By Eric Vandenbroeck and co-workers

One asset, however, has been curiously absent from the target list published by U.S. Central Command: the Iranian nuclear program. As of this writing, Iran’s major nuclear facilities - at least those not destroyed by U.S. and Israeli strikes last June - have not been featured in any description of recent U.S. or Israeli military accomplishments. There have been reports of strikes on targets that are possibly related to Iran’s weapons research infrastructure and of some in the vicinity of significant facilities, but little of apparent consequence in comparison to June. This omission is especially surprising given that the nuclear program was allegedly one of the reasons behind the Trump administration’s turn to force.

It is unlikely that the United States or Israel is deliberately ignoring nuclear sites at Isfahan, Parchin, or Natanz - three locations that have housed and may still be vital to Iran’s ability to produce nuclear weapons. They may be simply farther down the target list; messaging from U.S. officials, after all, has emphasized the near-term risk of Iranian nuclear weapons. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on March 2, “This operation is a clear, devastating, decisive mission: destroy the missile threat, destroy the navy, no nukes.”

Preventing Iran from producing nuclear weapons has been a U.S. policy priority for decades. It is therefore surprising that U.S. operations have, so far, not reflected it. Iran still retains the material needed to build multiple nuclear weapons, and it may also have the capabilities to turn that material into weapons components. It is unlikely that airstrikes alone can prevent this. If the United States is going to continue to attack Iran, it must ensure that Iran is unable to produce nuclear weapons. To achieve this, the United States has two options to choose from - cutting a deal or forcing the regime’s collapse - both of which are unpalatable and carry huge risk. But each is better than doing nothing.

Airstrike craters on the Fordow fuel enrichment facility near Qom, Iran.

 

What’s New?

The June 2025 strikes against Iran did significant damage to its nuclear program, but they did not end the threat it could manifest. Some analysts closer to the White House took care to emphasize the setback U.S. and Israeli actions dealt to Iran’s nuclear program, but few if any were prepared to subscribe to Trump’s initial assessment that Iran’s nuclear program had been “obliterated” or that “the last thing they want to do is enrich.”

Most eyes were instead on the stockpile of highly enriched uranium that Iran still had in its possession and to which international inspectors were denied access. Others noted the tremendous uncertainty around whether Iran still had centrifuge capabilities, which could allow it to produce weapons-grade enriched uranium quickly, or equipment for uranium metal production, which could be used to shape enriched uranium into components for nuclear weapons. The U.S. government’s own official estimate was that Iran could reconstitute its nuclear program within one to two years (the same margin Washington had been predicting would be likely after such a military campaign for over a decade) and that it could produce a crude nuclear device within four to eight months even without reconstitution.

Since that time, the U.S. position on Iran’s relative strength has been all over the map. In its 2025 National Security Strategy, released in December, the Trump administration said that “Iran - the region’s chief destabilizing force - has been greatly weakened by Israeli actions since October 7, 2023, and President Trump’s June 2025 Operation Midnight Hammer, which significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program.” The administration seemed content to largely ignore the nuclear program after the June attacks, returning to the topic only after the regime brutally crushed popular protests that erupted in late December.

Trump made promises to support protesters and dispatched military forces to the region, ostensibly to make good on his threat. But en route, the mission set changed, with Trump once again returning to the topic of nuclear weapons. He argued that Tehran had to make concessions on its nuclear program immediately or he would employ force, then agreed to mediated talks that were in theory about coming to a new resolution of the nuclear issue. The talks ended on February 26 with a notional agreement to hold further technical rounds. Just two days later, the process was shattered by the launch of the U.S. and Israeli military operation.

Although prospects for a deal were appropriately modest, given the big gaps that existed in the U.S. and Iranian negotiating positions, there were few indications on February 26 that the process had broken down completely. Oman’s foreign minister, who was mediating the talks, even said that “significant progress” had been made. It is possible that the talks were ultimately undermined by a lack of technical knowledge on the U.S. negotiating team. Press briefings suggest that those in the room were unaware of basic facts about Iran’s program. Iran has claimed for years, for example, that it needs to enrich uranium to 20 percent levels to produce fuel for its Tehran Research Reactor, which creates isotopes for medical and other industrial uses, even though the country could procure such nuclear fuel on the international market - giving Tehran a worrying excuse to stockpile enriched uranium that has no reasonable, legitimate civil need.

Whether the United States should have been seeking a new nuclear deal is debatable, but nonetheless, the overall picture is one of negotiations that were curtailed without justification. Trump, for his part, has implied that Iran’s efforts to reconstitute its nuclear capabilities were advancing too quickly, which is, perhaps, an explanation for the U.S. suspension of the talks and subsequent move to military force. But no publicly available information supports the contention that the threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program, although serious, has changed since Trump’s bold statements to the contrary last June. Put another way, either the nuclear program was still a threat after the June strikes, meriting an earlier response, or Iran was far enough away from producing nuclear weapons that the administration had the time to consult with Congress, get Americans out of harm’s way, and better prepare the region for conflict.

