Israel-Iran ceasefire holds, but experts warn Tehran’s nuclear ambitions far from dead

A fragile Israel-Iran ceasefire held Tuesday and delivered a short-term political win to President Trump.

However, analysts and former U.S. officials say Mr. Trump faces a much bigger, longer-term problem: A government in Tehran that, if allowed to survive with even a small piece of its nuclear program intact, may feel compelled to race toward a nuclear weapon as fast as possible.

The roughly 10-day Israeli air campaign and the U.S. strikes Saturday on three key Iranian nuclear sites have, by all accounts, caused significant damage to Tehran’s nuclear program. Still, Iran possesses enriched uranium, and assessments from arms control organizations say multiple Iranian nuclear-related facilities may be viable.

The U.S. bombing set back Iran’s overall nuclear program by only a few months, according to multiple reports citing a preliminary classified U.S. intelligence report.

Nuclear experts readily concede that the work of containing Iran’s atomic ambitions is by no means over.

Rafael Grossi, director of the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a social media post Tuesday that he wants to meet as soon as possible with Iranian officials to find “a diplomatic solution to the long-standing controversy over [Iran’s] nuclear program.”

The subtext of those comments is that the nuclear program still exists and must be resolved through a diplomatic agreement.

Some national security insiders and longtime Iran specialists warn that expecting Iran to voluntarily end its nuclear program, even after the intense Israeli and U.S. military campaigns, would be a mistake. What’s more, it seems conceivable that Iran’s political leadership could conclude that months of direct diplomatic negotiations with the Trump administration accomplished very little and that the U.S. attacks on nuclear facilities at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan only confirm that Tehran will never be truly safe without an atomic bomb.

“Iran’s nuclear program is like a glioblastoma; leave a single cell behind, and the tumor will regrow,” said former Defense Department official Michael Rubin, now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Mr. Rubin said assessing Iran’s nuclear capabilities in a vacuum is a mistake. Although U.S. and Israeli bombs may have slowed the program, Iran was surely preparing for the American strikes and took steps to mitigate their damage. Tehran could also reach out to some of its nuclear-armed allies for assistance in rebuilding its capabilities.

That might make little sense on the surface. Neither China nor Russia, for example, would benefit from a nuclear-equipped Iran. Still, it’s worth remembering that former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev just this week stated on social media that a “number of countries are ready to directly supply Iran with their own nuclear warheads.”

“When the CIA assesses Iran, assumptions matter. What might be a decade delay if Iran’s program remains indigenous becomes just a yearlong setback if North Korea, Pakistan, Russia or China help,” Mr. Rubin told The Washington Times on Tuesday. “As for letting the enriched uranium slip through our fingers, that’s an intelligence failure on par with Iraq.”

That “enriched uranium” refers to apparent satellite images showing a large number of trucks at the Fordo nuclear site in the days and hours leading up to the U.S. airstrikes.

Those vehicles may have transported uranium away from the site to other underground locations across the country.

Recent IAEA data showed that Iran has nearly 900 pounds of uranium enriched up to 60%, which is a short, technical step away from weapons-grade levels of 90%.

Specialists say the status of that uranium is a major question.

“The longer the location of this highly enriched uranium stockpile remains unknown, the greater the potential for a proliferation crisis,” Joseph Rodgers, deputy director and fellow on the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in an analysis this week.

American “bunker buster” bombs dealt a huge blow to those enrichment capabilities with the attacks on the Fordo and Natanz sites. Israel also caused significant damage and killed several of Iran’s leading nuclear scientists.

Still, Iranian officials say the program will continue.

“Considering the capacities and abilities that we possess, the nuclear industry must persist, and it will not be stopped,” said a statement by Behrouz Kamalvandi, a spokesman for the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran.

Tehran has long maintained that it seeks only nuclear power, not atomic weapons.

Mr. Trump has bristled at the suggestion that U.S. strikes were anything less than definitive.

“The sites that we hit in Iran were totally destroyed, and everyone knows it. Only the Fake News would say anything different in order to try and demean, as much as possible — And even they say they were ‘pretty well destroyed!’” Mr. Trump wrote on social media Monday.

A tenuous ceasefire

The president was more colorful Tuesday when he spoke to reporters outside the White House before departing for the NATO summit this week at The Hague. Mr. Trump announced an Israel-Iran ceasefire late Monday, but it appeared that the two nations were on the verge of resuming major attacks on each other by Tuesday morning.

“We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the f—- they’re doing,” he said. “You understand that?”

The president said he was not happy with either country.

Israel said Iran launched a missile early Tuesday, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was prepared to strike back. Israeli media reported that Israel was ready to hit 15 “regime targets” inside Iran. Such attacks would have likely ended the ceasefire before it had truly even started and could have led to more attacks by Iran against Israeli or U.S. targets.

Iran launched a missile attack Monday on the Al Udeid U.S. Air Base in Qatar, but American forces had warning of the assault, which appeared to be mostly for show. The missiles were shot down and there were no casualties, the Pentagon said.

Shortly after Mr. Trump’s profanity-laden admonition and a reported phone call between the two men, Mr. Netanyahu indicated that the Jewish state would not launch more attacks.

“Pursuant to the conversation between President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu, Israel has refrained from additional attacks,” Mr. Netanyahu’s office said in a statement. “In the conversation, President Trump expressed his great appreciation for Israel, which achieved all of its objectives for the war, as well as his confidence in the stability of the ceasefire.”

The Associated Press, citing an unidentified senior White House official, reported that Mr. Trump told Mr. Netanyahu not to expect any additional U.S. offensive military action against Iran.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said his nation intends to respect the ceasefire and is open to negotiations with foreign leaders. He reportedly had a phone call with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on Tuesday, during which Mr. Pezeshkian said Iran was prepared to settle its issues with the U.S.

Before Israel began its military campaign against Iran this month, Washington and Tehran had been holding direct negotiations aimed at striking a new deal to limit Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for relief from economic sanctions. During his first term, Mr. Trump pulled the U.S. out of an Obama-era pact that aimed to do the same thing, though critics said the 2015 deal was too lenient and left open pathways for Iran to acquire nuclear weapons.