9 MYTHS ABOUT IRAN'S URANIUM ENRICHMENT PROGRAM

Stop Iran Now

Thank You Andrea Stricker - FDD

May 22, 2025

President Trump and his administration have demanded that Iran agree to the full, verifiable, and permanent dismantlement of its atomic weapons program — including the regime’s ability to produce enriched uranium — as part of any new nuclear deal.

Yet several myths about the regime’s uranium enrichment program mischaracterize its threat, defend its continued existence, or misstate its history and nature. Debunking these myths is integral if efforts to achieve dismantlement are to succeed.

MYTH #1: IRAN HAS A LEGAL RIGHT TO ENRICH URANIUM.

FACT: IRAN HAS NO UNCONDITIONAL RIGHT TO ENRICH URANIUM.

Nuclear weapons production begins with producing the needed fuel. Iran has pursued uranium, which it is currently enriching up to a level of 60 percent in spinning machines called gas centrifuges. Once that level is achieved, Tehran has accomplished 99 percent of the effort to make weapons-grade uranium. While Tehran has often claimed a legal “right” to enrich uranium as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that treaty is silent on whether state parties have an explicit right to enrich uranium or reprocess plutonium — the key processes that make fuel for nuclear weapons.

NPT Article IV specifies the “inalienable right” of signatories “to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy” but only for “peaceful purposes.” Yet such research must also be conducted in conformity with Articles I and II of the NPT, which forbid the transfer and receipt of nuclear weapons. Tehran has long violated Article II, which requires non-nuclear weapon states parties “not to manufacture or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices; and not to seek or receive any assistance in the manufacture of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices.” As a result, the IAEA has been investigating Iran’s nuclear activities since 2002. Since 2006, the UN Security Council has demanded on multiple occasions that Iran “suspend all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities, including research and development.”

MYTH #2: IRAN IS NOT WORKING TOWARD A NUCLEAR WEAPON. 

FACT: IRAN IS ACTIVELY WORKING ON EFFORTS THAT WOULD ASSIST FUTURE ASSEMBLY OF A NUCLEAR WEAPON.

In February 2025, The New York Times reported that the United States and Israel had discovered a secret Iranian team working on the production of “crude” nuclear weapons — those requiring less testing and assurance of functionality to assemble. Iran has currently stockpiled enough highly enriched uranium to produce at least seven of these weapons.

Additionally, in early 2024, the United States and Israel reportedly detected Iran working on dual-use activities relevant to “weaponization” — the construction of a nuclear device. The Biden administration warned the regime to halt such work in June.

In July, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) revised its long-standing assessment that Iran is not working on weaponization.

In October, Israel destroyed the Taleghan 2 facility, located within Iran’s Parchin military complex, where Iran was allegedly carrying out experiments relevant to weaponization.

Iran has enriched uranium to levels (60 percent) that far exceed what is needed for peaceful reasons, such as to fuel a nuclear power plant (3-5 percent).

MYTH #3: MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRAN’S NUCLEAR FACILITIES WOULD CAUSE A RADIOLOGICAL DISASTER.

FACT: ACTIONS AGAINST IRAN WOULD NOT RISK FALLOUT.

Only a strike on an operating nuclear reactor would risk widespread dispersal of radioactive material. Such an action is not under consideration by the United States or Israel.

In addition, large bunker-busting strikes on Tehran’s three uranium enrichment facilities or its uranium conversion facility may bury enriched uranium stocks inside, limiting any dispersal of this material. If minimal aerial dispersal occurred, there may be localized, temporary environmental and health concerns. The dispersal of uranium oxide chemicals from the Esfahan conversion facility would be more toxic, yet their effects would be limited and specific to the immediate facility’s area, and nearby populations would avoid contamination.

MYTH #4: IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM IS PEACEFUL.

FACT: AS RECENTLY AS FEBRUARY 2025, THE IAEA REPORTED IT WAS NOT “IN A POSITION TO PROVIDE ASSURANCE” THAT IRAN’S NUCLEAR PROGRAM IS “EXCLUSIVELY PEACEFUL.”

Iran has been under investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) since 2002 for violations of its legal safeguards obligations and its efforts to build nuclear weapons.

Despite reiterating its NPT commitment not to acquire nuclear weapons in the now defunct nuclear deal it signed in 2015, Iran concealed an archive of nuclear files detailing its pre-2004 plans to build nuclear weapons. The archive files indicate that — facing growing international scrutiny and a credible U.S. military threat — Iran opted in mid-2003 not to proceed with constructing nuclear weapons but retained the ability to produce such devices.