Smoke rising after a U.S.-Israeli strike in Tehran.

 

Where There’s a Will

With no major action, so far, against Iran’s nuclear program - which the Trump administration has characterized as both obliterated and a near-term threat - the question now is twofold: first, whether Iran will choose to try to produce a nuclear weapon, and second, whether it can achieve that end. As for Tehran’s desire to acquire nuclear weapons, the opening salvo of the war may force the issue. In 2003, Khamenei ordered the suspension of the Iranian nuclear weapons project. Although he had, according to the U.S. intelligence community, authorized some work on weapons-related technologies, it does not appear that he ever lifted the original halt order altogether. The Iranian government also claimed in 2003 that Khamenei had issued a fatwa, or religious decree, that prohibited the acquisition of nuclear weapons, although the scope and content of this fatwa remain debated, and it has not been made publicly available.

Now that Khamenei is dead, the issue falls to his successors. A new supreme leader could issue a new nuclear fatwa of his own. Some in the Iranian security services believe that nuclear weapons are necessary; as Trump said himself, it would be “impossible” to attack a nuclear-armed Iran. Other Iranians have pointed to the fact that the Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi and the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad did not acquire nuclear weapons and were deposed, whereas Kim Jong Un, who has nuclear weapons at his disposal, remains in power in North Korea.

Moreover, the United States and Israel have now lost a critical deterrent against Iranian nuclear weapons development: the threat of force. Now that Iran is under a sustained attack that has already resulted in the deaths of its head of state and dozens of senior leaders, remaining components of the regime might gamble that things could not get worse if they dash for a nuclear bomb.

Whether they can achieve it remains a separate question. None of the basic facts have changed since June 2025: Iran still possesses highly enriched uranium and likely the know-how necessary to produce at least a crude nuclear weapon. This uranium is located in protected spaces that could also contain other equipment needed for the production of nuclear weapons. Iran’s nuclear scientists, although under constant scrutiny by U.S. and Israeli intelligence services, could be tasked by the Iranian leadership with producing at least one such device to test in the hope of demonstrating a capability that might deter further U.S. operations, especially the deployment of U.S. ground troops, which Trump has said he might contemplate. It is also worth noting that Iran has been accused by the United States of being in noncompliance with the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention and could have stocks of chemical weapons that could be deployed in extremis.

Protesters holding pictures of Iranian scientists and military commanders killed in Israeli strikes, Tehran.

 

The Least Bad Option

Given the uncertainty and the stakes, Washington must prioritize the nuclear issue. It has two bad options for how to do so. First, the United States could cut a deal with Iran’s current authorities. It is unlikely that U.S. military operations will continue indefinitely because of constraints on munitions and missile defense interceptors, even if Iran’s government remains in place. At some point, a cease-fire will take effect, but the United States could precondition its observance of such a cease-fire with an immediate, full accounting and removal of highly enriched uranium from Iran. This process would take time, but with cooperation, it could be completed in a few weeks.

This is also not foolproof: Iran has every incentive to cheat on a deal and to maintain a nuclear weapons option, including because Trump has already withdrawn from a nuclear deal with which Iran was complying. It would also result in a deal with the current Iranian government, which is responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Iranian protesters and will also likely try to reemerge as a regional power in the future. But this path may represent the best chance at securely removing the nuclear threat with any certainty.

Alternatively, the United States could press forward with combat operations until the Iranian government collapses, effectively removing Iran’s ability to carry out a coordinated, concerted nuclear weapons program. In this scenario, it is theoretically possible that the constant pressure of U.S. forces will enable opposition forces in the country to emerge and, once empowered, to work with the United States on a managed removal of weapons-usable materials and equipment. This option carries huge risk, however, and it is by no means certain that the regime will collapse under pressure from airstrikes alone. The political scientist Robert Pape has long argued that airpower doesn’t translate to coercive power, and he has expressed skepticism that it will work in this case.

Moreover, this scenario carries its own risks of proliferation, as Iranian scientists and commanders might look to abandon a sinking ship and take their nuclear materials with them. Consequently, such a scenario would require the United States and/or Israel to deploy ground forces at some point to secure and extract Iran’s highly enriched uranium - an exceedingly risky mission, not least because of the potential capture or killing of U.S. or Israeli forces.

Trump embarked the United States on a risky path in his first administration when he rejected a nuclear deal that, although imperfect, had been working to limit Iran’s enrichment capabilities. Over the following eight years, sanctions and negotiations failed to bring about a new agreement. Last June’s U.S.-Israeli strikes set back Iran’s nuclear program but did not end it, and Trump’s inconsistent focus on and assessment of the issue since then have only made it harder to reach a successful outcome. He must now take responsibility for the nuclear risk the world is facing and lay out a clear plan for fixing a problem that, in his two terms as president, he has made manifestly worse.

 

 

For updates click hompage here