There are nine nuclear-armed nations, and Iran wishes to be the tenth. For decades, the United States, along with European allies, has been trying to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons, producing several iterations of the Iran nuclear deal, all of which failed to stop Iran’s progress. This is one of the primary reasons President Trump decided in 2025 and again in 2026 to launch strikes against Iran.

Opponents of those strikes have attempted to rewrite history by claiming Iran has no ambition to build nuclear weapons, that Iran has stopped trying, that the nuclear treaty would have prevented Iran from obtaining weapons and that Trump was wrong to withdraw, that the strikes either irreversibly destroyed Iran’s nuclear program or did nothing to it, that Iran should have nuclear weapons because other nations do, and that Iran poses a threat to no one.

None of these claims holds up. Iran’s nuclear ambitions are not recent. The country’s program drew intense international pressure starting in 2002, when an anti-regime group alleged that Iran had secretly built a pair of nuclear facilities, and the IAEA confirmed that until 2003, Iran had a “structured program” to carry out activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device.

In October 2025, former Iranian defense ministerAli Shamkhanistated, “If I returned to the defense portfolio, I would move toward building an atomic bomb,” and declared that if he could return to the 1990s, “we would definitely build the atomic bomb.” According to the Institute forInternational Political Studies, sources in Tehran reported that in October 2025, Khamenei had authorized the development of miniaturized nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles, despite denials issued at earlier dates.

Those who claim Iran has ceased pursuing weapons must contend with the IAEA’s own record. In December 2024, IAEA DirectorGeneral Rafael Grossisaid that Tehran was “dramatically” ramping up uranium enrichment to up to 60 percent, close to the roughly 90 percent weapons-grade threshold. By February 2025, U.S. intelligence indicated that a covert team of scientists was orchestrating a faster, though cruder, approach to creating an atomic weapon. As of the June 2025 strikes, Iran had enriched some 972 pounds of uranium up to 60 percent purity, according to IAEA estimates.

The claim that the JCPOA would have permanently prevented Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons is contradicted by the deal’s own structure. The JCPOA contained sunset provisions, including lifting limits on centrifuges after 10 years and reduced enrichment caps lasting only 15 years, leading to concerns that the deal would only temporarily delay Iran’s nuclear program. TheUnited Against Nuclear Iranassessment said that the deal provides Iran with a clear pathway to nuclear weapons, as enrichment and plutonium-processing restrictions end between 2026 and 2031, potentially reducing breakout time to weeks, if not days.

Then-President Obama acknowledged in 2015 that after those restrictions expired, breakout time would fall to “almost down to zero.” RAND summarized the structural problem: the original JCPOA was not a permanent limitation but a pause, after which Iran could drop the Additional Protocol and sprint to develop a nuclear weapon.

Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018 for precisely these reasons. TheWhite House announcementstated that the JCPOA enriched the Iranian regime and enabled its malign behavior, while at best delaying its ability to pursue nuclear weapons and allowing it to preserve nuclear research and development. Trump called it “the worst deal ever,” so terrible it could lead to “a nuclear holocaust.”

On the question of whether the 2025 strikes fully destroyed or had no effect on Iran’s nuclear program, both extremes are false. On March 3, 2026, the IAEA confirmed that while recent bombings had failed to destroy the Natanz nuclear facility, significant damage to its entrance buildings had made it inaccessible. Iran was simultaneously working to reconstitute its program.

According to theAlma Researchand Education Center, Iran was using the opening of negotiations to transfer centrifuges and sensitive equipment to protected production lines deep underground, while parallel excavation of a new facility south of Natanz continued with greater intensity. The full extent of damage to Iran’s enrichment program remains unclear, as the IAEA withdrew inspectors in June 2025 and has not been able to inspect the attacked facilities.

Source: The Gateway Pundit