Iran: Is the nuclear facility really destroyed?

When asked if there is evidence that Iran's nuclear capabilities have been destroyed in the American airstrike, the White House and the authorities in Tehran give completely opposite answers.

"There are claims from the American side that they were destroyed, there are claims from the Iranian side that they were not," Mirko Dautović, a lecturer at the University of Tashkent and an analyst of international politics who during his career mostly dealt with the Middle East, told Vreme.

While Donald Trump described the attack on Iran as a "spectacular military success" and added that the facilities were "totally destroyed", the deputy political director of Iran's public service Hassan Abedini immediately declared that all three nuclear facilities, which are suspected of enriching uranium for the purpose of producing atomic weapons, evacuated "some time ago"..

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endlessly thanked Trump for "having the courage" to order the US military to attack Iran and support Israel in its efforts to "remove the danger to civilization", but the Israelis also refrained from assessing whether the process of alleged nuclear weapons production in Iran was really destroyed, or just slowed down.

Does Iran even have a nuclear weapons program?

Netanyahu said after a massive airstrike by Israeli warplanes on June 13 that it only took Iran a few months to build a nuclear weapon. Admittedly, he said that way back in 1995.

Dautovič refers to the statement of Rafael Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who told CNN after the first attack in US history on Iran:

"While it is clear that the US airstrikes have hit Iran's nuclear facilities, it is not yet possible to assess the damage done there."

That will not be possible until inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, who are still in Iran, are able to inspect Iran's nuclear facilities. Grossi says the IAEA has so far found no evidence, no indication, that Iran intended to build nuclear weapons, nor has any country offered intelligence to that effect.

However, Grossi told CNN that Iran has stockpiled about 400 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent, which is not far from the 90 percent enrichment needed to make nuclear weapons.

"Iran has made no secret that it has protected this material," Grossi told CNN.

Speaking before the Steering Committee of the United Nations nuclear watchdog, Grossi said inspectors must be able "to go back to Iran's nuclear facilities and take inventory of the uranium stockpile, including, most importantly, 400 kilograms of 60 percent enriched."

No leaks or radioactivity.

Also, energy experts commented that there was no radioactive leakage from the plants that were affected, which should have happened if there was uranium in the plants.

Dautovič therefore assumes that the nuclear program was "moved somewhere safe, or that those facilities were simply not destroyed."

Unreliable Trump

An additional gray shadow on America's attack on Iran is cast by the fact that Trump gave Tehran two weeks to find a solution to achieve peace, and that soon after ordered the bombing.

The US attacked Iran without the approval of the United Nations Security Council, or the appropriate resolution of the General Assembly, which, admittedly, is nothing new. What is new is that, unlike Iraq or Libya, America embarked on this war campaign alone, without a single NATO ally.

The American president did not even adhere to the practice of notifying the national security body of Congress, the so-called, about the attack Gang of Eight, which consists of eight congressmen who have access to top secret information of importance to US national security from both parties. Democratic members were completely excluded, they learned about the historic attack on Iran from the media.

Coming to Israel's aid

"Trump is clearly starting from the assumption that Israel alone cannot decisively weaken Iran's nuclear program," says security expert Giorgio Cafiero in an interview with Deutsche Welle. That is why, he says, the USA intervened.

"Attacks on Iran's nuclear program are based on wrong information," Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East politics and international relations at the London School of Economics, told DW.

The American intelligence service, he says, has come to the conclusion that Iran is not actively trying to build an atomic bomb and that it needs at least three years of work to even be staffed for such a thing.

New bombs

While the world is thinking about the consequences of Trump's attack, Iran has warned the US president that it will start actions inside the US with terrorist sleeper cells if it is attacked, in a message sent a day before the US strikes, NBS News reported citing intelligence sources.

The information reached Trump through an intermediary at the G7 summit in Canada last week, which the US president left earlier, said two US officials and a person familiar with the threat.

The question that most bothers the American, but also the world public, is whether Iran will strike back and attack the American bases in the region where about 40.000 soldiers are stationed. Was the attack on the nuclear facilities a one-off, or has America re-entered a protracted war? Trump promised the exact opposite: that the US would withdraw from all global armed conflicts.

The question is whether the leadership of Iran, led by the supreme religious leader Ali Khamenei, is determined enough to block the Strait of Hormuz, which would lead to an upheaval in the global crude oil market.

Some experts assume that Khamenei has long taken care of who should succeed him if he is killed. Iran is a large country of over 90 million people with developed state structures that can function even if their existing leadership is liquidated.

After the US bombing, Israel launched new airstrikes targeting military infrastructure in the city of Kermanshah, in the west of Iran, the Israeli army said, as reported by CNN, while Tehran quickly responded with new missile attacks on Israel.