Analysis
Israeli
strikes have not knocked out Iran’s nuclear programme - or its nuclear
ambitions
Emma
Graham-Harrison
in Jerusalem
Damage done
since Friday could be rebuilt within months, and the attacks are likely to fuel
both government and popular desire for a nuclear deterrent
Wed 18 Jun
2025 05.00 BST
In just a
few days of war, Israel has killed more than a dozen of Iran’s top nuclear
scientists, taken out much of its top military hierarchy and attacked key parts
of its nuclear programme.
It has been
a powerful display of Israeli military and intelligence dominance, but has not
critically damaged Iran’s widely dispersed and heavily protected nuclear
programme, Israeli military commanders and international nuclear proliferation
experts agree.
And far from
curbing nuclear proliferation, Israel’s gamble on force could drive Iran to
speed up its efforts to get a bomb if the current conflict ends without full
destruction of the programme or a deal with iron-clad controls and broad
inspection powers.
Israel’s
initial attacks have delayed by a few months Iran’s ability to “break out”, or
make a functioning nuclear weapon, an Israeli military official said, speaking
on condition of anonymity.
But US
intelligence officials believe Tehran was up to three years away from being
able to deliver a weapon and not actively pursuing a bomb, CNN reported on
Tuesday – which would make that delay relatively inconsequential.
Israeli
prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed he launched the attacks because
Iran was on the threshold of having a nuclear bomb. But even if that is true,
strikes so far will not have bought much more time, and Israel may not be able
to do more lasting damage without US help.
What the
attacks have achieved is to stir up fear among the Iranian leadership and anger
among Iran’s population. The hatred many Iranians harbour for their own
government did not blunt the horror of a missile strike that killed dozens of
children in their homes, and Israeli orders to evacuate entire neighbourhoods
evoked the grim spectre of Gaza’s fate.
Israel
developed its own nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, though it has never
officially acknowledged what is an open secret. Many in Iran are convinced they
need the same, and this war will probably have mitigated public resentment of
the cost of those advances.
After the
collapse over the past year of regional proxies that had served as the regime’s
defensive shield, there was a greater focus inside Iran on the possibility of a
nuclear programme, according to Sima Shine, Iran specialist and former head of
research at Israel’s the Mossad intelligence agency.
“I have
never seen so much talking about nuclear military capability as I saw in the
last year and a half,” Shine said. Most focused on Iran’s decision not to build
a bomb, rather than its capacity to do so, but the decision to hold back can
easily be set aside.
“If the war
ends without destroying the nuclear programme, allowing Iran to break out, they
probably will do [it],” she said.
A western
military official with experience in the region agreed that Israel’s attacks,
although framed as pre-emptive strikes, are just as likely to be a spur to
proliferation. “My own view is that if they have the capacity after this, they
will go as fast as they can to get a nuclear weapon.”
The biggest
obstacle to the military destruction of Iran’s nuclear project is the facility
at Fordow near the holy city of Qom, buried so deep under a mountain that it is
out of reach of even Israel’s most powerful munitions.
It houses
centrifuges and much of the country’s highly enriched uranium, and the only
bombs that might be able to destroy it are the US’s most powerful
bunker-busting munitions.
Amid Israeli
euphoria at the impact of the first strikes, national security adviser Tzachi
Hanegbi warned the Israel Defense Forces cannot dismantle Iran’s nuclear
programme alone.
“It cannot
be done via kinetic means,” he told Israeli media. The military can instead
create conditions for a long-term deal, brokered by the US that would totally
block Iran’s nuclear programme, added.
Netanyahu
has left little doubt that he would prefer US military cooperation to a
diplomatic solution, and has been encouraging Trump to abandon the anti-war
stance that helped bring him to power. “I understand America first, I don’t
understand America dead,” he told ABC TV in an interview.
The Israeli
leader dreams not only of destroying the nuclear programme but also of regime
change in Tehran. But with each missile that lands in civilian areas, his
appeals to the Iranian people sound more hollow on the ground.
“We
underestimate the psychological impact of the Gaza war, including on Iranians
who hate [the government],” said Vali Nasr, professor of international affairs
at Johns Hopkins University.
“Gaza also
has a bad, vicious government that has been used as justification for action
against it. Israel has shown a kind of willingness to kill at will, especially
civilians.”
Fear of
Israeli attacks has been amplified by western tolerance of mass killings, and
extreme military tactics that former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has
described as war crimes.
“There was a
belief that the international liberal order would keep Israel in check, that
Europe and the US would not tolerate Israel using its military might with
abandon,” Nasr said. Confidence in any capacity to restrain was blown apart in
the rubble of Gaza.
If Trump
ultimately decides to stay out of this war, and Iran is slow to accept a deal
that would curb its programme, Israel may still have military options to
inflict more lasting damage at Fordow.
“There has
always been a fixation in Israel and in the world with bombing the nuclear
sites. Even if it is impossible to destroy Fordow from the air, other methods
exist,” said Alex Grinberg, an analyst and former Iran researcher in the IDF
intelligence research division.
Israel’s
capture of much of an extensive nuclear archive likely gave it access to plans
for Fordow, which could make it easier to cripple support systems, block access
or even send in special forces to destroy the plant in a ground operation.
There is
precedent for these approaches in other Israeli raids. An attack this week on
the electricity supply to another enrichment facility, at Natanz, destroyed
centrifuges by causing them to spin out of control.
Last year
Israel sent special forces commandos to destroy an underground Hezbollah
missile factory deep inside Syria. Fordow is heavily defended, but as Israel
now claims to dominate the airspace in western Iran, it could fly in elite
teams in on a C-130 aircraft to attempt to storm the site.
Despite
Netanyahu’s preference for a campaign of physical destruction, a deal to
restrict Iran’s nuclear activities and through a strict inspection regime would
probably offer a more lasting shutdown of Iran’s nuclear ambitions, said David
Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security.
“One of the
problems with Israel’s strategy is that if they leave, if they stop bombing,
then Iran can rebuild. And then they have to start bombing again.”
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