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Why US strike on Iran’s nuclear sites will be illogical and reckless – Firstpost

Why US strike on Iran’s nuclear sites will be illogical and reckless – Firstpost



In a 
scathing op-ed published in The New York Times in March 2015, John Bolton slammed Barack Obama for negotiating the 
Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and called for bombing Iran’s nuclear reactors.

In the column, headlined ‘To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran’, the former US ambassador to the UN wrote: “The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear programme. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure.”

Calling for attacking the N-sites, he wrote: “The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.”

Around four years later, Donald Trump sacked Bolton, then the US national security adviser (NSA), ironically for his hawkish stance on Iran. While the president considered easing sanctions to meet Iran’s then-President Hassan Rouhani, 
Bolton was dead against it.

Trump’s first Cabinet had war hawks, including Bolton. However, Trump 2.0 is packed with rabid anti-Iran hawks—Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz, Pete Hegseth and Mike Huckabee—who want an extreme hardline stance against Tehran.

According to a 
recent report by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Trump’s transition team is seriously considering striking Iran’s nuclear facilities, like Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan, to stop Tehran from building nukes.

The president-elect has discussed the danger of Iran building an N-bomb and a potential strike with Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu several times.

Netanyahu, claiming 
since 1992 that Iran is on the verge of manufacturing a nuke, is emboldened by Trump’s return and feels that his plan for destroying Iranian N-sites will come to fruition. Both Obama and the current US president, Joe Biden, were against it.

According to _
The Times of Israel_
, the Israeli Air Force wants to destroy Iran’s nuclear plants and also feels that Tehran could build a nuke to replace its earlier deterrence of Hamas, Hezbollah and Syria.

The dangerously insane option, along with crippling economic sanctions, is being considered after the massive Israeli blow to Hamas and Hezbollah and the overthrow of Tehran’s staunch ally and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Four people familiar with the planning told WSJ that the transition team has zeroed in on two options.

The first option is to send more firepower to West Asia and sell the 13,600-kg bunker-busting GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrator, which can target Iran’s underground nuclear facilities, to Israel. The second option is to threaten Iran with military action to stop it from building nukes.

Uranium, plutonium and nukes

Natural uranium, consisting mostly of around 0.7 per cent uranium-235 (U-235), essential for nukes, and 99.3 per cent uranium-238 (U-238) isotopes, can’t be directly used for nuclear weapons. U-235 must be enriched to increase its concentration into a form usable in nukes.

A simple nuke needs 25 kg of 90 per cent enriched uranium, according to the IAEA. Therefore, the higher the level of enrichment, the smaller the amount of nuclear material needed to make a nuke which will be smaller and lighter and easier to deliver. The ‘Little Boy’ nuke dropped on Hiroshima used uranium.

When the JCPOA was signed, Iran was already enriching uranium at Natanz and Fordow by using 18,000 first-generation IR-1 centrifuges and 1,000 second-generation IR-2 centrifuges, respectively. These centrifuges spun uranium in gas form at a very high speed to separate the heavier U-238 isotope from the lighter U-235 isotope.

IAEA estimated that Iran could build a nuke in one or two months and 8-10 nuclear bombs in total considering the technology and its stockpile of around 7,000 kg of 5 per cent enriched uranium and around 200 kg of 20 per cent enriched uranium.

Plutonium-239, produced in nuclear reactors or particle accelerators when uranium is irradiated with neutrons, can also be used to build nukes.

Weapons-grade plutonium contains more than 93 per cent plutonium-239 and less than 7 per cent plutonium-240 by weight. For example, North Korea produces plutonium at its Yongbyon reactor. The ‘Fat Man’ nuke dropped on Nagasaki used plutonium. Before the JCPAO, Iran was building a plutonium heavy-water reactor in Arak.

Under the nuclear deal with P5+1, Iran agreed to reduce its stockpile of uranium by 98 per cent, restrict uranium enrichment to 3.67 per cent, decrease the number of centrifuges at Natanz to 6,104 for the next 10 years, stop enrichment at Fordow for 15 years and fill the Arak reactor with concrete in exchange for ending the Westen nuclear-related sanctions.

Subsequently, Iran shipped 25,000 pounds of enriched uranium out of the country, dismantled and removed two-thirds of its centrifuges, filled the Arak reactor with concrete and provided unprecedented access to the IAEA to its nuclear facilities and supply chain.

However, Iran didn’t breach the limits despite Trump pulling out of the deal in May 2018 and reimposing the sanctions. Tehran started breaching the limits and removing the restrictions slowly a year later.

