Iran's Nuclear Program - Destroyed or Not?

Even as it is still not clear whether lran’s’ capabilities have been damaged by US-Israel bombings, it puzzles one with Iran’s obsession for nuclear program, writes Asad Mirza.

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US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the US attack on Tran obliterated its nuclear program and prompted the ceasefire.

However, a US official briefed on the Defence Intelligence Agency’s initial assessment said the core components of Iran's nuclear program appeared to remain intact.

An outraged Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth on June 26 countered by calling the bombings a “resounding success” and accusing some media outlets of “trying to make the president look bad.”

Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei maintained that the bombings “failed to achieve anything significant,” forcing Israel and the US to abandon their attacks. “They could not accomplish anything,” he said. “They failed to achieve their goal. They exaggerate to conceal and suppress the truth.”

Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), took a middle path, saying the Iranian program suffered “enormous damage.” He said three primary sites - Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan - were hit hard but other locations were not affected at all. The nuclear program can be rebuilt, he said, but he declined to put a timeline on it.

As far as Iran’s response to the Israeli attacks were concerned, R Swaminathan, Governor of India to the IAEA, Vienna, in his article has rightly summed it up by saying that the most striking feature of Iran’s response was not what it did, but what it deliberately avoided — it did not withdraw from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and refrained from activating its regional proxies or disrupting the Strait of Hormuz. Further, the Supreme National Security Council has not yet endorsed the decision of Iran's Parliament to suspend its cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).