Iran nuclear program could grow more secretive after US strikes
Growing concern at how much less visibility into Iran’s nuclear program the international community may have in the future as a result of Iran’s response to the U.S. and Israeli bombing
A day after Trump proclaimed that “Iran’s key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated” by U.S. strikes, the picture that emerged today is murkier. There was uncertainty about how much Iran’s nuclear program had actually been set back by the strikes, as well as growing concern at how much less visibility into Iran’s nuclear program the international community may have in the future as a result of Iran’s response to the U.S. and Israeli bombing.
Top Trump administration officials also offered contradictory statements about how determined the United States was to limit its military involvement in Iran or whether it could get pulled into a regime change endeavor should Iran not agree to curtail its nuclear program through negotiations.
Rubio: Would be end of Iran regime if seeks to become nuclear weapons power
“Look, at the end of the day, if Iran is committed to becoming a nuclear weapons power, I do think it put the regime at risk,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Fox News’ Marie Bartiromo. “I really do think it would be the end of the regime if they tried to do that.”
“We’re not at war with Iran,” Vice President JD Vance told NBC’s Meet the Press. “We’re at war with Iran’s nuclear program.”
Pressed on how much damage was done to Iran’s heavily fortified Fordo underground enrichment facility, Vance said whether it was “severely damaged versus obliterated—I’m not exactly sure what the difference is,” he told ABC’s This Week. “What we know is that we set their nuclear program back substantially.”
However, earlier today, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine declined to say how much damage had been done to Iran’s nuclear program in the US strikes on three nuclear facilities, saying the battlefield damage assessment was still being conducted and “will take some time.”
“I think the [battlefield damage assessment] BDA is still pending, and it would be way too early for me to comment on what may or may not still be there, but thanks for the question,” Caine said at a rare Pentagon press briefing.
Ex CIA analyst: US intel may not have clear read on what happened to Fordo
Former CIA analyst Ken Pollack said the U.S. intelligence community may not be able to precisely determine how much damage to nuclear infrastructure occurred at Fordo, and explained how hard it will be going forward to prevent Iran from reconstituting its nuclear program.
“We don't know what the American strike accomplished,” Pollack, now vice president of the Middle East Institute, said on an MEI virtual panel on Sunday.
“We've heard the initial briefings,” he said. “I did look at the satellite photographs of Fordo. There are a couple of holes, and it’s clear that the surface earth has shifted. But I find it very difficult to tell what the extent of the damage that was done to Fordo. And quite frankly, I am going to be surprised if the US intelligence community has a really good read on what happened to Fordo.”
“It looks like we put multiple munitions down the same shaft,” he said. “But we don’t know for certain what wound up happening down at the bottom.”
“No one, including the IAEA, is in a potion to assess the underground damage at Fordo,” International Atomic Energy Agency director general Rafael Grossi told the UN Security Council on Sunday.
Iran is likely to make its sensitive nuclear work far less transparent to IAEA inspectors as a result of the US and Israeli bombing, said Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association.
“Bottom lines: as a result of the Israeli and U.S. bombings will be that Iran’s ongoing sensitive nuclear activities will be far less transparent and their capability to weaponize the program, while damaged, is still there,” Kimball wrote on Twitter.
“The U.S. military strikes on Iranian nuclear targets…may temporarily set back Iran’s nuclear program, but in the long term, military action is likely to push Iran to determine nuclear weapons are necessary for deterrence, and that Washington is not interested in diplomacy,” the Arms Control Association said.
MEI’s Pollack agreed, Iran has little incentive to be forthcoming.
“There’s also an initial Iranian response, which is that there was damage to Fordo, but that that damage is not irreversible,” he said. But “that could be all subterfuge. The Iranian regime, at this moment in time, has absolutely no incentive to be truthful about what happened in Fordo.”
Iran has the knowledge to reconstitute nuclear program, now with possible added incentive to weaponize
“We should also recognize that even if the United States did wipe out Fordo, finish off Natanz, finish off Esfahan, that doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the Iran nuclear program,” Pollack said.
“Iran has a tremendous amount of knowledge about how to build nuclear weapons at this point in time,” he said. “And we have to recognize that even with all of the damage that Israel has done in terms of killing Iranian nuclear scientists, no one is ever going to be able to assassinate Iran back to nuclear ignorance. It’s simply not possible. If the Iranians would like to do so, they will be able to reconstitute again. They have the knowledge of how to do so.
‘Deft diplomacy’ required to prevent Iran reconstituting nuclear program
“How do you keep Iran from reconstituting its nuclear program: it’s probably going to require some very deft diplomacy, coupled with the threat of force, possibly with some additional force,” Pollack said. “This is the kind of thing that is going to be so difficult because of…how little trust there is in this Iranian regime with the Trump administration.”
“So far, the Trump administration has not demonstrated a capacity for that kind of deft diplomacy,” he said. “Perhaps they will rise to the occasion. We should all hope that they will. But this is the kind of situation that we find ourselves in.”
Iran officials feel Trump White House has deceived them repeatedly
Iranian officials are more distrustful than ever about what the Trump administration says it wants—a negotiated deal--and perhaps isn’t sure that they themselves know, said Alex Vatanka, an Iran expert at MEI.
“The big question, if you’re sitting in Tehran right now, is uncertainty in terms of what the U.S. really wants,” Vatanka said. “Because if you’re an Iranian official….do you have any reason to trust anything that comes out of the White House?”
“Because they have been deceived repeatedly, right,” Vatanka continued. “So at this point, JD Vance and President Trump are saying and tweeting, regime change isn’t on the agenda. But I don’t think the Iranians are convinced.”
Iran official: ‘The game isn’t over’
Senior Iranian official Ali Shamkhani, an advisor to Iran’s Supreme Leader on the Iran nuclear negotiations, who survived an attempted Israeli assassination attempt this month, suggested that Iran still had cards to play.
“Even if the nuclear sites are destroyed, the game isn’t over,” Shamkhani wrote on Twitter. “Enriched materials, indigenous knowledge, political will remain. With the legitimate right to self-defense, the political and operational initiative is now with the side that plays smart, and avoids blind strikes. Surprises will continue!”
Meantime, a spokesman for the Iranian parliament National Security and Foreign Policy committee said Iran’s withdrawal from the NPT and ending cooperation with the IAEA are “on the agenda,” Iranian journalist Saeed Azimi reported.
(Photo: Screenshot of a Maxar satellite image of the holes in the earth above the Fordo nuclear facility near Qom, Iran on June 22, 2025, posted to Twitter.)
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