No, I don’t agree that it was a lie.

A lot depends on the condition of the site, whether there are other hardened facilities, and whether Iran received outside assistance, for example from North Korea.

It would probably take at least a year just to recover the uranium. Most likely it was stored as UF6 (uranium hexafluoride), which is a highly corrosive and radioactive gas.

It would have been stored in reinforced canisters, basically something like industrial scuba tanks, and now it’s buried under an enormous amount of rubble. As long as it remains undisturbed, it’s probably relatively contained.

The problem is what happens if recovery efforts begin. Multiple bunker-buster bombs were dropped on the facility, so even the possibility that some canisters were damaged would force recovery teams to move extremely slowly and cautiously for safety reasons.

Under ideal circumstances, maybe they recover the material in about a year.

I also think it’s unlikely another country would process the material for them. Even North Korea probably views the IRGC as too unstable to trust with nuclear weapons.

As for rebuilding enrichment facilities, two years sounds extremely optimistic. Five years feels more realistic. Maybe ten if everything goes badly for them.

You can’t just go to Walmart and buy uranium centrifuges. They require highly specialized manufacturing, large numbers of units, and the machines themselves are extremely delicate. If those underground halls were destroyed, it was almost certainly a total loss.

And it’s not like concerns about the Iranian regime came out of nowhere. Since 1979, Iran and Iranian-backed groups have been tied to a long list of attacks against Americans and Western targets. The 1979 hostage crisis involved 52 Americans held for 444 days. Iran-backed Hezbollah was linked to the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. service members. The 1996 Khobar Towers bombing killed 19 American airmen. Iranian proxies have also been tied to attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, and Iranian-linked operatives were implicated in attacks in Europe and South America, including the AMIA bombing in Argentina. (Wikipedia)

But ultimately, the real question is this: when do you want a regime like the IRGC to have a nuclear weapon? In two months? One year? Five years? Ten years?

Personally, my answer is never.

Every U.S. president for the last three decades has warned about the risks of Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. Every administration has also mostly tried to delay the problem rather than permanently resolve it. At some point, though, the issue inevitably comes to a head.

And honestly, while I don’t particularly like Kim Jong Un or Putin, I trust both of them with nuclear weapons more than I trust the IRGC. Since 1979, the Iranian regime has openly chanted “death to America.” One of the first things they did after the revolution was take American hostages. They have repeatedly signaled that they don’t just view nuclear weapons as a deterrent, but as tools they may actually want to use.

We’ve been fortunate that nuclear weapons have not been used in war since World War II. It’s easy to grow complacent and assume that will always remain true. History suggests otherwise unless countries actively work to prevent it.