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The dangerous lesson countries may take from the Iran war

Having a nuclear weapon has never looked more appealing.

The landmark speech given by French President Emmanuel Macron this week — with a nuclear submarine serving as a dramatic backdrop — announcing the expansion of France’s nuclear arsenal, didn’t get that much attention in the United States. That’s understandable: There’s a lot going on in the news, not least of which is the ongoing war in Iran.

But while not directly related — the Macron speech had been planned for some time — the two stories are examples of the same phenomenon: In today’s world, thanks in large part to the policies of Donald Trump’s administration, nuclear weapons look more attractive than ever. This holds true for America’s allies as well as its adversaries.

Nuclear lessons from Iran

In Iran, the world is watching as two nuclear-armed powers, the United States and Israel, are overwhelming the defenses of a country that infamously maintained a nuclear enrichment program for years but never actually built a weapon.

This is now the second time in a year that Iran has been attacked during negotiations with the US over its nuclear program, with scheduled meetings on the calendar at the time the bombs started falling. This time, the regime itself, not just its nuclear program, is in danger of destruction.

For years, Iran had deliberately maintained its status as a “threshold” nuclear state. Officially, Iranian officials maintained that they were not seeking a nuclear weapon and that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, against one. At the same time, Iran has enriched a uranium stockpile with little plausible purpose other than a nuclear weapon, which is currently unaccounted for.

As the former head of Iran’s nuclear program put it in 2024, “It’s like having all the parts to build a car: we have the chassis, the engine, the transmission, everything.”

By almost building a bomb, Iran, a signatory to an international treaty that prevents it from acquiring nuclear weapons, could avoid the diplomatic costs of actually building one while negotiating concessions from its adversaries, and maintaining the........

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