Returning early from the Group of Seven summit in Canada early on Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump instructed reporters he believed Iran was “very shut” to constructing nuclear weapons.
His feedback have been consistent with more and more threatening social media posts and language from Trump in opposition to Iran in latest days throughout Israel’s escalating battle with its longtime Center Japanese rival.
Since Friday, Israel has bombed Iran’s high nuclear amenities and has killed no less than 14 Iranian nuclear scientists. Israel’s armed forces stated the scientists “have been key components within the growth of Iranian nuclear weapons” and “their elimination is a big blow to the regime’s skill to amass weapons of mass destruction (WMDs).”
Iran insists that its nuclear programme is totally peaceable and for civilian functions. It factors to Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei’s edict in opposition to nuclear weapons to again up its assertion.
However Trump’s feedback on Monday echoed the claims made on a number of events by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for greater than 20 years – and repeated by him in the course of the present battle – to justify army motion in opposition to Iran.
“In latest months, Iran has taken steps that it has by no means taken earlier than: steps to weaponise enriched uranium,” Netanyahu stated on Friday after the primary wave of missiles struck Iranian nuclear amenities.
So is Iran certainly near constructing a nuclear bomb as Trump and Netanyahu declare? And are there parallels between the accusations in opposition to Iran and the fraudulent allegations of nonexistent WMDs utilized by the US and its allies to assault Iraq in 2003?
We take a look at the details and assessments of the US’s personal intelligence neighborhood and the United Nations nuclear watchdog, the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company (IAEA).
What does US intelligence say about Iran’s nuclear programme?
On March 25, Trump’s director of nationwide intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, unambiguously instructed members of the US Congress that Iran was not transferring in the direction of constructing nuclear weapons.
“The IC (intelligence neighborhood) continues to evaluate that Iran is just not constructing a nuclear weapon and Supreme Chief Khamenei has not licensed the nuclear weapons programme he suspended in 2003,” she stated, referring to a set of US spy companies that collaborate to make such assessments.
However Gabbard additionally stated there had been an “erosion of a decades-long taboo in Iran on discussing nuclear weapons in public, seemingly emboldening nuclear weapons advocates inside Iran’s decision-making equipment”.
Iran’s “enriched uranium stockpile is at its highest ranges and is unprecedented for a state with out nuclear weapons,” she added.
On Monday, when reporters quoted Gabbard’s testimony to Trump, he stated: “I don’t care what she stated. I believe they have been very near having” a nuclear weapon.
“Iran can not have a nuclear weapon. It’s quite simple,” he added.
Gabbard, when requested about Trump’s feedback, instructed reporters that she and the US president have been aligned – however didn’t clarify how, given their differing assessments of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
What does the US army suppose?
On June 10, three days earlier than Israel launched its assaults on Iran, Erik Kurilla, the commander of the US army’s Central Command, instructed a Senate committee that Tehran was “persevering with to progress in the direction of a nuclear weapons” programme.
On the floor, that evaluation seems to be at odds with Gabbard’s from March. However Kurilla didn’t say that the US army thought Iran presently had a programme to develop nuclear bombs – however that it was progressing in the direction of such a stage.
What the overall did do was to query why Iran had excessive ranges of enriched uranium. “Stockpiles of enriched uranium proceed to build up in amenities throughout the nation beneath the guise of a civilian nuclear programme,” he stated. “Iran continues to achieve data and abilities immediately linked to nuclear weapon manufacturing.”
What’s uranium enrichment, and what has Iran been doing?
Iran has been enriching uranium at as much as 60 % purity – and that has involved the IAEA and critics of Tehran’s nuclear programme.
Uranium enrichment is the method of accelerating the focus of the uranium-235 isotope in pure uranium, which usually accommodates solely about 0.7 % U-235. To construct a nuclear weapon, uranium should be enriched to about 90 % U-235. As soon as enriched to these ranges, uranium is taken into account “weapons-grade”.
As soon as uranium is enriched to 60 %, it reduces the time required to achieve weapons-grade, which is why increased enrichment ranges entice higher scrutiny from watchdogs just like the IAEA.
Iran denies pursuing nuclear weapons and asserts its reliable proper, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to develop nuclear know-how for peaceable functions, together with uranium enrichment.
Does the IAEA suppose Iran is constructing nuclear weapons?
Addressing the UN watchdog’s Board of Governors on June 9, IAEA Director Common Rafael Grossi stated Iran had accrued 400kg (880lb) of uranium enriched to 60 %.
“Whereas safeguarded enrichment actions aren’t forbidden in and of themselves, the truth that Iran is the one non-nuclear-weapon State on this planet that’s producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60 % stays a matter of great concern,” he stated in a report back to the Board of Governors.
On Thursday, a day earlier than Israel’s assaults on Iran’s nuclear amenities, the IAEA board handed a decision censuring Tehran and accusing it of violating its safeguards-related commitments to the UN company.
However in an interview with CNN on Tuesday, Grossi was emphatic that Iran’s alleged violations of its assurances had not led his company to conclude that Tehran was constructing bombs.
“We didn’t have any proof of a scientific effort to maneuver right into a nuclear weapon,” he stated.
“We didn’t have any proof of a scientific effort to maneuver right into a nuclear weapon.” @aahen Director Common affirms his company’s findings about Iran’s nuclear program. pic.twitter.com/TmHx7rtfjJ
— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) June 17, 2025
In the meantime, Iran’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs and Atomic Vitality Group have rejected the IAEA’s decision, insisting that Tehran remained dedicated to its safeguards obligations.
Can Iran construct nuclear weapons quickly – and the way quickly?
In his June 10 testimony, Kurilla claimed that if Iran have been to resolve to “dash to a nuclear weapon”, it had sufficient stockpiles and centrifuges to provide as much as 25kg (55lb) of weapons-grade uranium in “roughly one week” and sufficient to construct as much as 10 weapons in three weeks.
However Grossi, within the CNN interview on Tuesday, prompt a really completely different timeline.
“Actually, it was not for tomorrow, perhaps not a matter of years,” he stated. “I don’t suppose it was a matter of years.”
And neither Kurilla, a army commander, nor Grossi, the boss of the UN’s nuclear regulator, have indicated how lengthy they suppose it would take a rustic to really construct atomic weapons as soon as they’ve a stockpile of weapons-grade uranium, even when that have been Iran’s intention.
Kelsey Davenport, director for nonproliferation coverage on the US-based nonprofit Arms Management Affiliation, prompt Israel additionally is aware of that Iran has no imminent skill to construct a bomb.
“If there was actually an imminent proliferation danger, if Israel actually thought that Iran was dashing in the direction of a nuclear weapon, I believe there would have been a way more sustained marketing campaign making an attempt to disrupt actions at Fordow and different actions on the Natanz web site,” she instructed Al Jazeera, referring to Iranian nuclear amenities.
Are there echoes of 2003 and WMDs within the present debate?
To a number of observers of the Center East, there are.
Within the lead-up to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, the US and the UK asserted that Iraq possessed WMDs, together with chemical and organic weapons, and that it was pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.
These claims have been central to justifying army motion beneath the argument that Iraq posed an imminent menace to regional and world safety. The US intelligence assessments on the time, together with the 2002 Nationwide Intelligence Estimate, supported this view though with various levels of confidence.
After the invasion, in depth searches discovered no lively WMD programmes in Iraq.
Subsequent investigations, together with these by the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the UK’s Chilcot Inquiry, concluded that the intelligence was deeply flawed and was politicised by leaders to overstate Iraq’s WMD capabilities to construct a case for the invasion.
