Atoms, Ambitions, and Anxiety: How Iran Became the World’s Nuclear Question.

Iran’s nuclear programme is the product of a long and contested history. It began in the 1950s under the Shah with Western assistance and was framed as a civilian energy project. After the 1979 revolution, however, mistrust deepened between Iran and the West. Undeclared enrichment facilities, concerns about weapons research, and successive rounds of sanctions turned the programme into one of the central security disputes of the post-Cold War era.The 2015 nuclear agreement temporarily constrained Iran’s enrichment activities in exchange for sanctions relief, but the collapse of the deal after the United States withdrew in 2018 reopened the crisis.

Since then Iran has expanded enrichment and deployed more advanced centrifuges, shortening the time required to produce weapons-grade material. These long-running tensions have now intersected with open conflict. In February 2026, large-scale strikes by the United States and Israel against Iranian targets triggered a widening regional war, accompanied by missile and drone retaliation across the Middle East and profound political upheaval inside Iran.

Understanding Iran’s nuclear trajectory therefore requires more than technical analysis. It demands attention to history, regional security and domestic politics. This talk considers how the programme emerged, why diplomacy has repeatedly faltered, and what pathways might still exist to reduce nuclear risk in an increasingly volatile Middle East.

Dr. Becky Alexis-Martin is a British academic, nuclear warfare researcher, and lecturer in Peace and International Development at the University of Bradford. Her work focuses on nuclear geopolitics, humanitarian impacts of war, radiation exposure, disarmament, and the social consequences of conflict and militarisation.
Her award-winning book, "Disarming Doomsday: The Human Impacts of Nuclear Warfare", examines the humanitarian and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons since Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Her research also includes the experiences of nuclear test veterans, radiation-affected communities, and the politics of nuclear justice.

During recent discussions surrounding Iran’s nuclear ambitions and regional instability, Dr. Alexis-Martin has publicly analysed how enriched uranium stockpiles, regional rivalries, and weakened international diplomacy could increase the risk of miscalculation or wider conflict. She has described the current era as a “third nuclear age,” marked by rising authoritarianism, unstable deterrence dynamics, and declining transparency between nuclear-capable states.

Contact the host of Atoms, Ambitions and Anxiety talk by Becky Alexis-Martin

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