After more than four decades of effort, Iran was closer than ever to having the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon rapidly. Then on Friday, Israel launched a massive attack on the country and its nuclear facilities.
Now President Trump is reportedly considering whether to join that war. On Tuesday he met with his national security team to debate airstrikes, after using social media to call for Iran’s “unconditional surrender!” On Wednesday he declined to tell reporters whether he would involve the U.S. military in Israel’s campaign. “I may do it,” he said. “I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.”
Israel has already inflicted extensive damage. According to Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Israel has destroyed facilities at Isfahan, a major nuclear research center, and might have disabled Iran’s largest enrichment plant, an underground installation at Natanz. However, it does not appear to have damaged a second underground enrichment plant, Fordo, which is probably too deeply buried for Israel to destroy on its own. It would need help from the United States, which possesses a bunker buster bomb that was designed to reach the facility, as well as planes big enough to carry the 30,000-pound behemoth of a weapon.
In deciding whether to conduct an attack, Mr. Trump should judge the efficacy of any military action by the same standards against which he previously assessed diplomacy.
During his first administration, Mr. Trump criticized the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, better known as the Iran nuclear deal, because, he claimed, it imposed limitations on Tehran’s nuclear program for just a few years. In reality, the deal’s various restrictions on Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium and its enrichment activities were to last for 10 or 15 years.
Bombing Fordo — and whatever might come after — might not set back Iran’s enrichment efforts by nearly as long. There are hundreds or more likely thousands of scientists and technicians employed in Iran’s enrichment program. Israel’s killing of leading scientists is intended to set back this effort, but Iran could almost certainly reconstitute its program within 10 or 15 years, even if the United States and Israel succeeded in destroying Fordo and Iran’s stockpiles of enriched uranium and centrifuge components.
And military action is unlikely to be so definitive. Destroying Fordo is relatively easy compared with destroying the cylinders in which highly enriched uranium is typically stored. These cylinders are roughly the same size and shape as scuba tanks. Before the attack in Iran, most of them were thought to be stored underground at Isfahan, where they were regularly inspected. They may well survive attack, if they are still there. It is possible Iran has already moved them, in which case, tracking them will be exceptionally difficult.
Destroying Iran’s stockpile of centrifuge components could be even more difficult. If they survive, Iran could assemble new centrifuges and continue to produce highly enriched uranium. The International Atomic Energy Agency lost the right to monitor centrifuge components, which are also small and easily moved, with the collapse of the Iran deal during Mr. Trump’s first term. Iran has almost certainly stored these components at multiple sites around the country, precisely so it could recover rapidly from an attack.
In his first administration, Mr. Trump also expressed concern that Iran might cheat on the nuclear deal by building secret facilities. Inspectors “don’t even have the unqualified right to inspect many important locations,” he complained in 2018 when he pulled out of the deal. (He was correct that the right to inspect was not unqualified, though the agreement did provide inspectors with unprecedented access and information that would be valuable in detecting any clandestine nuclear activities.)
If fears of undeclared facilities were a reason to ditch diplomacy, they constitute an even stronger argument against military action. The United States and Israel can’t target what they don’t know about. Iran may have secret facilities, as Mr. Trump feared; if so, it could reconstitute its program rapidly, perhaps within months. And if Iran follows through on its threat to curtail inspections — as is highly likely if the United States joins the war — the International Atomic Energy Agency’s ability to locate future clandestine facilities will be significantly reduced.
There is a clear double standard here. In the United States and particularly on Capitol Hill, diplomatic agreements are scrutinized. The weaknesses that inevitably result from compromise are highlighted, debated and assessed — and rightly so. But as America’s decisions to go to war in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq attest, military options are routinely held to a much lower standard. That’s a very dangerous pattern, especially because serious questions about the effectiveness of a U.S. attack on Iran abound.
How long could it take Iran to reconstitute its program? If Iran rebuilds, is the United States prepared to attack again? And again? Given that Iran could hide new facilities or bury them more deeply than Fordo, would future attacks have any chance of success? Could a U.S. attack push Iran to make the political decision to build a nuclear weapon? If the Iranian regime collapses as a result of a U.S. attack — as some advocates of military action want — is there any guarantee that a new government will abandon the country’s long-held nuclear ambitions?
Diplomacy and military action deserve to be judged by the same standard. Neither can guarantee that Iran will never obtain the bomb. But even at this late stage, Iran has indicated a willingness to negotiate. Given its current weakness, Mr. Trump really might be able to secure a better deal than the previous one.
Mr. Trump was right to start talking with Iran in April. He should not give up now.
James M. Acton is a director of the nuclear policy program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
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