Israel might strike Iran’s Fordow and Natanz nuclear facilities in the first six months of 2025, multiple media outlets reported that U.S. intelligence said.
According to Washington Post-reported intelligence reports spanning from the end of the Joe Biden administration and the beginning of the Donald Trump administration, such an attack would set Iran’s nuclear program back, but further escalate tensions in the Middle East, The report also said that its conclusion derives from an attack in October on military bases linked to the program that left Tehran exposed.
Recently, Trump has said to reporters outside Air Force One that while he does not want Iran to possess a nuclear weapon at any costs, he would prefer a peaceful solution rather than “bombing the hell out of it.”
“If we made the deal, Israel wouldn’t bomb them,” Trump said. However, he has also denied reports of a potential US-Israeli strike on Iran.
Meanwhile, Iranian president Masoud Pezeshkian, in a speech Feb. 10 marking the 46th anniversary of Iran’s Islamic Revolution in the country, said the U.S. is not “sincere” about its willingness to engage in negotiations with the Islamic republic.
“If the US were sincere about negotiations, why did they sanction us?” Pezeshkian questioned the crowd. “Trump professes a desire to negotiate while simultaneously endorsing plots against the Islamic nation.”
Iran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei echoed the Iranian president’s sentiments earlier in the month, saying that talks with the U.S. would not be “smart, wise, or honorable,” according to Reuters. His comments came after Trump said he wanted a deal with Iran while instilling maximum pressure on the country still.
In his previous administration, Trump pulled out of the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known colloquially as the Iran nuclear deal, in 2018. Since pulling from the deal, Iran now has an increasing stockpile of 60%-enriched uranium, multiple times the 3.67% limit granted by the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action and not far from the 90% needed to build a nuclear weapon.
