Authored by RFE/RL Staff via OilPrice,

It was once taboo in Iran to publicly speak about developing nuclear weapons. The authorities would often point to former Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s religious edict barring the development of weapons of mass destruction. Iranian officials have long insisted the country’s nuclear program is solely for civilian purposes.

Open calls for a bomb from sitting lawmakers and senior security officials would have been unthinkable a few years ago. But with the war with the United States in limbo, that’s no longer the case.

After almost eight months of conflict and with Washington reportedly weighing strikes on Pickaxe Mountain, a deep underground site where US and Israeli officials say Iran has moved thousands of centrifuges, the talk is even growing.

Kamal Kharazi, an adviser to Khamenei who was killed in Israeli strikes earlier this year, said in 2024 that Tehran “might review our nuclear doctrine” if it felt an existential threat. The US-Israeli war against Iran this year seems to be seen by some as that very existential threat.

Khamenei and a cadre of Iran’s top security and military brass were killed in the opening salvo of the war on February 28. While the strikes mostly targeted sites affiliated with the state, the military, or nuclear facilities, civilian infrastructure was also hit and ordinary Iranians killed.

Major US military operations have wound down in favor of economic pressure, including a naval blockade of Iranian ports, and indirect talks through mediators have stalled.

US President Donald Trump rejected Iran’s recent proposal for a seven-day cease-fire and a phased reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, and he has threatened to resume major strikes. Washington says any deal must include what Vice President JD Vance called a “meaningful” reduction in Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity.

Open Calls To Go Nuclear

Iran signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) in 1968 and ratified it in 1970. The NPT bars nuclear states from sharing arsenals and obliges non-nuclear states not to build them, while guaranteeing access to peaceful nuclear technology under safeguards.

It also signed the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) with a group of global powers, including the United States, in 2015 that limited Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

But since Trump unilaterally pulled the United States out of the accord in 2018, Iran has ramped up its enrichment of uranium, though it continued to claim its nuclear program was purely for civilian purposes.

In June last year, Israel and the United States carried out air strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, warning that Iran was close to developing nuclear weapons. On February 28, the two ramped up the pressure further by launching the air strikes that led to the current war.

Ahmad Bakhshayesh Ardestani, a lawmaker and member of the parliament’s influential National Security and Foreign Policy committee, recently argued that Iran has already paid a price for its nuclear program – and that it’s time to produce weapons.

Hossein Ali Haji-Deligani, another lawmaker, described Iran’s lack of nuclear deterrence as one of its major weaknesses and suggested a bomb could be tested in the not-too-distant future.

Even Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, suggested pursuing nukes is not off the table. He has blamed Trump’s policies for “pushing the world toward acquiring nuclear weapons.”

Davud Modarresian, a conservative commentator and proponent of going nuclear, wrote on X that developing a bomb is “more important than food.”

He argued that developing a nuclear bomb would serve as “a guarantee of the country’s survival,” pointing to Trump’s comment earlier this month about the importance of maintaining good relations with nuclear powers.

“When people have 11 nuclear missiles, it’s nice to get along,” Trump said about North Korea and his relations with its leader, Kim Jong Un.

In 2003, Khamenei officially issued a fatwa banning the development, possession, and use of nuclear weapons by Iran under Islamic law.

Modarresian said the fatwa has never really been an obstacle to developing nukes and blamed “indecision and lack of unified political will” for Iran not weaponizing its nuclear program.

But some, at least in public, have pushed back on weaponizing the nuclear program, or what’s left of it.

Mohammad Mokhber, a former vice president who currently serves as a senior adviser to Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said Iran already has the deterrence it needs. Speaking on October 19, he credited Tehran’s policy of regionalizing the conflict as a strong enough deterrence.

Mokhber also played up Iran’s ability to disrupt traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, saying, “Any country that has the Strait of Hormuz has no need for an atomic bomb.” He argued that controlling the chokepoint impacts billions of people whereas a bomb “might kill 50,000 to 100,000 people.”

Meanwhile commentators opposed to developing nukes warn about the repercussions of attempting to acquire a bomb.

