Strike on Iran’s Nuclear Program: Mission Accomplished or Miscalculated?
Iran’s nuclear program lies in ruins—for now. As officials claim triumph, critics warn of unfinished business and future risks.
Twelve days of unprecedented strikes by Israel and the United States may have reduced Iran’s nuclear program to rubble — but questions about what was truly accomplished are only growing louder.
In the days since the ceasefire, officials have celebrated “mission accomplished,” while some critics caution against premature victory laps. Behind the public declarations is a far more complex truth: a historic military gamble based not on politics but on intelligence so sensitive that even its existence remains partly in the shadows.
And yet, by all serious accounts, Iran’s crown jewel—its nuclear program—has likely been shattered, at least temporarily.
“The majority of media reports are garbage,” said Brig. Gen. (ret.) Shlomo Brom, senior researcher emeritus at the Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies. He told The Media Line that most reports not only reflect a very “superficial understanding of the whole issue” but also strongly reflect their writers’ biases.
According to Brom, media coverage tends to fall along political lines: Those who support Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu or US President Donald Trump claim the mission was accomplished. Those who oppose them argue it was a failure. This trend, he noted, is evident in both Israeli and international reporting.
Brom, who spent decades working within Israel’s Intelligence Directorate, said he finds it hard to believe that the operation against Iran—or the decision to enter into a ceasefire—would have been launched without “concrete knowledge” about Iran’s progress on weaponization or whether the stated goals were achieved.
It is quite possible that there are some uncertainties. One big one is what happened to the more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. Was a great part of it destroyed in the attacks?
“It is quite possible that there are some uncertainties,” he added. “One big one is what happened to the more than 400 kilograms of 60% enriched uranium. Was a great part of it destroyed in the attacks?”
Or, as some have suggested, was it smuggled out before the strikes?
According to Eyal Zisser, a historian of the Middle East and vice rector of Tel Aviv University, these questions will be answered with time.
Like Brom, he emphasized that while the media—and therefore the public—may not yet have all the information, it should be assumed that the most critical questions were addressed by American and Israeli intelligence.
“You clearly come to the conclusion that Israel has a very good knowledge about what is happening inside Iran,” he told The Media Line. “The US, as well. Both administrations know what was attacked and what was hit by those attacks.”
He continued, “When Trump or the Israeli government says ‘mission accomplished,’ I think they know what they are talking about.”
In recent days, multiple reports have circulated about the extent of the damage done in Iran, receiving mixed reviews and commentary. However, Brom pointed to an in-depth analysis by David Albright and Spencer Faragasso of the Institute for Science and International Security, which he described as the most detailed and reliable assessment available—offering a clear overview of the situation, free of political spin.
Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector who heads the Institute for Science and International Security, weighed in. In a post on X, he said that based on newly released satellite imagery, the American attack had “effectively destroyed” Iran’s uranium enrichment program—at least for now. But he cautioned that it hadn’t eliminated the longer-term threat.
His institute obtained high-resolution commercial satellite images of Iran’s key nuclear facilities, including Natanz, Fordo, and Isfahan, among others. The report, backed by data from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the Israeli military, and the institute’s archive, revealed varying degrees of damage across all sites.
The authors framed the Israeli and US operation as historically significant, noting the two main objectives: dismantling Iran’s ability to produce weapon-grade uranium or plutonium and targeting infrastructure that could be used actually to assemble a bomb.
According to the report, the strikes dealt a devastating blow to Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program.
It will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere near the capability it had before the attack.
“It will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere near the capability it had before the attack,” the authors wrote.
Still, they warned that not everything was destroyed. Iran’s stockpiles of 60%, 20%, and low-enriched uranium, as well as unused centrifuges at Natanz and Fordo, remain a concern. These materials could potentially be used to restart the program later.
Beyond enrichment, the report said the strikes also seriously damaged the infrastructure Iran would need to produce a nuclear weapon itself. That means the timeline for building even a basic, non-missile-deliverable device has likely been pushed back significantly.
