Iran’s Nuclear Weapons Program: What’s Left?

Iran’s deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh gave CNN an exclusive interview Sunday and described his country’s nuclear program as still “intact,” but admitting that U.S. and Israeli strikes badly damaged facilities earlier this year. He said, “this country is not a country that you can bomb and then think that you are going to ruin everything.”

Now, calling the program “intact” is a little curious because just a few weeks ago, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian pledged to rebuild the program. “Destroying buildings and factories will not create a problem for us, we will rebuild and with greater strength.” If the program’s intact, you don’t really need to rebuild that much, now do you?

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Jim Geraghty

Jim Geraghty is the senior political correspondent of National Review.

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Iran’s deputy foreign minister Saeed Khatibzadeh gave CNN an exclusive interview Sunday and described his country’s nuclear program as still “intact,” but admitting that U.S. and Israeli strikes badly damaged facilities earlier this year. He said, “this country is not a country that you can bomb and then think that you are going to ruin everything.”

Now, calling the program “intact” is a little curious because just a few weeks ago, Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian pledged to rebuild the program. “Destroying buildings and factories will not create a problem for us, we will rebuild and with greater strength.” If the program’s intact, you don’t really need to rebuild that much, now do you?