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Trump’s Iran attack was ferocious. But has it actually worked?

Trump’s Iran attack was ferocious. But has it actually worked?

CNN special coverage after US strikes Iran

CNN special coverage after US strikes Iran

“OPERATION MIDNIGHT HAMMER”, as America called its strike on Iran, was a vast raid involving more than 125 military aircraft. It was the largest-ever strike by B-2 stealth bombers, and the first use in battle of the GBU-57, America’s largest bunker-buster bomb. Seven bombers flew east over the Atlantic from Whiteman air-force base in Missouri on the 37-hour mission to Iran and back, helped by in-flight refuelling tankers and fighter jets to sweep the skies ahead of them. Decoy planes flew west over the Pacific to confuse anyone watching their movement. Dozens of Tomahawk cruise missiles were also fired at Iran from submarines. Iranian forces did not respond. The scope and scale of the operation would “take the breath away” of most observers, boasted Pete Hegseth, the defence secretary.

He was at pains to say that the attack was a “precision strike” aimed solely at nuclear facilities. Iranian forces or civilians were not attacked. Nor was America seeking regime change. “As President Trump has stated, the United States does not seek war. But let me be clear, we will act swiftly and decisively when our people, our partners or our interests are threatened,” he said. Iran has “every opportunity” to come to the table to negotiate a peace deal.

But amid the self-congratulation, has the operation actually succeeded in destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities? Donald Trump, who first announced the strikes on facilities in Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan on June 21st (they took place on the 22nd Iranian time), declared that the programme was  “totally obliterated”. General Dan Caine, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, was more cautious. He said the bomb-damage assessment would take time to complete. The initial assessment was that “all three sites sustained extremely severe damage and destruction”. Satellite images released by Maxar, an American firm, later on June 22nd showed a series of craters on the mountainside.

The B-2s dropped 14 GBU-57s on buried uranium-enrichment sites at Natanz and especially Fordow, which Mr Trump described as the “primary” target (the image above shows Fordow before and after the attack). The Tomahawks struck Isfahan, a complex of facilities where Iran turns uranium metal into a gaseous compound and back, makes centrifuges to enrich the gas, and may have stored much of its stock of highly enriched uranium (HEU). The International Atomic Agency (IAEA) estimates that Iran had 400kg of HEU, concentrated to 60% purity, which is a short hop to weapons-grade (usually 90%). That would be enough for ten bombs, if the material were to be enriched further.

Israel had already hit Natanz and Isfahan, and destroyed much of Iran’s air-defence system, clearing the way for the Americans. But the site in Fordow, buried into a mountain, was beyond the reach of Israeli bombs. “I have been there,” noted Rafael Grossi, the secretary-general of the IAEA, earlier this month. “The most sensitive things are half a mile [around 800 metres] underground.” A European source gives the figure of 500 metres.

Before the strikes Western officials disagreed on whether the GBU-57, or “massive ordnance penetrator” (MOP), alone could obliterate Fordow. Some experts thought the site could be destroyed only with nuclear weapons, or by ground forces fighting their way into the site and blowing it up. In the end America used B-2s and MOPs for the job. These can burrow through 60 metres of standard concrete, but probably less if Iran was using strengthened concrete. Repeatedly striking the same spot allows them to strike deeper.

David Albright, a former IAEA inspector who now leads the Institute for Science and International Security, a think-tank in Washington, argued prior to the war that Fordow was “more vulnerable than people realise”. Israel had detailed knowledge of the building’s designs, he noted, including knowledge of the tunnels: “where they start, how they zig and zag, where the ventilation system is, the power supplies”. The site had only one ventilation shaft, which is visible in its plans and in historical satellite imagery showing the site’s construction. Destroying that, he argued, could put Fordow out of action for “a few years rather than a few months”. One weapons expert told The Economist that the post-strike images suggest that America might have targeted Fordow’s ventilation and access tunnels.

Moreover, even if America did not reach all parts of the Fordow complex, the powerful blasts might have done enough to damage or destroy the machinery inside. “Uncontrolled vibration…is a centrifuge killer,” says Richard Nephew, a former State Department official who now works at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, another think-tank. “That’s why they’re carefully balanced, heavily bolted down on the pads built for the purpose.”

Iran’s IR6 centrifuges, which make up more than half of those installed at Fordow, are more robust than the much older IR1s, which make up the majority at Natanz, notes Mr Nephew. But even they would probably be affected badly by a blizzard of MOPs. If Iran had powered down the centrifuges, that would help. But the process of doing so can cause them to crash, says Mr Nephew, adding that it is “pretty unlikely” Iran will have been able to turn off and disassemble the machines in the time available.

Fordow was originally a secret project, revealed by Western countries in 2009. The question now is whether Iran has other intact secret facilities and a sufficient stock of HEU hidden away with which to restart the programme away from prying eyes. Iran had previously threatened to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. If it does so now, IAEA inspectors would have no way to observe Iran’s future nuclear work. Nevertheless, Israel’s spies have displayed an extraordinary ability to penetrate Iran’s nuclear enterprise and security forces, and have repeatedly assassinated nuclear scientists and generals.

The Iranian project has been much more extensive and dispersed than the efforts of Iraq and Syria, whose reactors Israel bombed in 1981 and 2007 respectively. “Will this look more like Syria 2007—where a nuclear programme was decisively ended—or Iraq 1981, where nuclear ambitions were strengthened, and repeated intervention was required?” asks Nicholas Miller, a non-proliferation expert at Dartmouth College. “Assuming the current regime stays in power in Iran, my money is on the latter.”

Author: Editors Desk

Source: The Economist

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