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The report outlined what it called major setbacks to Iran’s nuclear program, including the destruction or severe damage of most of the centrifuges at Natanz, heavy damage to the underground Fordo facility, and multiple hits on the Isfahan nuclear complex. Among the buildings targeted in Isfahan were ones used to convert enriched uranium into uranium metal and natural uranium into uranium hexafluoride—both key processes in nuclear weapons production.
The IR-40 heavy water reactor in Arak was also likely destroyed, eliminating a potential future source of plutonium.
Fordo, one of Iran’s most fortified nuclear sites, is known for producing highly enriched uranium, including weapons-grade material. Buried deep beneath a mountain, it was considered nearly impenetrable—until now. On June 22, the United States dropped 12 30,000-pound bunker-busting bombs on the site.
According to the Institute for Science and International Security, post-strike satellite images showed two distinct clusters of impact craters on the mountainside above Fordo. The locations suggest that the underground facility was severely damaged or destroyed.
The report emphasized that the bombs were precisely aimed at two weak points: a ventilation shaft and a hidden service structure directly above the centrifuge halls. The explosions were designed to send shockwaves through the underground corridors, likely destroying the centrifuges inside. The two impact zones were placed to direct blasts from different angles, increasing the chances of complete internal devastation.
One day before the strike, Iran reportedly backfilled the tunnel entrances with soil—likely in anticipation of an attack. This may have blunted the impact or helped contain potential radioactive fallout. Iran could also have tried to evacuate some sensitive material from the site.
“Dismantling and transporting some of the installed centrifuges, or at least their rotor assemblies, may also have occurred,” the report stated. “But this process is complex and time-consuming and may have damaged the centrifuges.”
A satellite image showed a convoy of trucks outside one of the tunnels, which some analysts interpreted as Iran removing materials. Others believe the regime was instead trying to shield them inside the supposedly secure site.
A third strike on Fordo took place overnight between June 22 and 23, reportedly to block access routes to the facility.
Meanwhile, Natanz—believed to house more than 19,000 centrifuges—and the Isfahan complex were hit in a series of strikes. Israel carried out the initial attacks, followed by the United States, which launched Tomahawk cruise missiles from a submarine to complete the operation.
In the days following the ceasefire, the White House released a statement quoting the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, which declared that the US strike on Fordo had “destroyed its critical infrastructure and rendered it inoperable.” That rare public acknowledgment was echoed—surprisingly—by Iran. In a televised interview, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei admitted that “the Iranian nuclear facilities suffered significant damage as a result of Israeli and American strikes.”
Trump went further, telling reporters that Israel had sent “guys” to inspect the site after the attack and that “they said it was a total obliteration.”
The CIA backed up that version of events. In a statement issued Wednesday, the agency confirmed that “a body of credible intelligence indicates Iran’s nuclear program has been severely damaged by the recent, targeted strikes.” CIA Director John Ratcliffe put his name to the statement, adding that new intelligence from a trusted source indicated several key Iranian facilities were destroyed and would take years to rebuild.
US Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth echoed those remarks, calling the strikes successful.
Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target—and worked perfectly. The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran, so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission.
“Our massive bombs hit exactly the right spot at each target—and worked perfectly,” he said. “The impact of those bombs is buried under a mountain of rubble in Iran, so anyone who says the bombs were not devastating is just trying to undermine the president and the successful mission.”
Still, not all assessments have been so definitive. An early report by the Defense Intelligence Agency—the Pentagon’s lead intelligence body—suggested Iran could resume its nuclear efforts within months. Another leaked intelligence assessment cast doubt on how much damage was done at Fordo specifically, claiming the site’s underground infrastructure may have survived.
On Israel’s side, officials have said the strikes pushed back Iran’s ability to develop a nuclear bomb by years—not just months.
“We have set Iran’s nuclear project back by years, and the same goes for its missile program,” said Israel’s military Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir on Tuesday. In a separate statement, he emphasized that “according to the assessment of senior officials in the IDF Intelligence Directorate, the damage to the nuclear program is not a localized blow, but a systemic one.”
