Vance downplays possibility Iran still has enriched uranium

US Vice President JD Vance downplays the possibility that Iran is still in possession of highly-enriched uranium following Washington’s strikes on its nuclear program, arguing that the operation has prevented Tehran from being able to use that uranium to produce a nuclear weapon.

“Our goal was to bury the uranium, and I do think the uranium is buried, but our goal was to eliminate the enrichment [program] and eliminate their ability to convert that enriched fuel into a nuclear weapon,” Vance tells Fox News in an interview.

“If they have 60% enriched uranium, but they don’t have the ability to enrich it to 90% and further, then they don’t have the ability to convert that to a nuclear weapon. That is mission success,” he adds.

Vance says the ceasefire “is a great thing for Israel. They’ve accomplished an important military objective. They’ve helped us destroy the Iranian nuclear program. They’ve also destroyed the conventional missile capability of Iran.”

Vance later says that Iran’s missile program is “largely destroyed.”

He argues that the ceasefire provides Iran with an opportunity to “pursue the path of peace” after they have proven that “they’re just not very good at war.”

“When we look back, we will say the 12 Day War was an important reset moment for the entire region… the beginning of something very big for peace in the Middle East,” Vance says.

In its strike on Iran, Vance says the US proved that it “could fly a bunker buster bomb from Missouri to Iran completely undetected without landing once on the ground, and [that it] can destroy whatever nuclear capacity [Iran] builds up.

“I think that lesson is what’s going to teach them not to rebuild their nuclear capacity,” he says.

Asked about regime change in Iran, Vance reiterates that while the US would welcome such an effort by the Iranian people, it is not a goal of the US military.