Former CIA analyst claims Iran is on verge of becoming a nuclear power

Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, who has alleged that Iran is on the absolute verge of declaring itself a nuclear power, has threatened to detonate a nuclear bomb. In the Judging Freedom podcast hosted by Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge and prominent libertarian legal analyst, Larry Johnson claimed that Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar personally passed a "red alert" message to the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

This put the May 29 meeting between Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in focus, raising questions about the nature of the talks, even though the official explanation was about bilateral cooperation. Pakistan's Foreign Office categorically denied claims that it has shared a confidential report about nuclear activity, and called these reports speculative and false.

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However, according to Larry Johnson, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has informed Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif about this development. A similar claim was repeated by geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar, stating that Iran would demonstrate its nuclear capability through a domestic test explosion.

Johnson said that the recent shift in the US tone, specifically towards Iran's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei and the verbal spat with Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was a result of this development. Furthermore, Johnson posited that Iranian authorities might have purposefully conducted this phone call over an unsecured line to allow Western and Israeli intelligence as a calculated strategic risk.

Larry Johnson previously made another viral claim on April 20, 2026, where he first alleged that President Trump had a blowup with General Dan Caine over accessing nuclear codes on April 18.

Former Fox News anchor, Andrew Napolitano, pressed prominent Iranian academic and advisor Dr Seyed Mohammad Marandi in his podcast to provide verification about the phone call. He neither acknowledged nor denied the speculation; he suggested that while there is a theocretic decree, late Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, Mojtaba could alter that by issuing a fatwa. But he added that there was no current sign indicating a change in Iran's nuclear doctrine. Traditionally, under the decree of the late Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei, production and stockpiling of weapon of mass destruction was “haram”.