Since August 2002, when a controversial Iranian opposition group disclosed previously unknown details of Iran’s clandestine efforts to develop a nuclear capability, the world has been jolted awake to a new threat: the frightening specter of a nuclear Iran. Three-and-a-half years on, much is still unknown about the Islamic Republic’s atomic endeavor. However, all the available evidence points to an ambitious, complex and diffuse national program that is geared toward providing the Iranian regime with the capacity to field a nuclear arsenal. 

Estimates of exactly when the Islamic Republic will be capable of doing so vary wildly. In the past, the U.S. intelligence community has assessed that a nuclear Iran is unlikely until substantially later this decade. More recently, it appears to have softened even these projections; according to leaked accounts of the intelligence community’s most recent National Intelligence Estimate, Iran is now judged to be ten years away from developing an indigenous nuclear capability.