President Donald Trump’s campaign against Iran has inflicted major damage on Tehran’s nuclear infrastructure, even as questions remain about how much enriched uranium survived the strikes. Evidence of progress comes from Iran’s three principal nuclear sites. At Isfahan, facilities used to convert or enrich uranium remain significantly damaged after U.S. and Israeli attacks.
At Natanz, the aboveground plant was severely damaged, while entrances to its underground enrichment complex were struck and potentially buried. Fordo, once Iran’s most protected and advanced enrichment facility, was hit by 12 massive bombs and has been rendered inoperable.
Even Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, acknowledged that the attacks have “really rolled back the program significantly.” That admission matters, after years of warnings that Iran was moving dangerously close to weapons capability.
The remaining concern is Tehran’s stockpile of uranium enriched to 60 percent. Inspectors previously estimated Iran possessed roughly 970 pounds, enough for nine or 10 bombs after further processing. Because Iran has blocked inspections, its exact status remains unknown. President Trump’s war on Iran has revealed that the country was significantly more advanced militarily than the country once admitted.
President Trump’s efforts to destroy nuclear infrastructure, impose massive costs on the Iranians and show them that their destabilizing actions on the world stage would not be tolerated were sorely needed. By those standards, the campaign has delivered substantial results and been a massive success. Iran’s most important facilities are damaged, its operations are disrupted and its nuclear timetable has been pushed backward.
This is not to deny that the Iran War has caused disruptions in the global marketplace and borne out some negative consequences. But the Iranian threat needed to be confronted. Their actions over the past six months have proven that. President Trump has already accomplished what diplomacy alone repeatedly failed to do, and the world will be a safer place in the decades to come because of his courage in acting.
