Trump Again Threatens To Destroy New Iran Nuclear Assets As Tehran Teases Pullout From NPT

President Trump has doubled (or tripled) down on his insistence that Iran’s nuclear capabilities were completely obliterated by last month’s US bomber raid on three key Iranian nuclear facilities.

He wrote Saturday on Truth Social, „All three nuclear facilities in Iran are completely ruined and/or destroyed. It would take years to restore them to operational status, and if Iran wanted to do so, it would be much more advantageous for them to start everything from scratch in three different locations before these facilities are destroyed — if they decide to do so.”

Getty Images

His words were issued the same day that official spokesman of the Iranian Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, Ebrahim Rezaei, threatened to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and begin enriching uranium beyond the 60% level, in the event that Washington sanctions continue to ramp up anti-Tehran sanctions.

„In light of recent developments, we will take an appropriate decision. Government has to enforce parliament bills but such a proposal is just being prepared and we will coordinate in the later stages with parliament,” he first announced last month.

Trump’s weekend statement appeared to primarily be responding to a new US intelligence assessment revealed in media reports Thursday which said that Iran’s nuclear enrichment site in Fordow was mostly destroyed during the June 21 strikes. It indicated that the two other crucial sites, Natanz and Isfahan, were not badly damaged.

The White House and Department of Defense (DoD) have still rallied around the president’s position, and have tended to downplay the assessment as but one, partial and unvetted point of view from an intelligence source.

„The credibility of the Fake News Media is similar to that of the current state of the Iranian nuclear facilities: destroyed, in the dirt, and will take years to recover,” the DoD’s chief spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement. „President Trump was clear and the American people understand: Iran’s nuclear facilities in Fordow, Isfahan, and Natanz were completely and totally obliterated.”

Following the 12-day Israel-Iran war, if Tehran was not previously pursuing nuclear weapons, there are likely very much thinking about it now.

Top European powers plan new Iran nuclear talks as threat of sanctions looms
https://t.co/GFXBZr5vsB pic.twitter.com/gYPnAEi2hV

— FRANCE 24 (@FRANCE24) July 20, 2025

What the war may have done is to actually speed up Iran’s nuclear ambitions, also as the Iranians realize it’s impossible to negotiate with the West, given that 'good faith’ talks with the US were underway at the very moment Israel launched a surprise attack.