The danger that the escalation includes nuclear risk

We are entering the second week of the war in Iran, and at the moment there seems to be no end in sight to the conflict; quite the contrary. Much information is lacking, especially from within Iran, and much of the news we receive is biased or incomplete. However, the signs point to an internal division within the country that makes it difficult to know who is truly in charge. Although on Saturday, President Masoud Pezeshkian stated that they would not attack neighboring countries if those countries did not allow attacks against them from their bases, drone attacks against the Gulf petrostates increased yesterday. The Revolutionary Guard, which maintains the hardline stance and directly opposed Pezeshkian's statement, has a decentralized command structure, allowing it to continue attacks, albeit on a smaller scale, independently.

In such an uncertain context, where airstrikes are systematically destroying not only military targets but also energy infrastructure, analysts fear a scenario of internal disintegration that could eventually lead to civil war or clashes between internal armed groups. All of this—and this is crucial because it forms part of the argument Trump and Netanyahu have used to justify the attack—is happening in a country with the capacity to build nuclear weapons and whose uranium reserves could fall into even more dangerous hands than those of the current Iranian leadership. Secondly, as analyst Stephen Holmes explained in an article a few days ago, The great danger, he said, is precisely that. Experts estimated that Iran had some 441 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60% purity, just a short technical step away from weapons-grade quality. This weekend, when questioned by reporters, Trump did not rule out a future ground incursion to recover some of that uranium, which is believed to be buried at one of the facilities bombed in June. This demonstrates the extent of the concern surrounding the control of this material, whose exact location is unknown, as it may have already been moved.

The uncertainty surrounding such a key element adds to the fact that New Start was discontinued on February 5th. The last treaty limiting strategic nuclear weapons was signed by Russia and the United States, two countries that each possess more than 5,000 nuclear warheads. They have the most, but there are other countries with nuclear capabilities—China, Pakistan, India, France, the United Kingdom, North Korea, and Israel—and in all cases, the danger is very high because, when we talk about nuclear weapons, a single weapon is devastating enough because it effectively lifts the ban. The concern about Iran possessing the weapon is understandable, but, in fact, the general concern is that any of these countries could have one. And, even more so, that one of these weapons could be in the hands not of a state but of an uncontrolled terrorist group.