Iran remains “obsessed” by building a nuclear program despite damage caused by American strikes

Iran is preparing its next step in what a security expert warns remains its main objective: to develop a nuclear weapon.

“Repair, reconstituting and reconstruction will be the Modus Operandi of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Fox News Digital Behnam Ben Taleblu, principal director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran. “It simply depends on how they will do it?” By flirting with the international community? Will they become completely dark?

“All this remains to be seen,” he added.

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The supreme chief of Iran, Ali Khamenei, addresses the media during the voting of the elections in Parliament in Tehran, Iran, on May 10, 2024. (Photo of Fatemeh Bahrami / Anadolu via Getty Images)

Regime spokesperson, Fatemeh Mohajerani, confirmed this week The fact that the Ford nuclear sites, Isfahan and Natanz were “seriously damaged” after the American and Israeli strikes of the Iranian nuclear program last month.

Questions remain on the extent of the damage caused, as well as skepticism as to whether Iran has been able to keep uranium or centrifugal enriched from the sites strongly kept before the strikes.

Although the Trump administration said on Wednesday that it had “erased” the three installations it struck and owns rejected with fervor Reports suggesting that Iranian officials may have been able to transfer certain elements of the regime coveted nuclear program, Israeli officials confirmed this week that they were continuing to monitor the situation closely.

Experts in the United States and Israel said they thought Iran always assesses the extent of damage caused by “Bunker Busting” bombs, and that the diet will seek to recover and repair what it can – which means that it could seek to buy time.

“Without a doubt, the regime will always have a diplomatic strategy designed to rope to anyone, and to find as much time as possible for this government to do it,” said Ben Taleblu.

The Iranian regime suggested this week that it had remained open to negotiations with the United States after President Donald Trump reported that talks could start next week, although several Iranian officials said this period was too ambitious.

“I do not think that negotiations will restart as quickly as that,” said Iranian Minister for Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi in an interview with CBS News. “The doors of diplomacy will never close.”

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This satellite photo of Planet Labs PBC shows the Iran underground nuclear enrichment site in Fordow after American air strikes targeting the installation on Sunday, June 22, 2025. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)

But the regime also took measures to further hinder the United Nations nuclear custody – which is responsible for following all the nuclear programs in all countries – and suspended any interaction with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Wednesday.

On the same day, the State Department condemned this decision, and spokesperson Tammy Bruce said he was “unacceptable that Iran has chosen to suspend cooperation with the AIEA at a time when he has a second-hand window to reverse the course and choose a path of peace and prosperity”.

Iran has limited access to the IAEA in the past and Ben Taleblu argued that Tehran will probably seek to do this again while he is trying to keep any negotiation broadcast that he can.

“The next stage of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and probably the most dangerous capacity at the moment, is his diplomatic capacity,” said the Iranian expert in terms of security. “It is the regime’s ability to enter negotiations with a weak hand and to start with a strong hand, to try to prevent a military victory from its opponents from becoming a political victory.

“If negotiations take place between the United States and the Iranians, whether direct or indirect, the Iranians will hang access to the IAEA. It is already their most important weapon,” he added.

Ben Taleblu explained that the use of the IAEA as a negotiation currency allows Iran not only to play time as it seeks to restore its nuclear program, but to sow division in the United States by creating uncertainty.

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This photo published on November 5, 2019 by the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran shows centrifuge machines in the enrichment installation of Uranium in the center of Iran. (Iran’s atomic energy organization via AP, file)

“By reducing surveillance and by circumscribing and even cutting access to the IAEA to these installations, the regime tries to ensure that America is based alone on intelligence,” he said. “And as you see in the very politicized debates on the evaluation of the damage of the battle, based only on intelligence without sources on the field by inspecting the sites, by inspecting the installations, by documenting the fissile equipment, can lead to radically different conclusions by organizations or the same intelligence representatives.”

In the end, Iran will not give up its nuclear ambitions, warned Ben Taleblu, noting that the Tehran security apparatus completely changed during its war with Iraq in the 1980s.

“All that we face with the regime which is a security threat began at that time-the ballistic missile program, the drone program, maritime assault, the transnational terrorist apparatus and the nuclear program are all their origins in the 1980s,” he said. “By resurrecting this nuclear program, the Islamic Republic did not engage in an experience of the scientific fair.

A large banner representing the supreme chief of Iran, the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is placed next to a ballistic missile on Place Baharestan in Tehran, Iran, on September 26, 2024, on the touch of an exhibition which marked the 44th anniversary of the beginning of the Iran-Iraq war. (Hossein Beris / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

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“The Islamic Republic was looking for an ultimate means of deterrence,” said Ben Taleblu. “He was looking for an ultimate deterrence because she had a vision of what the region and the world should look like, and he was willing to put the muscles of foreign policy and the resources of his state behind this vision.”

The Iranian regime expert warned that Iran’s “obsession” of 40 years to develop its nuclear program to achieve its geopolitical objectives will not change due to the American military intervention.