US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Iran appears not to have fully absorbed the message of Washington’s strike on the Fordow nuclear facility during the Israel–Iran war in June.
“I don’t know that (Iran) ever took (US President Donald Trump) seriously until the night that the B-2 bombers went to Fordow,” Huckabee said in an interview at a conference hosted by the Israeli security and foreign policy think tank Institute for National Security Studies.
Addressing reports that Iran is attempting to rebuild Fordow, Huckabee said the apparent reconstruction efforts suggest the warning was insufficient.
“I hope they got the message, but apparently they didn’t get the full message because, as you mentioned, they appear to be trying to reconstitute and find a new way to dig the hole deeper and secure it more,” he said.
Israel launched strikes on Iranian nuclear and military targets on June 13, accusing Tehran of pursuing a covert nuclear weapons program — a charge Iran denies.
The attacks were followed by 12 days of hostilities, with the United States joining with a one-off strike on Iranian nuclear facilities on June 22. Iran responded with missile strikes on a US air base in Qatar, saying it did not seek further escalation.
'Threat to Europe'
Asked whether Washington would authorize another Israeli strike on Iran if Israel concluded such action was required, Huckabee referred to Trump’s repeated public position on Iran’s nuclear program.
“All I can do is point you to what (Trump) has said repeatedly, and he consistently has said Iran is never going to enrich uranium, and they’re not going to have a nuclear weapon,” Huckabee said.
Huckabee said any renewed effort by Iran to restore its nuclear or ballistic missile programs would have broader consequences beyond the region.
“It presents a real threat to all of Europe,” he said.
“And if the Europeans don’t understand this, then they’re even dumber than I sometimes think they are,” Huckabee added.
IAEA push for inspection
Huckabee’s remarks come as International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said last week that the agency remains unable to access several of the country’s most sensitive nuclear sites following the June strikes.
Grossi said the IAEA is “only allowed to access sites that were not hit” during the June war.
“These other three sites—Natanz, Isfahan and Fordow—are even more significant, since they still contain substantial amounts of nuclear material and equipment, and we need to return there,” Grossi said.
Huckabee warned that Tehran poses a threat to the United States as well.
“The president has made it clear this isn’t only about Israel,” he said. “Iran’s ultimate objective is the United States.”
The semi-official Fars news agency, citing field observations and public reports, said missile tests were observed in multiple locations, including Tehran, Isfahan, Mashhad, Khorramabad and Mahabad.
Iran’s state broadcaster and the semi-official Nournews published videos that appeared to show missile launches, without specifying the exact locations. Other reports said launches took place in Tehran, Isfahan and Mashhad.
Earlier in the day, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei rejected any discussion of Iran’s military capabilities, saying the country’s missile program had been developed solely to defend Iran’s sovereignty and was not subject to negotiation.
“Iran’s defensive capabilities are by no means an issue that can be discussed,” he said.
The reports came a day after Axios said Israel had warned the United States that recent Iranian missile drills could be used as cover for preparations for a surprise attack, citing Israeli officials.
US officials told Axios, however, that Washington currently saw no indication of an imminent Iranian strike.
Iranian media said the satellites would be launched at 1648 local time (1318 GMT) aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket from the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s far east. The payload includes Paya, also known as Tolou-3, Zafar-2 and a prototype satellite known as Kowsar-1.5.
Paya (Tolou-3) is Iran’s heaviest Earth-observation satellite to date, weighing about 150 kg, with imaging resolution of around five meters for black-and-white images and about 10 meters for color imagery, Iranian officials have said.
The satellite, made by the Iranian Space Agency, is designed for applications including agriculture monitoring, water resource management, environmental monitoring and disaster assessment.
Zafar-2, developed by Iran University of Science and Technology, is also an Earth-observation satellite intended for mapping, environmental monitoring and tracking natural hazards.
The Kowsar-1.5 satellite is a combined platform integrating imaging and internet-of-things capabilities, aimed primarily at smart agriculture and farm monitoring.
The Iranian satellites will be launched alongside a large cluster of mainly Russian spacecraft into a sun-synchronous low Earth orbit.
According to launch data, the mission also includes Russian Earth-observation satellites such as Aist-2T and Zorkiy-2M units, multiple Marafon and SITRO satellites designed for internet-of-things and ship-tracking services, as well as university-built and technology demonstration satellites from Russia and partner countries including Belarus, Kuwait and Montenegro.
Iran says its space activities are civilian and focused on scientific and economic uses, though Western governments argue that satellite launch technologies overlap with those used for long-range ballistic missiles.
Iran has increasingly relied on Russian launch services in recent years, even as it develops domestic launch sites and heavier rockets.