Sina Jahani, a journalist based in Tehran, argued that abandoning the NPT and producing a nuclear weapon would be “playing into Israel’s hands.”

Meanwhile, political commentator Amir Ali Abolfath cautioned that Iran’s adversaries would learn of any moves to build nukes before Iran could produce them.

“What happens when the country’s entire infrastructure is destroyed after a destructive American attack before nuclear deterrence is achieved?” he wrote on X, directing his question to proponents of going nuclear. “Would acquiring an atomic bomb after the destruction of the country still bring deterrence?”

State Of The Nuclear Program

As Iranians argue over whether to weaponize the nuclear program, a more practical question looms: Can Iran actually build a bomb, given the state of its nuclear infrastructure?

Iran’s ability to enrich uranium has been crippled, but the core of its nuclear program likely survives.

Of the three enrichment plants, the only aboveground one, at Natanz, was destroyed. The other two, at Natanz and Fordow, were badly damaged and are widely believed to be out of action. Strikes also destroyed Iran’s only uranium milling and conversion facilities.

The biggest unknown is the fate of Iran’s 440.9 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent purity. Rafael Grossi, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said back in March that more than 200 kg of that stockpile remains in tunnels at Isfahan, with some at Natanz. The agency said in September that it had lost track of the stockpiles more than a year ago.

US and Israeli officials say Iran moved thousands of centrifuges into Pickaxe Mountain, buried an estimated 80-100 meters deep in granite. Trump last week said Washington “may have to go there.”

In theory, as long as Iran is in possession of its highly enriched uranium stockpile, it can enrich it to weapons grade with little effort and just a few centrifuges, which is why the Pickaxe Mountain site has been in the news for a while. Whether it has the ability to produce a bomb, however, is a different matter.

Iran has long rejected the idea of giving up its stockpile but has offered to dilute it as part of a wider agreement with the United States to end the war, now in its eighth month.

Most incumbents worry about their opponent. Dan Sullivan has to worry about his name (remember the two Dan Sullivan thing?).

Dan Sullivan (R) the incumbent: 

Dan Sullivan (R) the challenger: 

At Wednesday evening, a few hours after his South Carolina rally, President Trump took to Truth Social with a fresh grievance about Alaska’s US Senate race, where Republican incumbent Dan S. Sullivan shares the ballot with a retired Petersburg schoolteacher named Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. The post, in full, per the Newsweek write-up and an X mirror of Trump’s posts:

“I am very concerned about the Dan S. Sullivan Race for the U.S. Senate in Alaska in that it is totally confusing, with the Dumocrats putting up another man, totally unrelated to Politics, named Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr. It’s ridiculous that the Court didn’t stop this SCAM. Even 1, 2, or 3% could make the difference. Dan S. Sullivan is leading by a lot, but this is CHEATING in an Election, and the Judge that allowed this to happen should be ashamed of himself. We are looking at powerful legal options to remove the fraudulent Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. from the Ballot, and holding the Democrats accountable for their Election Interference, in the pursuit of Justice and Fairness. President DONALD J. TRUMP”

The MAGA side of X took it from there:

🔥🚨 JUST IN – President Trump just flagged a major problem in the Alaska Senate race where Democrats put up a man named Daniel J. Sullivan, Jr. who has nothing to do with politics?

Trump called the situation totally confusing and said it is ridiculous that the Court did not… pic.twitter.com/qD2UtUUTeN

— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) October 22, 2026

In other words, the president is promising to litigate a ballot that Alaska’s courts have already ruled on, 12 days before the vote, over a candidate who couldn’t crack 3%. Below we walk through who the “fraudulent” Sullivan actually is, what the courts said, and why “leading by a lot” and “1, 2, or 3% could make the difference” don’t sit well in the same sentence.

Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. is a 69-year-old retired elementary-school teacher who has lived in Petersburg for 46 years and worked for the US Forest Service. He’s not related to the senator. Here’s where it gets interesting: he’s a registered Republican, not a Democrat. He was a member of the Alaska Independence Party and registered as a Republican after that party dissolved late last year, per Newsweek. In June correspondence with state investigators he said he had had no contact with the campaign of Democrat Mary Peltola. He has denied being a plant, saying he entered the race out of frustration with the senator.

