Here's a summary:
The fortified Natanz and Fordow underground enrichment sites were not declared by Iran to the IAEA. Iran was required to reveal them under existing regulations and did not. They only allowed inspections after the IAEA found out about them from intelligence sources.
Fordow's size is inconsistent with civilian nuclear energy purposes.
In January 2023, IAEA inspectors found uranium particles enriched to 83.7% at Fordow, dangerously close to the 90% threshold for weapons-grade uranium. Iran didn't declare it as it was supposed to have. There is no reason for this to exist in a peaceful civilian research or nuclear program.
Iran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60% level was up to 408.6 kg by May 2025. The IAEA notes that 60% enrichment has no credible civilian use, as nuclear power plants typically require 3-5% enrichment, and research reactors rarely need more than 20%.
Iran has limited IAEA access to sites since 2021, and it removed remote monitoring equipment in 2022.
The IAEA had found man-made uranium particles at three undeclared sites, and Iran refused to provide a credible explanation.
In 2021, the IAEA confirmed that Iran has begun producing uranium metal, which has no civilian use.
Iran's development and deployment of advanced centrifuges that can enrich uranium much faster than older models has pretty much no reason besides the capability of quickly producing nuclear weapons.
The Sanjarian site, which was known to have been used for nuclear weapons research in the early 2000s, was re-activated in recent years. The IAEA never visited Sanjarian. (Israel bombed it at least twice.)
The IAEA found a large steel chamber at Parchin that it suspected was used for weaponization research, but Iran heavily restricted its access to the site and engaged in clean-up activities before allowing inspectors under their direct supervision. Even so, the IAEA found evidence of man made uranium there.
Also in the Parchin complex, there was evidence that Iran hid critical flash X-ray testing equipment in Taleghan, which Israel bombed last October. Reports and satellite imagery seem to confirm its clandestine nuclear weapons use.
In 2018, Israel accused Iran of hiding a secret nuclear site at Turquzabad. The IAEA said only two weeks ago that Iran refused to give any “technically credible explanations for the presence of [man-made] uranium particles” at undeclared locations in Turquzabad, Varamin, and Marivan (where intelligence indicated high explosives tests in 2011).
Iran's ballistic missiles appear to be designed specifically to carry nuclear warheads. For example, Iran’s Ghadr and Emad missiles feature triconic (tapered, conical) warhead designs, which are a requirement for nuclear warheads to survive atmospheric reentry, unlike blunt-nosed warheads typically used for conventional explosives.
I'm probably missing some.
If only one or two of these were true, then perhaps some people could reasonably think that there are credible explanations for them that Iran, for whatever reason, cannot provide. But when you see them all together, and consider that Israel and other countries have additional intelligence beyond these widely known facts, it is absurd to think that Iran has not been actively working on a nuclear weapon.
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