Prime Minister Netanyahu was more direct: “We sent Iran’s nuclear program down the drain. If someone in Iran tries to restore that program, we will act with the same determination, the same power, to cut off any such attempt.”
Mossad leaders echoed the sentiment. In a rare public statement, the intelligence agency said the longstanding Iranian threat had been “significantly neutralized.”
“Israel, thanks to this entire security apparatus, today feels like a different country, a safer country, a braver country that is prepared for the future,” said Mossad chief David Barnea in a video accompanying the statement. “Objectives that once seemed imaginary have now been achieved.”
Experts told The Media Line that the damage runs deeper than just the sites hit from the air.
One of the most significant blows may have been the assassination of at least 14 top Iranian physicists and nuclear scientists—people directly involved in the weaponization track of the program. “This causes severe damage to the ability to move forward,” said Brig. Gen. (res.) Yossi Kuperwasser, head of the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security
In an interview with The Associated Press, Israel’s ambassador to France, Joshua Zarka, also pointed to the impact of the assassinations. Zarka said that those deaths have slowed the nuclear program down “by a number of years,” since the men killed “basically had everything in their mind.”
Kuperwasser noted that these losses come on top of the 2018 Israeli operation that seized a trove of nuclear documents from a Tehran warehouse, robbing Iran of institutional memory.
“It’s going to be difficult for them to find out what they’ve done,” he told The Media Line. “It’s not going to be easy for them to overcome this loss.”
But more than the physical damage, Kuperwasser believes the most powerful message is that Israel and the United States were willing to act—and can do so again.
From now on, whenever we are going to be faced with an attempt by the Iranians to make progress in their nuclear program, we shall not wait until the last moment to take action. With our new self-confidence about our abilities to do what we need to do, we’ll do it much earlier.
“They’ve done it already,” he said. “So, from now on, whenever we are going to be faced with an attempt by the Iranians to make progress in their nuclear program, we shall not wait until the last moment to take action. With our new self-confidence about our abilities to do what we need to do, we’ll do it much earlier.”
“The Iranians know it, the Americans understand it, and we are totally in it and for it,” he added.
Kuperwasser said the strikes not only weakened Iran but also reshaped how the region views American-Israeli cooperation.
“The Iranian-led axis has fallen apart,” he said. “First of all, all the proxies disappeared, and then Iran suffered this heavy loss. They can still talk about destroying Israel and the United States—but they no longer have the tools to make that happen.”
He also said that Iran’s regime now faces growing pressure from within.
“Everybody in Iran now understands that this regime led them nowhere,” Kuperwasser said.
He explained that Iran’s nuclear, missile, and proxy warfare programs drained resources that could have gone toward improving the lives of ordinary citizens—and in just days, those projects were reduced to rubble.
“There will be very difficult questions the Iranian leadership will have to respond to in the coming few days,” he said. “They chose survival instead of going to a full war because they understood they are in danger. … They will have to give answers to stay in power, and they don’t have good answers.”
At the same time, Israel cannot afford to lower its guard, Kuperwasser warned.
We can never feel that we can trust the Iranians. We have to be very much on the alert.
“We can never feel that we can trust the Iranians,” he stressed. “We have to be very much on the alert.”
He explained that Iran’s hostility toward Israel and the United States has not changed. While its nuclear and ballistic missile capabilities have taken a hit, Tehran still has other ways to strike—through cyberattacks, terror cells, or proxies operating abroad.
Tel Aviv University’s Zisser added that Iran could eventually rebuild the infrastructure it lost.
“The Iranians could rebuild what was destroyed in five, 10, 15, or 20 years and again enrich uranium—and then immediately target Israel,” he said.
“Iran is not on the verge of becoming nuclear anymore,” Zisser acknowledged. “But if you leave Iran and do not pay attention to it anymore and let it do what it wants, you can face a new threat in a matter of years. We should stay aware.”
