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‘NUCLEAR BOMB’: Scary Iran act could flip the war on its head

Experts warn that after decades of research and development, Iran’s military could be “weeks away” from creating a nuclear bomb.

 

Just how close is Iran to making a nuclear bomb?

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims Tehran poses a “clear and present danger” after decades of nuclear research and development.

But, despite allegations of secret research and undeclared nuclear material, no evidence has been presented that Iran is actually building thermonuclear warheads.

Yet.

What is certain is Tehran’s possession of at least 400kg of uranium enriched to 60 per cent concentrations of the isotope U-235. And that means it’s just weeks of extra processing away from reaching levels suitable for missile-mounted warheads.

What’s also certain are the recent shipments of advanced ballistic rocket fuel from China and specialist technological support from Russia.

Once these ingredients are pulled together, Tehran will have small but powerful nuclear warheads capable of being carried the 1900km to Israel by ballistic missiles more able to dodge defences.

Israel itself already has nuclear-armed missiles, developed in secrecy since the 1960s. Several of its politicians have threatened to use them against the Gaza Strip.

But Prime Minister Netanyahu insists Tehran is too close to developing its own nuclear weapons to be allowed to continue.

So the question is: Just how effective have Israel’s weekend attacks been?

 

Israeli rescue workers and security personnel inspect and clear the buildings hit by an Iranian rocket. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty
Israeli rescue workers and security personnel inspect and clear the buildings hit by an Iranian rocket. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty

 

“For years, analysts have studied the possible outcomes of such an attack—and have come away with very different predictions,” argues Columbia University nuclear analyst and former National Security Council advisor Richard Nephew.

“Now, everyone will find out which forecast was correct.”

Success could topple the leadership of the Shia Muslim religious state.

It could set back Tehran’s nuclear program by months, years or decades.

Or it could fail.

“The danger … is that Israel has opened a Pandora’s box,” warns Middle East Institute and former CIA Persian Gulf military analyst Kenneth Pollack. “The worst Iranian response might also be the most likely—a decision to withdraw from its arms control commitments and build nuclear weapons in earnest.”

 
 

States of play

No evidence has been presented that Iran possesses 90 per cent enriched weapons-grade uranium. And no Western intelligence agency reports it is building warheads.

All agree, however, that Tehran is poised in a position to do so - if it were to give the order.

Nuclear warheads need enrichment of the isotope U-235 to at least 20 per cent for the critical mass needed to sustain a runaway chain reaction. But bombs using this concentration are far too bulky to be mounted on missiles.

It’s a similar problem for uranium refined to 60 per cent. Although this is more than 10 times greater than the amount needed for civilian power plants and medical equipment.

To be small enough and powerful enough for use in a warhead, uranium must be refined to about 90 per cent. And doing that is far easier than refining it to 50 per cent. Experts say it can be achieved in a matter of weeks.

 

After a missile struck Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, Israel on June 16. Picture: AP Photo/Leo Correa
After a missile struck Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv, Israel on June 16. Picture: AP Photo/Leo Correa

 

“Iran was testing the global nuclear order for decades with its enrichment to 60 per cent, which is well beyond the percentage required for civilian peaceful purposes,” argue Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) analysts Heather Williams and Doreen Horschig.

“It is worth emphasising that immediately prior to Israel’s strike, the IAEA stated that Iran was not complying with its nuclear nonproliferation obligations and passed the first resolution against the country in 20 years.”

The 400kg of 60 per cent refined uranium is, at 90 per cent enrichment, enough to build about 10 nuclear warheads. A few days before Israel’s attack, Tehran announced plans to assemble another uranium enrichment facility.

“Iran already has enough highly enriched uranium to build several nuclear weapons,” says the Middle East Institute’s Pollack. “This is containerised and believed to be stored at three different locations, and it is unclear whether Israel will be able to destroy all of it in the ongoing military strikes.”

But enriched uranium does not on its own result in a bomb.

 
 

Iran must also turn the concentrate into metal, size and shape it, and assemble it as a functional warhead. This, in turn, would need to be paired with a ballistic missile capable of delivering it to a target.

At the weekend, some of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s most vocal critics, France and Germany, offered qualified support for the strikes.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said Tehran’s nuclear program was an “existential threat” to both Israel and Europe. Germany’s Foreign Minister, Johann Wadephul, emphasised the need for diplomacy to diffuse the situation.

 

Israel says it completed a series of strikes aimed at Iran's missile production capabilities. Picture: X
Israel says it completed a series of strikes aimed at Iran's missile production capabilities. Picture: X

 

Tactical outcomes

Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear and military facilities and personnel are ongoing. But targets appear to include the capital, Tehran, and the cities of Natanz, Tabriz and Karmanshah.

Iranian nuclear scientists, military commanders, and diplomats involved in negotiations with the US have been killed. Several known nuclear research and production sites have also been hit.

“To get at these sites, Israel seems to have conducted not only repeated aerial strikes on the same underground targets, but engaged in a combined effort that also included sabotage, along with what could only be described as assassinations,” observes Bulletin of Atomic Scientists correspondent Dan Drollette.

