When President Donald Trump went to conflict with Iran in February, he cited its supposedly imminent nuclear menace. But there was all the time an issue with that: He’d spent eight months asserting the program had already been “obliterated” final yr.
Just two weeks earlier than the conflict started, in truth, Trump claimed US and Israeli strikes in June 2025 had left Iran without even a “potential capability” for nukes.
Now, as Trump appears to be like to extract himself from the extremely unpopular conflict, he’s providing extra confounding indicators about the state of Iran’s nuclear menace.
After greater than 4 months of conflict and main prices to the US and world economic system — all geared in direction of the still-unfulfilled targets of acquiring Iran’s nuclear supplies and a deal that retains Tehran from ever acquiring a nuclear weapon — Trump is instantly suggesting none of that’s even mandatory.
He’s claiming the conflict is already successful as a result of Iran has already been denuclearized.
It appears Iran’s nuclear program has magically gone again to “obliterated” standing — at exactly the second it appears to be like like Trump’s efforts to chop a deal are really falling aside.
Trump made this argument repeatedly on Wednesday at a NATO summit in Turkey.
When requested whether or not the conflict had hit a “strategic dead end,” Trump assured that it hadn’t as a result of it was already successful.
“I was there for one reason: that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. I call it, we denuclearize Iran,” Trump mentioned. “And that’s happened; they will never have a nuclear weapon.”
The president mentioned Iran’s nuclear supplies are now “so far down under a mountain” that they’re nearly unobtainable. He additionally cited US monitoring capabilities, arguing officers can see the nuclear websites on cameras and guarantee no person can entry them.
“There’s no way they have a nuclear weapon,” Trump added.
At a separate occasion, he was pressed on how he was going to get Iran’s nuclear supplies. He claimed that the United States, in impact, already has them.
“We’ve already got the nuclear material, because it’s so far underground,” Trump mentioned. “Nobody’s going to be able to get it except us.”
He added: “They can’t get it.”
“I think it’s a tremendous success,” Trump mentioned in the first look.
A pair factors.
First, that is merely the newest proof that Trump is laying the groundwork for probably throwing in the towel in Iran with out attaining his main targets.
The administration has repeatedly forged getting Iran’s nuclear supplies as vital — a “red line,” in the phrases of Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent simply six weeks in the past.
But Trump has additionally conspicuously floated the concept that this might not be strictly necessary, as a result of the supplies are inaccessible to Iran and the areas will be monitored from area.
Perhaps the greater point, although, is that the feedback elevate extra main questions on the authentic acknowledged justifications for the conflict — and whether or not the conflict was launched (and continued) below false pretenses.
Trump’s justifications were already a mess from the conflict’s earliest days, and never simply because of the “obliterated” discuss. The administration has additionally issued a constantly shifting set of four goals. And Trump’s preliminary threats to go to conflict again in January have been targeted not on the supposed nuclear menace however as an alternative on regime change — a aim that he’s additionally nonsensically claimed he has already achieved by killing sure leaders, regardless of that not matching what truly constitutes regime change.
But Trump’s newest claims that Iran has instantly been denuclearized forevermore is de facto troublesome to sq..
It’s actually attainable that strikes throughout this conflict have made the nuclear supplies much more troublesome to get to.
But by far the largest strikes on Iran’s nuclear websites got here again in June 2025, when Trump first claimed its nuclear program had been “obliterated.” And the main navy actions on this conflict ended three months in the past, when the first ceasefire was introduced on April 7.
If Iran’s nuclear supplies are now so buried that its program is principally done-for and a deal isn’t mandatory, why wasn’t that the case three months in the past? Why did the administration spend all this time pursuing a nuclear deal and say it nonetheless wanted to get the supplies? Why not simply hold hitting the nuclear websites to additional bury the supplies, if that’s adequate?
It is mindless.
It all factors to a far much less justifiable chance for why Trump is making these arguments now: that he has misplaced endurance with this conflict and acknowledges a very good deal might be not going to occur. (Iran actually doesn’t appear occupied with slicing one, judging by its many obvious violations of the ceasefire.) So it’s finest to start out spinning why he’s getting out with so many of his targets unfulfilled.
But additionally contemplate the place that would depart the conflict effort. It wouldn’t simply be that Trump wouldn’t accomplish his targets; it might imply that the conflict got here with some main prices for nearly no acquire.
Besides the 13 lives of US service members misplaced in the battle, at the prime of that listing can be the financial shock of the previous few months and Iran’s now-demonstrated means to regulate the Strait of Hormuz. The latter particularly looms extraordinarily massive over the future of the Middle East and the world proper now.
And judging by Trump’s most up-to-date feedback, it’s wanting increasingly more like that is perhaps the most vital consequence of this conflict.