When President Trump announced last June that the U.S. military had carried out airstrikes in Iran, he declared that the goal of the operation was nothing short of halting the threat that Iran would ever obtain a nuclear weapon. If Tehran’s leaders did not “make peace,” he said, “future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.”
Mr. Trump reiterated that threat this week, and is now considering another pre-emptive war in Iran, a country whose nuclear program poses almost no immediate threat to the Middle East or to the United States. Little has happened in the past six months to indicate that Iran has made significant strides toward rebuilding its capacity to enrich nuclear fuel and fashion a nuclear warhead, according to interviews with U.S. and European officials and independent groups that monitor Iran’s program.
As a result, there are questions about the timing and motives behind Mr. Trump’s saber rattling. Are his threats simply intended to bring Iran back into nuclear negotiations? Would a military strike against the nuclear program be a pretext to weaken or oust Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran? Why have Mr. Trump’s stated reasons for targeting Iran shifted back to the nuclear program, after he initially said he was seeking to defend the protesters who mounted a brief but powerful challenge to the government?
Moreover, if Iran’s nuclear enrichment program was, as Mr. Trump said last June, “completely and totally obliterated,” what might be the targets of a new strike?
A second U.S. military campaign in Iran, depending on its scope or targets, could be far more destabilizing than the first, for a number of reasons.
First among them is the belief inside the White House that the recent protests in Iran — combined with economic conditions — have so weakened the country’s government that U.S. or Israeli military action could hasten its collapse, with uncertain consequences.
A second is an assessment among Israeli intelligence agencies that an Iranian counter strike using ballistic missiles could focus on large cities in Israel, after Iranian strikes in Israel last year mostly aimed at military and government targets.
Anna Kelly, a White House spokeswoman, said that “President Trump has always been clear: The world’s number one state sponsor of terror can never be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon.” She added that the president had made clear “that he means what he says.”
The Pentagon has backed up Mr. Trump’s threats, beginning a large military buildup in the Middle East, including the Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and various support ships capable of firing Tomahawk missiles. Fighter jets, refueling capabilities and missile defenses have all flowed into the region. But even the president’s senior advisers admit that they do not have a clear idea of what may come if the situation continued to escalate.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio was pressed at a Senate hearing on Wednesday about what would happen if Iran’s government were to fall. “That’s an open question,” he said, adding that the power in the Iranian government was divided between Ayatollah Khamenei and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
“I don’t think anyone can give you a simple answer as to what happens next in Iran if the Supreme Leader and the regime were to fall,” he said.
With Iran, he said, “you are talking about a regime that has been in place for a very long time. So that’s going to require a lot of careful thinking, if that eventuality ever presents itself.”
Mr. Trump promised in a social media post on Wednesday that the U.S. military would act “with speed and violence” if Iran was not willing to “negotiate a fair and equitable deal” to eliminate its nuclear program. Mr. Rubio, though, described the U.S. buildup in the region as largely defensive, saying that 30,000 to 40,000 American troops in the Middle East were within range of Iranian drones and missiles.
But he allowed that the buildup could help if the president decided on a “pre-emptive defensive option, if we have indications they are preparing to attack our troops in the region.”
The prospect of more U.S. strikes in Iran has, thus far, evoked only tepid opposition from Democratic lawmakers. But some see Mr. Trump’s strategy of threatening military action to achieve nuclear diplomacy as misguided.
“Donald Trump doesn’t see a problem he doesn’t want to bomb his way out of,” said Representative Jason Crow, the Colorado Democrat who serves on the House Armed Services Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. “What we need is a permanent and verifiable agreement to prevent Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon.”
U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies have made it a top priority to collect intelligence on how Iran is recovering from the strikes last year, scouring satellite photos, communications intercepts and human sources for insight into Tehran’s decision-making.
The intelligence is somewhat ambiguous, people briefed on it said. The enriched uranium buried at the three sites struck in June — the fuel that is closest to being turned into bomb-grade material — remains in place, apparently buried and untouched. Without access to that stockpile, most of which is in a facility in Isfahan, making even a few crude weapons would be extremely difficult.
