Key points
- White House officials told NBC News on Tuesday that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is considering a variety of options, including the coup directly from Iran.
- Destroying Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran affirms is only for civil energy purposes, is not an easy task.
- The most advanced and hardened nuclear installation of Iran, the fordo plant in the northwest of the country, is a strength.
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Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Iran is looking at the possibility of seeing its most important nuclear facilities achieved by an American bomb of 30,000 pounds.
White House officials told NBC News on Tuesday that the president of the United States, Donald Trump, is considering a variety of options, including the coup directly from Iran, after the US leader repeatedly said that his administration would not allow Iran to continue his nuclear program or achieve the manufacture of bombs.
Trump asked for the “unconditional surrender” of Iran and wrote in a publication about Truth Social that the United States has the ability to kill the Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
“It is an easy goal, but it is safe there, we are not going to get it (kill!), At least not for now,” Trump wrote shortly after declaring “total control” about Iranian airspace.
Khamenei responded on Wednesday, threatening the United States with “irreparable damage” if Washington continues with a military strike. “The damage they suffer will be much worse than anything they will face. If they enter militarily, they will face damage to which they cannot recover,” said the Iranian leader, according to NBC News reports.
The conflict that grew rapidly, caused by Israel’s surprise attacks against Iranian military and nuclear facilities on June 13, has sent oil prices and has put a region on the limit. Initially encouraging diplomatic conversations with Tehran, Trump’s statements have become more and more threatening as populations throughout the Middle East prepare for what comes next.
But destroying Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran states is only for civil energy purposes, is not an easy task.
The most advanced and hardened nuclear installation of Iran, the fordo plant in the northwest of the country, is a strength.
Built inside a mountain of about 300 feet underground and reinforced by concrete layers, the plant, which is the most likely objective of a possible American strike, is impenetrable by any pump, except the massive of mass artillery GBU-57 (MOP). The United States is the only country in the world that has this “Bunker Buster” weapon, as well as the only country with the plane capable of transporting and deploying it: the B2 Spirit stealth bomber.
This is partly why Israel has been so anxious for the participation of us in its offensive operations against Iran, in addition to its defensive.
But a strike in itself would not be a unique job, military experts say.
“Therefore, it has two challenges. I would have to drop two of these penetrators in the same place exactly” and you probably need multiple bombing rounds, according to David Des Roches, high -level military teacher and member at the Center for Strategic Studies of Asia South South South of the East of Washington in Washington, DC
“And then I would never be sure how much the installation has damaged,” he added, which means that the staff may need to be deployed in the field.
“This leads me to believe that for those facilities, Israel will finally obtain air control and then the land forces in the soil, they made their way to the facilities detonating the doors, and then they will go and place explosive loads, exfiltrate any intelligence they can obtain, and only detonate from the inside,” DES Roches told CNBC.
Wider war for America?
Iran’s military capabilities have been severely degraded in recent days by Israeli attacks, which have taken substantial parts of their aerial defenses, ballistic missile batteries, command and control nodes and dozens of high commanders.
Even so, such an attack from the United States could cause Iran to respond by attacking US assets in the region, as military embassies and bases. Trump has made it clear that any attack against American staff would attract a fierce American response, which would later attract the most powerful military in the world more deeply to a regional conflict.
“The Iranians have pointed out that they are ready to attack the bases of the United States in the region in case of an attack by the United States in their domestic soil,” said Gregory Brew, a senior analyst of Iran and Eurasia Group Energy Consulting, noting that US bases in Iraq are particularly vulnerable.
“There are risks in that environment that an Iranian retaliation causes American victims, kills the US military and potentially obliges President Trump to expand the scope of US action and order additional attacks on Iran and, of course, would threaten the general climb and drag us not only to a single operation, but also a prolonged air campaign.”
Despite its huge scale, Buster Bunker GPU-57 would not create large-scale damage beyond the installation area, said Des Roches. But it would have a “deep psychological effect on the Iranians,” he added, that they have already seen significant damage and risks of radioactive pollution that was performed on the infrastructure of several of its nuclear sites in other parts of the country.
Another critical question remains whether the Trump administration will limit itself to heading to nuclear sites, or if it will expand operations beyond that, something that the Israel government has also been urging, since it transmits its desire to see the change of regime for its adversary for a long time.
“I think the conflict will end when Israel trusts that Iran has lost, for a significant period of time, the ability to make a nuclear weapon, and that its defenses weaken enough so that Israel can return and effectively interrupt any effort of Iran to make a nuclear weapon,” said Des Roches.
If Fordo remains operational, Israel’s attacks would hardly slow Iran’s ability to build a bomb, nuclear analysts say. Therefore, the decisions of the House of Representatives in the next few days will be decisive not only because of the trajectory of the Iran nuclear program, but also for the survival of the Islamic Republic as a whole.
Ali Vaez, director of the Iran project in Nonprofit Group Crisis, believes that “Iran can survive and rebuild its nuclear program”, even without a diplomatic route for an agreement with the United States.
“The United States entering the war will close the door of diplomacy,” Váez told CNBC. “Trump could destroy Fordow, but he can’t bombard the knowledge that Iran has already acquired.”
