Washington — President Trump is pressuring Iran to both curtail its nuclear program or face potential army strikes, grappling with a difficulty that has vexed presidents from each events for many years.
Iran — which denies any nuclear weapons ambitions — has amassed a rising stockpile of uranium that’s enriched to close the extent of purity needed to construct a bomb. Mr. Trump ordered strikes on a trio of key Iranian nuclear websites final June, however now, lower than a 12 months later, the president has prompt army motion is on the desk once more.
“They can not have nuclear weapons. Quite simple,” Mr. Trump stated Thursday, including that he desires a “substantial” take care of Iran, in any other case “unhealthy issues will occur.”
The U.S. and Iran have engaged in oblique negotiations in latest weeks, as a fleet of U.S. naval vessels and army plane arrived within the Center East.
Mr. Trump indicated Thursday that his timeline to succeed in a deal on Iran’s nuclear program is 10 to fifteen days. He has not made a closing resolution on whether or not to strike Iran, CBS Information has reported.
Listed below are some particulars on Iran’s nuclear program:
How shut is Iran to creating a nuclear weapon, and is it constructing one proper now?
In recent times, Iran has quickly elevated its stockpile of extremely enriched uranium. As of mid-June 2025, shortly earlier than the U.S.’s strikes, Iran had enriched some 972 kilos of uranium as much as 60% purity, in keeping with estimates from the Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company.
By comparability, Iran had 605.8 kilos of 60%-enriched uranium in February 2025, and 267.9 kilos a 12 months earlier than that, the IAEA has stated.
That materials is only a brief step away from weapons-grade 90%-enriched uranium.
The U.S. Protection Intelligence Company estimated final Might that it will take Iran “most likely lower than one week” to supply sufficient weapons-grade uranium to make its first bomb, if it determined to take action. Truly constructing a bomb may take considerably longer: One other intelligence abstract from final 12 months discovered that Iran may make a nuclear gadget inside three to eight months except it confronted technical or logistical delays, CBS Information has beforehand reported.
What’s not clear, nevertheless, is whether or not Iran has made the choice to construct a nuclear weapon. Iran is believed to have halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003, and the U.S. intelligence neighborhood assessed final spring that this system hadn’t restarted.
“Iran nearly definitely is just not producing nuclear weapons, however Iran has undertaken actions lately that higher place it to supply them, if it chooses to take action,” the DIA stated in Might.
Requested on Feb. 18 whether or not the U.N.’s Worldwide Atomic Vitality Company had seen any indication that Iran would possibly at the moment be working to develop a nuclear weapon, the company’s director common Rafael Grossi informed a French tv community it had not.
“No,” he informed TF1, including: “Quite the opposite, I see, as we speak, a willingness on each side to succeed in an settlement,” referring to the U.S. and Iran.
Iran, for its half, has lengthy insisted that its nuclear program is fully peaceable, and that it doesn’t intend to develop a nuclear weapon.
Iran’s stockpile consists of uranium enriched far past the extent wanted for many non-military makes use of like nuclear energy or medical functions. The IAEA stated in Might that Iran is now “the one non-nuclear-weapon State to supply such nuclear materials.”
What affect did the final U.S. strikes on Iran have?
Final June’s airstrikes focused Iran’s Fordo and Natanz enrichment amenities and a analysis website close to town of Isfahan. It isn’t clear how a lot the strikes broken Iran’s nuclear program.
Mr. Trump has lengthy stated the strikes “obliterated” the three nuclear websites, setting again this system by “mainly many years.”
The IAEA’s Grossi informed CBS Information in June that the strikes precipitated “extreme harm” however not “complete harm.”
In his interview with the French community, Grossi stated Iran’s nuclear materials was “nonetheless there, in giant portions,” regardless of the U.S. strikes, although “a few of it might be much less accessible.”
Satellite tv for pc photographs from late January present roofs constructed over broken buildings on the Natanz and Isfahan websites, doubtlessly indicating efforts by Iran to salvage any remaining supplies.
The IAEA says it withdrew its inspectors from Iran for security causes shortly after the June strikes, and Iran moved to droop cooperation with the company the next month. The company stated in November that it had been in a position to conduct some inspections within the months following the assaults, however not at any of the websites that have been struck by U.S. forces.
Iran downplayed the strikes, arguing that they did not remove its technological capabilities.
“Sure, you destroyed the amenities, the machines,” Iranian International Minister Abbas Araghchi informed Fox Information final month. “However the know-how can’t be bombed, and the willpower additionally can’t be bombed.”
What is the historical past of Iran’s nuclear program?
Iran’s nuclear program dates again many years, with some early analysis exercise going down beneath the U.S.-allied authorities that managed the nation earlier than the 1979 Islamic Revolution. By the mid-Nineteen Eighties, Iran began growing — or buying on the black market — the know-how required to construct centrifuges that may enrich uranium, in keeping with the IAEA.
The nation’s ambitions drew intense worldwide stress beginning in 2002, when an anti-regime group alleged that Iran had secretly constructed a pair of nuclear amenities. Former President George W. Bush’s administration later alleged that Iran was working to develop missiles able to carrying nuclear weapons.
The IAEA has stated that till 2003, Iran had a “structured program” to hold out “actions which are related to the event of a nuclear explosive gadget.” The company added that a few of these actions have army and non-military makes use of, however some “are particular to nuclear weapons.”
Whereas the U.S. intelligence evaluation was that Iran stopped attempting to develop nuclear weapons in 2003, the nation resumed enriching uranium at varied factors after that. Consequently, it had confronted years of more and more tight sanctions.
In 2015, President Barack Obama’s administration struck a take care of Iran and different world powers to restrict the nation’s uranium stockpiles and enrichment capability for a set time frame, and to submit Iran’s nuclear program to IAEA monitoring, in trade for sanctions aid. The settlement was referred to as the Joint Complete Plan of Motion, or JCPOA.
Three years later, Mr. Trump withdrew the U.S. unilaterally from that deal, which he argued was inadequate. He imposed a brand new spherical of harsh sanctions, dubbing it a “most stress” marketing campaign to drive Iran to barter a brand new settlement. Efforts by the Biden administration and European events to the JCPOA to revive the deal have been unsuccessful.
Since then, Iran has stopped abiding by the phrases of that settlement, dramatically ramping up its uranium enrichment program, together with by enriching uranium to 60% purity for the primary time.
Araghchi informed CBS Information shortly after final 12 months’s strikes that Iran would “not simply again down from enrichment,” declaring this system “a matter of nationwide satisfaction and glory.”
