The collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria may motivate Tehran to further ramp up its nuclear program, experts warned on the heels of the rebels’ victory on Sunday, days after International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi warned that Iran had “dramatically” increased its uranium enrichment.

Grossi announced last week that “the production capacity is increasing dramatically … [by] seven, eight times more, maybe, or even more” than its previous monthly rate of five to seven kilograms of uranium enriched to 60%, close to the 90% threshold for nuclear breakout. 

A report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, first reported in the Wall Street Journal on Friday, found that Iran has enough fissile material for over 12 nuclear weapons and enough highly enriched uranium to build four nuclear bombs.

Grossi told the BBC that Iran has “a nuclear program that has grown, has spawned in every possible direction … Iran is starting production of 60% at a much higher level of production, which means they will have the amounts necessary — if they so choose — to have a nuclear device in a much faster way. So we see an escalation in this regard, which is very worrisome.” 

The head of the U.N. watchdog noted that there have been “very vocal” calls within Iran to weaponize its nuclear capabilities.

“In my conversations with the government, that doesn’t seem to be the path of choice, but they sometimes refer to this as something they might need to reconsider,” Grossi said.

He also discouraged Israel from attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities, which “would require a vast deployment of force” and have “radiological consequences.” 

The DNI report expressed similar concerns as Grossi about Iran’s motivations to weaponize its highly enriched uranium, noting “the erosion of a decades-old taboo of such discussions in public and a perception that Iran needs to rectify a strategic imbalance with its adversaries.”

Since the release of those reports, Syrian rebels toppled the Assad regime, a key element in Iran’s “axis of resistance.”

Former Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman cited Grossi’s remarks at an Israel Beitenu faction meeting on Monday, noting that “the Iranians are not giving up on their desire to destroy the State of Israel … Israel cannot go on like this, waiting until they attack us or until they get a nuclear bomb.” He called for a “crushing strike” against Iran.

Behnam Ben Taleblu, senior director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran Program, told Jewish Insider, “Syria occupied the long pole in the tent of the Islamic Republic’s regional strategy, one that offered it a land bridge to the Mediterranean and a permissive jurisdiction to move men, money, and munitions across the northern tier of the Middle East. It is precisely because of this that Tehran invested significant blood and treasure to save Assad for so long.”

According to Ben Taleblu, it remains to be seen whether Iran will try to make up for the loss of Assad by “rattling the nuclear saber.” 

“⁠With its proxies battered and conventional deterrent strategy nearly checkmated, the salience of the nuclear option for Tehran will continue to grow,” he said, “but so too will the regime’s attempts to look for a bailout from the West in the form of a nuclear deal that buys time for a regime which is increasingly being boxed in.”

Danny Citrinowicz, a research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, said that after Assad’s fall, “the biggest question mark concerns Iran’s nuclear program.” 

“Tehran could theoretically enrich uranium to a military-grade level of 90% as early as tomorrow and attempt to build a nuclear device within a few months,” Citrinowicz wrote in Ma’ariv this week. “This could theoretically compensate for the damage to the axis [of resistance] and significantly strengthen Iran’s deterrence. This is also why senior regime officials (current and former) have repeatedly emphasized the need to reconsider Tehran’s nuclear strategy.”

At the same time, Citrinowicz said that without Hezbollah’s “protective umbrella” and following Israel’s strikes within Iran and the election of Donald Trump as president, advancing the nuclear program is more dangerous than before, deepening Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s dilemma.