IAEA reports add fuel to fire

Iran denies pursuing nukes. However, enriching uranium up to 60 per cent purity isn’t required for civil nuclear power generation—the reason the West is alarmed.

In a 
confidential report shared with UN members this month, IAEA chief Rafael Grossi said that Iran is “dramatically” speeding up uranium enrichment up to 60 per cent purity at Fordow. Tehran is also enriching uranium up to 60 per cent at Natanz.

“Today, the agency is announcing that the production capacity is increasing dramatically of the 60 per cent inventory,” Grossi said on the sidelines of the Manama Dialogue security conference in Bahrain.

The increase in the enrichment rate of the material being fed into two interconnected cascades of advanced IR-6 centrifuges at its Fordow plant will boost the production of 60 per cent enriched uranium to more than 34 kg a month, he added.

In an earlier 
confidential report in November, the IAEA said that Iran had 182.3 kg of 60 per cent enriched uranium as of October 26, an increase of 17.6 kg since its August report. The overall stockpile of enriched uranium was 6,604.4 kg, a rise of 852.6 kg since August.

However, there is no evidence of Iran enriching uranium beyond 60 per cent purity.

An analysis of IAEA’s quarterly reports on 
November 19 and 
August 29 by the Institute for Science and International Security is almost the same except for the number of nukes it can produce, the quantity of enriched uranium and the number of centrifuges:

  1. Iran can produce more weapon-grade uranium (WGU) since the IAEA’s last report due to increased stocks of enriched uranium and an enlarged advanced centrifuge capacity, according to both reports.

  2. Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium and its centrifuge capacity combined are sufficient to make enough WGU for almost 10 nukes in one month, 13 in two months, 14 in three months, 15 in four months and 16 in five months, per the November report.

  3. Iran’s stocks of enriched uranium and its centrifuge capacity combined are sufficient to make enough WGU for 9 nuclear weapons in one month, 12 in two months, 13 in three months, 14 in four months and 15 in five months, per the August report.

  4. Both reports conclude that with Iran’s growing enrichment experience and using only a portion of its stock of 60 per cent highly enriched uranium and only four advanced centrifuge cascades, Iran could produce its first quantity of 25 kg of WGU in one week or less. This breakout could be difficult for the IAEA to detect promptly if Iran delays inspectors’ access.

Iran enriching uranium up to 60 per cent is not new. It has been doing that since April 2021 but not beyond 60 per cent.

Moreover, 
Iran agreed to tougher monitoring at the Fordow after the IAEA’s December confidential report and agreed to “increase the frequency and intensity of the implementation of safeguards measures” at Fordow and “is facilitating the implementation of this strengthened safeguards approach,” the IAEA said in the latest confidential report to member states.

In November, two other 
IAEA confidential reports showed further Iranian cooperation. Iran offered to cap the stock of uranium enriched to up to 60 per cent at around 185 kg and agreed to allow four more experienced enrichment inspectors after barring most IAEA inspectors in 2023.

The Iranian offers show that it’s aware that Trump would adopt extreme measures to curb its nuclear programme.

No evidence of Iran pursuing nukes

In October 2003, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali   Khamenei issued an oral fatwa forbidding the production and use of WMDs. In August 2005, the fatwa—the production, stockpiling and use of nukes forbidden under Islam—was cited in an official statement by Iran at an IAEA meeting in Vienna.

An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities is illogical and extremely dangerous if it’s still cooperating and not enriching uranium beyond 60 per cent purity despite Trump pulling out of the deal.

Moreover, the argument for a potential strike on Iranian nuclear facilities falls flat due to the lack of evidence of Tehran building a nuke.

Khamenei can’t be taken for his word. But neither there’s proof of Iran building a nuclear bomb nor American intelligence agencies have evidence of Iran pursuing a nuke.

At The Cipher Brief’s 2024 Threat Conference in Sea Island, Georgia in October, CIA director William Burns cautioned that Iran “is in a much closer position to produce a bomb’s worth of enriched material for a single weapon” but the CIA doesn’t “see evidence today that such a decision (pursuing nukes) has been made”.

Under the JCPOA, Iran would have taken more than a year to build a nuke. “Now, it’s probably more like a week or a little more to produce one bomb’s worth of weapons-grade material. So, the risks have increased,” he warned.

However, the CIA doesn’t “see evidence today that the supreme leader has reversed the decision that he took at the end of 2003 to suspend the weaponisation programme,” he added.

