"All I have to do is leave Iran." That was Donald Trump on Wednesday, standing in the Oval Office, speaking to reporters about gas prices. The remark was casual, almost throwaway, the kind of line a president delivers when he has decided a problem is solved and wants to move on. The problem is that Iran's enriched uranium, buried in tunnels beneath Isfahan that no bomb in America's arsenal can reach, has not received the same memo.
There is a particular kind of danger that attaches to a war that is never won. The United States began its campaign against Iran on February 28 with three objectives: to destroy Iran's nuclear program and to destroy its missile program. Then, of course, it turned into a 'hole of mess' where it got deeper, every single day that passed. Thirty-two days into the conflict, with three aircraft carriers on station, gas prices passing $4 a gallon for the first time since 2022 in America, and the president telling reporters that he is planning to leave "maybe two weeks, maybe three," the question that arises is: how many of those objectives have been met?
The answer, with respect to the most important one, is a disturbing one. The president announced that Iran's nuclear program was "completely obliterated." The truth, as revealed through satellite imagery, IAEA reports, and nuclear physicists, is rather different.
In this article, we will explore some important developments released just. There have been several significant events that we should examine to understand the direction of the US-Israel-Iran conflict.
June 2025, eight months prior to the existing war, was when US and Israeli warplanes attacked three of Iran's major nuclear enrichment centers. Natanz and Fordow were badly damaged. The attack was seen as a knockout blow for Iran's nuclear plans. However, satellite imagery captured on 9 June 2025, just days before this attack began, reveals something that fundamentally complicates this picture: a flatbed truck carrying 18 blue containers entering a tunnel entrance at the Isfahan underground site. An analysis done by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, in collaboration with the French newspaper Le Monde, determined that "it was likely that the containers held Iran's stockpile of highly enriched uranium up to 540 kilograms of material at 60 percent uranium-235, one step away from being weapons-grade."
Iran, it appears, had moved the material before the bombs fell.
Iran possessed 440.9 kg of uranium enriched to 60% purity as of the eve of the June 2025 strikes. The purity level required for weapons-grade uranium is 90%. According to the IAEA, 42 kg of 60%-enriched uranium is theoretically sufficient, if further enriched, to make a nuclear device.
The Isfahan tunnel complex, where most or all of the uranium is now believed to be stored, remained largely intact following the June 2025 strikes. The entrances to the tunnels have been damaged, but the facility was not destroyed. The chairman of the US Joint Chiefs, General Dan Caine, is said to have admitted that the tunnels at Isfahan are too deep to be destroyed using the bunker-buster bombs used to destroy the Fordow facility.
The IAEA has not had access to any of the four declared enrichment facilities in Iran since before the June 2025 strikes. The IAEA is unaware of the current size and location of the 60%-enriched uranium stockpile. Iran could theoretically enrich 60%-enriched uranium to weapons-grade purity in 10 days, provided it has the operational capability to do so.
In this context, the United States is reinforcing its position in the region. The USS George H.W. Bush aircraft carrier has left Norfolk, Virginia, and is on its way to join the USS Abraham Lincoln strike group in the Arabian Sea. The USS Gerald R. Ford is on operational standby in the region. The deployment of three aircraft carriers simultaneously in the same region is not the deployment of an withdrawing power; it is the deployment of an power that is exerting maximum pressure. The number of U.S. military personnel in the region is now over 50,000.
But the president is saying he is leaving. The disconnect is the negotiating verbiage of Trump, applied to the war. The threat, the deadline, the pivot. The question is whether the Iranians read the rhetoric the same way the Americans do.
War ends after a few weeks, but what then?
Suppose, for a hypothetical moment, Mr. Trump is right, and US forces do indeed pull out within three weeks, and Israeli strikes do indeed cease, and ships do indeed begin passing through the Omani channel of the Strait of Hormuz. The result, far from a quick return to normal, won't occur, energy analysts say, for a minimum of six to eight weeks, and even then, only if everything goes right. The pain from the present anchored fleet, over 150 ships anchored since the blockade began, has not yet been felt in terms of prices, shortages, or supply problems. It is still on its way, in the most literal sense.
The damage to the energy infrastructure, inflicted by strikes carried out by Iran, US, and Israeli forces, may take weeks or even months to repair, and the extent of such damage is still unknown. The shipping rates, fearing the conflict and the closure of the strait, may take four to six weeks to recalculate after seeing safe passage for very large crude carriers. Iran, however, has passed a law to impose a toll on vessels passing through the strait, a measure that, if implemented, would ensure that the geopolitical risk is factored into oil prices indefinitely.
There is, however, a bigger issue to consider. If Iran fires on vessels passing through Omani waters after the war is over, the Gulf nations may retaliate, and this is important because the strait is a "double-edged knife," with 90 percent of Iran's own oil exports passing through the strait that Iran is threatening to weaponize.
