Israel saw the Iranian
nuclear program as an ipso facto direct threat, not as something that could
be managed through the treaty’s core bargains. Those bargains posited
that states that already had nuclear weapons as of 1967—the United States
and Russia, most importantly—would reward states that forego such
weapons. The non-nuclear-weapon states would gain security, cooperation in
civil nuclear energy development, and progress toward the equity of global
nuclear disarmament.

 Bulletin of Atomic Scientists 2nd April 2026 

 https://thebulletin.org/2026/04/how-the-iran-war-undermines-the-nuclear-nonproliferation-regime/