Trump said he had ‘destroyed’ Iran’s nuclear program. Now he says the US may have to bomb Iran again.

President Donald Trump said Iran’s nuclear program was “destroyed” last summer, but now he says the US may have to bomb Iran again because of Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Like most American forces in the region, he and his commanders have provided various assessments of Iran’s military capabilities and intentions. In the latest moment after many zigzags, on Tuesday night Trump described what he called “the evil nuclear ambitions of the Islamic Republic.”

These and other threats against the US were quickly dismissed by Tehran as “a series of big lies.”

Trump’s remarks in the State of the Union address followed weeks of mixed messages from Washington on the reasons for the US military build-up in the region and the urgency of the Iranian nuclear threat. The Trump administration is simultaneously pursuing a diplomatic channel, which will see the two sides meet for a new round of talks on Thursday.

Iran denies it wants to build a nuclear weapon, says its nuclear program is peaceful and aimed at producing energy, and has warned of massive retaliation for even a limited attack by the US or Israel.

What Trump said

Trump first threatened to intervene in the country’s deadly unrest in Iran last month, but in recent weeks his public threats have focused on the country’s nuclear program.

US officials have recently suggested that despite last summer’s attack, Iran is actually very close to having the capability to develop nuclear weapons.

Operation Midnight Hammer was a success, Trump said near the end of his speech, but added that despite being “warned against future attempts to rebuild” its nuclear weapons program, Tehran “has been starting over.”

The first US assessment after the June operation found that only one nuclear enrichment site had been seriously damaged, while the other two targets may have been brought down, setting back progress by several months.

Trump also said in his speech on Tuesday that although Iran has expressed a desire to make a deal during the negotiations, “we have not heard those secret words, ‘We will not have a nuclear weapon.’

He said his “preference is to resolve the issue through dialogue,” but vowed that he would not “allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism, which is him, to have a nuclear weapon.”

He also explained why this can be so stressful.

“They have already developed ballistic missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they are working on developing missiles that will soon arrive in the United States of America,” Trump said.

Iran has denounced Trump’s claims as “false,” with Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei calling for comparisons to Nazi propaganda.

“Repeat a lie often enough and the law of propaganda coined by Nazi Joseph Goebbels becomes true,” Baghaei said, referring to the infamous Nazi kingpin. “This is now being systematically used by the US administration and the war profiteers around it.”

Iran is developing vehicles that will allow intercontinental ballistic missiles to hit the US, according to a recent report by the Defense Intelligence Agency of the Department of Defense.

Iran could have 60 ICBMs capable of reaching all parts of the US mainland by 2035, the DIA said, though it added that it would be “if Tehran decides to pursue force.”

It is unclear whether Trump’s comments on Tuesday indicate that the US government acknowledges that Iran has in fact decided to pursue that capability, or that they may now do so more quickly than previously assessed.

The CIA declined to comment on the matter.

Iran’s nuclear capability

Iran has always insisted that it does not have nuclear weapons desires.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reiterated that on Tuesday, saying Iran “will never have a nuclear weapon.” At the same time, he said the country will not give up its right “to use the benefits of peaceful nuclear technology for our people.”

Trump pulled the US out of the landmark Obama-era nuclear deal with Iran in 2018 during his first term in office, three years after Tehran agreed to give up its nuclear weapons program and allow international inspections of its facilities in exchange for the US and other nations lifting sanctions.

Before the US and Israel attacked last year, Iran had developed a large amount of uranium enriched to about the level of purity needed to build a bomb, already above the level needed for civilian energy production.

Rafael Grossi, head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned by 2024 that Tehran was “drastically accelerating” its enrichment of uranium to 60% purity, approaching the 90% level that makes it weapons grade.

Grossi pointed out that the program was severely damaged by US and Israeli strikes, but most of the regime’s highly enriched uranium may have been removed before then. to attack.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff asserted on Saturday that Iran could be as close as one week to having “industrial-grade bomb-making material,” saying its enrichment level is “up to 60 percent.”

Tehran said it considered the allegations “a verbal mistake.”

Having highly enriched uranium does not mean having a weapon, said Dariya Dolzikova, a senior researcher in the Proliferation and Nuclear Policy program at the Royal United Services Institute, or RUSI, a London-based think tank.

It’s just one step in a complicated chain, he said in a phone interview Tuesday. “Just enriching to 90% is not enough. You need to build a nuclear warhead. You need to put it in a delivery system,” he added.

Even though Iran was a week away from having “industrial-level bomb-making equipment,” Dolzikova noted that military action and “anti-proliferation strikes” are not the definitive answers, pointing to strikes in June.

Kelsey Davenport, director of nonproliferation policy at the Washington-based Arms Control Association, said there appears to be “little, if any, sign” of Iran testing and developing a missile capable of targeting the U.S. “If Iran intends to do that, I think it’s years away,” he added.

That speaks to questions about US intentions in the war.

Is Trump using the threat of military action to force Iran to agree to an increase in its nuclear program? His State of the Union address expressed a broad desire to force Iran’s offensive power, as Israel has pushed. But the collapse of the regime and the removal of the country’s leaders can represent a much larger – and unexpected – goal.

Brinkmanship comes at a time when “Iran is weakened,” its “domestic legitimacy, economy compromised” and its “air defense compromised” by both US and Israeli strikes last year, said Burcu Ozcelik, senior Middle East security researcher at the Royal United Services Institute.

“There is a clear sense in Washington and, I think, reinforced by Jerusalem, that Iran is in the most vulnerable position it has been in decades,” said Ross Harrison, a non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute and author of “Decoding Iran’s Foreign Policy.”

“So, this is the time to push it to a certain brink of collapse or erosion.”