It’s been five days since Israel launched a massive operation against Iran with the stated aim of destroying its nuclear program. Though over a dozen Iranian nuclear scientists have been killed and important nuclear sites have been damaged by the operation, a key enrichment site buried deep underground seemingly remains unscathed.
Experts say that Israel’s objective is far from completed and that destroying Iran’s nuclear program would likely require Israel and the United States to get their hands dirtier.
“It is completely fair and completely reasonable to say the problem has definitely not been fixed at this point, that the risk of breakout is still incredibly strong, either for something crude or something a little bit more refined,” Richard Nephew, a nuclear weapons expert at Columbia University and a former U.S. deputy special envoy for Iran, told Foreign Policy. “As of right this moment, unless something changes, we have had no improvement in our situation vis-à-vis the nuclear program,” Nephew said.
Breakout refers to the amount of time it would take a country to acquire enough fissile material for one nuclear bomb. Prior to Israel launching this operation, Iran’s breakout time was considered to be a matter of days, and that does not appear to have changed as things stand. Iran could still “produce their first weapons-worth within five to six days,” Nephew said.
Tehran maintains that it does not seek a nuclear weapon, and U.S. intelligence estimates suggest it would take Iran several months to take all of the steps necessary to even produce a crude bomb. This process could be made even more difficult amid ongoing attacks from Israel, but experts are still concerned about where this could all go.
Nephew said he’s at the “same level of anxiety” as before the Israeli operation began with “now the addition of that the Iranians have potentially nothing to lose.”
Natanz, Iran’s main and largest uranium enrichment facility, has taken significant damage from Israel’s strikes, according to assessments from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog. The IAEA says that several critical buildings have also been hit at Isfahan, another important nuclear site involved in uranium conversion and making uranium metal—a key aspect of building nuclear weapons.
But Fordow, a nuclear facility buried far under a mountain that contains advanced centrifuges and is crucial to Iran’s enrichment capabilities, has not taken any damage yet, according to the IAEA. With Fordow still operational, among other factors, Iran continues to have options regarding weaponizing.
Based on the size and location of Fordow—and the “secretive nature of its construction”—it’s always been assumed that Tehran intended to use the site for “nuclear weapons breakout,” said Nephew, who added that he’s worried that Iran could currently be moving in that direction.
Experts widely agree that destroying Fordow would require 30,000-pound GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator bombs—also known as bunker busters—capable of penetrating targets deep underground, which can only be dropped from U.S. B-2 stealth bombers.
Israel is pressuring the Trump administration to strike Fordow with bunker busters, according to reports, though Israel’s national security advisor, Tzachi Hanegbi, on Tuesday said that the Israeli government had not yet asked the U.S. to join the offensive.
It remains an open question as to whether the Trump administration is willing to get drawn into the conflict further than offering defensive support and intelligence, particularly amid escalating infighting between the more hawkish and isolationist wings of the Republican Party.
That said, U.S. President Donald Trump’s rhetoric toward Iran has become more aggressive as the Israeli operation has continued—including a warning on Tuesday that the United States has decided not to assassinate Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “at least for now.” But what comes next remains up in the air.
It’s also not clear where Iran’s stockpile of near-bomb grade uranium, enriched to 60 percent (weapons-grade is 90 percent), currently is. This remains a major concern regarding the risk of breakout and the potential for Iran to make a sprint toward weaponization.
“In order to have weapons-usable material, you really have to up the enrichment level to 90 percent. That doesn’t take long with the kinds of advanced centrifuges that Iran has at Fordow, other places too, but especially at Fordow. And so the concern is that, in a relatively safe place with plenty of material available to do it, the Iranians could be making that first bomb’s worth of material right now,” Nephew said.
“It’s also possible that they wouldn’t choose to even have something that’s a weapon, per se, but just a device, which is even easier,” Nephew said, underscoring that there are still many “unknowns” and that he remains “very worried” from a “nonproliferation standpoint.”
Given the complicated array of factors swirling around Iran’s nuclear program, as well as the dangers of bombing a stockpile of uranium, ensuring that the job has been done could also necessitate boots on the ground going from site to site. There are serious limitations in terms of attempting to fully destroy Iran’s nuclear program solely from the air. At the very least, there would need to be some form of a verification mission involving international inspectors.
“Air campaigns are magnificent,” Nephew said, and the U.S. has highly sophisticated equipment. But at the end of the day, “you’re potentially not buying yourself real success unless you have some ability to make sure that all this stuff is actually not being rebuilt,” Nephew said.
There’s also a major political element to ensuring that Iran does not become a nuclear state. As things stand, there are no concrete signs that Iran is willing to reach an agreement that would prevent this and potentially end hostilities—particularly with Iranian lawmakers already taking steps to withdraw the country from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
“Relying on military needs alone would be a major challenge for achieving Israel’s goals” of destroying Iran’s nuclear program, Heather Williams, director of the Project on Nuclear Issues and a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Foreign Policy.
“Complete denuclearization would require some sort of a political component to it, whereby Iran, for political reasons, gives up any sort of nuclear ambitions,” Williams said. Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful, but that assertion has frequently been met with widespread skepticism given the array of steps the regime has taken toward weaponization. But the U.S. intelligence community, as recently as this year, still assessed that Iran had not yet decided to develop a weapon.
Along these lines, it’s worth noting that Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal with Iran that was designed to prevent it from becoming a nuclear power. In many ways, recent events can be traced back to this decision. Iran was in compliance with the deal when Trump pulled out, according to the IAEA, and tensions with the U.S. and its allies have accelerated in the time since—as has Iran’s nuclear program.
The Biden administration was unsuccessful in efforts to revive the 2015 deal. The Trump administration was actively engaged in talks with Iran for a new agreement prior to Israel launching the attack last week, which led Tehran to withdraw from the negotiations.
Though Israel’s operation has killed a number of top nuclear scientists, Williams also emphasized that “knowledge is hard to kill.”
“Over time, this experience might convince Iran that they are better off withdrawing from the NPT and pursuing a nuclear weapon, and they might have some friends who would help them in that pursuit,” Williams said, adding that she’s closely monitoring the next steps Russia and China take.
“A lot of Iran’s nuclear program comes from either direct support, training, or knowledge from Russia and China. And thus far, Russia has very clearly been siding with Iran in all of this. China has been a little bit more moderate as they tend to do. But if the U.S. does get directly involved, I don’t think we can count on Moscow sitting on the sidelines,” Williams added.
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