Is preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon an objective of the current U.S. war? Sometimes it is described as a core goal; sometimes it disappears from the list entirely. The nuclear program—significantly set back by the U.S. and Israeli strikes last June—appears to have played only a marginal role in triggering the current campaign and has not been a primary U.S. target. Of the more than 10,000 U.S. strikes so far, only a handful have hit nuclear‑related sites. Israel, by contrast, has struck more.
Iran retains an estimated more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (enough for multiple weapons), stockpiles of advanced centrifuges, and likely scientists with weapons-relevant expertise. Some of this material is buried so deeply underground that it sits beyond the reach of U.S. munitions. U.S. President Donald Trump appears to recognize the difficulty of eliminating Iran’s nuclear material. He has reportedly considered a high-risk, complex raid by U.S. special forces to seize the material. In a speech on April 1, however, he seemed unconcerned by the fact that Iran would likely hold on to its highly enriched uranium at the end of the war: “We have [Iran’s nuclear material] under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none.”
Is preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon an objective of the current U.S. war? Sometimes it is described as a core goal; sometimes it disappears from the list entirely. The nuclear program—significantly set back by the U.S. and Israeli strikes last June—appears to have played only a marginal role in triggering the current campaign and has not been a primary U.S. target. Of the more than 10,000 U.S. strikes so far, only a handful have hit nuclear‑related sites. Israel, by contrast, has struck more.
Iran retains an estimated more than 400 kilograms of highly enriched uranium (enough for multiple weapons), stockpiles of advanced centrifuges, and likely scientists with weapons-relevant expertise. Some of this material is buried so deeply underground that it sits beyond the reach of U.S. munitions. U.S. President Donald Trump appears to recognize the difficulty of eliminating Iran’s nuclear material. He has reportedly considered a high-risk, complex raid by U.S. special forces to seize the material. In a speech on April 1, however, he seemed unconcerned by the fact that Iran would likely hold on to its highly enriched uranium at the end of the war: “We have [Iran’s nuclear material] under intense satellite surveillance and control. If we see them make a move, even a move for it, we’ll hit them with missiles very hard again. We have all the cards. They have none.”
That confidence may be misplaced. Although it is impossible to predict with precision how this war will play out, the most likely outcome at this point is that the Islamic Republic will remain in power. Once the war ends, Iran will almost certainly declare victory—and not without reason. Survival has been its primary objective, and so far it has succeeded. Although Iran has lost senior leaders, the regime remains intact while managing to impose real costs on the United States, the region, and the global economy. Yet Iran will nonetheless be significantly weakened and deeply aggrieved. Put simply: At the end of the war, Iran will still almost certainly have the core ingredients needed to build a bomb—and more incentive than ever to do so.
After the opening strikes killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and other senior officials, Iran moved quickly to preserve continuity. An interim leadership council was established, followed by the appointment of a new supreme leader: Mojtaba Khamenei, Ali Khamenei’s son. Little is publicly known about the younger Khamenei, who has yet to appear in public and is rumored to be injured. But reports suggest he was favored by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whose current and former members—staunch defenders of the Islamic Republic—now dominate senior leadership roles, and day-to-day decision-making may increasingly rest in their hands.
From a nonproliferation perspective, this is a dangerous outcome. In theory, pragmatic elements within a weakened regime might help steer Tehran toward nuclear diplomacy, especially given Iran’s urgent need for the lifting of sanctions to rebuild after the war. This logic underpins the reported U.S. proposal offering sweeping sanctions relief in exchange for dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, its proxy networks, and limits on its missile arsenal.
But betting on this outcome would be a mistake. Far more likely—and far more alarming—is the possibility that Iran concludes that nuclear weapons are the only way to deter future regime change efforts. Ali Khamenei, who had guided Iranian nuclear policy since 1989, was unwilling to give up Iran’s nuclear program, but he was also not committed to actually developing nuclear weapons. Instead, after halting Iran’s dedicated nuclear weapons program in 2003, he adopted a so-called hedging strategy: gradually building up nuclear capabilities and expertise to improve Iran’s ability to build a bomb but holding back on a decision to assemble nuclear weapons. His commitment to that strategy ultimately cost him his life.
