President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that stopping Iran from getting a nuclear weapon is among the greatest things his administration has done. He said it took a lot of courage because no other president was willing to act, and he insisted Iran would already have used massive nuclear weapons if the United States had held back. He also made clear he has no regrets about the war against Iran. His comments come as his administration is reportedly weighing renewed large-scale military strikes after weeks of discussions about how to end the confrontation.

Trump's claim is his own assessment, not an independently verified fact, and Tehran rejects the way he frames it. Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said a day earlier that the nuclear dispute is just an excuse, arguing that Washington really opposes Iran's ideology and walked away from an earlier international agreement without evidence. Iranian leaders have also said nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islam, a position President Masoud Pezeshkian repeated in September. Tensions are still running high over how to carry out a 14-point memorandum signed in June to end the hostilities and open the way to nuclear talks. That leaves the big questions unanswered: how close Iran really was to a bomb, and what happens next if the diplomacy breaks down.