Analysis by Aaron Blake of CNN.

(CNN)-- When President Donald Trump decided to wage war on Iran in February, he justified it by what he described as the imminent Iranian nuclear threat. But there was a fundamental problem with that justification: he had spent the previous eight months insisting that Iran's nuclear program had been 'totally destroyed' the previous year.

Just two weeks before the war broke out, Trump claimed that U.S. and Israeli strikes carried out in June 2025 had left Iran without any 'potential capability' to possess nuclear weapons.

Now, as Trump seeks to exit a war that has become largely unpopular, he is sending even more confusing signals about the reality of the Iranian nuclear threat.

After more than four months of war, with its heavy costs to the United States and the global economy, all for objectives not yet achieved—namely, obtaining Iran's nuclear materials and reaching an agreement to permanently prevent Tehran from possessing a nuclear weapon—Trump is suddenly hinting that all of that was unnecessary in the first place.

He insists that the war has already succeeded, because Iran, in his words, has become 'denuclearized.'

According to this argument, the Iranian nuclear program has somehow returned to a state of 'total destruction,' at the very moment when Trump's efforts to reach an agreement appear to have hit a dead end.

Trump repeated this claim several times on Wednesday during the NATO summit in Turkey.

When asked whether the war had reached a 'strategic stalemate,' he answered no, insisting it had already succeeded.

He said: 'I was there for one reason, and that is for Iran not to have a nuclear weapon. And I say it plainly: We have stripped Iran of its nuclear program. And it has happened; they will never have a nuclear weapon.'

The U.S. president explained that Iran's nuclear materials are now 'buried deep in the depths of a mountain,' to the point where accessing them is nearly impossible. He also pointed to U.S. monitoring capabilities, saying officials can watch the nuclear sites via cameras and ensure no one can access them.

He added: 'There is no way they can have a nuclear weapon.'

On another occasion, Trump was asked how the United States would obtain Iran's nuclear materials, and he replied that the U.S. already has them, from his perspective.

He said: 'We already have the nuclear materials, because they are buried so deep underground that no one can reach them except us.'

He added: 'They cannot access them.'

In his first appearance, he described it as: 'I think it's a huge success.'

Two key points emerge here.

First, these statements are the latest evidence that Trump is paving the way for a possible abandonment of the war in Iran without achieving his main objectives.

The U.S. administration has repeatedly emphasized that obtaining Iran's nuclear materials is a non-negotiable condition, or a 'red line,' as Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent put it just six weeks ago.

But Trump has also notably floated the idea that this may not be necessary, because the materials have become inaccessible to Iran and the sites can be monitored from space.

The more important point is that these statements raise fundamental new questions about the originally stated justifications for the war and whether it was launched and sustained on flimsy pretexts.

Trump's justifications have seemed confused since the early days of the war, not only because of his talk of 'destroying' the nuclear program entirely. The administration also put forward four different and constantly shifting objectives. Moreover, Trump's initial threats of war in January were not focused on the alleged nuclear danger but on regime change in Iran—a goal he later claimed, illogically, had been achieved by killing some leaders, even though that does not align with the true meaning of regime change.

But it is difficult to reconcile Trump's recent claims that Iran has been permanently stripped of its nuclear program with the facts.

It is possible, of course, that the strikes carried out during this war have made access to the nuclear materials more difficult.

But the largest and most targeted strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities occurred in June 2025, when Trump first declared that Iran's nuclear program had been 'totally destroyed.' Moreover, major military operations in this war ended three months ago, with the first ceasefire announced on April 7.

If Iran's nuclear materials are now buried to the point that the nuclear program is effectively over and no agreement is needed, why was that not the case three months ago? Why did the administration spend all that time pursuing a nuclear deal, while consistently insisting it still needed to obtain those materials? And why did it not continue bombing nuclear sites to bury the materials deeper, if that alone were sufficient?

It doesn't add up.

All of this points to a less justifiable possibility: that Trump has lost patience with this war and realized that a good deal is likely unattainable. Iran, according to its apparent repeated violations of the ceasefire, is not interested in such a deal anyway. Therefore, it may be better for him to start justifying a withdrawal from the war, even though many of his goals have not been achieved.

But consider what the war effort will amount to: not only will Trump fail to achieve his objectives, but the war will have cost the United States heavily for nearly negligible gains.

In addition to the deaths of 13 U.S. service members during the conflict, the main costs include the economic shock of recent months, as well as Iran's demonstration of its ability to control the Strait of Hormuz. This last point, in particular, is a highly critical factor for the future of the Middle East and the world.

Given Trump's latest statements, it increasingly appears that this may be the most prominent and significant outcome of this war.