Iran’s nuclear reset suggests that while US and Israeli strikes may have shattered facilities, they have not extinguished its ambition to rebuild a survivable nuclear deterrent—possibly with help from North Korea.
This month, the Italian Institute for International Political Studies (ISPI) reported that Iran is quietly recalibrating its nuclear strategy after its June 2025 confrontation with Israel exposed the limits of its conventional deterrence.
According to ISPI, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, long seen as blocking a final push toward nuclear weapons, has authorized efforts in October to develop compact nuclear warheads suitable for ballistic missiles, while still stopping short of ordering uranium enrichment beyond 60%.
It notes that Iran already holds enough 60%-enriched uranium to build crude low-yield nuclear devices, but not warheads small and robust enough for missile delivery – a gap it is trying to close.
ISPI suggests that Iran is prioritizing warhead design over enrichment to avoid a vulnerable breakout phase that could invite military strikes. However, the report also states that progress is expected to be slow, with compact warheads requiring years of testing and access to weapons-grade fissile material.
The report adds that Iran may be betting on external technical assistance to accelerate the process, with China, Russia, and Pakistan seen as unlikely partners – leaving North Korea as the most plausible source of expertise, amid signs of intensified missile cooperation. However, it cautions that direct evidence of nuclear warhead collaboration remains elusive.
Conflicting reports have emerged regarding the aftermath of US-Israeli strikes on Iran’s nuclear program.
In a July 2025 Next Generation Nuclear Network article, Bailey Schiff says that Israeli intelligence claims the attacks largely dismantled Iran’s enrichment infrastructure, destroying aboveground facilities, collapsing some underground areas and burying uranium stockpiles beyond access.
However, Schiff also mentions that US intelligence has leaked lower-confidence assessments suggesting only temporary setbacks, with parts of underground facilities and some centrifuges potentially remaining operational.
While Michael Eisenstadt notes in a July 2025 article for The Washington Institute for Near East Policy that while US strikes on Iran’s underground nuclear sites may have destroyed the centrifuges there, Iran most likely has spare centrifuges stored elsewhere to replace those lost to wear and tear.
Furthermore, Eisenstadt notes that the status of Iran’s 440 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium remains unknown. While most of its enriched uranium stocks may be buried under rubble and most of its uranium hexafluoride gas canisters – an essential component of uranium metal production – may have been ruptured, he says that some may have been moved to other sites before the strikes, according to Iranian media.
He also points out that it is tough to destroy industrial sites from the air, and a substantial amount of equipment at Iranian nuclear sites that was attacked could still be retrieved, repaired, and put back into service.
Eisenstadt adds that Iran may have acquired duplicate equipment to convert uranium hexafluoride gas into uranium metal, the tools to machine the metal, and the tools to produce the non-nuclear components of a nuclear weapon, noting that many of the tasks involved do not require specialized equipment.
While Israel targeted top Iranian nuclear scientists to eliminate Iran’s nuclear weapons knowledge base, Rosemary Kelanic, in a July 2025 interview with the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), notes that Iran has produced a generation of nuclear scientists and technicians numbering in the thousands who understand the technology and can rebuild what was lost in a matter of months.
Importantly, Kelanic points out that the US focus on major sites such as Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan obscures the big picture – that Iran has multiple nuclear facilities that were not hit by airstrikes and that Iran’s nuclear program was designed with dispersion and redundancy from the start to survive such an attack.
As to why North Korea could be Iran’s partner of choice to rebuild its nuclear weapons program, Andrea Stricker and Anthony Ruggerio note in a July 2025 article for the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) that while North Korea and Iran have extensive cooperation on ballistic missile technology, it is unclear whether that cooperation extends to nuclear weapons.
However, Stricker and Ruggerio note that North Korea and Iran use similar uranium enrichment technologies, both derived from the Pakistani A Q Khan nuclear proliferation network. They add that North Korea has nuclear weapons testing data that could prove invaluable to Iran, and that unconfirmed reports occasionally surface about nuclear cooperation between North Korea and Iran.
While China, Russia, and Pakistan may prefer a non-nuclear Iran as another nuclear-armed state in Continental Asia may disrupt an already fragile strategic environment, North Korea may have a different view.
For one, Daniel Salisbury and Darya Dolzikova mention in a December 2023 Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) report that nuclear proliferation may be a viable way for North Korea to earn badly-needed currency.
As to what specific nuclear technology, aside from missile technology, North Korea might be willing to sell to Iran, Salisbury and Dolzikova note that North Korea could provide Iran with centrifuges, skills and design information relevant to nuclear weapons development, and dual-use technologies such as machine tools and various metal components.
However, much depends on how much nuclear technology North Korea would be willing to share or sell to Iran. North Korea may be reluctant to provide Iran with its most sensitive nuclear technologies, such as multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs) or even intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) technology.
Should Iran manage to reconstitute its nuclear program, Israel could continue to undermine Iran’s efforts to reconstitute its nuclear program through covert means, threaten conventional strikes with US backing, or, at the extreme, abandon its own nuclear ambiguity. Israel is widely believed to have nuclear weapons, but has not confirmed or denied that it has so.
Furthermore, a revived Iranian nuclear program could pressure regional states to acquire their own nuclear arsenals. Notably, Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman warned in September 2023 that his country would pursue nuclear weapons if Iran got its hands on them.
A reconstituted Iranian nuclear program can divert US strategic attention from the Korean Peninsula to the Middle East, straining arguably overstretched US military capabilities and resources – already taxed by having to deal with Russia in Ukraine and China in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea.
It could also call into question US capabilities to deter North Korea, given the substantial similarity between North Korea’s and Iran’s survivability doctrines—dispersal, redundancy, and undergrounding—made even more complicated because North Korea has nuclear weapons. Such a situation may send an ominous message to South Korea and Japan, incentivizing them to acquire nuclear weapons as well.
Taken together, Iran’s ability to absorb strikes, tap latent expertise and possibly leverage North Korean assistance suggests that military action alone may slow—but not decisively stop—a nuclear trajectory that could destabilize the Middle East and reverberate far beyond it.