Alaska News adds that no Division of Elections record supports the claim that Democrats put him up. So the “Dumocrat” plant is a Republican. Brave.

The Courts Already Spoke

This isn’t a new fight. Per Newsweek, Alaska’s Division of Elections, overseen by Republican Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom, moved in June to remove him, concluding his candidacy was intended “to confuse or mislead and to thereby compromise the ballot’s fairness or neutrality.” A judge overturned that decision, and the Alaska Supreme Court ruled in late June that he could stay on the ballot. To tell the two apart, the ballot lists the incumbent as “Sullivan, Dan S.” with an incumbent tag and the challenger as “Sullivan, Daniel J. Jr.,” and leaves the challenger’s party line blank.

Under Alaska’s top-four primary, he finished third on Aug. 18 with 2.47% (4,107 votes), per state results, which put him on the November ranked-choice ballot. Trump had already warned voters before the primary, calling him an “imposter” and urging Alaskans to “VOTE FOR THE REAL DAN SULLIVAN.”

About that: The latest Data for Progress poll (Oct. 8-16) had Peltola 47%, Sullivan 44% on first choices, and 51-49 Peltola after ranked-choice reallocation. Rasmussen (Oct. 12-15) had Peltola 44-42. Averages put the Democrat up roughly 2-3.5 points.

Jared Kushner is denying explosive allegations that, while serving as a senior White House adviser in Trump’s first term, he had access to secret foreign bank accounts stocked with roughly $2 billion from Gulf royals – and that Dutch intelligence watched him use one of them through his hacked iPhone.

The claims come from an excerpt of investigative journalist Matthew Cole’s forthcoming book Princes and Thieves, published Thursday by Vanity Fair. Cole alleges that Saudi and Emirati money funded a roughly $750 million account in the UAE that Kushner helped manage as an off-the-books foreign policy fund, and that UAE leader Mohamed bin Zayed moved another roughly $1 billion to Israel for Kushner – money a source told Cole was meant for his “personal benefit.”

Cole, a former national security reporter at The Intercept who previously produced investigations for ABC and NBC News, says the reporting took him four years. His book is published by Atria/One Signal, a Simon & Schuster imprint.

October is the month of political surprises. If substantiated, this would be a big one. It’s also sure to provide endless headlines after midterms, if (when) Democrats take the House. 

Kushner fired back on X. “The allegations made by this author are completely insane, categorically false, and never happened,” he wrote. “No bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, transaction dates, or other verifiable details were provided to support these extraordinary accusations.”

He called the excerpt “a mixture of fantasy, fiction, and advocacy, written by someone who is either deeply disturbed or acting with sinister intent.” His lawyer told Cole that “there are no accounts and never were.”

.@VanityFair posted an excerpt from a book containing outrageous and categorically false allegations. The allegations made by this author are completely insane and never happened. We denied every one of these claims on the record, yet the author failed to provide a single shred of evidence to substantiate any of them. No bank statements, wire transfer records, account numbers, transaction dates, or other verifiable details were provided to support these extraordinary accusations. During the period in question, I was one of the most scrutinized people in the world, subjected to intense media coverage, multiple congressional investigations, and a special counsel investigation. I voluntarily cooperated with these investigations, providing over 30 hours of testimony. None of these allegations ever surfaced, because none of these events ever happened. These are outrageous fabrications being presented as investigative journalism. This is not journalism. It is a mixture of fantasy, fiction, and advocacy, written by someone who is either deeply disturbed or acting with sinister intent.

— Jared Kushner (@jaredkushner) October 22, 2026

Watched through his iPhone

Here’s the story. The usual grains of salt apply.

Cole’s account begins in late 2017, when Dutch military intelligence learned that a Russian GRU operative – a dark web hacker specializing in stolen bank data – was headed to the UK. With British cooperation, the Dutch gave him a choice: work for them or face espionage charges. He flipped.

The Russian gave the Dutch access to a GRU server in Rostov, where they found screenshots of Kushner’s iPhone. By early 2018, Dutch hackers had found their own way into the phone. They couldn’t turn it into a microphone, but they could see his screen. They watched him log into a UAE bank account that had received hundreds of millions of dollars from a bank in Azerbaijan, Cole writes.

