Will the ceasefire stick? And is Iran’s nuclear program really destroyed?
Beirut – The ceasefire is often frustrating, contact cases, so when President Trump delivered a dressing filled with explanatory on Tuesday in Israel and Iran, accusing both parties to violate the truce, many have wondered if the agreement would succeed.
The initial signs seemed discouraging. The ceasefire put an end to the bloodiest violence of violence in the resentment match of the decades between Iran and Israel, but the hours which followed its immediate announcement saw some of the fiercest fights in the 12-day war. Israel then accused Iran of having dismissed missiles after the deadline and scrambled planes to beat Tehran before a furious Trump calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who ordered them to go back.
Since this trembling departure, the truce has remained in place on Wednesday, even if the two parties looked at each other with distrust and threatened to restart military action if necessary.
But with questions that go to the impact of the American and Israeli assault combined on Iranian nuclear installations and military infrastructure – the very reason for which Israel has launched its campaign in the first place – a return to hostilities could be a question of when. Another urgent question: has Iran’s nuclear program been seriously damaged – as Trump maintains – or simply hampered?
An American Air Force B-2 spirit is prepared for operations this month at Whiteman Air Force Base, Missouri.
(US Air Force)
On Tuesday, a classified report of the Pentagon intelligence department, the Defense Intelligence Agency, assessed that the American strikes, which dropped 14 bombs “Bunker Buster” and dismissed the Tomahawk missiles during the weekend on Iranian nuclear installations in Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan, did not succeed in destroying the basic components of the nuclear program of Iran and that all declines
The evaluation, reported for the first time by CNN, stimulated the merged replicas of officials of the Trump administration and Trump himself, who, at a NATO summit in Europe, unleashed on Wednesday in the media reporting on the evaluation, calling them “foam” and claiming that Iran’s nuclear ambitions have been fell from decades.
“This blow ended the war … can you imagine after all they say:” Oh, let’s go a bomb “,” said Trump at a press conference. “They are not going to have a bomb and they will not enrich.”
Iran, which depicts the cease-fire as a victory, won the reverse tack, the officials saying that the program will continue.
Mohammad Eslami, head of the Iran atomic energy organization, said on Tuesday that damage to targeted sites were underway, but the government had “planned in advance” to prevent any interruption “from its nuclear program.
Iran has long maintained that it has developed its nuclear capacities for peaceful purposes. Israel and Trump say he plans to build nuclear weapons.
A man brushing where a car is covered with rubble in a residential area of the Marzdaran district of Tehran, where Iranian nuclear scientists were affected in recent drone strikes.
(Majid Saeedi / Getty Images)
Another Iranian official said that despite the assassination of Israel of many nuclear scientists, the country’s nuclear know-how remains intact. The satellite imagery of days ahead of the attack showed a truck activity near Fordo, the main site of enrichment of Iranian uranium, suggesting that the Iranian uranium stock and its centrifuge capacities have been moved before strikes and remain unable, according to experts.
During his press conference in The Hague, Trump rejected the idea that Iran had enough time to move his stocks.
“It is very difficult to remove this type of equipment, very hard and very dangerous for them to remove it,” said Trump. “In addition, they knew we came, and if they know that we come, they will not be there.”
Trump said American attacks almost eliminated Iran’s enrichment program. A high -ranking Israeli official has granted anonymity to speak with franchise, told Times that Israel’s preliminary assessment shows that Iran’s nuclear infrastructure has undergone general destruction.
Whatever the effectiveness of strikes, Iran seems ready to push its nuclear program underground.
On Wednesday, the country’s parliament voted to suspend cooperation with the United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency, according to State Media Outlet. The vote is largely symbolic, because a decision of this nature would be in the hands of the Supreme Council of National Security, the director supervised by the supreme chief of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Last week, the head of the IAEA, Rafael Grossi, said that Iran had enough equipment for “several warheads”, but it was not the same as having a nuclear weapon.
“We do not have at this stage – if you ask me, for the moment – a tangible proof that there is a program, or a plan, to make, to make a nuclear weapon,” he said.
The supporters of Hezbollah agitate Iranian flags and Hezbollah and sing slogans during a rally in front of the Iranian embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, on Wednesday, to honor the Islamic Republic of Iran for what the organizers described as “the rupture of American and Israeli aggression”. (Hassan Ammar / Associated Press)
People fold tents in an underground refuge in which they stayed during the war with Iran after the announcement of the ceasefire in Tel Aviv, Israel on Tuesday. (Ohad Zwigenberg / Associated Press)
On June 12, the Council of Governors of the IAEA said that Iran had violated its non-proliferation obligations for the first time in almost 20 years. Israel started his campaign one day later.
Some Iranian officials have suggested that he could withdraw from the non-proliferation treaty (TNP), the 1970 historic agreement which has legitimized nuclear weapons for the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council but has prohibited their development for other nations. Signatories can access non -military atomic technology as long as they do not continue armament and do not submit to the surveillance of the IAEA to guarantee any diversion of nuclear fuel.
“We have worked for many years to demonstrate to the world that we are committed to the TNP and that we are ready to work in its context, but unfortunately, this treaty has not been able to protect us or from our nuclear program,” said Iranian Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi in an interview with the New News Qatari Alaby this week.
“I think that our point of view on our nuclear program and the non-proliferation regime will witness the changes, but it is not possible to say in which direction.”
If Iran should withdraw, this would follow the game book of North Korea. Pyongyang withdrew from the TNP in 2003, justifying its move because of the fears that the United States provided for a preventive attack; He carried out his first nuclear weapon test three years later. India, Pakistan and Israel have never signed the agreement. Israel is the only country in the Middle East with nuclear warheads.
Meanwhile, the extent of Iranian Israel’s information penetration – was well demonstrated on June 13 when the Israeli forces have disabled the Iranian air defenses while following and killing the main military commanders and veterans nuclear scientists – pushed paranoia from the Iranian government to extreme levels.
The media affiliated with the Iranian state said that the intelligence and security forces in the country have arrested more than 700 suspects in an Israeli “spy network” during the 12 -day war. On Wednesday, the government has executed three people on allegations they spied on for Israel, adding to a series of spying hanging that has taken place in recent days.
This spring, Iranian and American officials gathered to discuss the Iranian nuclear program and during Trump’s visit to the Middle East in May, he said that the United States and Iran “could” approach an agreement on what Iran could or could not do, with nuclear technology. Administration officials say that the United States and Iran are already in preliminary discussion on the resumption of negotiations.
But commentators claim that a major factor of Tehran’s return to the table is to know if Trump can no longer ensure Israeli attacks, or his desire to make the face of Israeli military action, as it does in Lebanon, whose government accuses Israel of daily violations of the Lebanese group. Israel says he acts to prevent Hezbollah from reconstituting himself.
President Trump is held between Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, and defense secretary Pete Hegseth at a press conference on Wednesday at the NATO summit in Hague.
(Markus Schreiber / Associated Press)
“Does Trump have the capacity to restrict the freedom of action of Netanyahu in Iran?” said Ellie Geranmayeh, a political official of the European Council for Foreign Relations.
“If he is able to set me up under the feet of Netanyahu and say:” No more “, then the Iranians will open for direct engagement with the Americans.”
But Trump suggested Wednesday that even if the talks could resume, they may not be necessary.
“I’m going to tell you what, we’re going to talk with them next week, with Iran. We can sign an agreement, I don’t know,” Trump said. But he added that he did not need an agreement because the United States destroyed the Iranian nuclear program. “The way I look at him, they fought, the war is over,” he said.
Staff editor Michael Wilner in Hague has contributed to this report.
