Iran has emerged from five weeks of intense US and Israeli bombing with much of the core infrastructure needed for a nuclear weapon still intact, according to officials and experts cited in reporting that includes the Wall Street Journal and the Wakll Street Journal. The result is a paradox at the heart of the post-conflict landscape: while Tehran’s nuclear facilities have been damaged and its military assets hit, its most strategically sensitive materials and latent capabilities remain largely preserved, giving it renewed leverage in any future negotiations with Washington.
The central concern for US and Israeli policymakers remains unchanged. Preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was one of Washington’s core objectives in its recent military campaign, and successive rounds of strikes were designed to degrade both Iran’s enrichment capacity and its ability to weaponise uranium. Yet despite these efforts, analysts now assess that Iran likely retains most of the components required to restart or accelerate a weapons programme if it chooses to do so.
US and Israeli strikes over the past year inflicted significant damage on Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. During a 12-day conflict last year, US forces deployed Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs against key enrichment facilities at Fordow and Natanz, while Tomahawk missiles struck nuclear-related buildings at Isfahan. More recent operations focused on degrading Iran’s missile stockpiles and launch systems, which US officials argued posed a broader deterrence problem by raising the cost of any future strike on Iran’s nuclear programme. Israel, meanwhile, concentrated more directly on nuclear-linked targets, including laboratories, academic facilities, and suspected weapons research sites near Tehran and at the Parchin military complex.
Despite this sustained campaign, experts say Iran has retained crucial elements of its nuclear architecture. These include centrifuges, which are essential for uranium enrichment, and underground facilities that may still be capable of supporting advanced enrichment activity. Of particular concern is Iran’s continued possession of a stockpile of nearly 1,000 pounds of near weapons-grade uranium, roughly half of which is believed by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be stored in fortified containers buried deep within tunnels at the Isfahan nuclear site.
These reserves represent Iran’s most significant bargaining chip. As Eric Brewer, a former White House official involved in Iran policy during the Trump administration, noted, Tehran is unlikely to relinquish such material easily, and will likely demand far greater concessions than in previous negotiations. The uranium stockpile effectively shortens the timeline for potential weaponisation, even if Iran chooses not to immediately pursue that path.
The White House has maintained a hard line. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that Iran had signalled a willingness to surrender enriched uranium, but stressed that ending domestic enrichment remains a “red line” for President Trump. US officials argue that any acceptable agreement must prevent Iran from maintaining an independent enrichment capability, instead requiring it to rely on externally supplied fuel.
Yet Iran has consistently rejected such demands. Tehran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, a claim it continues to repeat even as international assessments highlight dual-use risks. Previous negotiations in February collapsed after Iran offered only to dilute its 60% enriched uranium to around 20%, a level still far closer to weapons-grade than permitted under the 2015 nuclear agreement, which capped enrichment at 3.67% for civilian use. At current thresholds, analysts note that material enriched to 60% can be converted to weapons-grade levels in roughly a week.
A key unresolved question is the true extent of damage inflicted on Iran’s weaponisation capabilities. While enrichment facilities and storage sites have been targeted, building an actual nuclear warhead requires a separate set of highly specialised processes, including the conversion of uranium into metal and the engineering of delivery mechanisms. Experts broadly agree that Iran has never completed a nuclear warhead, and that doing so under current conditions would be extremely difficult without detection due to extensive US and Israeli intelligence penetration of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure.
David Albright, a former weapons inspector and president of the Institute for Science and International Security, has suggested that while Iran’s enrichment infrastructure remains partially intact, its ability to weaponise may have been significantly disrupted. He described the damage as “punching holes” in a complex, multi-layered system, creating bottlenecks in the conversion process from enriched material to a deliverable weapon. If accurate, this would represent a meaningful setback, even if not a decisive one.
Still, Iran retains several hardened and potentially inaccessible facilities. These include tunnel complexes at Isfahan, where an undeclared enrichment site was reportedly revealed last year but has not been inspected by international monitors. There is also the heavily fortified Pickaxe Mountain site near Natanz, which analysts believe could allow Iran to continue sensitive nuclear work in locations designed to withstand even the most powerful conventional US munitions.
President Trump reportedly considered a more direct operation to seize Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile, according to the Wakll Street Journal. However, officials concluded that such an operation would carry significant operational and escalation risks, potentially prolonging the conflict and increasing the likelihood of broader regional escalation. The decision not to proceed underscores the limits of military options in fully neutralising Iran’s nuclear leverage.
At the same time, Iran has acquired a new strategic tool outside its nuclear programme: control over the Strait of Hormuz. By threatening or modulating access to this critical maritime chokepoint, through which a significant portion of global oil shipments pass, Tehran has gained economic leverage that complements its residual nuclear capabilities. This dual pressure—energy and nuclear—now forms the backbone of Iran’s negotiating position.
The geopolitical implications are already shaping the next phase of diplomacy. US officials expect early negotiations to focus less on uranium enrichment and more on broader regional and economic issues, including Iran’s control of maritime routes and the terms under which it might relax its influence over the Strait of Hormuz. More sensitive nuclear discussions are likely to be deferred to later stages of talks, reflecting the complexity and political sensitivity of the issue.
Iran, for its part, appears determined to preserve its enrichment capabilities as a matter of sovereignty. Officials have repeatedly rejected the idea of “zero enrichment,” insisting instead on their right to maintain a domestic nuclear fuel cycle. That position places them on a collision course with Washington, which views any indigenous enrichment capacity as inherently destabilising.
The broader uncertainty lies in whether the recent military strikes have meaningfully altered Iran’s long-term trajectory. While facilities have been damaged and personnel targeted, the country’s retention of enriched uranium stockpiles and underground infrastructure suggests that its breakout capacity has been delayed rather than eliminated. As one analyst noted, the key variable is not whether Iran can rebuild, but how quickly it could do so under concealment.
