Iran "much further away" from building nukes after US strike, says state secretary

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that Iran is “much further away from a nuclear weapon” amid new intelligence assessments that a U.S. strike did not destroy three of the country’s nuclear sites.

In an exclusive interview with Politico, Rubio offered a more measured assessment than President Donald Trump, who has insisted that Iran’s sites at Fordo, Natanz and Isfahan have been “completely destroyed,” Caliber.Az reports.

“The bottom line is, they are much further away from a nuclear weapon today than they were before the president took this bold action,” Rubio said. “That’s the most important thing to understand — significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components, and we’re just learning more about it.”

On June 21, the U.S. Air Force and Navy launched a coordinated attack on Iran's Fordow Uranium Enrichment Plant, Natanz Nuclear Facility, and Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center. The operation involved 125 aircraft, including seven B-2 Spirit stealth bombers that dropped fourteen 30,000-pound GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) "bunker buster" bombs on Fordow, a heavily fortified underground facility.

Additionally, over two dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from a U.S. submarine targeting Natanz and Isfahan. President Trump announced the strikes via Truth Social, describing them as a "spectacular military success" and claiming the sites were "totally obliterated." The U.S. strikes were the first direct American offensive action in the Iran-Israel war, which began on June 13, 2025, when Israel launched surprise attacks on Iranian nuclear and military targets.

By Khagan Isayev