U.S. intelligence assessments indicate that the time Iran would need to build a nuclear weapon has not changed since last summer, when analysts estimated that a U.S.-Israeli attack had pushed back the timeline to up to a year, according to three sources familiar with the matter.
The assessments of Tehran’s nuclear program remain broadly unchanged even after two months of a war that U.S. President Donald Trump launched in part to stop the Islamic Republic from developing a nuclear bomb. The latest U.S. and Israeli attacks that began on February 28 have focused on conventional military targets, but Israel has hit several significant nuclear facilities. The unchanged timeline suggests that significantly impeding Tehran’s nuclear program may require destroying or removing Iran’s remaining stockpile of highly enriched uranium, or HEU.