Trump just turbocharged Iran's nuclear ambitions in a big way: report
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said the main rationale for the Iran war is to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon.
But according to The New York Times, everything he has done may have actually made it more likely.
New assessments from U.S. intelligence have determined "that Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, is far more interested than his father and predecessor in pursuing a nuclear weapon," said the report. Mojtaba Khamenei assumed command of Iran after his father, the longtime supreme leader, was taken out as part of the U.S. offensives.
"American officials caution that most of the intelligence on Mojtaba Khamenei’s views comes from before the war," the report noted. The new supreme leader has not made many public appearances since he was injured in the war, out of concern for his own security and public image.
U.S. officials believe the Iranian regime has not truly restarted its nuclear program. However, per reports, Israeli intelligence identified that Tehran is moving centrifuges to a secret underground facility U.S. officials call "Pickaxe Mountain," which they believe is more secure from conventional airstrikes than the facilities damaged by U.S. forces at Fordo, Natanz, and Isfahan.
Trump has spoken openly about a strike against Pickaxe Mountain in response.
After the initial round of airstrikes, Trump had promised that Iran's nuclear capabilities had been "obliterated," even though the stated basis for the war is to stop Iran's nuclear capabilities.