What many have called a "fragile" ceasefire between Israel and Iran remains in place following nearly two weeks of missile strikes, which included the U.S. dropping "bunker-busting" bombs on Iran's three nuclear sites. But questions remain about how much damage the operation actually did.
ABC15's Nick Ciletti recently spoke with Arizona Senator Mark Kelly about the ongoing situation.
Nearly a month after those airstrikes, and one thing both Republicans and Democrats like Senator Kelly seem to agree on is that Iran's nuclear program needs to shut down - where it gets cloudier is how exactly to carry that mission out.
"We can't allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon," explains Sen. Kelly. "We know this. But in this case, the White House did not exhaust all the diplomatic options. They just didn't. And they should have."
But others, like Republican Congressman Abe Hamadeh, who represents Arizona's District 8, applauded the President's strategy. His office released a statement on June 21, saying, "President Trump took decisive action to eliminate any vestige of Iran’s nuclear program...The days of Iran's nuclear blackmail are over. Now, the people of Iran must rise up and seize control over their own destiny. Only then will true peace be possible."
In the weeks following the strikes, the conversation has turned to how much damage the missiles actually did.
"I don't see them getting back into the nuclear business anytime soon," explained President Donald Trump. "I think they've had it. And they've been at it for 20 years and I don't see that happening."
But even after a recent classified briefing, Sen. Kelly says there are still too many unknowns.
"Time is going to tell," says Sen. Kelly. "We don't know if the Iranians will accelerate the development of a weapon...They kept the IAEA out of the country and that was some insight we had into what they were doing, and that insight is now gone. So now, we are in a much murkier position, and we don't have any information we need to even see how far along their program might be. So it might accelerate; however, they might also make the opposite decision...to say hey, this hasn't worked out for us. It's possible they could abandon their nuclear weapons development program. My point is, it was a mistake when he [Trump] did this. It was a successful mission. It's also a mistake for this president or any president to be saying the results of a strike before they have the intelligence. He said, 'Well, we obliterated the entire program.' Of course, we didn't obliterate it. And I'm a guy who used to drop bombs on buildings and bridges and ships... You don't want to get ahead of it, and he got ahead of it."
See more from our conversation with Sen. Kelly here.
