Iran's government is trolling President Donald Trump by announcing its nuclear program is once again operational just days after the president ordered a strike on three of the country's nuclear facilities, The Daily Beast reported Tuesday evening.
"Two days after America controversially joined Israel to attack Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, the core of Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, Iran has openly defied Trump by insisting that it is ready to restart its enrichment plans," reported Farrah Tomazin. Specifically, the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran has proclaimed in a statement, “The nuclear program of Iran will resume without interruption, and we are ready to restart enrichment; our program will not stop.”
Iran maintains that its decades-old nuclear program is strictly for civilian purposes, but Israel has long said they have ambitions of developing a nuclear arsenal.
The United States assesses that Iran could develop military applications for its nuclear material swiftly if it so chose, but there is no evidence they are currently pursuing it, though Trump has attacked his own Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, for testifying as such.
Trump initially claimed after the strikes that Iran's nuclear facilities were "obliterated." However, subsequent reporting indicated that these facilities were only damaged, and that the strike set back Iran's ability to construct a nuclear weapon by a few months at most.
The White House has pushed back on these claims, even as it acknowledges that it is the assessment of the Defense Intelligence Agency.