Cole’s first tip, in the spring of 2020, went further. A source told him Kushner appeared to have moved significant sums from the account to people including “a warlord, a mercenary and a one-time hit man.” Cole writes that he told the source it sounded preposterous. Six months later, a second source confirmed knowing about Kushner and transfers from a UAE account.

The accounts

According to Cole, the arrangement grew out of a bigger offer. Early in Trump’s first term, bin Zayed and Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin Salman discussed putting more than $10 billion into a slush fund to advance the new administration’s foreign policy goals – including, Cole writes, helping pay for Trump’s border wall to secure a second term. The idea fizzled.

Instead, the two royals put at least $2 billion into at least two accounts for Kushner, whose family company at the time faced a billion-dollar loan coming due on its flagship Manhattan tower, 666 Fifth Avenue.

The first account, which Cole calls “Alpha,” was held at First Abu Dhabi Bank, chaired by bin Zayed’s brother Tahnoon bin Zayed. Starting in 2017, the Saudis and Emiratis allegedly moved roughly $750 million into it through Azerbaijan, where, Cole writes, some banks will swap riyals or dirhams for dollars for a 6 to 7 percent fee, leaving auditors nothing to trace.

The account belonged to the Watani Al Emarat Foundation, a government-funded charity Cole says doubled as a cover for the UAE’s secret military and intelligence operations abroad, including weapons purchases. Kushner was allegedly a signatory, with access to a fund he and bin Zayed partly managed as they chased a grand bargain on Israel.

A source who knew of the deal told Cole that Kushner promised bin Zayed he would push the UAE’s agenda with Trump if the Emiratis joined the fund. Such slush funds are routine for the Gulf monarchies, the source said: “A billion or two is nothing for them.”

Kushner’s lawyer denied that he had any knowledge of or connection to the charity, its then-director Dherar Belhoul Al Falasi, or any UAE bank account, and said he complied with all legal requirements in dealing with foreign governments.

By the spring of 2018, Cole writes, bin Zayed had moved roughly another $1 billion to Israel, again via Azerbaijan. A person briefed on the arrangement said Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu encouraged Kushner to keep it at Israel’s central bank, which handles only government money, where it would look like a government account.

Netanyahu required Kushner to notify him before making any transactions, Cole writes, with messages relayed through then-U.S. Ambassador David Friedman. A person who helped Kushner move money out of Israel told Cole much of it went to accounts in Cyprus.

Friedman denied any knowledge of UAE money for Kushner or passing messages on his behalf. “I know absolutely nothing about any of these allegations,” he said, calling the claims about his own role “100% false.” Cole acknowledges it is unclear whether the Dutch ever saw this second account.

Cole also describes a third account. As Kushner helped negotiate a secret Israeli commitment to defend the UAE from a major Iranian attack, the Emiratis allegedly sent another transfer to Israel’s central bank to cover the cost – a rainy-day defense fund.

As a White House employee with access to classified information, Kushner was required to disclose any account on which he was a signatory or beneficiary. Cole says four senior Trump administration officials – two national security advisers, a White House chief of staff and a CIA director – knew of no presidential authorization for him to access a foreign government’s bank account.

A former Mueller prosecutor said that if Kushner promised the royals anything in return – even just a word with his father-in-law – he may have violated federal bribery law and the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Kushner’s lawyer said he broke no laws while in the White House, and that every arrangement he made with foreign leaders was agreed to by Trump and in America’s interest.

Not the first Gulf windfall

In May 2017, Kushner’s sister Nicole Kushner Meyer pitched Chinese investors in Beijing on One Journal Square, a Kushner Companies tower in Jersey City seeking money through the EB-5 program, in which a $500,000 investment buys a path to a green card. She told the room her brother had left the business to join the Trump administration, and the company later apologized.

In February 2018, The Washington Post reported that officials from the UAE, China, Israel and Mexico had privately discussed exploiting Kushner’s business dealings and inexperience, with Emirati officials viewing him as particularly manipulable. His security clearance was downgraded around the same time.

