Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect that the Iranian government has confirmed that supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the airstrikes on Iran and to clarify Donald Trump‘s statements about Iran’s nuclear capabilities.
WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump and members of his administration repeatedly made the case for military strikes against Iran by arguing that the Middle Eastern country posed a serious threat to the United States.
Iran, they said, was on the verge of developing a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States.
But national security analysts and experts on Iran and its ruling regime say those claims are based on assumptions that are wrong or greatly exaggerated.
The assertion that Iran was close to developing a nuclear weapon “is not true,” said Matthew Bunn, an arms control expert at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
The United States and Israel launched military strikes against Iran on Feb. 28, targeting the country’s missile capabilities and its leaders.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in the joint strikes, the Iranian government has confirmed. Earlier, Iran’s Foreign Ministry insisted he and President Masoud Pezeshkian remained “safe and sound.”
Reuters reported that 201 people were killed and 747 were wounded in the attacks, according to Iranian media that cited Red Crescent, a humanitarian group working in the region. Official estimates of fatalities and injuries haven’t been confirmed by American or international authorities.
Senior Trump administration officials, briefing reporters after the attacks on the condition of anonymity, insisted the strikes were necessary to protect Americans from what they said was “an intolerable risk” to the United States from Iran’s development of long-range missiles.
Trump said in his State of the Union address Feb. 24 that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon and ballistic missiles that could soon reach the United States.
The United States had been negotiating with Iran in the hope of striking a deal that would avoid a military confrontation. A third round of indirect talks ended Feb. 26 without a major breakthrough, but negotiators for both countries had been expected to meet again.
In their briefing with reporters, a senior administration official said Iran refused to even discuss its ballistic missile program inside or outside of mediated talks with the United States. That was unacceptable to the Trump administration, the official said.
Another U.S. official said the United States had intelligence showing Iran was rebuilding three nuclear sites the U.S. military bombed last summer.
The officials said they determined in the course of talks that the Iranians were seeking to preserve their ability to enrich uranium so that over time they could use it to make a nuclear bomb. Iran has said it seeks to use enriched uranium for peaceful purposes, such as energy production. One official said the administration offered to give Iran free fuel in perpetuity. But Iran declined, saying it needed to enrich uranium, the official said.
“The fact that they weren’t willing to take free nuclear fuel was a big tell to us that they were looking to buy time,” the official said.
Iran has a stockpile of nearly 1,000 pounds of uranium enriched at 60% purity, the official said. Uranium enriched at 60% could be converted within a week to 90%, which is the level needed to make a nuclear weapon, the official said.
But some national security analysts have said Iran doesn’t have the capability to enrich uranium to 90%.
After the United States bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities last June, Trump announced the sites had been “obliterated.”
Iran had no operating enrichment facilities after those attacks, said Bunn, who has analyzed the long-term risks of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons.
“The major facilities of Iran’s program and a lot of the key experts were destroyed,” he said.
Iran may have been able to rescue some of its enriched uranium stockpile either before or after the June attacks, Bunn said. But in terms of a facility that would make weapons-grade uranium, “none of that is there,” he said.
Experts also have cast doubts on the administration’s claim that Iran was close to making ballistic missiles that could reach the United States. U.S. intelligence reports don’t back those assertions, according to Reuters.
Three sources familiar with the assessments told the news agency that Trump’s claims appear to be exaggerated.
Iran has the largest ballistic missile force in the Middle East, and its missiles are able to strike Israel, U.S. bases in the region and parts of Europe. It also has developed so-called space-launch vehicles that have put satellites into orbit and that experts say could be modified into intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear warheads.
But “it’s not so easy to build a ballistic missile that’s going to reach the United States, when we’ve done so much damage to their program until now,” said Daniel Kurtzer, U.S. ambassador to Israel during George W. Bush’s administration. He was U.S. ambassador to Egypt under President Bill Clinton.
Recent U.S. intelligence assessments suggest Iran was as far as 10 years from developing a missile capable of striking the United States, said Mona Yacoubian, director and senior adviser of the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank.
In his video remarks after the U.S.-Israeli strikes, Trump urged the Iranian people to rise up against the Iranian leadership and “take over your government.”
“This will probably be your only chance for generations,” he said.
But Bunn and Yacoubian said it’s unlikely the strikes would trigger a mass push for regime change in Iran.
Iranians have learned lessons from their 12-day war with Israel last summer and had put in place succession plans if Khamenei, their supreme leader, were killed, Yacoubian said.
“The regime in Iran is probably better placed to manage through chaos than the Iranian people themselves,” she said.
With Khamenei’s death in the latest U.S.-Israeli assault, it’s possible that Iran’s ruling regime might be weakened, Bunn said. But Iranians may be reluctant to rise up against their government after thousands of protesters were slaughtered by Iranian security forces during a crackdown on nationwide demonstrations in January.
“Now,” Bunn said, “the regime is even more desperate. If I were an Iranian protester, I would be extremely nervous about raising up in a situation where I would appear to be acting in concert with a foreign enemy.”
Michael Collins writes about the intersection of politics and culture. A veteran reporter, he has covered the White House and Congress. Follow him on X: @mcollinsNEWS
Francesca Chambers covers the White House. Follow her on X: @fran_chambers