As Iran Rebuilds Its Nuclear Program, Israel Considers When to Attack

Though the Israeli and American attacks in June obliterated the nuclear program Iran had been methodically building over more than four decades, the Iranian regime almost at once began to rebuild that program, with new sites for uranium enrichment built underground. The Iranians have been public about their intention to revive their program. They have, as before, kept some sites off-limits to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections. Israel has been closely monitoring Iran’s restarting its nuclear program, and its officials are convinced that there will have to be another punishing round of IDF attacks to devastate this second attempt by Iran to produce nuclear weapons. Find more about when such an attack might take place here: “Israel has limited time to act against Iranian regime, senior official warns,” Jerusalem Post, November 10, 2025:

Israel should seek to overthrow the Iranian regime before the end of US President Donald Trump’s administration, a senior official told Israeli public broadcaster KAN News on Monday.

Trump’s second term as US president is due to end in January 2029.

The Israelis know that Trump is the most pro-Israel president in history, and his successor will almost certainly be less supportive of the Jewish state. If Israel wants full backing from America for a large-scale IDF attack on Iran’s nuclear program, which might even include America launching its own attacks on that program, as it did in June of this year, it believes it will have to do so while Trump is still president.

Iran has been seeking to reproduce its stockpile of advanced missiles, and Israel is closely monitoring Tehran’s efforts, a senior security source told KAN.

As happened in June, Israel must not limit itself to nuclear sites, but also destroy both the stores of ballistic missiles Iran still may have stockpiled, as well as the factories where they are produced.

The New York Times, on Sunday, cited regional officials and analysts who view another outbreak of war between Israel and Iran as “only a matter of time.”

Iran’s new Pickaxe Mountain enrichment site, located approximately one kilometer south of the Natanz enrichment facility, is underway [sic], and inspectors have not been permitted to access it, the NYT noted.

If Iran has nothing to hide, why is it preventing the IAEA from visiting the Pickaxe Mountain site? Here’s why: both Israel and the US believe that uranium is being enriched there to a purity of 60%, that is, just below weapons grade.

However, inspectors of the UN nuclear watchdog IAEA visited Iranian nuclear sites last week, Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on Monday, according to state media, a week after the IAEA urged Iran to “seriously improve” cooperation.

The IAEA has carried out about a dozen inspections in Iran since hostilities with Israel in June, but last week highlighted it had not been given access to nuclear facilities such as Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan, which both Israel and the United States bombed.

In other words, all the major nuclear facilities in Iran, including the newest one at Pickaxe Mountain, are off-limits to the IAEA inspectors. Iran offers no explanation for denying them access. Israel knows perfectly well what is going on at those sites — uranium enrichment to a level just below weapons-grade purity — and cannot wait forever for the Iranian regime to come clean for the IAEA. It’s clear that Iran’s nuclear program has been re-started and is going full speed ahead.

“As long as we are a member of the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons), we will abide by our commitments, and just last week, IAEA inspectors visited several nuclear facilities, including the Tehran Research Reactor,” Esmaeil Baghaei said, without naming the facilities.

But the IAEA has asked to inspect a number of other suspected nuclear sites, including those that were believed completely destroyed in June at Fordow, Natanz, and a site in Isfahan, as well as a new site at Pickaxe Mountain, and the Iranian government has refused those requests. That refusal is a violation of the commitment by Iran, as a signatory to the NPT (the Non-Proliferation Treaty), to allow such inspections wherever the IAEA requests them.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian claimed on Friday that Iran seeks peace, but will not be coerced into abandoning its nuclear and missile programs, state media reported.

If Iran seeks peace, as it claims, why is it again plowing billions of dollars into building nuclear weapons, manufacturing ballistic missiles, and supporting the terror groups, with one billion dollars having been transferred to Hezbollah in Lebanon in just the last year? The country’s economy is in a downward spiral; more than half of the population lives below the poverty line; the rial has dropped from 1 USD being worth 70 rials in 1979, when Khomeini took over the country, to 1 USD being worth 42,000 rials today. The entire population of Tehran, some 10 million people, may have to be relocated because of a historic drought. Despite this, the regime continues to pour money into its nuclear and ballistic missile programs, apparently willing to sacrifice its people’s wellbeing in the hope of someday destroying the “Zionist entity.”

Trump’s terms for possibly lifting sanctions on Iran need to be spelled out. What he should now say is this: “I am willing to consider lifting sanctions on Iran provided the IAEA is allowed to investigate every nuclear site it has been so far barred from visiting.” Or he might say, in a sterner vein, that “I will consider lifting sanctions if Iran will halt its enrichment of uranium to just below weapons-grade, turn over any enriched uranium it had previously stockpiled, and also end its efforts to build ballistic missile factories.”

Meanwhile, the Israeli pilots are now preparing for their next attack — not if, but when — on the malevolent Iranian regime’s nuclear program, that must take place sometime before, possibly well before, the Trump administration is out of office in January 2029.