• Military
• Iran
• Middle East and North Africa

June 16, 2025, 3:20 PM View Comments ()

Since June 13, Israel has been carrying out a major military campaign against Iran, with the stated aim of destroying the country’s nuclear program. Although the United States first distanced itself from the strike, U.S. President Donald Trump later embraced it, posting on social media that he had warned Iran about the consequences of not making a deal. He also claimed that the strike was “excellent” and said it could make it more likely that Tehran accepts an agreement.

It is impossible to predict at this point how the war will evolve, let alone conclude. But chances are good that Israel’s attack on Iran will not have the effect that Trump hopes. Instead, it will make reaching a diplomatic agreement harder and increase the chances that Iran eventually builds a nuclear weapon.

While Iran’s nuclear program was advanced—and was advancing—there’s been no evidence presented so far that Iran was dashing for a bomb. In his speech defending the military campaign, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iran had recently taken “steps to weaponize” its “enriched uranium.” But he also said that Iran’s timeline to a bomb “could be a year; it could be within a few months.”

Indeed, as recently as March, U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard testified that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” and said that Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.” Nor had talks between the United States and Iran collapsed, which was the other rumored red line for an Israeli strike. The next round of the U.S.-Iran meetings was scheduled for Sunday, though Iran canceled following the Israeli attack.

The extent of damage to Iran’s program and what this means for its ability build a bomb are unclear. Iran has two operational, deeply buried enrichment facilities—Natanz and Fordow.

Israel struck Natanz, destroying above ground equipment and reportedly cutting power to the underground cascade halls. Such an abrupt loss of power could have damaged the centrifuges.

Fordow, where Iran has thousands of advanced centrifuges producing near-weapons-grade, uranium is buried even deeper, and thus an even tougher target for the Israeli military. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated on Monday that there was no observed damage at Fordow, suggesting that unless there has been an unreported act of sabotage, the centrifuges underground remain intact and operational.

We also do not know the status of Iran’s stockpiles of 20 percent and 60 percent enriched uranium, which it would need to feed into its centrifuge to produce the weapons-grade uranium for bombs. If that stockpile has been eliminated or is inaccessible, that would pose a significant barrier to Iran’s ability to build a bomb in the near term. This is especially true given that Israel has reportedly destroyed the facility that Iran would use to produce more gas that can be enriched. Finally, Israel has also assassinated of a number of the scientists who would have actually built a nuclear device and destroyed the facilities where that could have taken place.

So where does this leave Iran? Tehran could swallow its pride and dismantle its enrichment program before the current conflict escalates and threatens the regime’s survival. There are historical precedents—most notably, the Iran-Iraq War—that occurred when Iranian leaders were under extreme pressure and made major decisions that were once unthinkable. That is certainly the outcome that Trump appears to be hoping for.

But the United States and Israel have given Iran little reason to believe that giving up its enrichment program will solve its problems. There’s a significant risk that Iran believes that the U.S. efforts to negotiate a deal were simply a ruse—a delaying tactic for Israel to prepare its military attack.

The widespread nature of Israel’s assault, which included attacks against senior Iranian officials and energy infrastructure, may also convince Iran that Israel is targeting the regime itself, not pushing Iran toward a nuclear deal. Indeed, in his address aimed directly at the Iranian people, Netanyahu described the Israeli operation as “clearing the path” for the overthrow of the regime. If Iran believes that there are no restraints on Israel’s violence, then it has little incentive to make a deal.

More fundamentally, however, Israel is not likely to be a party to any nuclear agreement with Iran. As Israel’s rhetoric and actions make clear, its issue isn’t just with the nuclear program, but also the Islamic Republic itself. Even if Washington and Tehran can hash out an arrangement, the risk of Israeli military action or sabotage would remain. The fact that this month’s Israeli attack began while talks with the United States were ongoing underscores that risk. That continued threat would make it very hard for Iran to give up what is arguably the last remaining element of its deterrent—its nuclear threshold capability.