Alternatives against Hormuz
The crisis has brought back to the fore the issue of alternative energy routes, which has been debated over the past few years. Osama al-Qadi, an adviser to the Syrian Ministry of Economy, has suggested the revival of the historic Hejaz Railway, which was originally built by Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II to connect Damascus to Medina, as part of a new land route that has the potential to transport 7 million barrels of oil daily via safe land routes, bypassing the strait completely. The main route of the railway passes through Amman, which suffered heavy damage during the Arab Revolt of 1916-1918, although only parts of the railway in Syria and Jordan are currently in operation.
Ben Gurion Plan
First conceived in 1963 and named after Israel’s first prime minister, the Ben Gurion Canal project would see the creation of a 293-kilometer-long artificial waterway between the Gulf of Aqaba at Eilat and the Mediterranean near Ashkelon, passing through the Negev Desert. This would make it almost one and a half times longer than the Suez Canal and would allow it to service a considerable portion of the 12% of the world’s trade passing through the Suez Canal.
The project has gained renewed attention in the backdrop of the Gaza war and the current Hormuz crisis. The strategic value of the project to Washington and Tel Aviv is obvious: a sea route passing through Israeli territory and avoiding the Suez Canal (Egyptian-controlled) and the Strait of Hormuz (Iranian-controlled) at the same time would directly challenge China’s Belt and Road project, which heavily depends on the Suez Canal traffic.
Another parallel plan, a pipeline connecting Qatar and Saudi Arabia through Jordan and Israeli Mediterranean ports, has been floated within the overall framework of the Abraham Accords’ economic component, providing Gulf countries with an alternative export route outside Hormuz while at the same time further solidifying their economic ties with Israel.
Both projects face daunting challenges: Ben Gurion would cost hundreds of billions of dollars, would require the excavation of Palestinian territory that some argue cannot be separated from the Gaza problem, and would face fierce opposition from Egyptians who see it as a threat to their Suez monopoly. Moreover, one end of a proposed canal near Eilat would be within range of Houthi drones emanating from Yemen, a problem made all too real by the ongoing war. The Ben Gurion Canal remains, for now, might seem as a fantasy. But the crisis in Hormuz has given it a new and urgent audience.
Atlantic Alliance under scrutiny
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio didn’t mince words: "When we need them to allow us to use their military bases," he said, alluding to the NATO members who denied the US access to their airspace and military bases during the war in Iran, "their answer is no? Then why are we in NATO?" Trump went further in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, calling the alliance "a paper tiger" and suggesting that the US should review its membership in the alliance once the war in Iran is over. The Spanish defense minister confirmed reports that the country closed its airspace to US planes participating in the war in Iran. France did the same.
These are not rhetorical flourishes, but the public expression of a rift that has been building in the alliance for years, and the war in Iran has brought it to a head. The alliance, which has been the foundation of the Western security architecture since 1949, is being called into question in real time by the head of the most powerful member of the alliance, not because of a difference in doctrine, but because of a war that the alliance refused to join.
Trump boldly says, Iran doesn't have to make a deal: "When we feel that they are for a long period of time put in the stone ages and they won't be able to come up with a nuclear weapon, then we'll leave. Whether we have a deal or not, irrelevant."
Who won, for now - and what winning means now
It is tempting, in the fog of an unresolved war, to look for a winner. But perhaps, it seems we could say that, for now at least, Iran has emerged as the 'winner' of this awkward war. Undoubtedly, Iran's losses must be taken into account. Yet, to suggest that the U.S. had no plan regarding this war would be absurd. In fact, pressure from Israel accelerated the planned military actions, leaving the U.S. in a difficult position without a clear strategy.
But Iran's enriched uranium, the one asset that this entire campaign was ostensibly launched to eliminate, almost certainly remains intact, buried in tunnels that no available bomb can reach, in quantities sufficient for multiple nuclear devices, outside the sight of international inspectors, in a country that is now more hostile to Western engagement than at any point since 1979
In that sense, if the war ends on Trump's timeline without a verified and enforceable agreement on the nuclear stockpile, Iran emerges from this war having absorbed catastrophic punishment while preserving its most strategically important asset. That is not a defeat in any meaningful sense. It is, at minimum, a draw. A draw on terms that leave the fundamental problem unresolved, at higher human cost, with less diplomatic goodwill on all sides, and with a regional security architecture that is actively reorganising itself around the assumption that American power is no longer reliably deployable.
The implications extend beyond the Middle East, highlighting the stress on the US-led order. NATO allies did not collaborate, Gulf states opted out, and China found ways to navigate the blockade while positioning itself neutrally. The conflict is expected to persist with the same objectives but with altered strategies. A U.S. withdrawal without conditions, coupled with continued Israeli aggression, could have severe repercussions for Tel Aviv.
Illustration credit: Leon Wang/AAP