Moreover, the IAEA’s director-general has repeatedly expressed alarm about the progress of Iran’s nuclear program, stating in April that the regime is “not far from the bomb.” The IAEA has also lamented Iran’s restrictions on IAEA inspections and monitoring as well as its general lack of cooperation with the agency.

MYTH #5: IRAN NEEDS TO ENRICH URANIUM TO FUEL ITS NUCLEAR POWER REACTORS.

FACT: IRAN’S SOLE OPERATING NUCLEAR POWER PLANT IS FUELED BY RUSSIA.

Despite spending hundreds of billions of dollars on enrichment, enriching thousands of kilograms of uranium domestically at three enrichment facilities, and claiming it has an “industrial” enrichment program — one that can fuel nuclear power reactors — Iran has yet to fuel its sole operating nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Moreover, while the Tehran regime plans to build additional nuclear power reactors, these will be constructed by Russia, which typically provides fuel for the reactors it builds. Under the 2015 nuclear deal, Iran also planned to import uranium enriched to 20 percent from Russia for its small Tehran Research Reactor, which produces medical isotopes. Tehran could, in the future, pursue a similar arrangement. Iran’s enrichment program has always been more geared toward providing a source of enriched uranium fuel for nuclear weapons.

MYTH #6: IRAN CANNOT OBTAIN ENRICHED URANIUM FUEL FROM ABROAD, SO IT MUST RETAIN ITS DOMESTIC CAPABILITIES.

FACT: NUMEROUS COUNTRIES PROVIDE ENRICHED URANIUM FUEL COMMERCIALLY AND ON THE GLOBAL MARKET.

Current sources include France, China, Russia, and the URENCO consortium composed of the United Kingdom, Germany, and the Netherlands. The United States will soon produce enriched uranium fuel on a commercial scale. An IAEA fuel bank in Kazakhstan also serves as a last resort source for reactor-grade low-enriched uranium in case of supply constraints. In addition, 23 countries worldwide possess peaceful nuclear energy programs, importing the fuel needed to operate them. All have jettisoned the expensive and proliferation-sensitive processes of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing.

MYTH #7: IRAN CAN MAKE LOW-ENRICHED URANIUM WITH NO NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION RISK.

FACT: ANY IRANIAN DOMESTIC ENRICHMENT CAPABILITY, EVEN LIMITED, MEANS THE REGIME RETAINS THE CAPABILITY AND INFRASTRUCTURE TO MAKE WEAPONS-GRADE URANIUM.

For example, if Tehran were limited under a nuclear deal to producing uranium enriched to 3.67 percent — the level required to fuel reactors — this would still represent around 70 percent of the effort needed to produce weapons-grade uranium.

According to the Institute for Science and International Security, leaving Tehran with low-enriched uranium stockpiles and more than 13,000 fast-enriching advanced centrifuges means Iran’s so-called “breakout time” — the amount of time needed to make weapons-grade uranium — would be less than a month. Only the full, verified, and permanent dismantlement of Tehran’s uranium enrichment program, as well as of any plutonium reprocessing capabilities, would block Iran’s pathway to nuclear weapons fuel.

MYTH #8: URANIUM ENRICHMENT AND PLUTONIUM REPROCESSING ARE WIDESPREAD INTERNATIONALLY.

FACT: URANIUM ENRICHMENT AND PLUTONIUM REPROCESSING IS UNCOMMON.

As a matter of policy, the United States and its allies have tightly controlled and discouraged the spread of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities. Apart from the nine statesthat possess nuclear weapons inside or outside the NPT, only Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Japan, and the Netherlands enrich uranium, while Japan enriches uranium and reprocesses plutonium. Unlike Iran, none of these non-nuclear-weapon NPT state parties is currently under IAEA investigation for safeguards violations and nuclear weapons activities.

MYTH #9: IRAN ACQUIRED ITS URANIUM ENRICHMENT PROGRAM THROUGH DOMESTIC INGENUITY.

FACT: IRAN HAS ILLICITLY PROCURED EQUIPMENT, BUILT COVERT SITES, AND ENRICHED URANIUM IN VIOLATION OF ITS LEGAL SAFEGUARD OBLIGATIONS.

Like other states with covert nuclear weapons programs, such as Libya and North Korea, Iran originally acquired gas centrifuge technology for uranium enrichment from the black market A.Q. Khan network based in Pakistan as well as from corrupt executives at German companies, developing its capabilities secretly and in direct violation of the NPT.

Andrea Stricker is deputy director of the Nonproliferation and Biodefense Program and a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD). For more analysis from the author and FDD, please subscribe HERE. Follow Andrea on X @StrickerNonpro. Follow FDD on X @FDD. FDD is a Washington, DC-based, nonpartisan research institute focused on national security and foreign policy.