Iran's Growing Weapons Capability and Its Impact on Negotiations

摘要

Iran has an intermediate nuclear status. It has the technical capability to make nuclear weapons, but it has not acted on that capability, as far as is known. It has been compared in this respect to Japan, which has a latent nuclear weapons capability because of its advanced civil nuclear fuel cycle. Yet, Iran differs markedly from Japan, which has never had a nuclear weapons program and has not deceived or stonewalled the international community as to the purpose of its major nuclear fuel-cycle activities. More apt comparisons are South Africa in the 1970s, Brazil in the late 1980s, and India in the 1960s and early 1970s, although those countries were not NPT parties during the relevant period.