How America Helped Build Iran’s Nuclear Programme And Then Tried To Bomb It Out | World News

Washington, D.C.: As smoke still lingers over Iran’s bombed-out nuclear facilities, U.S. President Donald Trump has offered a reflection on America’s recent military strikes and a past that is hard to ignore.

Speaking at a closed-door briefing with top Republican donors, he defended the U.S. decision to bomb key Iranian nuclear sites – including Fordow, Isfahan and Natanz. “We hit them hard. Very hard. Their nuclear programme is gone,” he said.

He was referring to the 14,000-kg bunker busters dropped by B-2 stealth bombers during ‘Operation Midnight Hammer’. But in a moment that raised eyebrows in the room, Trump shifted from military bravado to historical introspection.

“You know what is crazy? We gave them the first reactor. We actually did that,” he said, pointing to the Tehran Research Reactor – an aging facility that still runs today.

It arrived in Iran as part of the Eisenhower-era “Atoms for Peace” programme, meant to share nuclear science with allies during the Cold War.

Trump’s comment was more than offhand nostalgia. It echoed a little-known fact – the seeds of Iran’s nuclear knowledge were, in part, planted by the United States itself.

Back in 1967, under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the United States shipped a research reactor and highly enriched uranium fuel to Tehran. American universities, including MIT, trained Iranian engineers. U.S. scientists helped draft blueprints for a future nuclear grid. Washington welcomed the shah’s ambition. At the time, Iran was a U.S. ally. A rising power. A moderniser.

Today, that history feels surreal. The very architecture that once symbolised U.S.-Iran cooperation now lies buried beneath rubble, struck by American warplanes decades later under orders from a president who once threatened to “obliterate” Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

“There is a strange kind of symmetry to it. We built it. Then we bombed it,” said a retired U.S. diplomat familiar with both the Cold War-era assistance and today’s military planning.

Trump did not dwell long on the history. But his remarks carried the weight of unfinished business of decisions made in another century, coming full circle in the fires of a 21st-century conflict.

He said, “In his words, we gave them the starter kit. Then they ran with it. And now, we are taking it back.”

Whether Iran’s nuclear programme has truly been wiped out remains under debate. Intelligence sources suggest parts of it survived. But for Trump, the mission was both military and symbolic. An attempt to erase a shadow that, in some ways, began with a handshake in 1967.