Forcing Iran toward a bomb is John Kiriakou’s answer to a questioner who asked whether Ayatollah Khamenei’s religious prohibition remains the main reason Iran has not developed a nuclear weapon.
The premise
The question put to Kiriakou concerned a ruling by Khamenei that such weapons are forbidden — issued, in the questioner’s account, against the wishes of generals who wanted them, and extended to the development of nuclear weapons generally.[1][2]
Kiriakou accepted the premise. He said he thinks that is the case, and that the Iranians have been consistent at least since 2003 that they do not have and do not seek nuclear weapons.[2]
The danger he identifies
His warning is that the West runs the danger of, in a way, forcing the Iranians to develop nuclear weapons — because, as he puts it, we are constantly picking, picking, picking at them.[3]
He frames the pressure as a countdown. How many times, he asks, can Mossad infiltrate Iran and assassinate its scientists or its generals, or work with the Americans to bomb its sites, before Khamenei finally says that he did not want to do this but must allow the development of a weapon in order to protect the country — purely for defensive purposes, and to offset Israel’s nuclear weapons.[3][4] Kiriakou says he cannot help thinking that this is where matters are headed, and that the West is forcing the Iranians into it.[4]
The intelligence record
Against that trajectory Kiriakou sets the American analytic record. Looking at the CIA’s national intelligence estimates, of which he says there have been at least three since 2003, all conclude that the Iranians do not have and are not seeking nuclear weapons.[4] He has elsewhere given the figure as two such estimates, in the Iran nuclear assessment.
His account of the diplomatic damage done by the American withdrawal from the nuclear agreement is set out in the JCPOA, and his reading of the direct military exchange in the Iran–Israel exchange assessment.