Two months of American and Israeli strikes have failed to meaningfully push back Iran’s path to a nuclear weapon, according to U.S. intelligence assessments, according three sources familiar with the matter.

The estimated time Tehran would need to build a bomb has not changed since last summer, the sources said, when analysts concluded that the U.S.-Israeli campaign in June had pushed the timeline out to as long as a year.

The finding, reported Monday by Reuters, undercuts one of the central rationales President Donald Trump has cited for the war he launched in February, which he has repeatedly framed as essential to keeping nuclear weapons out of Iranian hands.

The latest U.S. and Israeli strikes, which began February 28, have largely focused on conventional military targets, Iran’s leadership and its military-industrial base, the sources said. Israel has hit several nuclear-related sites, including a uranium-processing facility in late March, but the bulk of American firepower has gone elsewhere.

That focus, intelligence officials and outside analysts said, helps explain why the timeline has not moved.

“Iran still possesses all of its nuclear material, as far as we know,” said Eric Brewer, a former senior U.S. intelligence analyst who led assessments of Iran’s nuclear program and now works at the Nuclear Threat Initiative. He said the material is likely held in deeply buried underground facilities that U.S. munitions cannot reach.

Before last June’s 12-day war, U.S. intelligence agencies estimated that Iran could produce enough bomb-grade uranium and assemble a weapon in roughly three to six months, two of the sources said. The American strikes that hit the Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan complexes pushed that estimate to about nine months to a year — and there it has stayed.

The June strikes destroyed or badly damaged the three known enrichment plants then in operation. But the United Nations nuclear watchdog has been unable to verify the location of roughly 440 kilograms of uranium enriched to 60 percent. The agency believes about half of that stockpile was held in an underground tunnel complex at the Isfahan Nuclear Research Center, but inspections have been suspended and the material’s whereabouts cannot be confirmed. The International Atomic Energy Agency has assessed that the full stockpile, if further enriched, would be enough for 10 bombs.

The unchanged timeline suggests that any meaningful setback to Iran’s program would now require destroying or removing that highly enriched uranium outright. In recent weeks, U.S. officials have weighed dangerous options to do so, including ground raids to retrieve the material believed to be stored in the Isfahan tunnels, the sources said.

The White House pushed back on the framing that the campaign has fallen short.

“While Operation Midnight Hammer obliterated Iran’s nuclear facilities, Operation Epic Fury built on this success by decimating Iran’s defense industrial base that they once leveraged as a protective shield around their pursuit of a nuclear weapon,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said, referring to the June operation and the war that began in February. “President Trump has long been clear that Iran can never have a nuclear weapon and he does not bluff.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence did not respond to a Reuters request for comment.

Some officials argue the intelligence estimates understate the damage done. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that U.S. strikes on Iranian air defenses have weakened Tehran’s ability to shield its nuclear sites should it decide to dash for a weapon. Israeli assassinations of senior Iranian nuclear scientists, several analysts said, have introduced fresh uncertainty into Tehran’s ability to build a functioning bomb.

(YWN World Headquarters – NYC)