Announcing that the United States had bombed Iran, President Donald Trump prematurely asserted Saturday that Iran’s nuclear program was “completely and fully obliterated.” It’s unclear whether he knows the truth and is trying to mislead or doesn’t care about the truth and is just saying what he thinks sounds good, but there’s no way a real damage assessment could happen that quickly. Most likely, the United States damaged but didn’t totally destroy the nuclear facilities it targeted or end Iran’s nuclear program.
The U.S. has incentivized Iran to get a bomb. North Korea has nukes, and the U.S. doesn’t attack it. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq didn’t have nukes, and the U.S. invaded.
Since the world first confronted the Iranian nuclear question in the 2000s, after the International Atomic Energy Agency assessed that Tehran wasn’t following the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, there have been only two ways to stop Iran from eventually get nukes: The Islamic Republic chooses not to, as many technologically capable countries have, or the regime is overthrown. Iran learned from Israeli attacks on nascent nuclear programs in Iraq (1981) and Syria (2007), dispersing and hardening its nuclear facilities to make a military solution nearly impossible.
The international community managed a diplomatic solution, called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, as years of global sanctions got Iran to make concessions. All countries that signed the deal — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia and China — assessed that Iran was following it, as did the International Atomic Energy Agency. But in 2018, in his first term, Trump reneged, let Iran out of nuclear restrictions in exchange for nothing and reimposed sanctions.
Other countries didn’t join, leaving Iran under less pressure. And it had less reason to negotiate with the United States, since America broke the last deal without cause. As many warned at the time, Trump’s 2018 decision put the situation on a path to a nuclear-armed Iran or war. And here we are.
Iran says it evacuated the facilities the United States bombed and moved nuclear material elsewhere. No one should simply take its word — it has lied about its nuclear program before, and it has incentives to downplay the damage — but it’s plausible, since the United States attacked a week after Israel started bombing Iran and spent that time issuing threats. (Sen. Markwayne Mullin, R-Okla., citing intelligence he’d seen, pushed back on the claim Monday, maintaining the United States destroyed the material.)
Mohammad Eslami, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said last week — before the United States or Israel started bombing — that Iran had built another secret, hardened enrichment facility. There’s a decent chance that’s true, though whether Iran has enrichment centrifuges running there or whether it’s ready to install equipment is unknown. But even if Eslami lied in an attempt to discourage an attack, it highlights something important: Iran’s nuclear program is so dispersed that destroying one or two facilities wouldn’t end it. Iran can always construct more.
You can’t bomb knowledge. Iran knows how to build centrifuges and enrich uranium to weapons grade. Nuclear bombs are based on 80-year-old technology, with the basics of bomb design available on the internet and portrayed in popular movies such as “Oppenheimer.” Israel can kill Iranian nuclear scientists — as it did clandestinely in the early 2010s and overtly this month — but Iran doesn’t need a genius to invent something new. It just needs engineers who can repeat already-accomplished tasks.
And the United States has incentivized Iran to get a bomb. North Korea has nukes, and the United States doesn’t attack it. Saddam Hussein’s Iraq didn’t have nukes, and the United States invaded in 2003. Moammar Gadhafi’s Libya didn’t have nukes, either, and the United States helped overthrow him in 2011. Iran accepted a deal in 2015; then the United States reneged in 2018 and bombed in 2025. It looks like nuclear weapons are the only way for an American adversary to stave off attack.
Trump administration officials claim that these strikes were a one-off and that the United States doesn’t want further escalation. Iran fired more missiles into Israel and targeted a U.S. military base in Qatar. But it gave the U.S. and Qatar warning, and there were reportedly no casualties, indicating Iran doesn’t want escalation, either.
On Monday, Trump announced on Truth Social that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran would begin later in the evening. The most damaging Iranian response would be firing into the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint at the end of the Persian Gulf through which about 20% of the world’s oil flows. That would disrupt the global economy, harming the United States in the process, and it would come on top of disruptions from Trump’s tariffs. In response to the U.S. strikes, Iran’s parliament voted to approve closing the strait — ironic, since Trump didn’t ask Congress for authorization for the Iran strikes — sending a final decision to Iran’s National Security Council. However, Iran benefits from keeping its biggest card in reserve, in case the United States attempts a regime change war. On Monday, Trump announced on Truth Social that a ceasefire between Israel and Iran would begin later in the evening, with the details still to be confirmed. If Israel stops firing, the situation could settle down (for now). But if Israel continues attacking, Iran could retaliate more, and the United States could end up attacking again. Whatever Iran decides, it’s unlikely to give up all of its nuclear technology. That has been Iran’s position this entire century: claiming it doesn’t want weapons (which few outside Iran believe), saying it’s open to restrictions on weapons-related activities but adamantly against forfeiting everything. If Trump expects Iranian capitulation, he’ll most likely be disappointed. If neither negotiations nor limited strikes end Iran’s nuclear ambitions, the remaining option is regime change. Except no government has collapsed under aerial bombardment alone. And even if Iran’s does, what follows would probably be a dangerous power vacuum or another nationalistic government. Perhaps the ceasefire Trump announced will, indeed, go into effect and hold. But even in this optimistic scenario, the Iranian nuclear question remains. Thanks to Donald Trump, it has become even harder to address.
Nicholas Grossman
Nicholas Grossman is a political science professor at the University of Illinois, editor of Arc Digital and the author of "Drones and Terrorism." 
