The Domestic Sources of Iran’s Nuclear Politics | Mohammad Tabaar

About the Event: What are the domestic drivers of Iran’s nuclear strategy? Since the U.S. withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Iran has adopted an incrementally more assertive approach in expanding various aspects of its nuclear program and limiting the IAEA’s monitoring and verification activities. Although Iran has not made the political decision to obtain a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. officials, Iran could produce enough fissile material for one bomb in less than two weeks. Experts argue that Iran’s nuclear advances are a bargaining tactic to extract economic concessions from Washington. However, as Iran approaches threshold status, its political calculations are also shifting, signaling more risk tolerance than before. The failure of the JCPOA has undermined bottom-up pressure in the form of elections and civil society movements, which had previously moderated Iran’s foreign policy. The ascendance of a hawkish government in Tehran in 2021 combined with Iran’s growing military capability within the emerging multipolar world order has hardened the Islamic Republic’s bargaining position, inching it toward the weaponization option.

About the Speaker: Mohammad Ayatollahi Tabaar is Associate Professor of International Affairs at Texas A&M University's Bush School of Government and Public Service and a visiting scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Project on Managing the Atom. He is the author of Religious Statecraft: The Politics of Islam in Iran (Columbia University Press, 2018). His articles and commentaries have appeared in Security Studies, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and the New York Times. Mohammad has a B.A. in social sciences from the University of Tehran, an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago, and a Ph.D. in government from Georgetown University. He is currently working on a book project on Iran's nuclear politics.

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