Trump ordered chief of staff John Kelly to grant Kushner a top-secret clearance anyway, over the concerns of career intelligence officials and White House counsel Don McGahn, The New York Times reported in 2019 – weeks after Trump told the paper he had not intervened.

In 2017, Kushner Companies reportedly sought a billion-dollar bailout from Qatari officials while Kushner advised Trump to back the Saudi-led blockade of Qatar, according to Senate Finance Democrats. The next year, Brookfield rescued 666 Fifth Avenue with a $1.3 billion, 99-year lease. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund was a major Brookfield backer, though the firm said Qatari representatives had no involvement, and Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Joaquin Castro later probed whether the deal shaped Trump’s Qatar policy.

Six months after Kushner left the White House, Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund put $2 billion into his new firm, Affinity Partners – overruling its own screening panel, which had flagged the “inexperience” of Kushner’s team and called its operations “unsatisfactory in all aspects,” The New York Times reported. The fund is run by bin Salman.

By 2024, roughly 99% of Affinity’s money came from foreign sources, mainly the sovereign wealth funds of Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, according to Wyden, then the Senate Finance chairman, who said those governments were paying Kushner tens of millions of dollars in fees a year. In September 2025, Affinity joined PIF and Silver Lake in a $55 billion deal to take Electronic Arts private.

Kushner is now back inside the administration as Trump’s special envoy. In March, Wyden – who had already referred Kushner to the Justice Department over possible foreign-agent violations – and House Oversight’s top Democrat, Robert Garcia, demanded answers about Kushner soliciting billions from Gulf sovereign wealth funds while co-leading U.S. Middle East negotiations. Wyden said Kushner is “on the payroll of the Saudi government.”

Anti-MAGA podcaster Jen Welch unleashed a vicious tirade against Vice President JD Vance to her millions of followers, accusing him of embracing white nationalism and calling for his Democrat rivals to keep their “pistols firing at all time” toward the Republican leader.

Welch, a fierce critic of President Donald Trump who has previously touted as the Democrats’ “answer” to Joe Rogan, also took aim at Vance’s marriage, children and relationship with billionaire venture capitalist and Republican megadonor Peter Thiel.

“Now he wants to be the leader of the white supremacist party, and he has an Usha and four kids problem,” Welch said. “But what does he do? He just sits there in a roundabout way all day, every day. Demeans people with brown skin, and he thinks you’re stupid. Maybe MAGA is, I don’t know.”

In response, former Los Angeles Mayoral Candidate and TV personality Spencer Pratt posted on X: “This melting wax-faced goblin is demanding that DSA street animals have “pistols firing at all time” towards the Vice President.”

This melting wax-faced goblin is demanding that DSA street animals have “pistols firing at all time” towards the Vice President.

We have a communist violence problem in this country. pic.twitter.com/jHYq7vnfN7

— Spencer Pratt (@spencerpratt) October 22, 2026

“But the coolest thing about JD Vance is that at some point he wasn’t this white nationalist prostitute bigot,” the leftwing commentator continued. “I don’t know what Peter Thiel did to him. I can only imagine. You can only imagine. But he came out a complete Antichrist-style sociopath.”

Welch then took a bizarre theological detour, dragging billionaire Peter Thiel and his fascination with the Antichrist into her attack on Vance.

“And considering that’s all Peter Thiel talks about, the Antichrist, when he himself acts like one, and now his little protege acts like one,” she said.

As if the rant couldn’t get any more bizarre, Welch turned her attention to Vance’s White House ambitions, taking her verbal assault into even more disturbing territory.

“JD Vance thinks two years from now he’s going to be President of the United States, and we need to keep firing, pistols firing at all time towards this guy,” Welch urged her listeners.

“Because he is not fit to be a father. He’s not fit to be a husband. He’s not fit to be a vice president. He is a failed drag queen and a pathological liar to his core,” she concluded.

Welch’s remarks quickly drew backlash on social media from conservative commentators. Former Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt blasted the podcaster as a “melting wax-faced goblin,” accusing her of demanding that “DSA street animals” target Vance. Social media personality Mario Nawfal also branded Welch’s outburst as going “full psycho.”