Sometimes it’s good to back up and ask the basic questions: How do we know Iran was even developing nuclear weapons?

On this episode of the show, the Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis walks us through the history of the Iranian nuclear (weapons and energy) program. It’s got it all: diplomacy, assassinations, cowardly politicians, and uranium fever.

Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute, member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control, and former member of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board. He knows the tale well and he’s here to tell it straight.

Damning the strikes with faint praise.
“The hard part of a nuclear weapon is not the explodey part.”
Making a nuclear weapon is a solved problem.
The Iran-Iraq war and the origins of Iran’s nuclear weapons program
The ladders of Natanz, how they cascade down
Energy programs are always bigger than weapons programs.
Unmasking the International Atomic Energy Agency
Israel’s war on the program
How to enrich uranium
The “torturous” process behind the Iran deal
Congressional cowards
“A new generation of suckers”
The French movie goodbye

The Deal

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A History of the Iranian Nuclear Program