A state's nuclear facilities are destroyed by airstrikes or sabotage, inspectors lose access, and the world is left reading satellite images for signs of rebuilding. The record says the visible sites usually stay quiet while the programme goes somewhere less visible.
Israeli jets destroyed the French-built Osirak reactor near Baghdad in June 1981.
What happened next: Iraq rebuilt nothing at the site but pursued a larger, covert enrichment programme that UN inspectors uncovered only after the 1991 Gulf War.rebuilt covertly
Coalition bombing in 1991 damaged Iraq's nuclear sites, and intrusive UN inspections followed for seven years.
What happened next: The programme was dismantled under inspection. After inspectors were withdrawn in 1998, uncertainty over what remained became a stated reason for the 2003 invasion, which found no active programme.dismantled under inspection
Israel destroyed a suspected plutonium reactor in eastern Syria in September 2007. Syria bulldozed the site and restricted IAEA access.
What happened next: The programme was abandoned. The IAEA concluded in 2011 that the site had very likely been a reactor, but Syria never rebuilt it.abandoned
A cyber-weapon destroyed around a thousand centrifuges at Natanz in 2009–10 and set the enrichment programme back by an estimated year or more.
What happened next: Iran recovered within a year, installed more centrifuges and expanded enrichment to 20% by 2012, leading to the 2015 nuclear deal.rebuilt and expanded
Share of the 4 cases above that resolved this way. Small samples: treat as a prior, not a forecast.
Rafael Grossi told the Security Council that remote monitoring shows no reconstruction since the June 2025 strikes, while Tehran keeps inspectors out of most sites and announces a new enrichment plant at Isfahan.
