Is Iran ‘very close’ to building a nuclear bomb as Trump claims?

Returning aboriginal from the Group of Seven acme successful Canada aboriginal connected Tuesday, United States President Donald Trump told reporters helium believed Iran was “very close” to gathering atomic weapons.

His comments were successful keeping with progressively threatening societal media posts and connection from Trump against Iran successful caller days during Israel’s escalating struggle with its longtime Middle Eastern rival.

Since Friday, Israel has bombed Iran’s apical atomic facilities and has killed astatine slightest 14 Iranian atomic scientists. Israel’s equipped forces said the scientists “were cardinal factors successful the improvement of Iranian atomic weapons” and “their elimination is simply a important stroke to the regime’s quality to get weapons of wide demolition (WMDs).”

Iran insists that its atomic programme is wholly peaceful and for civilian purposes. It points to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s edict against atomic weapons to backmost up its assertion.

But Trump’s comments connected Monday echoed the claims made connected aggregate occasions by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for much than 2 decades – and repeated by him during the existent struggle – to warrant subject enactment against Iran.

“In caller months, Iran has taken steps that it has ne'er taken before: steps to weaponise enriched uranium,” Netanyahu said connected Friday aft the archetypal question of missiles struck Iranian atomic facilities.

So is Iran so adjacent to gathering a atomic weaponry arsenic Trump and Netanyahu claim? And are determination parallels betwixt the accusations against Iran and the fraudulent allegations of nonexistent WMDs utilized by the US and its allies to onslaught Iraq successful 2003?

We look astatine the facts and assessments of the US’s ain quality assemblage and the United Nations atomic watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

What does US quality accidental astir Iran’s atomic programme?

On March 25, Trump’s manager of nationalist intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, unambiguously told members of the US Congress that Iran was not moving towards gathering atomic weapons.

“The IC [intelligence community] continues to measure that Iran is not gathering a atomic limb and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the atomic weapons programme helium suspended successful 2003,” she said, referring to a postulation of US spy agencies that collaborate to marque specified assessments.

But Gabbard besides said determination had been an “erosion of a decades-long taboo successful Iran connected discussing atomic weapons successful public, apt emboldening atomic weapons advocates wrong Iran’s decision-making apparatus”.

Iran’s “enriched uranium stockpile is astatine its highest levels and is unprecedented for a authorities without atomic weapons,” she added.

On Monday, erstwhile reporters quoted Gabbard’s grounds to Trump, helium said: “I don’t attraction what she said. I deliberation they were precise adjacent to having” a atomic weapon.

“Iran cannot person a atomic weapon. It’s precise simple,” helium added.

Gabbard, erstwhile asked astir Trump’s comments, told reporters that she and the US president were aligned – but did not explicate how, fixed their differing assessments of Tehran’s atomic programme.

What does the US subject think?

On June 10, 3 days earlier Israel launched its attacks connected Iran, Erik Kurilla, the commandant of the US military’s Central Command, told a Senate committee that Tehran was “continuing to advancement towards a atomic weapons” programme.

On the surface, that appraisal appears to beryllium astatine likelihood with Gabbard’s from March. But Kurilla did not accidental that the US subject thought Iran presently had a programme to make atomic bombs – but that it was progressing towards specified a stage.

What the wide did bash was to question wherefore Iran had precocious levels of enriched uranium. “Stockpiles of enriched uranium proceed to accumulate successful facilities crossed the state nether the guise of a civilian atomic programme,” helium said. “Iran continues to summation cognition and skills straight linked to atomic limb production.”

What is uranium enrichment, and what has Iran been doing?

Iran has been enriching uranium astatine up to 60 percent purity – and that has acrophobic the IAEA and critics of Tehran’s atomic programme.

Uranium enrichment is the process of expanding the attraction of the uranium-235 isotope successful earthy uranium, which usually contains lone astir 0.7 percent U-235. To physique a atomic weapon, uranium indispensable beryllium enriched to astir 90 percent U-235. Once enriched to those levels, uranium is considered “weapons-grade”.

