Iran’s options, uranium stockpiles and Trump on regime change
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Today, Iran vows to retaliate after the US bombs its nuclear facilities. Trump hints at regime change in Iran, while his defense secretary says the opposite. How much damage did the 30,000-pound American bunker-buster bombs really do? And how Iranian retaliation could affect the supply of oil. ♪

It's Monday, June 23rd. This is Reuters World News, bringing you everything you need to know from the front lines in 10 minutes every weekday. I'm Kim Van Nel in Whanganui, New Zealand.

Israel and Iran continue to trade air and missile strikes as the world braces for Tehran's response. Iran is vowing to defend itself after the US attacked its nuclear facilities at the weekend. The timing, nature and scale of Iran's proportionate response will be decided by its armed forces.

Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Amir Saeed Irvani, speaking at an emergency UN Security Council meeting where America's representative, Dorothy Kamil Shia, issued her own warning. The Iranian regime cannot have a nuclear weapon. Let us be clear.

Iran should not escalate. The US dropped cruise missiles and 30,000-pound bunker-buster bombs on Iran's nuclear sites, targeting the main Fordow plant, Natanz and Isfahan. Joining Israel in its strikes against Tehran, it marks the biggest Western military action against the Islamic Republic since its 1979 revolution.

We'll get to just how much damage those bombs actually did in a bit. But for now, the question is, how will Tehran respond? Edmund Blair is our Middle East editor. So Edmund, what options is Iran weighing now?

Despite the fact that Iran has taken something of a pummeling from Israel and now the United States, it still has options. It has fired a lot of ballistic missiles at Israel, but it still has more. It has drones, and as we've seen with ballistic missiles, drones...

If you fire enough of them, some at least will go through. That's certainly Israel's experience, however good your defences are. It also has mines. It has a very long coastline. It could disrupt shipping around the region. And this brings us on to the targets. It has plenty of targets it could go for.

There is the Strait of Hormuz, through which a large chunk of the world's oil passes every day. It could disrupt those shipping lanes. It could target US military bases in the region. There are plenty around, particularly in Kuwait, in Qatar and in Bahrain. So what's the calculation here for Iran?

If it closes the Strait of Hormuz, it will not only affect oil shipping from other states, it will affect its own oil exports, even though the United States has been trying to stop Iran's exports. If it fires missiles or fires at US bases,

it could expect a devastating response from the United States. It could try a calibrated response. We've been here before in the past where there's a sort of understanding that it will fire at US bases and everyone will be protected and no one gets hurt. But there is always the risk that a US soldier dies. And if someone dies, there is a problem. But what we do know about Iran and its past experience is it doesn't do knee-jerk reactions.

President Donald Trump declared victory after the attacks and is planning to meet with his national security team later today. But speaking at the Pentagon... We will take a few questions, Phil. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said the U.S. operation in Iran is not open-ended. This mission was not and has not been about regime change.

Just a few hours after that, however, Trump posted on Truth Social, quote, it's not politically correct to use the term regime change, but if the current Iranian regime is unable to make Iran great again, why wouldn't there be a regime change? Colleen Jenkins is our White House editor. So, Colleen, what is the U.S. likely to do now?

So that is not entirely clear. And as we know, Trump ran on a promise not to get the U.S. militarily involved in a major foreign war. He has also publicly stressed that he wants peace and a diplomatic solution. But he's made very clear that there were other targets the U.S. could go after and would go after if Iran doesn't dismantle its nuclear programs.

What impact might this have on President Trump domestically? So Trump has definitely faced blowback within the MAGA movement that helped elect him and that his party will need to maintain control of Congress in next year's midterms. There is an anti-interventionist part of the Republican Party that does not want to see the U.S. get involved in a new Middle East war. And there were a handful of Republican lawmakers who have also been critical of the strikes and that Trump acted without approval from Congress.

But Republicans have been largely supportive of the operation, at least in its limited scope so far. So it's not clear that there'll be any sort of long-term effects on Trump.

President Trump called the attacks a spectacular military success that caused monumental damage. But an Iranian source told Reuters that the near-weapon-grade uranium in the Fordow facility was moved to a safe location before the attack. Reuters could not immediately corroborate the claim. Jonathan Landay is our national security correspondent. Jonathan, how badly were Iran's nuclear sites actually damaged?

Commercial satellite imagery of the main site that was hit, Fordow, indicates, according to experts, that the U.S. attack severely damaged or possibly even destroyed the Berry site

and the uranium-enriching centrifuges that it housed. But there's no confirmation of that because you can't tell from overhead imagery what happened 200 feet under the ground. What about the other U.S. attacks on Natanz and Isfahan? Analysts with whom I've spoken said they believe that if a bunker buster, the so-called massive ordnance penetrator,

was used against the buried uranium enrichment halls at Natanz. Those were probably destroyed because they are not as deep as the hall in Fordow.

Analysts looking at commercial satellite imagery and the IAEA also say the U.S. hit several targets in and around the Isfahan Nuclear Research Center, including the entrances to a deeply buried tunnel complex. But again, the damage there is unknown because Tomahawk cruise missiles, which were the weapons that were used, do

do not have the ability to penetrate very deeply. What does all of this tell us about Iran's nuclear capabilities now? Well, the experts with whom I've spoken say at the very least the bombing campaign has set back any effort by the Iranians to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program that the US and the IAEA said they stopped in 2003. However,

As a lot of them like to say, you can't bomb knowledge out of the heads of Iranian scientists and technologists, thousands of whom have been involved in their nuclear program.

As we mentioned earlier, there's concern too about potential disruption to the Strait of Hormuz. That's the narrow waterway between Iran and Oman, through which around a fifth of the world's oil is moved. Media reports say Iran's parliament has approved a move to close it. And that's already pushing up the price of oil. Carmel Crimmins has more.

Oil prices are at their highest level since January, with Brent crude up over $78 a barrel and West Texas Intermediate up over $75. They've both jumped over 10% since this conflict started on June 13th, with a surprise Israeli attack on Iran.

Tehran has in the past threatened to close the Strait of Hormuz, but it's never followed through. You see, the strait is also indispensable for Iran's own exports, so closing it would hurt Tehran economically. Goldman Sachs said in a report that Brent could peak at $110 a barrel if oil flows through the critical waterway were halved for a month.

Israeli forces have recovered the bodies of three hostages held in Gaza since the 2023 Hamas attack. The victims, identified as civilians Ofra Kader and Yonatan Samorano and soldier Shea Levinson, were all killed on the day of the attack. 50 hostages remain in Gaza, with only 20 believed to still be alive.

A U.S. judge has ordered Kilma Abrego Garcia, a migrant wrongly deported to El Salvador, to be released on bail pending trial. Garcia was sent back to the U.S. earlier this month and faces migrant smuggling charges. Despite the bail order, a judge said it's likely Garcia will go to immigration detention rather than home to his wife and child, who are U.S. citizens.

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For today's recommended read, we are in a district of Austin, Texas, where Tesla's self-driving taxis have been picking up paying passengers for the first time.

CEO Elon Musk announced the robo-taxi launch, calling it the culmination of a decade of hard work. We'll drop a link to the story in the pod description. For more on any of the stories from today, check out Reuters.com or the Reuters app. Don't forget to follow us on your favourite podcast player. We'll be back tomorrow with our daily headline show.