“The effort was apparently to decapitate Iran’s entire chain of command at once—but it also resulted in the death of one of Iran’s most influential politicians, Ali Shamkhani, who had been overseeing nuclear talks with the United States at the request of Iran’s supreme leader.”

 

 

Natanz, 225km south of Tehran, is home to Iran’s main nuclear site. Six research buildings mark the surface. Beneath are three underground uranium enrichment and processing facilities.

Unverified social media footage out of Natanz appears to show four sites within the compound being subjected to repeated strikes. Commercially available satellite imagery confirms the site has been damaged.

 

 

Israel’s Defence Force (IDF) claims to have “significantly damaged” the underground infrastructure. This reportedly includes multi-storey bunkers full of sophisticated centrifuges, electrical equipment and supporting equipment. International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi says Natanz has been severely damaged, but added that “there are no elevated radiation levels.”

 

TOPSHOT - Smoke billows from a site in the city of Haifa on June 16. Picture: Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP
TOPSHOT - Smoke billows from a site in the city of Haifa on June 16. Picture: Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP

 

The Khondab nuclear reactor, which is powerful enough to produce enough plutonium waste for a nuclear weapon, has been hit. As has the Kermanshah ballistic missile facility.

Another suspected nuclear site at Parchin, near Tehran, has been attacked. IAEA inspectors have been repeatedly prevented from investigating evidence of nuclear activity at this site.

Iran’s Fordow enrichment plant, built deep inside a mountain near Qom in central Iran, was not hit in the initial strikes. But the IAEA says it was targeted in Israel’s follow-up attacks.

 

 

“It’s difficult to assess the consequences of the strikes on the nuclear program itself and the facilities, as we are still waiting for independent analyses of the satellite imagery,” French Middle East proliferation analyst Héloïse Fayet told the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (the home of the Doomsday Clock).

Columbia University analyst Richard Nephew says Israel’s strikes have been successful in destroying power generators and supporting infrastructure linked to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“Israel has also demonstrated the ability to attack targets in Iran largely at will,” Nephew states. “But success is by no means assured, given Iran’s substantial investment in defensive fortifications, its commitment to the program, its redundant systems, and the intrinsic difficulty of Israel’s task.”

 

Iran launched a wave of retaliatory missile strikes on Israel. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
Iran launched a wave of retaliatory missile strikes on Israel. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

 

What comes next?

“There is no indication that Israel has rendered unusable Iran’s stockpile of enriched uranium,” says the University of Columbia’s Richard Nephew. “If that stockpile is still available, and if Iran’s centrifuges still exist, Tehran may be able to reconstitute a nuclear weapons program in just weeks.”

Scheduled talks between US and Iranian diplomats in Oman later this week have been shelved after the assassination of several key participants.

So, success in stunting Tehran’s nuclear ambitions depends on Israel’s military.

Have critical components of Iran’s nuclear program been entirely destroyed?

Have key players and those who possess critical knowledge been killed?

How will Iran’s Axis of Authoritarian allies Beijing and Moscow respond?

Will the war spread to other nations in the Middle East and draw in the United States?

“To fully succeed, Israel’s attack must also have convinced Iran to reconsider the viability of its nuclear weapons project,” warns Nephew.

 

The two countries have continued to trade volleys of missiles in the days since. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
The two countries have continued to trade volleys of missiles in the days since. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

 

Russia has condemned Israel’s strikes as a violation of the UN Charter.

China agrees, saying that it is “deeply worried” about Israeli aggression.

Meanwhile, academic and security analysts do not know how close Iran is to being able to shape 90 per cent refined uranium into a warhead, Nephew adds, “although intelligence agencies had assessed that it would take Iran months to do so”.

That may still be possible.

“If key sites like Fordow and Esfahan are not severely damaged in future strikes and underground advanced centrifuges remain operational at Fordow and Natanz, Iran could continue its nuclear development,” CSIS analysts Horschig and Williams argue.

 

The attack shocked Israel. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images
The attack shocked Israel. Picture: Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images

 

That decision is in the hands of Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

And history isn’t in Prime Minister Netanyahu’s favour.

“An attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities may have the opposite result of prompting an escalation in Iran’s nuclear developments, a pattern previously observed in response to kinetic actions attributed to Israel,” Harvard nuclear security researcher Assaf Zoran argued last year

“Such an attack could be used by Tehran as a justification and motivation to progress toward nuclear weapons development, confirming that conventional deterrence is insufficient”

 

Rescuers stand amid the debris of damaged building in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. Picture: Menahem KAHANA / AFP
Rescuers stand amid the debris of damaged building in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv. Picture: Menahem KAHANA / AFP

 

Middle East Institute analyst Kenneth Pollack points out the 1981 Israeli strike on Iraq’s Osirak nuclear research facility provoked Saddam Hussein to dramatically ramp up his efforts - ultimately leading to the 1990s Gulf War.

“Accordingly, the real challenge … is to find ways to prevent Iran from following the path that Iraq did following the Osirak strike,” Pollack argues. “If anything, the situation is more dangerous now than it was then, since Iran’s nuclear program is so much more advanced, its scientists so much more knowledgeable, and its nuclear infrastructure so much more capable than Iraq’s was in 1981.”

Jamie Seidel is a freelance writer

Author: Jamie Seidel

Source: News Corp Australia Network:

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