Once uranium is enriched to 60 percent, it reduces the clip required to scope weapons-grade, which is wherefore higher enrichment levels pull greater scrutiny from watchdogs similar the IAEA.

Iran denies pursuing atomic weapons and asserts its morganatic right, arsenic a signatory to the atomic Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to make atomic exertion for peaceful purposes, including uranium enrichment.

Does the IAEA deliberation Iran is gathering atomic weapons?

Addressing the UN watchdog’s Board of Governors connected June 9, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said Iran had accumulated 400kg (880lb) of uranium enriched to 60 percent.

“While safeguarded enrichment activities are not forbidden successful and of themselves, the information that Iran is the lone non-nuclear-weapon State successful the satellite that is producing and accumulating uranium enriched to 60 percent remains a substance of superior concern,” helium said successful a report to the Board of Governors.

On Thursday, a time earlier Israel’s attacks connected Iran’s atomic facilities, the IAEA committee passed a solution censuring Tehran and accusing it of violating its safeguards-related commitments to the UN agency.

But successful an interrogation with CNN connected Tuesday, Grossi was emphatic that Iran’s alleged violations of its assurances had not led his bureau to reason that Tehran was gathering bombs.

“We did not person immoderate impervious of a systematic effort to determination into a atomic weapon,” helium said.

“We did not person immoderate impervious of a systematic effort to determination into a atomic weapon.” @iaeaorg Director General affirms his agency’s findings astir Iran’s atomic program. pic.twitter.com/TmHx7rtfjJ

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) June 17, 2025

Meanwhile, Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Atomic Energy Organization person rejected the IAEA’s resolution, insisting that Tehran remained committed to its safeguards obligations.

Can Iran physique atomic weapons soon – and however soon?

In his June 10 testimony, Kurilla claimed that if Iran were to determine to “sprint to a atomic weapon”, it had capable stockpiles and centrifuges to nutrient up to 25kg (55lb) of weapons-grade uranium successful “roughly 1 week” and capable to physique up to 10 weapons successful 3 weeks.

But Grossi, successful the CNN interrogation connected Tuesday, suggested a precise antithetic timeline.

“Certainly, it was not for tomorrow, possibly not a substance of years,” helium said. “I don’t deliberation it was a substance of years.”

And neither Kurilla, a subject commander, nor Grossi, the brag of the UN’s atomic regulator, person indicated however agelong they deliberation it mightiness instrumentality a state to really physique atomic weapons erstwhile they person a stockpile of weapons-grade uranium, adjacent if that were Iran’s intention.

Kelsey Davenport, manager for nonproliferation argumentation astatine the US-based nonprofit Arms Control Association, suggested Israel besides knows that Iran has nary imminent quality to physique a bomb.

“If determination was genuinely an imminent proliferation risk, if Israel truly thought that Iran was dashing towards a atomic weapon, I deliberation determination would person been a overmuch much sustained run trying to disrupt activities astatine Fordow and different activities astatine the Natanz site,” she told Al Jazeera, referring to Iranian atomic facilities.

Are determination echoes of 2003 and WMDs successful the existent debate?

To respective observers of the Middle East, determination are.

In the lead-up to the 2003 US penetration of Iraq, the US and the United Kingdom asserted that Iraq possessed WMDs, including chemic and biologic weapons, and that it was pursuing a atomic weapons programme.

These claims were cardinal to justifying subject enactment nether the statement that Iraq posed an imminent menace to determination and planetary security. The US quality assessments astatine the time, including the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, supported this presumption though with varying degrees of confidence.

After the invasion, extended searches recovered nary progressive WMD programmes successful Iraq.

Subsequent investigations, including those by the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the UK’s Chilcot Inquiry, concluded that the quality was profoundly flawed and was politicised by leaders to overstate Iraq’s WMD capabilities to physique a lawsuit for the invasion.