A year earlier, Burns 
said the same thing, “We don’t believe that the supreme leader in Iran has yet made a decision to resume the weaponisation programme.”

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) also doesn’t have any evidence of Iran building a nuke. In its 
November report, the DNI states: “The Intelligence Community continues to assess that as of September 26, 2024, Iran is not building a nuclear weapon.”

However, the DNI too, like the IAEA, states that Iran “has continued to increase its stockpiles of 20 per cent and 60 per cent enriched uranium, manufacture and operate an increasing number of advanced centrifuges”.

Assuming a hypothetical situation, the DNI states that Iran will enrich uranium up to 90 per cent or threaten to withdraw from the NPT in the face of “additional sanctions, attacks or censure against its nuclear programme”.

Per the US assessment, Iran will more likely use covert facilities to produce the requisite fissile material for a nuke. However, a March Congressional Research Service (CRS) 
report states: “Neither the US government nor the IAEA have publicly described any evidence that Iran is conducting covert nuclear activities.”

Even the  2022 US 
Nuclear Posture Review concludes that Iran “does not today possess a nuclear weapon and we currently believe it is not pursuing one”.

More than a decade before the recent US intel finding no evidence of Iran building a nuke and three years before the JCPOA, Obama’s defence secretary 
Leon Panetta told CBS News Face the Nation, “Are they (Iran) trying to develop a nuclear weapon? No.”

Time needed to build a nuclear bomb

The big question is how long will Iran take to build an N-bomb? Producing WGU is one thing but building a deliverable nuke is another.

According to nuclear experts, Iran would take months or a year to build a deliverable nuke.

Only advanced metallurgy and engineering can machine WGU into the core of an atom bomb. The IAEA reports only mention the increase in 60 per cent enriched uranium and the number of centrifuges, not atomic purification, engineering, manufacturing and testing. Besides, Iran would need to test the complete warhead rigorously and explode the bomb underground.

The CRS report also states Iran “has not mastered all of the necessary technologies for building such weapons”. Besides, a US State Department official told CRS in an April 2022 email that Iran “would need approximately one year to complete the necessary weaponisation steps”.

The CRS mentioned former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley’s March 2023 testimony in which he said that Iran would need “several months to produce an actual nuclear weapon”.

Even the IAEA reports “suggest that Iran does not yet have a viable nuclear weapon design or a suitable explosive detonation system”. Echoing the assertion of nuclear experts, CRS said that Iran “may also need additional experience in producing weapons-grade HEU metal for use in a nuclear weapon is first cast and machined into suitable components for a nuclear core”.

Attacking Iran’s N-sites will be foolhardy

Hinting at the possibility of pre-emptive strikes on Iran’s N-sites, Trump, _
TIME_
’s 2024 Person of the Year, told the magazine in a wide-ranging interview on November 25 that “anything can happen; it’s a very volatile situation.”

It isn’t the first time Trump’s aides have suggested the reckless idea. In early 2020, Trump’s foreign policy advisers twice suggested attacking Iran’s nuclear plants if he lost the election. After he lost the election, Trump considered missile strikes in response to provocations against American interests in the region. Milley stopped him. “If you do this, you’re gonna have a fuc*ing war,” he said.

In November 2020, Trump convened an Oval Office meeting and asked senior aides about the attack options against Natanz, where, according to an IAEA report, the uranium stockpile was 12 times larger than permitted under the JCPOA. Milley, V-P Mike Pence, secretary of state Mike Pompeo and acting-defence secretary Christopher C Miller warned that a strike could trigger a broader conflict.

After Iran fired around 200 missiles at Israel on October 1 following the assassination of Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah, Trump warned that the world was on the brink of World War 3 and said that Tehran was in check under his presidency.

Therefore, attacking Iranian N-plants during his second presidency would contradict Trump’s claim and could escalate to a full-blown conflict.

Iran has already suffered a terrible blow and its influence in West Asia has considerably decreased after the weakening of Hamas and Hezbollah and the toppling of Assad.

A strike on Iran’s N-facilities would only compel Tehran to pursue nukes. Iran is already cornered. Cornering it further by striking its nuclear plants would trigger a chain reaction with Iranian attacks on American forces in the region.

It would be unwise of Trump to be goaded by Netanyahu to attack Iran—no American interests would be served. Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, which ensured that Iran’s nuclear programme remained peaceful. If Trump wants to stick to his non-interventionist policy, he should negotiate with Iran, not ignite a new war.

The writer is a freelance journalist with more than two decades of experience and comments primarily on foreign affairs. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the writer. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.



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