While the U.S. military’s strikes on Iran on June 21, 2025, are believed to have damaged the country’s critical nuclear infrastructure, no evidence has yet emerged showing the program to have been completely destroyed. In fact, an early U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment surmised that the attack merely delayed Iran’s possible path to a nuclear weapon by less than six months. Further, Rafael Mariano Grossi, director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, stated that Iran may have moved its supply of enriched uranium ahead of the strikes, and assessed that Tehran could resume uranium enrichment “in a matter of months.”

Others have warned that the strikes may intensify the Islamic Republic’s nuclear drive, convincing the government of the need to acquire a bomb in order to safeguard its survival.

As a scholar of nuclear nonproliferation, my research indicates that military strikes, such as the U.S. one against Iran, tend not to work. Diplomacy — involving broad and resolute international efforts — offers a more strategically effective way to preempt a country from obtaining a nuclear arsenal.

The strategy of a country using airstrikes to attempt to eliminate a rival nation’s nuclear program has precedent, including Israel’s 1981 airstrike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear reactor and its 2007 air assault on Syria’s Kibar nuclear complex.

Yet neither military operation reliably or completely terminated the targeted program. Many experts of nuclear strategy believe that while the Israeli strike destroyed the Osirak complex, it likely accelerated Iraq’s fledgling nuclear program, increasing Saddam Hussein’s commitment to pursue a nuclear weapon.

In a similar vein, while Israeli airstrikes destroyed Syria’s nascent nuclear facility, evidence soon emerged that........

© The Conversation