White House National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan recently presented to the US president Joe Biden the options for possible US strikes on its nuclear facilities Iranif Tehran decides to move toward developing a nuclear weapon before Donald Trump’s inauguration, the Axios news network reports.

Biden and the national security team discussed various options and scenarios during the meeting, which took place about a month ago, but the president did not make any final decisions, the sources said.

A US official familiar with the matter said his meeting White House it wasn’t in the wake of new information, but it wasn’t going to result in a decision from Biden either. Rather, it was part of a “prudent scenario planning” discussion of how the U.S. should respond if Iran were to proceed with enriching uranium to 90 percent purity before Jan. 20, the official said.

Another source pointed out that there are currently no active discussions within the White House about possible military action against Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Some of Biden’s top aides argued internally that the two facts that exist right now: the acceleration of Iran’s nuclear program and the weakening of Tehran and her proxies, are an opportunity for Biden to strike.

A hit of USA in its nuclear program Iran during that time would be a huge gamble for a president who has vowed not to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon while handing a new conflict to his successor. Biden did not green light an attack during the meeting and has not done so since, the sources said.

The sources said some of Biden’s aides, including Sullivanbelieve that the degradation of Iran’s air defense and missile capabilities, along with the significant weakening of its regional proxies, increases the chances of a successful strike and reduces the risk of Iranian retaliation and regional escalation.

The US official said Sullivan did not make any recommendations to Biden on the matter, but only discussed scenario planning. The White House declined to comment.

Another source said Biden considered whether an attack was now urgent and whether Iran had taken steps to warrant a dramatic military strike just weeks before the new president took office.

Iran threatens to change nuclear doctrine

Iran has long denied that it is seeking to develop a nuclear weapon and maintains that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only.

But in recent months, several former and current Iranian officials have spoken publicly about the possibility of a change in Iran’s nuclear doctrine.

“You can see the public statements Iranian officialswhich have changed in recent months to raise the question: Should we change our doctrine at some point? The fact that this has been said publicly is something that should be looked at extremely carefully,” Sullivan said at a conference in New York two weeks ago.

At the same event, Sullivan argued that the blows to Iran and its proxies over the past year could push Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon. “It creates options for that opponent that can be quite dangerous, and that’s something we have to remain extremely cautious about going forward,” he said.

Iran’s nuclear program has advanced dramatically during Biden’s tenure, relegating Iran to the status of a potential nuclear state.

Iran has increased its uranium enrichment to 60%, close enough to the 90% level required to produce a nuclear weapon that Iran’s advanced centrifuges could achieve within days.

According to him International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)Iran has enough 60% enriched uranium to build four nuclear bombs.

Even if Iran decided to build a bomb, it would have to develop a nuclear explosive device or warhead. Israeli intelligence believes this will take at least a year.

An Israeli attack on Parchin military complex of Iran in late October also destroyed sophisticated equipment that would be needed to design and test a nuclear explosive device.

Israeli officials believe this could create a critical obstacle if Iran decides to build a bomb.

But U.S. and Israeli officials say that over the past year, Iranian scientists have conducted suspicious research into nuclear weapons development that appears to be aimed at reducing the time it takes to develop a nuclear weapon. should Iran’s leaders choose to do so.

The Biden administration sent a private warning to Iran last spring expressing serious concerns about Iran’s nuclear research and development activities, US and Israeli officials told Axios.

The US and Israel have detected suspicious nuclear activities by Iranian scientists in recent months that some officials fear could be part of a covert effort by Tehran to use the period around the US presidential transition to make progress toward building nuclear weapons.

Sullivan said last month that the Biden administration had briefed President-elect Trump’s team on the intelligence picture of Iran’s nuclear program.

“They may choose a different path, a different strategy, but I want to make sure that we start from a common ground of what we’re dealing with in terms of the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program,” he said.