The Iranians are working at their nuclear sites, trying to dig deeper, beyond the reach of the United States’ most powerful conventional bombs. But Western intelligence agencies have not picked up indications that high-level enrichment is underway to make bomb-grade material, or other moves to produce an actual warhead, people familiar with the intelligence said.
Iran has not built new nuclear sites, according to several people briefed on U.S. intelligence assessments. Iranian activity has, however, been detected at two still-incomplete nuclear sites that were known to the United States, Israel and international inspectors for several years but not struck in last year’s war. One is near Iran’s Natanz nuclear enrichment site, which both Israel and the United States struck. Another is near Isfahan.
U.S. government assessments about the impact of last June’s strikes are somewhat at odds with the boastful claims made by the president.
In a letter introducing the White House’s National Security Strategy, published in November, Mr. Trump reiterated that the military campaign had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear enrichment capacity. The main strategy document, however, is far more circumspect, declaring only that the military strikes, called Operation Midnight Hammer, “significantly degraded Iran’s nuclear program.”
There is no question that the attack did significant damage.
The centrifuges at the Fordow nuclear site — the focus of last year’s U.S. strikes — remain inoperable. International nuclear inspectors have assessed that the shock alone of the bunker-busting bombs likely destroyed the delicate internal works of those centrifuges, which spin at supersonic speeds. But U.S. officials said that Iran had taken steps to see if they could be replaced.
They are also going farther underground. U.S. intelligence reports have indicated that Iran is excavating in order to build new facilities that would be out of the reach of the most powerful conventional U.S. weapon, the Massive Ordinance Penetrator.
The Pentagon used the weapon last year, demonstrating to Iran exactly how far into rock and earth the bombs could penetrate — one reason previous U.S. administrations were reluctant to use the weapon.
Some U.S. officials reviewing the intelligence reports estimated that if Iran were able to retrieve its buried nuclear fuel and get new or existing sites to be operational, it would need about two months to restart its centrifuges and get back to where it was before last year’s strike.
Were it able to enrich its uranium to bomb grade, Iran would still have to make a bomb, a process that would take months, at least.
But the Iranian government has seemed paralyzed. While they have prepared the sites, they have not taken visible steps to actively enrich uranium to high levels — the necessary precursor to moving to the creation of a weapon. Iranian leaders believe that Israeli intelligence has so penetrated their government and scientific infrastructure that Israel and the United States would quickly learn about any nuclear revival.
And any such activity would give both the United States and Israel reason to “mow the lawn,” the term used in both countries to describe a repeat strike. Those fears of discovery, so far, have held back the Iranian government from advancing its nuclear work, even as it digs deeper at existing sites.
Israeli intelligence assessments about the state of Iran’s nuclear program do not differ significantly from those of U.S. spy agencies. They broadly conclude that last year’s military campaign set back the Iranian nuclear project by six months to a year.
The concern in Israel is much greater, however, about Iran’s efforts to upgrade its arsenal of ballistic missiles and drones that could inflict significant damage to Israel in the event of another round of fighting.
During the fighting last year, Israel succeeded in intercepting and destroying more than 80 percent of the missiles fired by Iran. Israeli intelligence officials believe, however, that Iran could calculate that Israel is more vulnerable this time around, without enough interceptors to defend cities from attack.
Mr. Trump’s recent public statements on Iran’s nuclear efforts have been cryptic, but have suggested that he believes Iran was not deterred by the U.S. strikes last year.
Standing beside Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in December, the president said he had “been reading that they’re building up weapons and other things.”
“We know exactly where they’re going, what they’re doing, and I hope they’re not doing it, because we don’t want to waste the fuel on a B-2,” Mr. Trump said then. “It’s a 37-hour trip both ways.”
Mark Mazzetti is an investigative reporter based in Washington, D.C., focusing on national security, intelligence, and foreign affairs. He has written a book about the C.I.A.
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