Instead, this conflict could well push Iran to rebuild its program in ways that are harder to monitor, then attempt to build a bomb, either now or in the future. With its proxy forces defanged by Israel, its conventional military capabilities degraded, and its adversaries closing in, Iran may see producing even a rudimentary bomb as the only option that it has left.

Doing so would be consistent with the creeping “militarization” of Iran’s nuclear program that has followed in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks carried out by Hamas against Israel. As threats to Iran escalated and its traditional tools for defending against those threats weakened, Iran fell back on its nuclear program for security. Since 2023, Iran has engaged in new, dual-use weaponization work. Late last year, it was reportedly exploring faster pathways to a crude nuclear device—perhaps in preparation for a scenario such as the one that it faces today. Iran also tried to publicly leverage threats to use its threshold capability to build a bomb in order to deter Israeli strikes. Calls for building nuclear weapons have increased across the political spectrum in Iran, and polls from last year show that most Iranian citizens view possessing nuclear weapons favorably.

The public discourse likely reflected—and influenced—debates behind closed doors. Indeed, as the U.S. Intelligence Community put it in a threat assessment published in January, that public nuclear debate “has emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus” and—as a result—pressure was building on Khamenei to reauthorize the nuclear weapons program that he halted in 2003. It is hard to imagine that recent events have attenuated these views or reversed these logics.

Even if Iran does not, or cannot, go for the bomb immediately, it could take other steps that remove barriers or make the program even more impervious to military action. For example, Tehran could invoke the withdrawal provision for the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT)—the treaty that provides the key legal basis for the presence of inspectors in Iran. Tehran has threatened to leave the NPT if United Nations sanctions are reimposed, a far lesser transgression than the assault underway now. On June 15, Iranian lawmakers were reportedly preparing a law that would require Iran to leave the treaty. Though the ultimate decision on whether to do so lies with the supreme leader, that process bears watching in the coming days.

Even absent a withdrawal from the NPT, it is doubtful that international inspectors can access key facilities today with an active war going on—an excuse that Tehran may continue to use even after fighting dies down. This significantly complicates the international community’s ability to monitor Iran’s activities. Iran could potentially use the Fordow enrichment site, if still functioning, to produce weapons-grade uranium. Given the country’s mastery of advanced centrifuges and the likely existence of a large stockpile of them, it could also work to establish a new covert enrichment site.

Indeed, a spokesperson for Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization stated that before the strikes against Fordow, Iran “had already moved a significant part of the equipment and materials out.” This raises the prospect that this material is now in an unknown location and available for a breakout.

Reconstituting a covert route would be difficult given the extensive Israeli intelligence penetration into Iran’s program, but perhaps not impossible over time. Iran has the inherent knowledge and expertise to rebuild those capacities, and it could put them in a place that was out of reach to Israeli and even U.S. strike capabilities. To date, Iran has relied largely on its civilian atomic energy organization to build large enrichment facilities that maintain the potential for peaceful use as a fig leaf. Iran could instead pivot to building a small facility geared toward the specific purpose of producing a bomb as quickly as possible.

The trajectory of the conflict appears bleak. Israel has set back but not ended Iran’s nuclear program. It now seems focused on trying to destabilize and eventually end the regime. Iran is not likely to go quietly, and there is a significant risk that the United States will also become embroiled in the war. Washington’s entry would certainly provide additional military capabilities—including so-called “bunker buster” bombs—to help degrade key nuclear facilities such as Fordow. But precisely for that reason, direct U.S. involvement might also remove one of the final considerations preventing Iran from going for the bomb.

It remains possible that opportunities and off-ramps will emerge in the coming days and weeks. Trump’s initial instinct to try to negotiate a deal with Iran was right. But that goal is now in serious danger, as is Trump’s commitment to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. As this conflict goes on, the risk of Iran resolving to build a bomb grows.