A History of the Iranian Nuclear Program

Angry Planet

Matthew Gault

War, Politics, Conflict, Government, History, News

4.3 • 882 Ratings

🗓️ 23 July 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Sometimes it’s good to back up and ask the basic questions: How do we know Iran was even developing nuclear weapons?

On this episode of the show, the Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis walks us through the history of the Iranian nuclear (weapons and energy) program. It’s got it all: diplomacy, assassinations, cowardly politicians, and uranium fever.

Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute, member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control, and former member of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board. He knows the tale well and he’s here to tell it straight.

Damning the strikes with faint praise.
“The hard part of a nuclear weapon is not the explodey part.”
Making a nuclear weapon is a solved problem.
The Iran-Iraq war and the origins of Iran’s nuclear weapons program
The ladders of Natanz, how they cascade down
Energy programs are always bigger than weapons programs.
Unmasking the International Atomic Energy Agency
Israel’s war on the program
How to enrich uranium
The “torturous” process behind the Iran deal
Congressional cowards
“A new generation of suckers”
The French movie goodbye

The Deal

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Love this podcast.
0:02.0	Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature.
0:05.2	It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment.
0:09.2	Just click the link in the show description to support now.
0:12.9	Hey there, Angry Planet listeners, Matthew here.
0:15.0	Did you know that Angry Planet has a substack?
0:18.0	It's true.
0:18.9	Just go to Angry PlanetPod.com.
0:20.6	$9 a month. You get early access to all the
0:23.4	mainline episodes and they're commercial free. There's one up right now. That's another nuclear
0:27.7	episode, kind of a companion piece to this. It really details the state of the nuclear buildup
0:34.7	in the world right now. It's a little terrifying.
0:38.8	So if you want to listen to that early,
0:40.2	Angry PlanetPod.com.
0:42.4	And here is the show.
0:50.8	Hello and welcome to another conversation about conflict on an angry planet.
0:51.8	I am Matthew Galt.
0:55.0	Jason Fields lost a filling 10 minutes before we were jumping on the call, so you're going to have to live without him for another episode. But that's okay
0:59.1	because I've got Jeffrey Lewis here, the arms control wonk himself, a professor at the Middlebury
1:03.5	Institute, a member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms
1:07.5	Control, and a former member of the State Department's International
1:11.1	Security Advisory Board. And we're going to talk about Iran's nuclear program. Jeffrey,
	...

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