In April 2025, Ali Larijani, a trusted advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and former Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, declared on Iranian State TV that Iran “was not moving towards nuclear weapons”, but warned that if Western powers acted irresponsibly on the issue, Iran “would be forced” to reconsider.1 This statement came in response to U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat to bomb Iran if negotiations over its nuclear program failed.

This direct reference to nuclear weapons by a senior Iranian official, marks a notable evolution in Iran’s official rhetoric regarding its nuclear program.2 While the leadership continues to describe its nuclear program as peaceful, an increasing number of public statements from politicians, think tankers, and military officers now hint at a shift toward deterrence-driven signaling.

This rhetorical evolution did not emerge in a vacuum. Although there were occasional statements between 2018 – the year the United States withdrew from the JCPOA – and 2023 (as explored in this memo), a significant uptick has occurred since early 2024. This coincides with the deterioration of the regional security environment because of the Gaza War, which included two direct Israeli attacks on Iranian territory, in April and October 2024.The “twelve-day war” in June 2025, marked by Israeli and American strikes on Iranian nuclear and military facilities, further reinforced this trend and underscored the failure of “conventional deterrence”.3

In parallel, rhetoric from the European signatories of the JCPOA – France, Germany and the UK – as well as from the United States (especially after Donald Trump’s return to power) has grown increasingly confrontational. Western diplomatic postures, in alignment with U.S. policy, have also hardened and may have contributed to Iran’s shifting threat perception, thereby increasing the risk of miscalculation.

This memo argues that Iran’s evolving nuclear rhetoric should not be dismissed as mere posturing. It reflects a deeper strategic recalibration in response to the erosion of its conventional deterrence, heightened regional insecurity, and the perceived failure of the international non-proliferation regime. The rhetorical shift is both a signal to adversaries and a form of performative deterrence that mirrors escalation observed elsewhere, notably in nuclear-armed states.

Read the whole memo on PRISME website.