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Guardian column says Iran may seek nuclear weapons amid escalation

scienceApr 26, 202614279

Simon Tisdall writes in The Guardian that Iran did not possess a nuclear weapon before the current war but recent escalations make developing one understandable to Tehran. He points to repeated bombings, ship seizures and explicit threats that have eroded Iran's security assumptions and increased its incentive to pursue a nuclear option. The column notes that Donald Trump's proposed budget calls to double production of new nuclear weapon cores while slashing environmental cleanup funding, signaling renewed U.S. investment in nuclear forces. That combination of regional violence and renewed great power nuclear build-up raises the prospect of Middle Eastern nuclearization and weakens global nonproliferation efforts, increasing the risk of wider conflict and miscalculation.

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