Iran's nuclear program

As of early October 2026, Iran's nuclear program has no weapon and no inspectors. No source credits Iran with a weapon, and US intelligence reported in March 2026 no attempt to rebuild enrichment since June 2025. But the IAEA's last estimate of Iran's uranium enriched to 60 percent dates from 13 June 2025: 440.9 kg, enough, the IAEA Director General has said, for about ten weapons if enriched further. US and Israeli strikes in June 2025 and from 28 February 2026 destroyed or sealed the enrichment plants and ended IAEA verification; on 9 September 2026 the IAEA Board reported Iran's non-compliance to the UN Security Council.

It began under Atoms for Peace with a US agreement in 1957; Iran ratified the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1970. In August 2002 an exiled opposition group revealed the undeclared Natanz enrichment plant and the Arak heavy-water facility. A US National Intelligence Estimate of 3 December 2007 judged that Iran had halted its structured weapons effort in autumn 2003. UN Security Council sanctions followed from 2006, and on 25 September 2009 the US, UK and France revealed the undeclared Fordow plant. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action of 14 July 2015 capped enrichment at 3.67 percent, the stockpile at 300 kg and Natanz at 5,060 IR-1 centrifuges.

The United States withdrew from the JCPOA on 8 May 2018. Iran breached its limits in July 2019 and began enriching to 60 percent in April 2021; in early 2023 inspectors found particles enriched to 83.7 percent at Fordow. On 12 June 2025 the IAEA Board found Iran in non-compliance with its safeguards. Israel began striking nuclear sites the next day, and on 22 June the United States hit Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan with fourteen GBU-57 bombs, twelve of them on Fordow. Inspectors withdrew by the end of the month, a law of 2 July 2025 suspended IAEA cooperation, and on 28 September 2025 the pre-2015 UN sanctions snapped back, which Iran rejects as void.

On 28 February 2026 the United States and Israel launched a second war on Iran. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in the opening strikes, and on 8 March his son Mojtaba Khamenei was named to succeed him. IAEA imagery recorded damage to the Natanz enrichment plant entrances, severe damage to the Arak heavy-water production plant and a damaged structure near the Bushehr reactor, which itself was not hit; an Israeli strike on 27 March destroyed the main building of the Ardakan yellowcake plant, and further centrifuge workshops at Karaj were destroyed in April. US intelligence assessed in May 2026 that the new nuclear damage was limited. After a ceasefire on 8 April, on 17 June President Trump and President Pezeshkian signed a memorandum of understanding under which the enriched stockpile was to be down-blended on site under IAEA supervision. On 8 July President Trump declared it over, and strikes resumed within a day.

As of early October 2026 the war continues and the IAEA has access to no enrichment-related site. The Agency believes a little over 200 kg of the 60 percent material lies in the Isfahan tunnel complex, unstruck and still under its seals; the Institute for Science and International Security puts the rest at Natanz and Fordow, behind entrances still buried in May 2026, and sees no evidence of enrichment. The Pickaxe Mountain tunnel complex south of Natanz is unstruck and still under construction. US intelligence and the Institute estimate about a year or more to a weapon if Iran decided to build one. NPT-withdrawal bills filed in March and September 2026 have not passed, and Mojtaba Khamenei has not reaffirmed his father's fatwa against nuclear weapons.