Indeed, Khamenei was arguably one of the few people standing between Iran and nuclear weapons. Internal calls to build the bomb had grown within the regime over the past several years as Tehran’s strategic environment deteriorated and its proxy- and missile-based deterrent collapsed. In early 2025, the U.S. intelligence community warned that pressure was building on Khamenei to reverse the 2003 halt to Iran’s weapons program, noting that increasingly open debate had “emboldened nuclear weapons advocates within Iran’s decisionmaking apparatus.”
With the elder Khamenei gone, those internal brakes may no longer exist. For the new supreme leader and his advisors—many more hard-line than their predecessors—abandoning enrichment or surrendering nuclear material would be worse than capitulation. It would be a betrayal of Ali Khamenei’s legacy. With its conventional forces degraded, Iran is even less likely to give up its last meaningful source of leverage: the ability to build a bomb.
In today’s chaotic environment, military leaders or scientists could also press ahead without a formal political decision on nuclear weapons—an outcome made more plausible by reported rifts between civilian and military leaders over strategy.
Iran would still face obstacles in acting on a decision to build a bomb. Accessing buried nuclear material without detection may prove difficult. In his recent speech, Trump claimed that it would take Iran “months.” And it is unclear how quickly Tehran could complete weaponization steps. Still, Iran likely could assemble a crude test device using 60 percent enriched uranium alone. Just as important, the traditional fear of being “caught trying”—once a powerful restraint on going for the bomb—may carry far less weight. Iranian leaders may now reasonably ask: What would Washington and Israel do—bomb us again?
After the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and then two rounds of surprise military attacks while negotiations were underway, Iranian leaders have little reason to believe that the United States will honor its commitments. Tehran might reasonably conclude that it does not need to cut a deal since it has already survived the worst the United States and Israel can throw at it. Indeed, believing it has the upper hand in the war, it has so far shown little interest in the U.S. proposal that Iran end its nuclear program as part of a cease-fire arrangement.
There are other reasons a nuclear deal will be harder to realize now than in 2015. Since the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, Iran has acquired capabilities and expertise that cannot be easily rolled back. Any future agreement would require far more intrusive monitoring and inspections than the 2015 agreement—for example, inspections of military sites to ensure that Iran is not engaged in research and development activities that could be applied to building a device. Still, diplomacy should remain on the table, if only to exploit divisions within the regime and preserve a non-nuclear weapons pathway for Iran.
Absent a new agreement, Washington faces a bleak alternative: a long‑term campaign of periodic strikes to prevent a nuclear breakout. That would require persistent, precise intelligence about Iran’s nuclear activities. Although U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard recently testified that the intelligence community has “high confidence” on the whereabouts of Iranian nuclear material, maintaining that intelligence picture is inherently challenging and always at risk of being wrong. With no international inspectors on the ground, Washington’s estimates would always carry a degree of uncertainty.
Meanwhile, Iran retains escalation options that work. It has shown an ability and willingness to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz—and unlike its retaliatory strategy that rests on missile and drone attacks, leveraging the strait has reliably gotten the world’s attention. What’s to stop Iran from doing so in the future, particularly when the United States will likely have fewer military assets in the region to manage the crisis?
But longer-term trends do not necessarily favor the Islamic Republic. While the regime seems likely to weather this war, that does not mean threats to its survival have disappeared. It will emerge from this war weaker politically, economically, and militarily—even if more hard-line at the top. The same set of intractable problems that fueled unrest this year remain unresolved. Large-scale protests are not a matter of if but when. The regime has shown its willingness to crush protests by force, but at some point, this may not be enough.
Washington should draw the right lessons from this war and prepare for the future. Regime change and denuclearization cannot be imposed at the barrel of a gun. The former depends on complex dynamics that the United States can influence but not control. The latter ultimately requires a political settlement.
As part of a broader policy reset on Iran, the United States also needs to prepare for the unexpected. As far-fetched as it may sound today, this includes regime collapse and instability, which could introduce risks of theft of nuclear material and technology in Iran and the flight of expertise to other countries.
Ironically, it seems that many of the postwar challenges will look familiar. But there is one crucial difference. This time, Washington will be dealing with an Iran that no longer has a cautious, nuclear weapons‑averse supreme leader at the helm.
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