Strike on Iran: The Nuclear Question (updated documentary) | FRONTLINE (PBS)

Sat, 04 Apr 2026 22:51:20 +0000

An investigation into the status of Iran’s nuclear program amid the second round of U.S.-Israeli military action in less than a year. (March 2026 update)

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In the weeks since the U.S. and Israel began bombarding Iran, President Trump has repeatedly justified the strikes by claiming Iran had posed an imminent nuclear threat. But nine months earlier, in the wake of U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran in June 2025, the message coming from Washington was that Iran’s key nuclear facilities had been “obliterated.”

Drawing on new reporting, satellite imagery analysis and interviews, this investigation is an updated presentation of our December 2025 documentary by the same name.

In September of last year, directors Adam Desiderio and Sebastian Walker, who is also the film’s correspondent, visited sites hit in the June 2025 U.S.-Israeli strikes and sat down with one of Iran’s most powerful officials, Ali Larijani — in what turned out to be the last on-camera interview he gave to an American news outlet before his assassination earlier this month in an Israeli airstrike.

Since the current war began, the team has been talking to experts and officials and analyzing satellite imagery with The Washington Post, Bellingcat and Evident Media to try to understand the truth about what remains of Iran’s nuclear program.

Their findings offer valuable insights into a continuing conflict that has rippled across the Middle East, killing thousands — including children at an elementary school — and displacing millions.

“Strike on Iran” is a FRONTLINE production with Mongoose Pictures in association with The ‪@WashingtonPost‬ ‪@evidentmedia‬ and ‪@bellingcatofficial‬. It is written, produced and directed by Adam Desiderio and Sebastian Walker. The correspondent is Sebastian Walker. The reporters are Nilo Tabrizy, Jarrett Ley, Souad Mekhennet, Trevor Ball, Carlos Gonzales and Sebastian Vandermeersch. The senior producers are Dan Edge and Eamonn Matthews. The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

Explore additional reporting on “Strike on Iran: The Nuclear Question” on our website: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/front....line/documentary/str

#Documentary #UnitedStates #Iran #Israel #IranWar #NuclearProgram

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FRONTLINE is produced at GBH in Boston and airs nationwide on PBS.

The editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE is Raney Aronson-Rath.

Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with major support from Ford Foundation, and The Fialkow Family Foundation, as part of the Plum Bush Foundation. Additional support for FRONTLINE is provided by the Abrams Foundation, Park Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, Heising-Simons Foundation, and the FRONTLINE Trust, with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and Corey David Sauer, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen.

00:00 - Prologue
02:50 - The Aftermath of June 2025 Israeli Airstrikes Targeting Iranian Scientists
14:48 - Investigating How Israeli Strikes Against Iranian Scientists Were Carried Out
19:50 - Iranian Nuclear Facilities Bombed by the U.S. & Israel in 2025
29:05 - What Ali Larijani, Iran’s Slain Top Security Chief, Said About Iran’s Nuclear Program in 2025
33:21 - The International Atomic Energy Agency’s 2025 Assessment of Damage to Iran’s Nuclear Facilities
49:00 - Examining the 2026 U.S.-Israel War With Iran
51:58 - Credits