United States and Israel may have obstructed Iran’s path towards building a nuclear bomb by damaging its nuclear and ballistic capabilities in recent attacks. However, experts and diplomatic sources confirm that Washington and Tehran have not succeeded in seizing Iran’s stockpile of highly enriched uranium, which is key to any future negotiations.
One US President Donald Trump’s justifications for launching the war was an accusation — denied by Tehran — that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon. Trump has repeatedly vowed never to allow Iran to possess such a weapon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated that previous and current wars against Iran “wiped out” Iran’s nuclear program.
Two European diplomatic sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed caution about the future of Iran’s atomic ambitions. Immediately following the June 2025 strikes, one source noted that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back by several years before the figure was revised to just several months.
A “threshold” state has the expertise, resources and facilities needed to develop a nuclear weapon on short notice should it choose to. The source argued that in addition to infrastructure damage suffered, Iran’s know-how “has been seriously undermined by the elimination of scientists and officials” and the targeting of universities where data centers containing Iran’s expertise were located.
Overall, this conflict has set back Iran’s nuclear program substantially, said Spencer Faragasso of the Institute for Science and International Security. It will take a significant amount of time, investment, and resources to reconstitute all of those lost capabilities. However, gains from the conflict are not permanent by any means.
Tehran still possesses a significant quantity of uranium enriched both to 60 percent, close to the 90-percent level required to make an atomic bomb, as well as a stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent, another critical threshold. Prior to US strikes in June 2025, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) calculated that Iran possessed approximately 440 kilogrammes of uranium enriched to 60 percent.
Since then, the fate of this stockpile has remained uncertain with Tehran refusing access to IAEA inspectors at the sites ravaged by US and Israeli strikes. Russia reiterated its readiness to accept Iranian enriched uranium on its soil as part of any potential peace agreement between Washington and Tehran. However, that scenario is a red line for Europeans due to the war Russia has been waging against Ukraine.
Moscow and Tehran are cooperating on nuclear matters through Iran’s Bushehr power plant, built and operated with Russian assistance for civilian purposes. The Iranians “don’t have an ability to enrich uranium anymore,” said Danny Orbach of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. But they still have the enriched material, which is the hardest thing to obtain.”