It is perhaps the most fundamental question of the Iran war. If the goal of the war was to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon, and if the U.S. attack of June 21, 2025, either obliterated or substantially damaged Iran’s nuclear facilities, and if additional targeted bombing could have finished the job of destroying those facilities, why was it necessary for the U.S., along with ally Israel, to go to full-scale war against Iran at the end of February 2026, targeting a broad range of targets, assassinating the country’s supreme leader as well as other key figures and setting off further war and an economic debacle that may or may not be resolved by the current peace negotiations?

Why not just destroy Iran’s nuclear capabilities, keeping the option to strike again if, or when, Iran made progress reconstituting them? It’s a question President Donald Trump and top administration officials have never fully answered.

After the 2025 bombing, Trump famously said that special U.S. bunker-buster bombs had “obliterated” Iran’s nuclear facilities. There followed immediate intelligence leaks suggesting that was not true. One such leak said the bombing had set back Iran’s programs just a short time, perhaps as little as three to six months. Other assessments said it had been set back one or two years.

Trump has never backed down from the “obliterated” assessment. And at the time, Secretary of State Marco Rubio stressed that, in addition to all the other damage it had done, the U.S. had destroyed Iran’s ability to perform something called “conversion,” which is a key part of the process of making a nuclear weapon.

Finally, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency said the attack had done “enormous damage” to the Iranian program.

So that is success, right? The goal was to keep Iran from building or obtaining a nuclear weapon, and the June 2025 U.S. strike set them back a long way. And yet just eight months later, in early 2026, some in the administration were suggesting that the Iranian danger had returned in full force or nearly full force.

Trump spent much of January and February negotiating with the Iranians on the nuclear issue. At times, he threatened military action, including when he said that “the next attack will be far worse” than last year’s bombing. A week before going to war, Trump was asked if he was considering a “limited military strike” to pressure Iran into an agreement. “I guess I can say, I am considering that,” Trump answered.

A day or two later, on Feb. 22, White House envoy Steve Witkoff went on Fox News to say that Iran was already close to enriching uranium to make a bomb. “They have been enriching well beyond the number you need for civil nuclear [uses],” Witkoff said. “They’re probably a week away from having industrial grade bomb making material. And that’s really dangerous. Can’t have that.”

The interview did not delve into the details of nuclear weapons. For example, what progress, if any, had Iran made on restoring its critical “conversion” capacity? In any event, less than a week later, the story changed dramatically when the U.S. and Israel began attacks and the war was underway.

In the early days, the White House listed four reasons for starting the war: “1) Destroy Iran’s ballistic missiles and production capacity; 2) Demolish their navy; 3) End their ability to arm proxies; and 4) Prevent them from ever obtaining a nuclear weapon.”

What had been the No. 1 reason for the war slipped to No. 4. For his part, Rubio began expressing the view that Iran’s missiles were the key target because the country was trying to produce so many missiles that it could effectively create a shield for its nuclear development. “They wanted to reach a point where you couldn’t touch them, and then they could do whatever the hell they wanted with their nuclear program,” Rubio said in early March.

Later, as the war settled into a stalemate and the Strait of Hormuz became an overwhelming issue, President Trump began to return to what he called the main issue: preventing Iran from having a nuclear weapon. This week, at the G7 meeting in France, Trump said, “Frankly, the only thing that really matters to me is Iran will never have a nuclear weapon.” On the same day, Vice President JD Vance said that, “The Iranian nuclear program has been completely destroyed.”

Of course, the U.S. could have kept Iran from having a nuclear weapon with far less extensive actions than those that marked the first weeks of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran. Trump focuses on the notion that Iran will “never” have a nuclear weapon, but there is no single action anyone can take to ensure that. Who knows what is going to happen years from now? Given that, it appears the best approach would be to simply make sure Iran remains a long way away from acquiring a nuclear weapon. If it gets too close in the future, the U.S. can take action again.

That is not the course the Trump administration chose. So now, as peace talks go on, the fundamental question about the war — was it necessary? — remains unanswered.

This content originally appeared on the Washington Examiner at washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/4611022/iran-deal-was-war-necessary/.